Texas Christian University offers drag queen class to explore ‘queer worldmaking’
Breccan F. Thies
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Texas Christian University is offering a course on the “Queer Art of Drag,” where students will be taught about “drag performance as an outlet for social critique, pedagogy, and queer worldmaking.”
The course will be taught by Nino Testa, whose preferred pronouns are he/him when going by his name, but when wearing a dress and wig as the drag persona “Maria von Clapp” are she/her.
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“The gender binary is enforced through compulsory norms, harassment, and violence in service of a white-cis-heteropatriarchy,” the syllabus for the spring 2023 course says, adding that “theatricalizing gender” can expand “the possible queer worlds that we could inhabit.”
Students will be given $100 each to purchase drag costumes. They are expected to create drag personas for themselves and perform in the Protestant school’s annual drag show.
As part of the continued development of their drag persona, students will maintain a “drag worksheet,” which asks them to come up with a name, description, and “drag greeting,” as well as “strike a pose.”
The course, which is funded by an “Inclusive Excellence Grant” from the school’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, includes such commentaries as “The Gender Binary Is a Tool of White Supremacy” by Kravitz Marshall.
Other readings assigned for the class include “Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood” by Harper Keenan and Lil Miss Hot Mess, a video called “Drag Kids,” and Mary Zaborskis’s “Queer Childhoods and Drag Race.”
Assigned video performances include offerings from “LaWhore Vagistan” and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group that recently made headlines when the Los Angeles Dodgers honored them during a gay pride celebration.
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“The Department of Women & Gender Studies, in collaboration with community partners at the Gender Resource Office, The End, Spectrum, Westside Unitarian Church, local drag performers, and LGBTQ organizations in Fort Worth, has produced a series of opportunities to develop campus vocabulary and understanding of drag history and practice,” TCU’s website states.
Neither Testa nor TCU responded to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.