Important Links and Resources

Students

Students, here are some important links that you will need to understand the lessons that I am teaching, and some links to show you what your homework and projects will be. 

This is a List of Books that you will need for my class. Email me if there is a problem. 

• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, written by Benjamin Alire Saenez. This is a story about two Mexican-American teen guys falling in love that’s also about grief, loneliness, and being true to yourself.

• First Spring Grass Fire, written by Rae Spoon. A candid, authentic story about a genderqueer teen growing up in rural Alberta with a strict Pentecostal family and a dad with schizophrenia. The protagonist finds solace in first love with a girl, music, and self-discovery.

• Big Big Sky written by Kristyn Dunnion. An amazingly inventive science fiction book that questions what exactly human is, Big Big Sky is a hella queer story about a group of girls who are brain-washed assassins escaping, surviving, some of them becoming post-human and all of them kicking lots of ass.

• Two Boys Kissing written by David Levithan. Two Boys Kissing is a well-known gay YA for a reason, because of its unique structure: it’s the story of two boys trying to set a new Guinness world record for the longest kiss narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS.

We will also be watching a couple of movies in class as well, so if you wanted to jump the gun on that as well, I highly suggest it. 

• Before Stonewall: The riots that followed the arrests at New York City's Stonewall Inn in 1969 are widely considered to be a major development in the history of gay and lesbian rights in America. This documentary investigates national cultural perceptions of homosexuality before the event, looking back on previous decades, particularly in regard to conflicts with police and censorship. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg.

• The Celluloid Closet: The riots that followed the arrests at New York City's Stonewall Inn in 1969 are widely considered to be a major development in the history of gay and lesbian rights in America. This documentary investigates national cultural perceptions of homosexuality before the event, looking back on previous decades, particularly in regard to conflicts with police and censorship. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. Closet laid bare a long history of antigay coded language and images in film, leading back to the earliest films in the '20s, when the stereotype of the sissy pervaded silent cinema.

• Love, Simon: Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier, it's a little more complicated. He hasn't told his family or friends that he's gay, and he doesn't know the identity of the anonymous classmate that he's fallen for online. Resolving both issues proves hilarious, terrifying and life-changing.

• How to Survive a Plague: A documentary about the incredibly visible activist group the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. The film depicts ACT UP's efforts to force the U.S. government to address the AIDS epidemic and to fund research and medications for those dying of AIDS. Ultimately, it's about queer people fighting for the right to live — and to do so with dignity.

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Your final project will be a Book Talk on a book from a list I will give you at the beginning of the class. You can either buy the book to keep, which I highly recommend, or I can buy you the book for you, but you must return it at the end of the semester. I will give you a rubric when class begins.