Sex and politics in a global perspective

We invite PhD and master students in Bergen to a cross-disciplinary course on dynamics between sex and politics in a global perspective.

The main focus will be on how LGBTQ issues are used for political purposes around the globe.

The course will run throughout the 2025 spring semester. There will be both regular lectures that are also open for the public, and a 3-day gathering in May (see dates under Course dates).

The regular lectures are public, but registration is required and attendance is mandatory for students interested in completing the course with credits.

See more information about course dates, registration, credits, and course organizers under the headings on red background (on your computer: to the right, on your mobile: below).

More information about the course content, literature, three-day gathering and essay:

About the course

Sexuality, LGBTQ issues in particular, have become a politically hot topic across the globe. Queer and trans rights and the LGBTQ movement are increasingly instrumentalized or co-opted towards various political ends. In this course, we are particularly interested in how the divisive "pink line", as South-African journalist and writer Mark Gevisser calls it, functions in different geographical and political contexts.

The "pink line" points to how queer and trans issues are being weaponized in the new cultural wars, dividing those clamping down on LGBT rights and freedoms on the one hand, and those accepting or even priding themselves on sexual and gender diversity on the other.

The "pink line" serves geopolitical purposes, as well as dividing domestic politics and polarizing public debates, often with devastating consequences for those at the receiving end of the cultural wars.

The course focuses mainly, but not exclusively, on dynamics of polarization and how queer and trans issues are used as pretext for violence, either by pursuing a strategy of homonationalism, pinkwashing and civilizing mission that sanitizes Islamophobia, or by accusing gender and sexual minorities and LGBT legislations for threatening the natural, national and civilizational order.

Either way, the "pink line" is part of bigger political projects, most often authoritarian projects of consolidating power. And in many cases, the aim is not merely to limit various minority peoples’ equal access to rights, but to dismantle or capture democratic institutions and set up new forms of authoritarian democracy – what Kim Scheppele aptly calls the "Frankenstate".

At the same time, there are modes of political activism and movements that keep focusing on radical-progressive coalition politics, politics of hope and politics of queer joy – indicative of the co-constitutive relationship between sex and politics.

We encourage students to contribute with theoretical or empirically based analyses related to the overall course description and literature.

Each student must familiarise themselves with the course literature and take active part in discussions and attend at least 75 percent of regular lectures/seminars and the whole 3-day gathering, including parallel sessions with student presentations.

The course programme will be available in January, prior to the deadline for registration.