GI422 One Unit
Transnational Sexual Politics
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Rohit Dasgupta
Availability
This course is compulsory on the MSc in Gender (Sexuality). This course is available on the MA in Modern History, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (LSE & Columbia), MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (LSE & Sciences Po), MSc in Gender, MSc in Gender (Research), MSc in Gender (Rights and Human Rights), MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, Media and Culture, MSc in Gender, Peace and Security, MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities, MSc in Global Media and Communications (LSE and Fudan), MSc in Global Media and Communications (LSE and UCT), MSc in Global Media and Communications (LSE and USC), MSc in Human Rights, MSc in Human Rights and Politics, MSc in International Migration and Public Policy, MSc in International Migration and Public Policy (LSE and Sciences Po) and MSc in Political Science (Global Politics). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
Students should apply by 10am UK time on Friday 26 September 2025. Offers will be made after 10am on this date and will continue until all places are filled.
All students on the MSc Gender (Sexuality) (for whom the course is compulsory) will be given a place. Priority is then given to home department students and then to those who have the course listed in their programme regulations who apply in the first 24-hours (by 10:00am, Friday 26 September 2025), space permitting. Please note the timing of your request within the first 24-hours will not impact chances of being accepted onto the course. Requests received after this timeframe, or outside option requests, will be allocated randomly if space remains.
Please do not email the Course Convenor with personal expressions of interest as these are not required and do not influence who is offered a place. Contact gender@lse.ac.uk with any queries.
Requisites
Mutually exclusive courses:
This course cannot be taken with GI421 at any time on the same degree programme.
Course content
'Transnational Sexual Politics’ takes a case-study approach to questions of sexuality, gender and culture (in the first term) and to sexuality in the contexts of globalization (in the second). The full unit considers a variety of ways in which sexuality is central to any understanding of the social world, and it explores queer methods for interrogating the world. It is an interdisciplinary course within which intersectional, black feminist, postcolonial, queer, crip, trans, and critical race perspectives are used to interpret particular sexual phenomena and contexts – rights, citizenship, fertility, representation, kinship, asylum and technology, for example. The course will allow a thorough grounding in sexuality and gender studies. Although it is interdisciplinary, it does not have a pre-requisite.
Teaching
15 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.
15 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.
Formative assessment
One 1500 word critical analysis to be submitted during AT; submission of draft abstract for conference presentation to be submitted during WT.
Indicative reading
Alexander, Jacqui (1994) 'Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law, Sexuality and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas', Feminist Review 48: 5-23.
Arondekar, A. and Patel, G. (2016) Area Impossible: Notes Toward an Introduction’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 22 (2): 151–71
Balani, Sita. 2023. Deadly and Slick: Sexual Modernity and the Making of Race. London: Verso
Butler, Judith. 2002. “Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?,” Differences: a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 13(1): 14-44
Eng, David L. and Puar, Jasbir, (2020). ‘Introduction Left of Queer’. Social Text 145, Vol. 38, No. 4 , 1-23
Foucault, Michel. 1978. History of Sexuality, Vol I: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon.
Hemmings, Clare. 2014. “Introduction: Sexuality,” in The Handbook of Feminist Theory, edited by Evans et al. London: Sage, pp. 267-74
McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context. New York: Routledge.
Showden, Carisa. 2012. “Theorising Maybe: A Feminist/Queer Theory Convergence,” Feminist Theory 13(1): 3-25
Stryker, S. and Bettcher, T.M. (eds) 2016. ‘Trans/Feminisms’, Special Issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 3(1-2).
Lorde, Audre. (1978) 1993. “The Uses of the Erotic: the Erotic as Power,” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited by Abelove and Halperin. London: Routledge. pp. 339-343.
Assessment
Essay (50%, 3000 words)
Critical evaluation (20%)
Research paper (30%)
The research paper will be submitted for a student conference at the end of WT, and will include the previous submission of a 300 word abstract. The critical evaluation will be of a cultural event (lecture; exhibition; performance; conference), and submitted at the end of AT (2000 words).
Key facts
Department: Gender Studies
Course Study Period: Autumn and Winter Term
Unit value: One unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 15
Average class size 2024/25: 15
Controlled access 2024/25: YesCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication