Queer London

June 20 - July 9, 2010

LGBT 300-level/ENGL379

London, among the world’s most vibrant queer metropolises, will be the destination for this study of LGBT history, literature, and culture. We will be participating in both the London Pride Festival and the London Literature Festival. Among other things, we will visit the Sigmund Freud house (founder of modern sexuality studies); the British Museum (home to the Elgin Marbles and other Greek artworks that inspired British queer aesthetics); the Adonis art gallery (one of the world’s premier gay art venues); Bloomsbury (the neighborhood where Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, and other queer writers and artists lived); the Tate Modern’s special exhibit, “Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera”; Soho (heart of today’s queer London); and the Sir Frederick Leighton house (an Orientalist fantasy where Leighton, the Victorian painter, lived and worked).

We will read and discuss selections from historical and literary works to coincide with our class events. We will also meet with local scholars, gallery directors, writers, and queer community organizers/activists to understand more fully the state of queer culture in contemporary London. In the evenings, we will attend theatrical, musical, and literary events. Day trips will include a visit to Oxford University, where Oscar Wilde studied and first styled himself an aesthete.

Students will be housed in dormitories in central London. Assignments will include four short (2-page) essays, plus a daily journal (10-page minimum). Significant reading in advance of the class will be required, as well as shorter readings during our stay in London.     

Faculty & Staff

Jason Rudy, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of English Literature at University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Rudy earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University, and is a specialist in nineteenth-century British literature and culture. Please contact Dr. Rudy for information about course content and itinerary.

For questions about the application, registration and pre-departure logistics, please contact the Study Abroad Office at 301-314-7473.