EXPLORING RELATIONSHIPS IN FICTION AND FILM: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

--Mark Andrew Clark

This course will look at how relationships are depicted and constructed in fiction and film. We will focus on the ways an individual writer/director develops intimate, sexual relations between men and women, women and women, and men and men. With critical attention to gender and sexual classifications (heterosexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, feminist, transgender, queer, etc.), we will explore such topics as desire, obsession, possession, objectification, voyeurism, exploitation, abuse, subjugation, rape, intimacy, commitment, friendship and responsibility. The course content is organized around male and female writers and directors from different race, class, cultural and sexual groups. Also, we will examine the role that power plays in gender and sexual relations. Our exploration of these fiction and film texts attempts to uncover, analyze, and critique our own gender and sexual assumptions, beliefs, and practices.