Papers by Kevin Henderson
Inspired by Lynne Huffer's queer feminist genealogy, this article explores queer-trans-feminism a... more Inspired by Lynne Huffer's queer feminist genealogy, this article explores queer-trans-feminism as a project that would bring together queer, feminist, and transgender theory and politics into a shared critical lineage. I suggest that Monique Wittig is a neglected thinker who could re-enliven connections and debates within queer, feminist, and trans theory and politics. Utilizing recent historiographies of queer and feminist theory, I imagine what it would mean to hold on to the figure of the lesbian as a figure for queer-trans-feminist politics rather than render the lesbian anachronistic. I then explore the implications of Wittig's notion that “lesbians are not women” for a queer-trans-feminism. I argue that Wittig's critique of the language of the social sciences offers queer-trans-feminist scholars a source for contemporary self-critique and coalition.
Book Reviews by Kevin Henderson
Committee on LGBT History Newsletter, Spring 2019, 2019
Review of Gayle S. Rubin's Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2... more Review of Gayle S. Rubin's Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011)
Five College Women's Studies Research Center Annual Newsletter, Spring 2017, 2017
It was a great year for the Queer Feminisms Reading Group at the Five College Women’s Studies Re... more It was a great year for the Queer Feminisms Reading Group at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center. The group, which has been in existence for three years, has served as an important meeting space for Five College faculty and graduate students to discuss new work that seeks to bridge the false divides between queer and feminist inquiry and to collectively push the epistemic limits of both fields. The group has formed my intellectual trajectory in decisive ways, and I was honored to serve as group’s coordinator for the 2016-2017 academic year. I am happy to report on the group’s activities and offer my thoughts on the evolving contours of the field.
Teaching Documents by Kevin Henderson
Syllabus created by Kevin Henderson. The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent global monkeypox outbre... more Syllabus created by Kevin Henderson. The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent global monkeypox outbreak demonstrate that all health crises are also political crises. Yet, there are clear parallels between these contemporary crises and a crisis that has been raging since 1981: the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. The same political failures, systemic vulnerabilities, and disparities in testing and treatment of the last four decades are, at times, like a loud, broken record on repeat today. Nonetheless, the HIV/AIDS crisis also produced new social movements, gave birth to queer theory, dramatically changed public health policy, and inspired an explosion of activist art. In this course, we will explore the political thought generated by the HIV/AIDS crisis, especially through film, histories, legal studies, and the arts. We will pay special attention to theorizations of the direction action activist group ACT UP; we think through the political thought of HIV- positive writers, thinkers, and filmmakers who lived on the margins of U.S. society; and we will think about the impact of the law and public policy on HIV-positive people today. We will try to make connections to the COVID-19 pandemic wherever possible.
This course is an introduction to queer feminist theory. We will consider varied articulations of... more This course is an introduction to queer feminist theory. We will consider varied articulations of both feminism and queerness and ways the relationship between them has been narrated and debated. We will explore some classic texts and some recent, cutting-edge ones as well. Some of the questions we will explore together include: what might it mean to “queer” feminism? What might it mean to understand queerness through a feminist lens? How might we understand the place of the figure of the lesbian in imagining queer feminism? What sorts of ethical questions might queer feminist perspectives center? Some of the concepts we will explore include: the centrality of race to concepts of gender and sexuality, relationships among feminist, queer, and trans studies, and sexual ethics.
This course is study of the leading ideas of the Western political tradition, focusing on such to... more This course is study of the leading ideas of the Western political tradition, focusing on such topics as justice, power, legitimacy, revolution, freedom, equality, and forms of government—democracy especially. This section of “Introduction to Political Thought” will pay particular attention to relations of power and knowledge, questions about the formation of subjects, and formulations of sex and gender. The first half of the class reads classic texts in the cannon of Western political thought. The second half takes a critical look at these texts, particularly in relation to prisons, surveillance, border walls, confinement and other carceral functions.
Political theory excels at transforming the given, what is normally “taken for granted” or held to be “self-evident,” into problems calling for critical inquiry. The hope is that, in reading and interpreting Plato, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Foucault, Buck-Morss, Davis, Brown, Schenwar and Law, and others, we may refine our political thinking, transform our lives, and expand our imaginations for what is possible and what can be politically played.
Syllabus created by Kevin A. Henderson Course Description This course explores legal construction... more Syllabus created by Kevin A. Henderson Course Description This course explores legal constructions of gender by introducing case law, federal legislation, historical analysis, primary source documents, news stories, scholarly essays, podcasts, and films concerning gender and sexual inequality in the United States. Special attention will be paid to social movements for equality and justice-particularly those surrounding reproduction and health, sexual activity, and marriage-and to the feminist legal theories born out of these movements. One goal is to introduce students to (and asks students to think critically about) key (and competing) legal concepts and legal philosophies. We will also especially consider how struggles for equality and justice have varied across race, sexual identity, class, and other categories of difference. How do the power relations structured by gender, class, race, and sexuality pose challenges to freedom and equality? How has the law worked to co-constitutively create the categories of gender, race, and sexuality? And, how have people from different social locations differently contested and challenged the law? This class does not treat feminism as a single theory or a unified social movement but looks historically at multiple and competing visions and versions of feminism. Finally, this class looks at how the law (as a form of power) produces, ascribes, and gives shape to gender rather than simply treating gender as a pre-political category that the law either protects or ignores.
