Sexuality in American History (Level 3)
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| AMCS3061 | American and Canadian Studies | 3 | 20 | Spring UK |
- Code
- AMCS3061
- School
- American and Canadian Studies
- Level
- 3
- Credits
- 20
- Semesters
- Spring UK
Summary
From the Puritans to Playboy, sexuality has been a focal point in the culture, politics, and society of the United States. This module will examine Americans' differing attitudes over time toward sexuality. Representative topics covered may include marriage and adultery, homosexuality and heterosexuality, nudity, abortion, birth control, prostitution, free love, and rape.
Target Students
Available to Final Year SH and JH American and Canadian Studies students, Liberal Arts students and History students. Available to exchange students hosted by the School of CLAS.
Classes
- One 2-hour seminar per week for 12 weeks
- One 2-hour workshop per week for 6 weeks
Assessment
- 50% Coursework: Coursework - 2,400 - 2,600 word essay
- 10% Participation: Seminar Participation
- 40% Exam 1 (2-hour): Exam
Assessed by end of spring semester
Educational Aims
To introduce students to the basic vocabulary, concepts, and contours of the study of sexuality.To familiarize students with the basic narrative of how sexuality has played a critical part in the larger sweep of American history.To apply theoretical approaches, including analysis and categories of race and gender, to the study of individual texts and problems.To illuminate texts and images by situating them within a cultural and historical context.Learning Outcomes
This module will provide understanding of the essential contours of the history of sexuality in the United States sufficient to enable students so inclined to go on to more advanced work--including, potentially, post-graduate study--in the field.
Knowledge and understanding:
The history of sexuality is the study of how attitudes and assumptions about sex have altered over time, as well as the way such issues have generated controversies and affected the wider society, law, and politics. The array of topics engaged by scholars of sexuality is extensive, with topics covered in any given year likely to include such issues as colonial America's family-centered production and Puritanism; slavery, rape, and sexuality; "sodomy" in early American law; interracial sexuality, “miscegenation,” and lynching; sexuality and urban space; prostitution, male and female; the dawning of concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality; contraceptive technologies including the pill; pornography and debates over it within feminism and religion; organizing of sexual politics including “gay liberation” and LGBT rights; transgender and transsexual identity; the AIDS panic; and recent debates over homosexuality in the military and same-sex marriage.
Intellectual skills:
1) The historical skill of apprehending change and continuity over time.
2) The analytical skill of examining documents critically.
3) The conceptual skill of understanding how a historiography, or body of historical writing, shapes conceptualization of problems in history.
Professional and transferable skills:
1) Honing of ability to participate and learn interactively in group contexts.
2) Improved ability to express arguments and positions clearly, coherently, and fluently in verbal contribution to seminars and in writing.
3) Enhanced research agility at locating reliable information and assessing its value.