course-schedule

Queer History (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Ben Trott

Inhalt: This seminar introduces queer history, primarily but not exclusively in Germany and the German-speaking world. It explores the understandings of sexuality developed by sexologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and activists in German-speaking countries in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, including Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sigmund Freud and Magnus Hirschfeld. It addresses the ways in which theories of sexuality were caught up with theories of gender, the colonial context in which these theories emerged, and the role of eugenics within sexology and early gay rights activism. The seminar also looks at the uneven criminalisation of sexual and gender minorities (including gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people) in the Weimar Republic, the National Socialist period, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and in the Federal Republic of Germany both before and after reunification. The seminar includes a day of activities in Basel, including a visit to “The First Homosexuals: The Birth of New Identities, 1869-1939” exhibition at Kunstraum Basel.

Feminist Political Philosophy (SBP) (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Ben Trott

Inhalt: This lecture-based class introduces feminist philosophical approaches to thinking the social and political world. It entails, first, an exploration of feminist engagements with, appropriations from, and critiques of the modern, western canon of social and political philosophy – including the ways it has thought justice, equality, the social contract, freedom and rights. Here the focus is primarily on feminist and queer engagements with liberal social and political thought, which is itself shown to be a highly heterogeneous enterprise. In the second part of the seminar, students address feminist contributions to social and political philosophy that break with or move beyond liberal traditions. Students will engage work by Susan Okin, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, Nancy Fraser, Angela Davis, Emma Goldman, Judith Butler and others.

Queer Digital Cultures (SBP) (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Ben Trott

Inhalt: Digital media, digital technologies and digital infrastructures shape contemporary culture in many and far-reaching ways. This seminar examines their impact on 'queer' culture in particular – understood here as both LGBT (i.e. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) cultures as well as, more broadly, cultures that contest or subvert dominant norms around gender and sexuality. Students will explore recent efforts to theorise the relationship between transformations in information, digital and other technologies, and transformations in the fields of gender and sexuality. They will examine recent empirical as well as theoretically-informed work on the ways that digital media and technologies are shaping queer life and culture. And they will address the extent to which the study of digital cultures can be productively approached from a queer perspective. Issues that will be explored include the following: • The role of digital media in transgender self-representation • How social media hashtags (like #lesbian) can facilitate both the production of community and the (de-)stabilisation of identity categories • How LGBT and queer intimacies are being transformed through dating and ‘hook-up’ apps (such as Tinder and Grindr) • Digital labour and online pornography • The possibilities and limits of digital queer activism • Histories of the transgender internet

Cultural Studies (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Ben Trott

Inhalt: This seminar introduces Cultural Studies, as it emerged in Britain in the 1950s and 60s. It looks at the ideas and approaches that shaped it (including those associated with the ‘New Left’), it’s development as an academic field, and the ways in which it has been taken up by others. Students will engage with the work of some of the key figures within (British) Cultural Studies, including Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Dick Hebdige and Angela McRobbie. We will look at how these authors have variously drawn on (and re-thought) Karl Marx’s account of the relationship between (economic) ‘base’ and (political/ideological) ‘superstructure’, Louis Althusser’s work on ‘ideology’ (and ‘ideological state apparatuses’), and Antonio Gramsci’s notion of ‘hegemony’. Students will also explore the resonances and dissonances between Cultural Studies related fields, including Queer Studies, Transgender Studies and Post-Colonial Studies.

Theories and Applications of Intersectionality and Multidimensionality: Gender and Diversity Certificate Core Seminar (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Ben Trott

Termin:
wöchentlich | Mittwoch | 12:15 - 15:45 | 06.04.2026 - 23.05.2026 | C 40.255 Seminarraum

Inhalt: Nobody experiences the world in just one dimension. This seminar looks critically at how gender, sexuality, racism and class form multiple, intersecting dimensions that shape individual experience, social structures and power relations. This ‘intersectionality’ or ‘multidimensionality’ informs the ways in which some people and some groups experience specific (often particularly egregious) forms of oppression, marginalisation or exploitation. However, the seminar also looks at how ‘intersectional’ or ‘multidimensional’ approaches have historically informed the ways in which such oppression, marginalisation or exploitation have been resisted. Throughout this course, we will look at how economic questions – i.e. questions of class and capitalism, waged and unwaged labour – shape gender, sexuality, racism and the ways in which these are entangled with one another. Students will engage with key works by Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Roderick A. Ferguson, Patricia Hill Collins, Stuart Hall, the Combahee River Collective, Sara Ahmed, and Angela Davis.

Masterforum: Künste, Theorie, Kritik (Kolloquium)

Dozent/in: Ben Trott

Inhalt: It provides an opportunity for students embarking on their MA theses to present an outline of their projects, with the goal of receiving productive critical feedback – both from instructors and from student peers. In the first meeting of the Master Forum, Ben Trott will introduce some of the common issues confronted by those carrying out scholarly research or writing in Cultural Studies, the Humanities and the Social Sciences. This will include general questions, including: how to arrive at and formulate a research question and a suitable framework for your project; how to begin thinking about method and methodology, and starting to conducting research; and ways of referencing and of acknowledging the use of sources. Students are invited to sign up to present an outline of their MA thesis in the subsequent meetings of the Master Forum. Students can choose whther to present in German or English. Students are required upload a two-page summary of their project to myStudy one week before they are due to present. This should include: • a working title for your thesis as well as your research question; • the approach, method or methodology that you plan on using, and the theoretical framework or points of reference for your project; • what you anticipate discovering or arguing in your thesis; • and a list of up to five key works that you will use, along with any additional information about sources you plan on using – such as archives, exhibitions or interview partners. Students are asked to attend all sessions of the Master Forum, not the simply the session in which they will present, and to have read the two-page summaries ahead of time. Please be ready to provide your fellow students with productive critical feedback on their projects! The Master Forum is examined (pass/fail) as a combined scholarly work [Kombinierte wissenschaftliche Arbeit] made up of (a) your two-page summary and (b) your presentation.

Course Schedule

Veranstaltungen von Ben Trott

Lehrveranstaltungen

Queer History (Seminar)

Feminist Political Philosophy (SBP) (Seminar)

Queer Digital Cultures (SBP) (Seminar)

Cultural Studies (Seminar)

Theories and Applications of Intersectionality and Multidimensionality: Gender and Diversity Certificate Core Seminar (Seminar)

Masterforum: Künste, Theorie, Kritik (Kolloquium)