This course takes up questions of gender, sexuality, performance, and sound in art since 1945. Sexual politics have been understood almost exclusively in terms of visual and textual markers, yet their entanglement with the sensory and philosophical register of sound is extensive. Gender and sexuality cut through discourses on sound and sonic aesthetics, asking us to rethink both the history of sonic art and the status of sound in the arts more broadly. Likewise, attention to the sexual politics of sound within aesthetics and performance might compel us to reframe sexual difference, and sexual dissidence. We will study how artists have deployed sound--as part of performances, videos, installations, and sculptures, as well as in "sonic art"--in ways that offer material for queer and feminist thought. The role of musical, vocal, and auditory practices within political movements will also be considered. Course material will span artwork and popular culture as well as black studies, Marxist feminism, film theory, queer studies, psychoanalysis, visual studies, and art history. Reciprocally, we will explore how close attention to sound and sound studies might reshape central knots in feminist theory and queer theory. In addition to reading and listening assignments, students will complete a series of writing projects over the course of the semester. This course counts toward the Gender Studies minor. This course can satisfy an Arts program LINA (Interdisciplinary Arts) requirement, or a Visual Studies elective requirement.