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Princeton University in the US has introduced classes on ‘Queer Spaces in the World’ and ‘Sex Workers and Sex Work’ for the upcoming Spring Semester.
The gender studies program at a university in the US will explore ‘queer spaces’ and ‘sex work’. (Representative image)
Princeton University in the United States has revised its Gender and Sexuality Studies (GSS) curriculum for the Spring semester. The University has introduced classes on ‘Queer Spaces in the World’, ‘Sex Workers and Sex Work’, according to the program details listed on its website.
Princeton will offer five classes in the spring of 2025 that include the word “queer” in their descriptions up on the website. These are: “Love: Anthropological Explorations”, “Queer Spaces in the World”, “Power, Profit and Pleasure: Sex Workers and Sex Work”, “Disability and the Politics of Life”, and “The Poetics of Memory: Fragility and Liberation”.
The class on ‘Queer Spaces in the World’ will explore how to uncover and write architectural histories that include marginalised perspectives. It examines how sources influence narratives, how to address erasures in the historical record, and how feminist, gender, queer, and trans* theories can contribute to creating more inclusive and equitable historical accounts.
“How do we reconcile seeming absences and actual acts of erasure that stare back at us from the archive? How can feminist, gender, queer and trans* theory help us chart new avenues for writing critical architectural histories that are attentive to discourses of difference but also narratives of equity?” reads a part of the course description on the website.
The University will also conduct a class on ‘Power, Profit and Pleasure: Sex Workers and Sex Work’, which examines the multifaceted and often stigmatised subject of sex work from the perspectives of sex workers worldwide. It also explores diverse forms of sex work, such as prostitution, erotic dance, and online camming, while addressing themes like stigma, race, class, queer dynamics, legal and economic issues, and societal norms surrounding marriage and monogamy.
In the course description, the website mentioned that it will explore several themes, including “the ‘whore stigma,’ race, class and queer dynamics; law, labor and money; technologies of desire and spectacle; dirt, marriage and monogamy; carceral modernity; violence, agency and, above all, strategies for social transformation”, before adding that the “course explores the intricate lives and intimate narratives of sex workers” who “engage in myriad varieties of global sex work: pornography, prostitution, erotic dance, escorting, street work, camming, commercial fetishism, and sex tourism”.
Several universities in the US have introduced courses exploring themes related to queer studies. For instance, the University of Chicago gained attention with its “Queering God” course, which posed the provocative question, “Is God queer?” as part of its preview.
Similarly, Texas Christian University offered a course titled “Queer Art of Drag,” where students were encouraged to create and develop their own “drag persona” as part of the curriculum. These programs aim to engage students in examining complex ideas about identity, representation, and culture through diverse perspectives.
