Students will use cultural studies and arts and humanitie s approaches in order to grapple with the intricacy of black femme identity as a radical critique of sexuality, whiteness, gender and intersecting categories of oppression. The complexity of "femme" is revealed when each of those terms in put into question. Who or what constitutes queer? How does one present feminine; is that merely an aesthetic choice? What constitutes feminine? Does one have to be a womanto be feminine? For black femmes, whose femininity has been circumscribed and defined not only against butchness but also against white femininity, claiming "femme" can be a means to radically critique static categories of gender, race, and sexuality.