Sumara, Dennis and Brent Davis. “Interrupting Heteronormativity: Toward a Queer Curriculum Theory”

Sumara, Dennis and Brent Davis. “Interrupting Heteronormativity: Toward a Queer Curriculum Theory.” Curriculum Inquiry, 29(1999): 191-208.

In accordance with queer theory, Sumara and Davis are interested in examining the intertwining relationship of sexuality and curricular relations.  While, they contest, “queer” work in curricular theory has been happening all along, it is important to parallel the work of contemporary queer theory in disrupting heteronormative thinking. Queer curriculum theory is not interested in merely examining queer identities, but instead troubling the relationship between curriculum and sexuality as well as sexuality and knowledge, examining the heterosexual closet along with its construction and adherence, and investigating experiences of desire, of pleasure and of sexuality to interrupt common belief discourse.  Queer curriculum serves both the ends of social justice as well as truncated questions that curricular theory already raises.

Area Cluster: 102 Comp/Writing Program & 103 Theory

Methodology: “literary anthropology”—an interpretive activity where the relationships among memory, history, and experiences of subjectivity are made available for analysis; case study

Valuable Citations: Eve Sedgwick, Michel Foucault, Deborah Britzman, Michael Warner

Money Quote$:
Queer theory does not ask that pedagogy become sexualized, but that it excavate and interpret the way it already is sexualized- and, furthermore, that it begin to interpret the way that it is explicitly heterosexualized (192).

Because these curriculum artifacts [shared readings] were (as is typical of these forms) presented as information rather than as beginning places for critical inquiry into what might constitute experiences of sexuality and sex, Gina (and a number of her classmates) seemed unable to represent anything other than the usual cultural myths about sex and sexuality-particularly myths about what counts as sex (only intercourse, it seems) and as sexual partners (opposite sex only) (199).

To put it crudely, heteronormativity creates a language that is “straight.” Living within heteronormative culture means learning to “see” straight, to “read” straight, to “think” straight (202).

And, following Warner, we are not interested in promoting queer curriculum theory as a theory about queers but, rather, are interested in showing how all educators ought to become interested in the complex relationships among the various ways in which sexualities are organized and identified and in the many ways in which knowledge is produced and represented (203).

As explained by Foucault, a heterotopia is an event structure in which things not usually associated with one another are juxtaposed, allowing language to become more elastic, more able to collect new interpretations and announce new possibilities (205).

Nelson, Cynthia. “Sexual Identities in ESL: Queer Theory and Classroom Inquiry”

Nelson, Cynthia. “Sexual Identities in ESL: Queer Theory and Classroom Inquiry.” TESOL Quarterly: Critical Approaches to TESOL, 33.3 (1999), pp. 371-391.

Nelson’s central argument is that a queer theoretical framework—which builds on poststructuralism—may be more useful pedagogically than a lesbian and gay one because it shifts the focus from inclusion to inquiry, that is, from including minority sexual identities to examining how language and culture work with regard to all sexual identities. In short, the work of queer theorists may be well suited to support the work of ESL learners and teachers, as these groups share an interest in analysing cultural and discursive practices. Whether the intention is to critique these practices or to learn them (or a combination of the two), the task is to investigate the workings of language and culture in order to make them explicit, and queer theory can enable both teacher and learner to achieve this end.

Area Cluster: 103 Theory & 108 Language

Methodology: case study or teacher ethnography; field notes and transcripts from one class discussion

Valuable Citations: Judith Butler, Gayatri Spivak, Deborah Britzman, Michael Warner, Cynthia Nelson

Money Quote$:
Queer serves to protest, or at least blur, clear-cut notions of sexual identity, but it also can be used as shorthand for the somewhat lengthy phrase lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenderal (Warner, 1993) (374).

To them, gay-friendly teaching is at best of marginal importance, of interest only to a small minority of learners and teachers (gay ones), and at worst invasive, inserting a discourse of (homo)sex into a field in which that discourse is neither relevant nor appropriate.2 These colleagues do not always recognise that sexual identity is already an integral part of ESL (373).

Queer theory shifts the focus from gaining civil rights to analysing discursive and cultural practices, from affirming minority sexual identities to problematising all sexual identities. Pedagogies of inclusion thus become pedagogies of inquiry (following Nelson, 1998)  (373).

In fact, following queer theory, even when sexual identities are not being discussed, they are being read, produced, and regulated during the social interactions of learning and teaching (388).