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Romeo and Juliet - Dead. Arthur Dimmesdale - Dead. Jay Gatsby - Dead. In countless literary works, love and death often appear in conjunction with one another: death imagined as the extreme, oftentimes the only possible expression, of true love. Love, on the other hand, can take on various forms - mutual love, forbidden love, love that is not replied by another person, and in extreme cases toxic relationships. However, the close relationship between love and death in literature has often been studied from the viewpoint of heterosexual relationships. This seminar aims at looking at various representations of queering love in North American literature. Students will study and discuss various texts representing how, for example, the outbreak of AIDS, the fight for equal rights such as marriage and adoption, and the (ongoing) discrimination of LGBTQ+ people have affected the way love and death are dealt with as essential topics in North American Literature since the 20th century. |
