11 Queer College Courses We Wish We Could Have Taken

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

1. Queering Don Quixote at Smith College

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha is studied through a queer lens in this class. Wear your monocle to study this masterpiece by Cervantes and imagine what life was like in 1605, while he was riding on horseback to save everyone Robin hood style. 

2. From Greece to Stonewall: Queer Writers, Lives, and Worlds at City College of San Francisco 

Have you ever wondered what life was like as an LGBT writer in the ‘50s? Then this is the class for you! Just look at the writers you will study: Sappho, Carson McCullers, Oscar Wilde, and the Beat Generation. Who wouldn’t sign up for this class ASAP? 

4. Queer Opera at Wesleyan College 

Queer. Opera. Need we say more? This class will use queer theory to examine operas from as early as the seventeenth century to present day. Isn’t it awesome when you can look back at history and realize things are a lot queerer than you ever thought? 

5. U.S. LBGT and Queer History at UMass Amherst

Did your high school teachers add an LGBT component to your classes? No? Then you are not in the minority. This class will fill that gap by teaching you all about the LGBT history your teachers never told you about, like how the organizer behind Martin Luther King Jr.’s infamous March on Washington was an LGBT quaker. Wouldn’t it be good for teenagers to learn that there was gay visibility during the Civil Rights Movement? 

6. Pretty, Witty, and Gay at Sarah Lawrence

It’s easy to get lost in the idea of what it was like to be in a room full of American expatriate writers living in Paris during the early 1900′s. Imagine being in the same room as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. This class will connect queer writers like Stein and the salon’s she hosted in Paris, along with present day novels, plays, poems, songs, and films that you may not have known that they have queer connections.

7. Sexualities and Social Life in Spain at Syracuse University

Who wouldn’t want to study abroad in Spain and take field trips throughout Madrid to talk about LGBT identity in the country? This class was practically made for queer students in mind. You could even meet queer college students your age in Spain, and who wouldn’t want that? 

8. Where the Wilde Things Are: Queer Identity in Drama at the University of Maryland. 

Who doesn’t remember the infamous “gross indecency” trial of Oscar Wilde? It caused a stir for the homoerotic themes in his work. Along with studying influential cultural moments such as Wilde’s trial, you will also read the work of Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, and what is considered to be the genre of “camp” by writers such as Tim Miller and Holly Hughes. This course will move into  present day performances of gay and lesbian culture through the lens of gay pride parades, drag kings and queens. 

9. Women's Literary Traditions: Dreamgirls: Black Music, Black Beauty, and Diva Autobiography at University of New Hampshire

The University of New Hampshire didn’t include a description of this course, but we can only imagine that a class focused on black music, black beauty, and diva autobiography is probably a really amazing class to take. 

10. Queer Latina/o Photography and Literature at UNC Chapel Hill 

This course explores Latina/o literature and photography by “queer” Latina/o artists and, through this double focus, poses important questions about identity, subjectivity, and culture. Yes.

11. Narratives of Passing at Oberlin College 

Who hasn’t experienced the frustrating process of having someone assume you are straight? Heteronormativity, amirite? In this class you will study the process of “passing” through literature and film from as early as the 20th century. Learn about the perils of heteronormativity on Oberlin’s beautiful lawns, while you read about the privilege and oppression of “passing” as it effects the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and sexuality.