This course will take up the complicated relation between public space and sexuality using queer,... more This course will take up the complicated relation between public space and sexuality using queer, feminist, and critical race theories. Topics covered include the creation of public and private spheres, gay and lesbian public sexual cultures, sex work, sexual violence, race and imperialism, urban zoning of public sex institutions, the legal regulation of sexual contact and the creation of public sex offender registries, policing of gay neighborhoods, and HIV criminalization. The class asks fundamental questions about the taken-for-grantedness of what constitutes the public and the private and what constitutes sex, including: How did we start thinking that how we have sex is central to who we are? Why is kinship and belonging reduced to who we have sex with? Does sex with strangers produce new notions of queer belonging? What harm is produced by the legal regulation and surveillance of sex? What sorts of legal and administrative regulations shape our understanding of good sex? How do sex offender registries and the criminalization of sex work narrow our political imaginations about what constitutes justice? What are social movements doing to reimagine sex in public? A consistent theme of the course will be the co-constitution of sexuality and race. Course Expectations The class meets once a week and is a reading intensive class. The class is organized as a seminar where we will discuss the topics and readings each week. It is essential that you complete and reflect upon the reading assignments before coming to class, and be prepared to contribute to the discussion. It is critical that you participate in the emerging conversation and analysis. Every class will focus on the readings assigned for that class as stated in the syllabus. Your attendance and participation are required for the entire session of each class meeting. The format of the class will be primarily a group discussion focused on the themes of the class readings. In-class participation (20%): Students are expected to attend class and participate each day. " Good " class participation does not necessarily mean talking the most. There are many ways to promote dialogue in class, including asking questions, noticing if others are silent and trying to make space for more timid voices, talking to each other and not just to the instructor, and building off other students' comments. It is important to remind oneself that the goal is not to be " right, " but to collaboratively work through issues and problems. You are expected to keep a notebook of key concepts from each of the readings and to bring this as well as written questions and comments to every class. Reading Responses (20%): Students are asked to write reading responses addressing the prompt / questions for the week. Reading responses will be 2 double spaced pages .
This course provides an introduction to Judith Butler’s book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Sub... more This course provides an introduction to Judith Butler’s book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Gender Trouble is often treated as a singular text that forever changed the history of feminist theorizing. This course does not take that view. We will, however, treat Gender Trouble as an important text that is embedded in long-standing debates within feminist theory as well as intervening in debates in psychoanalysis, sexuality studies, political theory, anthropology, and performance studies, to name just a few—and, in the process, informing feminist, queer, and trans activism.
The course provides conceptual building blocks leading up to a reading of Gender Trouble. We will explore terms such as ideology, discourse, reification, interpellation, mimesis, drag, ontology, iteration, citation, the phallus, Oedipus, performativity, and power. Students will gain an understanding of the similarities and differences between and across a variety of authors that are trying to understand the nature of sex/sexuality/gender. Through an active engagement in texts that informed the writing of Gender Trouble, students will be confident to read and discuss Butler’s text by the end of course.
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Papers by Kevin Henderson
Book Reviews by Kevin Henderson
Teaching Documents by Kevin Henderson
Political theory excels at transforming the given, what is normally “taken for granted” or held to be “self-evident,” into problems calling for critical inquiry. The hope is that, in reading and interpreting Plato, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Foucault, Buck-Morss, Davis, Brown, Schenwar and Law, and others, we may refine our political thinking, transform our lives, and expand our imaginations for what is possible and what can be politically played.
The course provides conceptual building blocks leading up to a reading of Gender Trouble. We will explore terms such as ideology, discourse, reification, interpellation, mimesis, drag, ontology, iteration, citation, the phallus, Oedipus, performativity, and power. Students will gain an understanding of the similarities and differences between and across a variety of authors that are trying to understand the nature of sex/sexuality/gender. Through an active engagement in texts that informed the writing of Gender Trouble, students will be confident to read and discuss Butler’s text by the end of course.
Political theory excels at transforming the given, what is normally “taken for granted” or held to be “self-evident,” into problems calling for critical inquiry. The hope is that, in reading and interpreting Plato, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Foucault, Buck-Morss, Davis, Brown, Schenwar and Law, and others, we may refine our political thinking, transform our lives, and expand our imaginations for what is possible and what can be politically played.
The course provides conceptual building blocks leading up to a reading of Gender Trouble. We will explore terms such as ideology, discourse, reification, interpellation, mimesis, drag, ontology, iteration, citation, the phallus, Oedipus, performativity, and power. Students will gain an understanding of the similarities and differences between and across a variety of authors that are trying to understand the nature of sex/sexuality/gender. Through an active engagement in texts that informed the writing of Gender Trouble, students will be confident to read and discuss Butler’s text by the end of course.