NJ University Course Will Explore ‘Non-Human Perspectives on Queer’

A prominent New Jersey college is offering its students the chance to learn about “non-human perspectives” on LGBT issues, while also exploring “the third sex,” and “the political underpinnings and the transgressive nature of ‘queer.’”

Montclair State University, rated New Jersey’s best public university by Forbes, offers the course “Queer Identities in a Transforming World: The Trouble with Normal” as part of its “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Studies (GLQS) program for 2019.

According to the attentive folks at The College Fix, the course will be taught by Caroline Dadas, whose specializations include “queer online rhetorics” and whose primary research agenda involves “studying the intersections of civic participation–particularly by queer-identified individuals – and digital environments.”

Ms. Dadas did not respond to The Fix’s questions regarding the nature of “non-human perspectives on queer,” leaving the question open as to whose perspectives they would be. Once human beings are ruled out, the best candidates for perspective-holders would seem to be animals or computers, but for now Ms. Dadas is not giving anything away.

Students can only register for the class once they have successfully completed the 100-level course “Introduction to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer” and learned about current research regarding “same-sex individuals, relationships and communities” as well as “the social construction framework for analyzing contemporary gendered identities, sexualities, and the discourses and practices that maintain them.”

For its part, the “Queer Identities” class will “explore ‘trans’ from it Latin roots (meaning ‘across’ or ‘beyond’), and relate it to queer as a position that allows for shifting identities,” according to the course description.

Students will also “engage in a critical analysis of gender, sexuality, race, class, and ecology, and synthesize methodologies from various disciplines in the humanities to gain a broad intersectional, multicultural and historical understanding of the term ‘queer, and of queer and transgender studies.”

The course will also grant students a look at “the history of queer politics (from AIDS activism to the gay marriage issue)” along with “schisms within the LGBTQ political movements.”

According to its mission statement, Montclair State University offers programs “characterized by academic rigor and currency in the development of knowledge and its applications.”

The University “seeks to focus the professional activities of its faculty and the educational endeavors of its students on the enduring disciplines that will continue to constitute the knowledge base of an educated citizenry in the 21st century.”

It also highlights “the more specific and changing areas of study that have particular relevance to the region served by the University.”

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