This module offers students the chance to learn about LGBTQ literature and its development in English-speaking countries, as well as approaches to queer theory. This means analysing sexuality and gender and the representation of such identities in literature. Authors studied may include Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Alison Bechdel, Gore Vidal, and Sarah Waters, as well as children's books and young adult novels by Alex Sanchez, Nancy Garden, Ellen Wittlinger, and Marcus Ewert. Authors of theoretical texts looked at may include Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Leo Bersani, and Teresa de Lauretis. Understanding how LGBTQ characters are featured in literature also helps us to see how queer people are understood in a given society in general. This course also aims to look at a variety of genres in order to see how these different text types work and how they approach similar material in different ways.