Course
WGSS 350 - Queer Theory (2019-2020 Fall)
Document Type
Student Paper
Publication Date
2020
Disciplines
Critical and Cultural Studies | Cultural History | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies | Place and Environment | Politics and Social Change | Public History | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies
Description, Abstract, or Artist's Statement
Here, I track how the criteria for deeming sex as acceptable or unacceptable have changed over time at Augustana College. To do so, I apply two critical lenses to archived issues of the Augustana Observer. The first lens involves Rubin's concept of the "sex hierarchy," a variety of categories by which we may judge sex as good or bad. The second lens is related to Berlant and Warner's "national heterosexuality," a concept that claims that sexual norms are intrinsically elastic but politically, culturally, and economically firm under capitalism. Making use of a localized "snapshot" approach, I use recent Augustana history to demonstrate the fluid and intermittent properties of the sex discourse.
Augustana Digital Commons Citation
Burke, Robert E.. "The Morphology of Sex: Tracking Change in the Sex Discourse at Augustana College" (2020). Audre Lorde Writing Prize.
https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/wollstonecraftaward/31
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Cultural History Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Public History Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons