Course info

Trans identities rank among the most popular written about subjects of the 21^st century. As a topic in visual and written media it tackles issues of community, identity, and culture and allows for an understanding of how cultural spaces and social groups are framed and reframed. While the digital age and social networking may have encouraged the formation of trans communities around the world, these communities are by the same token more likely to be exposed to prejudice and abuse. “I saw,” Julien Jacques writes in the memoir Trans (2015), “that for many people around the world, expressing themselves as they wished meant risking death.” Indeed, in many parts of the world, having a trans identity still is a precarious business as it puts the according person at risk of violence, discrimination, or even death. This course will thus resort to feminist and queer theory to understand performances of the self within such a restrictive heteronormative framework. Mainly by focusing on the autobiographical and fictionalized lives of trans people in the gendered world of contemporary Britain and North America, this course seeks to explore the challenges and possibilities these identities bring about.