In addition you can findspecial or urgent announcements concerning the course.
The Rainbow flag has become a recognized symbol of the Gay & Lesbian Community, expressing its pride. "The six colors of the rainbow represent the diversity of the lesbian and gay community, a community that encompasses people from all backgrounds, races, and national origins and that spans the panopoly of faiths and experience." The Rainbow flag also has come to be known as the Diversity flag--one around which all people can rally who prize and celebrate the rich and wonderful diversity humanity presents.
Class Meeting Location and Times
Tu-Th 12:30-1:45 P.M.
1115 Skinner
[Note that this is a change from that listed in the "Fall Schedule of Classes", Second Edition.]
Instructor: Dr. Frederick Suppe, Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher
1102-B Skinner
301-405-5696 (Office)
540-477-2492 (Home)
suppe@carnap.umd.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2-3 P.M., Thursdays 11:15 A.M.-12:15 P.M.; and by appointment. I usually am around on Wednesdays.
My Program Administrator, Eugen Kim (hp26&umail.umd.edu; 301-405-5691), keeps my calendar when I am unavailable. Appointments can be scheduled with him.
An examination in historical and social context of personal, cultural and political aspects of gay and lesbian life, paying particular attention to conceptual, ontological, epistemological, and social justice issues.
PHIL 407 is approved as a CORE Human Cultural Diversity Course. CORE Diversity Courses have been requested to incorporate the following notice into course syllabuses:
You [may] have chosen this course as part of your CORE Liberal Arts and Sciences Studies Program, the general education portion of your degree program. CORE Human Cultural Diversity courses are designed to ensure that you will examine experiences, perspectives, and values different from those that are dominant in the United States or Europe. A faculty and student committee approved this CORE Human Cultural Diversity course because it will introduce you to ideas and human experiences often overlooked in the curriculum. Please take advantage of the opportunities this course offers you."
The course is organized around two axes: (i) The history of gays and lesbians in 20th Century America, focusing on the changing social circumstances gays and lesbians have faced. (ii) Examination of the ontological thesis made prominent by Foucault that homosexuality is a social construct rather than an independent essence. Differing views on, and the epistemological implications of, this controversial thesis will be examined. But the thesis is an instance of a much more general thesis of social constructivism as a replacement for essentialist notions of objectivity and associated views about knowledge (epistemology). Thus the course constitutes a sustained philosophical case-study examination of these overarching social constructivist ontological and epistemological theses.
Within these two organizing axes, the course has three main foci: (a) To expose students to the history, subculture, status, treatment, and accomplishments of gays and lesbians, including an appreciation of the distinctive contributions gays and lesbians have made to the larger heterosexual cultural milieu. (b) To examine philosophical issues surrounding gays and lesbians in our culture. These include the ontological status of homosexuality and of gay and lesbian identities; the epistemologies of stereotyping and of the closet; philosophies of sexual dissidence; social dimensions of knowledge including the role of subcultures; the objectivity of psychiatric classifications of sexual disorders; hermeneutical aspects of religious condemnation of homosexuality; issues of social justice raised by gay liberation and AIDS; and the extent to which the gay/lesbian subculture can serve as a role model for the moral and aesthetic improvement of the dominant heterosexual culture. (c) To explore implications of the social constructivist thesis such as whether acceptance of gays and lesbians threatens the continuation of distinctive gay and lesbian subcultures and identities and whether such "mainstreaming" is worth the resulting loss in diversity and associated costs to either gays and lesbians or the larger society.
Gays and lesbians are sexual minorities stigmatized for their sexual behaviors and orientations and for their nonconformity to gender-role stereotypes. Minority subcultures tend to be defined around the basis for stigmatization and discrimination, and many of the characteristic features of stigmatized subcultures center round the focus of stigmatization. This is so in the case of gays and lesbians: The characteristic institutions of the Gay subculture and Gay subcultural identities tend to center on matters of sexuality. The characteristic institutions of the Lesbian subculture and Lesbian cultural identities tend to center round issues of gender including gender roles and traditional gender-based power inequities. (These are the dominant foci of the two related subcultures; both subcultures are concerned, with different priorities, with sexuality and gender.)
