This project came out of a course initially conceived as a Group Independent Study Project (GISP) named "Trans(literation): Literary and Cultural Studies of Gender-Difference" at Brown University, in the first semester of the 1998-1999 school year. By publishing our work on the web, the members of this GISP hope that the course materials will be used by educators, and students, and all interested in topics of gender and sexuality. We are also interested in maintaining this site as a database of various syllabi and resource materials related to academic studies of gender-difference and transgender issues. If you have a syllabus or information you would like to share, please send it to us!

Adapted into a course or workshop, our Transtudies project can provide a forum for discussion and analysis of the way the gender binary and its transgression is conceptualized in society today through fiction, non-fiction, film, theory, and cultural awareness. "Trans" and "gender-different" are terms chosen for their inclusivity: evoking transsexuals, transgendered people, intersexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens, androgynes, sex radicals, children diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, and anyone else who has ever been told they are "too masculine" or "too feminine," anyone who "traverses, bridges, blurs, or questions" the constructions of the gender to which they were assigned at birth.

Questions central to the project are:

What does it mean to break the rules of gender?

How is gender-difference conceptualized both in the United States and in other cultures, historically and contemporarily?

Is there such a thing as a "transubjectivity"? What are the potential uses or problems associated with such a concept?

How do gender studies intersect with queer theory?

What does a social or political movement based on gender-difference have to offer?

The exploration of these topics is valuable for any member of society: gender is one of the most highly personal, yet highly institutionalized forces in every person’s life. The texts studied show how gender has been biologized and constructed, especially in Western thought, and open a discourse on how it is being performed, questioned, and manipulated. Feel free to use and adapt the materials on this site however you wish.

Thanks to Professor Margaret Klawunn for being our faculty advisor on this project, as well as to everyone who contributed their ideas (there are too many to name!).

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