This course explores the interdisciplinary fields of feminist and gender theory, looking at their historical development across the humanities and social sciences but emphasising current developments in feminist and gender theorising around questions of activism, identity, embodiment, gender construction, queer theory, and the relationship between gender and sexuality. The primary objective of this course is for students to develop a broad understanding of a range of feminist approaches to analysing social structures, texts and cultural phenomena so that they can compare and apply these approaches in their written academic work and everyday life.
A Note About Course Content: In a course on gender, sexuality, and feminism, we will regularly be addressing questions of inequality, social exclusion, marginalisation and similar phenomena. Issues such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexual violence and related social ills are likely to arise regularly throughout the semester. As such, a blanket course content advisory applies. In order to tackle oppression we have to talk about it, sometimes explicitly. Every effort will be made to be as sensitive as possible to the effects such discussions can have, but please be aware that some readings and lectures will need to address directly these challenging topics.