Course Info: SDS380H1 SEXUAL DIVERSITY IN TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE:QUEERNESS IN SOUTH ASIA

Fall 2026 – Wednesdays 3:10pm – 5:00pm

Instructor: Rajorshi Das

This course explores the multifaceted nature of queerness as a practice of living in South Asia. Responding to calls within the sub-field of transnational sexualities to center the region on its own terms, the course challenges approaches that treat gender and sexual variance in the Global South as either derivations of the “West” or as romanticised otherness. Instead, we will examine queerness in South Asia as a messy entanglement of desire, sexuality, gender, caste, class, religion, colonialism and globalisation. Additionally, we will consider how scholarship from/on South Asia reveals Indian hegemony in knowledge production.
The course features works by writers, researchers, artists, activists, and filmmakers such as Ismat Chughtai, Anjali Arondekar, Sintu Bagui (in pic above) Shyam Selvadurai, Moon Charania, Dia Yongzom, and Rasel Ahmed, among others.

Be prepared for lots of lively discussion, critical and creative thinking!