GSST 020A. Queer Animation Studies

Cross-listed with FMST 048.
Animating life means more than just creating two-dimensional representations of a three-dimensional world. This course uses analytic frameworks from feminist, queer, and trans studies to think through more than a century of cultural, historical, and political depth found in the “flat” images of animation. Although our course viewings will lean heavily toward the latter end of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st century, what matters is not the “newness” of animation or the crazes it inspires, but the way it allows us to re-examine the history that comes before it. This course critically analyzes both the history of cultural texts that animation adapts as well as the changing practices of distribution, circulation, and reception of animation’s fans and industries. What can the on-screen worlds of animation critically reveal about the off-screen worlds of race, gender, sexuality, and capital? Screenings may include: X-Men: The Animated Series (1992)/ X-Men ‘97 (2024), Pretty Please I don’t Want to Be a Magical Girl (2025-Present), Princess Mononoke (1997), Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Own Words (2025), Revolutionary Girl Utena (1999).
Prerequisite: GSST 001 or FMST 001 or permission of instructor.
Humanities.
1 credit.
Spring 2027. Li.
Catalog chapter: Gender and Sexuality Studies
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/gender-sexuality-studies

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