WOMN2200

TEXT AND GENDER

Offered: SEMESTER 2, 2009 (and every alternate year)

Text and Gender examines and analyses the social construction of sexual difference through a brief history of feminist thought, and through the reading of texts across the humanities. It examines the representation of sexual difference in art, history, literature, film, popular culture, psychoanalytic and political thought. Students explore issues such as the bases of description and evaluation of gender, and the implications in the meaning of sexual differences in all forms of mediating knowledge in society.

Working around key events and texts of the twentieth century that have been important in the theorising and practice of gender studies, the unit contextualises present theories and social debates around gender and work, art and activism, citizenship, colonisation and corporeality. It draws concretely on contemporary representations of these issues in popular culture, as well as identifying the values embedded in current political debates around the family, feminism, sex and power.

The unit can be counted towards a History, English or Women’s Studies major.

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

TEXTS:
Unit Reader (available from the University Bookshop)

Handbook link