WOMN2201

SEX, BODIES, SPACES: GENDER AND POPCULTURE

Offered: SEMESTER 1, 2009 (and every alternate year)

This unit explores the twin themes of bodies and sexualities in the ‘spaces’ of contemporary Western culture. Utilising a range of popular cultural forms, sites and events which are most accessible – television, cinema, magazines; household, shops and workplaces; and popular understandings of medicine, science and technology – the unit involves students in a series of critical engagements, made all the more compelling because of the apparent immediacy and familiarity of the subject matter. The unit addresses a number of questions: why have the subjects of sexualities and the body become the focus of so much interest across a broad range of disciplines? how can we denaturalise and problematise normative gender categories by setting gendered identities in cultural contexts? what important contributions have been made to the field by recent work on masculinities? how can the practices of everyday life be interrogated to yield insights about the relationships between the body, gendered identities, and prevailing cultural ‘norms’?

The unit contributes to majors in English or Women's Studies, complements a number of existing discipline-based units in the Faculty which focus on gender issues, and introduces students to important interdisciplinary perspectives at this level.

TEACHING:
Upper Level unit teaching is normally three hours per week over ten weeks.

TEXTS:
Unit Reader (available from Coop Bookshop)

Handbook Link