The purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate your close/critical understanding of the assigned readings. Therefore, you are expected to draw extensively from the readings, using in-text citations (MLA style) to demonstrate where you have extracted material. In the writing of this assignment you may NOT consult or include sources external to the course materials.
Your response to each question should be approximately 1,500 words. In answering each question, you are to engage with the assigned readings in a way that conveys a precise understanding of the article. You are to provide a succinct synopsis of each article followed by a close analysis of the part of that article which, in your view, best supports the essay prompt. It is not necessary to include a works cited page with this assignment.
Precarity designates that politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death . Precarity is, of course, directly linked with gender norms [which] have everything to do with how and in what way we can appear in public spacewho will be criminalized on the basis of public appearance; who will fail to be protected by the law or, more specifically, the police, on the street, or on the job, or in the home. (Butler 3) In what ways is this notion of precarity addressed in the articles below? Draw directly from each of the articles in formulating your response.
Critical Mascara: On Fabulousness, Creativity and the End of Gender
Performativity, Precarity and Sexual Politics
Anger and Compassion on the Picket Line: Ethnography and Emotion in the Study of Westboro Baptist Church
On the Limits of Trans Enough: Authenticating Trans Identity Narratives
In each of the following articles, the authors investigate identities that do not fit neatly into the dominant identity categories, and thereby represent what Marjorie Garber (in Samuels 324) calls a category crisis. How does each of these articles represent this crisis and what solutions, if any, do their authors offer? Draw directly from each of the articles in formulating your response.
Doubleweaving Two-Spirit Critiques: Building Alliances between Native and Queer Studies
Teaching about Princess Boys or Not
La Conciencia de la Mestiza/ Towards a New Consciousness
My Body, My Closet: Invisible Disability and the Limits of Coming Out
Listening to the voices of hijab
