Queer Music

This course explores the cultural and historical overlap of two marginal categories - the queer, the musical - with a focus on what these critical concepts can teach us much about identity, identification, and belonging. We will discuss genres including classical, musical theater, rap, pop, country, and punk as well as queer socialities formed in and through these musical scenes. We will think critically about the subtleties of musical language and queer affect, the circulation of gay rumors, and the diva as an object of queer obsession while asking how race, gender, and class as well as elitism, status, and taste inform such inquiries.