Queering the Classics: Theory, Reception, and Erotics

Why have the Greco-Roman classics—so often considered the bedrock of normative Western civilization—increasingly served as a parallel source for queer thinking and creative self-making? In the polymorphous perversity of Greek myth, the homosocial drama of Homer, the erotics of Sappho, and/or the philosophical explorations of Plato (among countless other examples), queer thinkers and artists can point to and draw upon visions and worlds that, in their strangeness, offer ample room for rethinking the limits of human behavior and society. In this course, we will explore the manifold queer reception of Greco-Roman antiquity, asking: What are the possibilities and limits of the Classics for queer expression and theory and for how we think about human norms and practices across place and time? We will set texts from antiquity, including poetic, philosophical, and historical authors, in conversation with contemporary queer writers and artists—in theory, literature, film, and television. We will ask:  What is at stake in the recovery and re-making of the classical past, especially for queer people? What political, aesthetic, and psychological resources has Greco-Roman antiquity offered queer people? Why have certain couples and certain writers and figures—for example, Achilles and Patroclus, Hadrian and Antinous, Sappho, Plato, Sokrates—been such sources of fascination and contestation for queer writers, artists, and readers? Why are queer reading practices so often strikingly different from those of scholars, and what is at stake in that difference? And when, finally, might our own desire for a more queer future lead us to jettison antiquity from our imaginative and political repertoire?

Ancient readings will be drawn from the work of Homer, Sappho, Plato, Theocritus, Catullus, Ovid, Petronius, and Perpetua; post-classical readings might be drawn from such authors, critics, and translators as Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, A.E. Housman, H.D., Renée Vivien, Isobel Williams, Samuel Delany, José Munoz, Sara Ahmed, Lee Edelman, Jack Halberstam, David Halperin, and Eve Kosofsy-Sedgwick; film and television work will include Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire and excerpts from Brian Fuller’s Hannibal.

Course Schedule

Wednesday, 6:30-9:30pm ET
October 16 — November 06, 2024
4 weeks

$335.00

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