Dr Aiko Holvikivi

This course is compulsory on the MPhil/PhD in Gender, MSc in Gender, MSc in Gender (Research), MSc in Gender (Rights and Human Rights), MSc in Gender (Sexuality), MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, Media and Culture, MSc in Gender, Peace and Security and MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities. This course is available on the MSc in Social Research Methods. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is typically high. Priority is given to students in Gender Studies, for whom the course is mandatory. Students from outside this programme are welcome to apply, but may not get a place.

The course aims to enable students to: become familiar with the fullest range of gender theories with particular attention to the intersections of gender, sexuality and race; develop a critical appreciation of these different theories of gender; use gender theories to inform their appreciation of existing work in their own disciplines and in an interdisciplinary context; use the analysis of gender as a basis for case study evaluation and research.

It is a half unit course which runs for 10 weeks. It begins with a review of the formative influences on the development of gender theory, including the sex/gender distinction, race and intersectionality, production/reproduction.  It enables students to consider the implications for analysis of a variety of sites and topics including coloniality,  power and social and psychic structures of gender, representation, queer theory, nation, and rights. The course considers the impact of gender analysis on key areas of social science investigation, and develops these with particular attention to location, ethics and the importance of global and transnational dimensions. Our expectation is that this course provides a thorough grounding for work across all other courses and for the dissertation module.

This half-unit foundational course runs in the Autumn term. It is taught through lectures and seminars.

Short writing assignment in AT.

• hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge.
• Lugones, María. 2007. “Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System.” Hypatia 22(1): 186-209.
• Fraser, Nancy. 2016. Contradictions of capital and care. New Left Review, 100: 99- 117.
• Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing Gender. Routledge.
• Sara Ahmed. 2004 The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh University Press.
• Tamale, Sylvia. 2020. Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. Daraja Press.
• Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2013. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Harvard University Press
• Chen, Sally Xiaojin. 2020. “Relational Interaction and Embodiment: Conceptualizing Meanings of LGBTQ+ Activism in Digital China.” Communication and the Public 5(3-4): 134-148.

Coursework (100%, 3000 words) in the AT.