This means that any course on Gay and Lesbian culture and history must focus extensively on issues of sex and gender. As Andrew Holleran says, "Gay life without the sex is just a themepark." Any attempt to minimize these two aspects does violence to the Gay and Lesbian subcultures and is inappropriate in a CORE Diversity course whose focus is understanding the history and culture of Gays and Lesbians.
Some of the readings for the course have sexually explicit materials. Sexual behavior will be discussed in class. On occasion sexually explicit materials may be used in class sessions. In all such cases, the use is never gratuitous and I attempt to be explicit what the educational motive and purpose of the material is.
Also, an important aspect of Gay subculture has been the redefinition of sexuality and its relationships to love, emotional attachment, etc. Thus for Gays many sexual activities have nothing to do with "making love." Euphemisms such as "making love" have built-in heterosexual biases that many Gays reject. Instead gays tend to use sexually explicit terms such as "cock-sucking" since that language has no connotation of sex being associated with love or emotional bonding or of heterosexist notions about sexuality or reproductive associations. Similarly, many Gays reject the use of clinical terms such as "fellatio" since these terms come from a medical/psychiatric literature that has been used to marginalize and stigmatize Gays sexually. It has become standard practice in the academic discipline known as Queer Studies to use standard gay sexual terminology as technical vocabulary (just as "queer" itself is used as a technical term to include gays, lesbians, bisexuals, trans-gendereds, etc.). Within the Lesbian community there also is concern with what terms are most appropriate for describing lesbian sexual activity (see, for example, the terminology group discussion in the Lesbian film Go Fish). These practices from Queer Studies will be followed in the course.
Some students initially may be uncomfortable with the extent to which sex is considered in the course or to the use of sexually-explicit terminology (including words some view as "vulgar") in class discussions. Most students quickly become comfortable as they see that the subject matter demands it and that one cannot understand Gay history and culture otherwise. This is very much in keeping with the goals of the CORE Diversity program which is to "examine experiences, perspectives, and values different from those that are dominant in the United States or Europe" [see "Core Diversity Credit" above]. However, occasional enrolled students are not able to make the accommodation. Such students probably should not take the course.
Required:
George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Male Gay World 1890-1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994)
Jonathan Dollimore, Sexual Dissidence (New York : Oxford University Press, 1991).
Richard Dyer, The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations (London: Routledge, 1993)
Derek Jarman, At Your Own Risk: A Saint's Testimony (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1991)
Wayne Koestenbaum, The Opera Queen: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (New York: Vantage Books, 1993)
Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy & Madeline D. Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community (New York: Penguin, 1993)
Richard Mohr, Gay Ideas (Boston: Beacon, 1992)
Eric Rofes, Reviving the Tribe: Sexuality and Culture in the Ongoing Epidemic (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1996).
Recommended:
Richard Mohr, Gays/Justice: A Study of Ethics, Society, and Law (New York: Columbia, 1988)
Additional selections are from materials on reserve in McKeldin Library, materials available via computer, and some handouts. Films are available at Non-Print Media Services in Hornbake Library, 4th floor.
Duplicate copies of McKeldin reserve materials are in the CHPS Office, 1102 Skinner, and may be checked out for 2 hours.
Timely reading of assignmentsMy lecture notes for this and earlier versions for other semesters are archived on the class web site. These contain detailed discussions of the readings emphasizing key themes and ideas and showing how they relate to each other. They are intended to be a study-guide and should be read along with the assigned readings. Often in class I will use film clips and class discussion based on them as vehicles for bringing out the same ideas and connections in a manner that is more engaging than mere lecture. The archived notes are an alternative presentation, indicating how I would have presented things in a traditional lecture format.
Keep a journal of how course materials affects your understanding, perception, and appreciation of gays and lesbians, their sub-culture and their history. The journal will be submitted to make sure you are journaling conscientiously. But since its purpose is to help you in your exploration of gay and lesbian culture it will be more valuable if you feel free to be candid in expression of your reactions and feelings. Thus its contents will not be graded. Think of it as a diary of your interaction with gay and lesbian culture this semester. The journal must be submitted to pass the course.
