Last Summer’s heated debate over North Carolina’s controversial “bathroom bill” inspired the University of California, Berkeley to devote an entire course to the “politics of needing to go.”
The four-credit course fulfills Berkeley’s “reading and composition” general education requirement, and is offered through the Theater Department, which also has a course on the “impending climate-related apocalypse.”
Theater R1B (section 10) – Public Restrooms and the Politics of Needing to Go
A public restroom is a charged social site. Who has access to it? Who cleans it? How have public restrooms segregated people into strict categories of gender, race, class and ability? What does it mean for a public space to be designed for private activities? Who are we socially when our bodies need to go? We will read academic texts in the fields of performance studies, queer and transgender studies, disability studies, critical race studies, homelessness, civil engineering, and design, as well as works of dramatic literature. Building on the writing skills acquired in R1A, students will hone academic research skills, including how to pick a good research topic, utilize libraries and new media to locate appropriate sources, document and organize collected source materials, and present one’s findings effectively in a substantial research paper.
Instructor: Thea Gold, 4 units. Prerequisites: R1A or its equivalent.
Mirrored from Gears and Springs.
