Queer(y)ing pedagogy and cultural studies: critical reflections on teaching sexuality

The purpose of this chapter is to propose a new path for queer theory that will more cogently assist sexual diversity and cultural studies to address and expand our understandings, knowledge and experience of human sexuality. Queer theory as a non-normative critical humanist approach has a profound relationship with real, everyday emancipatory pedagogy. When queer theory is entrenched within a cultural studies pedagogical context it has the potential to radically shift the learning experience of students. Our intentions in this chapter are tripartite in focus: to offer a critique of pedagogical space and how it incorporates or not, queer subjectivities and queer practices; to write self-reflexively using a ficto-critical narrative voice about our teaching methodology, experience and practice, and to offer new conditions of possibility in queer(y)ing pedagogy based on our lived experience and critical inquiry. The critical reflections in this chapter are informed by the following experiences of teaching sexuality at two universities in New South Wales, Australia: Southern Cross University (SCU) and the University of Sydney (UniSyd.)