AudioVisual Reports: There is one film that will be viewed in class which you must view on your own if you miss that class:
A number of recommended films are listed in the Syllabus. The Celluloid Closet book (PN 1995.9 H55R8 1987) and movie (PN 1995.9 H55C4 1986) are full of suggestions. Raymond Murray, Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video (Philadelphia: TLA Publications, 1994) is the best guide to Queer Filmography. A more recent source is Jeani Olson, The Ultimate Guide to Lesbian & Gay Film & Video (New York: Serpant's Tail, 1996). Neither are in the library but copies may be consulted in Dr. Suppe's office (1102 Skinner). A comprehensive guide to gay and lesbian films is to be found at
Another excellent source is http://www.reel.com/reel.asp (under browse by category, select "gay/lesbian), which will take you to a gay/lesbian page with a variety of sub-category links on the upper right-hand corner of the page).
and a number of reviews of gay and lesbian films are at
http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Diversity/Specific/Sexual_Orientation/FilmReviews/
With special grants from the Vice President's Office and the Campus Diversity Initiative, the Nonprint Media Center at Hornbake and I have been developing an extensive collection of Gay and & Lesbian feature films. It is the most extensive such film collection at any university or college. Check out the collection's Web Site:
http://carnap.umd.edu/queer/GL_Film_Collection_UMCP.html.
You are to write brief summaries of each film you watch and discuss the relevance of the film to course themes and content. (Maximum 500 words per entry.) One of the reports is to be given as a 5 minute oral report, the rest to be handed in. See the Syllabus for specific deadlines.
You also are required to listen to/watch an opera (see Syllabus Week 6 for details). As an alternative, you may attend a live performance of an opera such as the Washington Opera or a Maryland Opera Studio performance of "Postcard from Morocco" (October 8, 10, 13, 15) on campus. A brief report of your opera experience should be included with the film reports that are handed in.
Regular attendance and participation in class discussions: In particular, there is very extensive use of film clips and audio visuals during class. These often serve as the basis for class discussions. Although my lecture notes are archived on the web site, the film clips used in class cannot readily be made up.
Midterm exam--open-book, open-note, take-home
One 10 page term paper. [The term paper is an opportunity for you to explore some aspect of course material or Gay and Lesbian culture that you are especially interested in. Consulting with the instructor (in person or via e-mail) about your topic well in advance of the due date is strongly recommended.]
Final examination--open book, open note, take-home
Extra Credit: A paper analyzing a book on gays/lesbians/bisexuals or by a gay or lesbian or bisexual person. Your analysis should summarize the main foci and themes of the book and discuss how it relates to the main themes in PHIL 407. Suggested length: 1000 words.
The course has been planned on the standard collegiate assumption that in 400 level courses students with average reading abilities should expect to spend 2-3 hours out of class for each credit hour per week. Viewing/listening to audio-visuals are likely to increase the time required for the course.
A note on the Exams: Since all exams are take-home open-note, open-neighbor, memorizing material is unimportant. Also, the exams will be designed as study-review vehicles for helping you synthesize and understand course material. Thus if you are up on the readings and assignments, there is no need to prepare additionally for the exam.
Click here for detailed instructions for optional and required written course assignments.
Electronic Submission of Papers:
Papers and exams are to be submitted in both hard copy and on a 3.5" High Density disk. The idea is that I will add my comments to the file version on disk, and then you can read or print out a version of the paper containing my comments. I am equipped to handle just about any standard word processors in Macintosh, Windows, or DOS formats including the following: AmiPro, AppleWorks, Claris Works, Framemaker (MIF), MacWrite, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Works, MultiMate, Nisus, OfficeWriter, Professional Write, RTF, SunWrite, WordPerfect., WordStar, WriteNow-even XYwrite. If you plan to use a word processors not listed here check with me first.
The exams and assignments will be available on the course web site. That means that you can download them as manipulable text into your own wordprocessor, then do the exam or assignement without recopying any thing.
A number of computers are located in the west-wing hallway in the Philosophy Department. As a student enrolled in PHIL 407 you are entitled to use those computers for e-mail, web use, and word-processing.
Whatever your word-processor and computer platform you must use a HIGH-DENSITY disk.
There is a Web Site for the course. The site will be accessed through
http://carnap.umd.edu/queer/GL_Home_page.html
Some course materials will be available on it. In addition it will have links to various Gay and Lesbian archives, web sites sites and data bases around the world. You can access it through Web browsers such as Netscape or Mosaic from any networked computer in the world. This can be done in WAM Labs or from your own machine if it has a direct or modem connection to the net. You may either read the materials on a computer screen or download them for reading on your own computer or from hard copies you print out Exams and assignments will be down-loadable from the class web site.
