Deborah Cohler, associate professor and chair of Women and Gender Studies, is the latest subject in a series of video profiles featuring faculty discussing their passions for teaching and research. She discusses her latest research, which explores changing home-front ideologies of gender, sexuality and citizenship in the U.S. in the post 9/11 era.
“I looked at the ways in which homosexuality was represented in the U.S. culture right after 9/11,” Cohler says in the video. “And with many other scholars, I was talking about the ways in which male homosexuality was projected onto Middle Eastern others in profoundly racist and xenophobic ways.”
She adds that SF State is an ideal place to merge her love for theory, practice, community, politics and engagement.
“Classrooms are messy, creative, wonderful places. And particularly at San Francisco State and Women and Gender Studies, I have students who care so passionately about their lives and about the material that we’re working on,” says Cohler, who joined SF State in 2002. “It's really a pleasure to try to create an environment where we can work out some of the really hard questions of history and culture — and to try to think productively and critically about how we want the world to be.”
Silvia Turchin directed the video. It is produced by the College of Liberal & Creative Arts Communication Team in association with Sleeping Tree Pictures.
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