15142

WiSe 22/23: Crossing Gender and the Border: A Transgender Studies Approach to the Liberal Border Regime

Johannes Heß

Comments

Seminar description Over the last years, just as some countries have begun rolling back discriminatory legislation against transgender people, an alliance of conservatives, Christians, and self-proclaimed ‘radical feminists’ in the UK and US has initiated a campaign against the rights of transgender people under the guise of the alleged dangers of ‘gender ideology.’ They are cheered on by illiberal actors such as Victor Orbán or Vladimir Putin. The ideological groundwork for these attacks comes out of liberal thought itself, when anxieties about gender, borders, and the integrity of national identity meet. As Judith Butler wrote in their 2021 opinion piece for The Guardian: “[…] gender comes to stand for, or is linked with, all kinds of imagined “infiltrations” of the national body – migrants, imports, the disruption of local economics through the effects of globalization” (Butler, 2021, p. 3). These anxieties are part and parcel of liberal justifications for increased border securitization. The border is a place where questions of belonging and exclusion crystallize, where state agents determine who is admitted to the national body, and who is not. Certain bodies fail to perform ‘normativity’ to the level required for admission. This situates many transgender people outside of the nation, and has made them an easy target for the conservative backlash. In this seminar, we look at the liberal border through the lens of transgender studies to understand the contemporary pushback against transgender rights. In it, we will explore what the inclusion and exclusion of trans people from national bodies can tell us about the liberalism of liberal borders. We will also look at how ideas about gender and gender normativity figure in the construction of borders and what, if anything, is particular about the liberal border in that regard. Lastly, we will examine the ideological links between liberal anxieties about gender and border crossings, and how they are reflected in the contemporary illiberal backlash against the rights of transgender people. Seminar requirements Teilnahmeschein: • Regular and active participation • Preparing for the sessions by reading the texts • Maintaining a reading diary Leistungsschein: • All requirements of the “Teilnahmeschein,” plus: • A term paper (“Hausarbeit”) of 4.500 (+/- 20%) words • A development paper or exposé of roughly two pages, detailing what you would like to do in your term paper. This will form the basis of the colloquium session in the seminar. • You can find the requirements in the “Leitfaden für schriftliche Arbeiten des Arbeitsbereichs Gender & Diversity” (only in German): https://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/polwiss/forschung/grundlagen/gender-div/studium_lehre/studium/SchriftlicheArbeit_Leitfaden_Gender_Diversity.pdf Teaching goals The seminar is designed to be an introduction to transgender studies and its methodologies, as well as an introduction to the literature on liberal borders. Students will learn to read theoretical and empirical texts from the discipline of trans studies, to understand and critically evaluate them. By maintaining a reading diary, students will learn to document their reading and to make it useful for future academic work. Students will learn to develop theory-based hypotheses based on the readings. Additionally, the seminar will be an exercise in bringing together quite disparate strands of literature. close

16 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Wed, 16:00 - 18:00 16 Class schedule

Wed, 2022-10-19 16:00 - 18:00

Lecturers:
Johannes Heß