A History of Consciousness Eval.

Freud was an outstanding student whose considerable background of knowledge and fiercely creative intellect guaranteed his success in the course and helped to improve everyone's engagement with the course themes and texts. Freud's first paper was a rigorous and in depth critique of overly stable identitarian thinking in the context of the AIDS epidemic, where it sprung from homophobic contexts and led to deathly results. For his second paper, Freud presented an astute and advanced account of the Foucault and Sedgwick debate, expertly touching on all the major themes from each text without forgetting their political context. For the final paper, Freud presented an utterly brilliant and fascinating queering of the Star Wars film, attempting to subvert the hegemonic history of the Jedi's victory by focusing on the perverse power of the dark side. The paper represented a stunning application of the major themes of queer theory, drawing on the subtexts of difference, essentialism versus constructivism, and normativity in the films. In section, Freud was outstanding: his comments and questions each week were incredibly thoughtful and they fundamentally improved the section's appreciation for the course themes and concepts. In short, Freud was a dream student: insightful, dynamic and brilliant, especially at critically approaching the course texts.