All students are eligible to have e-mail accounts and are required to do so. Instructions for obtaining a free WAM account are at http://www.helpdesk.umd.edu/faqs/unix/wam/wam-acct-signup.shtml. Alternatively, Take a photo-ID and proof of current connection to the University ( registration card) to room1400 in the Computer and Space Sciences Building on a weekday between 8 and 6.
A listserv for PHIL 407 has been established. This will allow students in the class an opportunity to exchange ideas about course material, have discussions, seek help, etc. It functions very much like an Internet newsgroup or electronic bulletin board, although it is restricted to just members of this class. You will receive all posts to the listserv as e-mail, and when you post (send e-mail) to the listserv group all members of the class having e-mail will receive your post as e-mail. You will be asked to supply me with your e-mail address. Detailed instructions how to use the listserv will be handed out in class.
Important course information will be disseminated via the listserv. Thus students are responsible for regularly reading its messages. You will find the listserv especially valuable when I am out of town and during take-home exams.
Finally, you can use e-mail to contact the instructor with questions, etc. pertaining to the course or course materials, outside of class and office hours.
AT UMCP there is an undergraduate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) student organization. Information is available at http://www.inform.umd.edu/StudentOrg/lgba. Contact them to learn how to get on their Listserv. Information about the UMCP Graduate Lambda Coalition (GLC) is available at http://www.inform.umd.edu/Student/Campus_Activities/StudentOrg/glc/. They, too, have a Listserv that can be joined.
Some comments on Educational Philosophy and Grading.
In my opinion there is no place for busy work in a university course. All work requested of students should have a pedagogical or learning pay off. This includes examinations. In my opinion it is never justified to give an exam or quiz solely for the purpose of determining a grade. Rather exams should be vehicles for learning and providing students with personalized feedback. A good exam is itself a vehicle for learning (that is why I give open-book, open-note, take-home exams), for diagnosis of what the student does and does not understand, and providing useful feedback, clarification, and comments that further facilitate learning.
A course grade should reflect the ultimate mastery of course material, concepts, and intellectual skills, rather than being some commentary on the process whereby one came to such learning. Thus if a student makes lots of errors on exams, but effectively uses the feedback on the exams to master the material, and that mastery manifests itself in end-of-semester performance, then it seems to me the grade should reflect that level of mastery rather than be downgraded because the path to mastery involved mediocre performance on the earlier exams.
Practically this means the following: If the final exam and term paper are superior to the midterm, the midterm grade will be thrown out. On the other hand, if there is a drop in performance at the end of the semester with no clear pattern of growing mastery over the semester, your grade will be an average of the midterm, final, and term paper, each counting a third of the grade.
Under most realistic circumstances grading on the basis of curves or predetermined quotas for the numbers of As, Bs, etc. is both statistically invalid and pedagogically unjustified. In many respects the distribution of As and Bs should be a reflection of the quality of teaching. Gifted students who try tend to do well regardless of the quality of teaching whereas for most students the quality of teaching should affect the distribution of grades. I like to teach and my goal is to get each student to overachieve. Thus I am happiest when lots of students earn high grades in my classes. There is no grade inflation when excellent effort by students and outstanding teaching combine to produce real mastery of course material and the distribution of grades reflects that mastery.
Grades will be assigned on the basis of A "excellent" mastery of the material, B "good" mastery, C "basic understanding", D "marginal understanding", and F general lack of understanding. The final course grade will be my best determination of your mastery of course material on this scale, though failure to make a good-faith effort on your journal (but not evaluation of its content) could lower your grade and the journal must be submitted to pass the course.
Some students may have learning disabilities or special circumstances that interfere with learning. I am happy to spend lots of time helping students who need special attention. For me, the most rewarding aspect of teaching is making a difference in individual student's learning and university experience. Don't hesitate to give me that opportunity.
The mid-term exam has been postponed one week from what originally was scheduled. It will be distributed Thursday, October 7 and due Tuesday, October 12.
In-class film reports on one of the four discretionary films will be given Tuesday, October 5, and Thursday, October 14.
