DeKalb GA News

Princeton University's Gender and Sexuality Studies department will introduce new courses in the upcoming Spring semester. These courses will cover topics such as "erotic dance," pornography, prostitution, and queer spaces.

According to a report by Campus Reform published on Tuesday, Princeton will offer five courses that include the word "queer" in their descriptions. These courses are titled "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 course focusing on sex work aims to address stigmatization, controversies, power dynamics, and societal expectations related to the subject. The course description states: “Why does sex work raise some of the most fascinating, controversial and often taboo questions of our time? The course explores the intricate lives and intimate narratives of sex workers from the perspective of sex workers themselves, as they engage in myriad varieties of global sex work: pornography, prostitution, erotic dance, escorting, street work, camming, commercial fetishism, and sex tourism.”

Additionally, the “Queer Spaces” course will delve into institutional and historical power dynamics. It poses questions such as: “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?”

The course description further asks which methods beyond conventional architectural inquiry can be used to uncover histories of groups resisting dominant power regimes.