FEMINIST AND QUEER THEORy

Fall 2026, monDAYS, 4:00-7:00PM; MEETS AT MIT

This course offers both a historical and topical introduction to foundational texts and central questions in feminist, queer, and trans* theory. Together, we will examine not only the defining concerns of each field, but also the challenges of drawing clear boundaries between them. Moving from broad questions of field formation to the analysis of specific political phenomena, the course highlights the dynamic and often overlapping nature of these areas of inquiry. Readings will emphasize the theoretical dimensions of the course while maintaining a sustained focus on their political stakes and implications.

FACULTY

C. Heike Schotten (she/her) is Professor of Political Science and affiliated faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she teaches courses in political theory, feminist theory, and queer theory. Her research interests lie at the various and unlikely intersections of queer theory and Nietzsche Studies, which ground a wide array of publications focusing, most recently, on the theoretical presuppositions animating Right-wing ideologies, including but not limited to settler colonialism, anti-queerness, neoconservatism, “terrorism” policy and the “War on Terror”, anti-Muslim racism, Zionism, and trans-exclusionary feminism. She is a member of the organizing collective of the US Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, and the author of Queer Terror: Life, Death, and Desire in the Settler Colony (Columbia UP, 2018), Nietzsche’s Revolution:  Décadence, Politics, and Sexuality(Palgrave, 2009), and multiple articles and book chapters in Nietzsche studies, critical political theory, feminist theory, and queer theory.