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Gender
Studies units at 100 level - HAF101 Gender, Power and Change and HAF102 The Representation of Gender
were introduced in
1999.
Because of the Interdisciplinary nature of Gender Studies,
prerequisite for all 200 and 300 level units is a pass in any
25% unit at 100 level (i.e. a pass in any discipline listed
under Group 1 in the BA schedule).
Students wishing to complete
a major in Gender Studies must take units with a combined weight
of 75% at the 200 and 300 levels (i.e. passes in any 6 units
at 12.5% of Gender Studies options).
At least 50% of total units
must be taken within the Faculty of Arts.
The core unit (HAF215/315
Contemporary Feminist Thought: Themes, Issues and Conflicts)
is compulsory for students undertaking a major in Gender Studies
and may be taken at the 200 or 300 level.
Gender Studies units
Level 100
HAF101 Gender, Power and Change
Explores the ways in which power works to shape gender by examining the gendered nature of the institutions and experience of education, government, work, violence, law and other areas of life using a range of disciplinary perspectives. The unit stresses the ways in which we negotiate gender, albeit within the limits of history and place, and includes focus on organised movements for change. This is done against a background of the history of developments in feminism and Women`s/Gender Studies over the last thirty years. Attention is paid to contemporary gender issues in Australia and their global context.
HAF102 The Representation of Gender
Explores the ways in which gender is represented across a variety of cultural settings, with an emphasis on popular culture -- television, film, advertisements, magazines, newspapers, etc. The unit considers gendered representations of sport, race and ethnicity, nation, sexuality and other phenomena. It introduces a range of approaches that are useful in understanding popular representations of gender. The unit also examines the varying approaches that have been used to intervene in cultural representations of gender, including the demand for positive images of women, the production of feminist art and films, the re-valuing of `women`s genres`, the parody of traditional forms, and the appropriation of popular culture.
Level 200/300
HAF202/302 Sexualities: Histories, Representation, Politics
nvestigates various ways in which sexuality is both a distinct part of our experience and our world, and also always in interaction with other aspects of cultural and social life like gender, class, age, race and nation. The unit emphasises thinking critically about the ways in which sexuality is represented in a variety of settings, the power relations produced through discourses of sexuality, and the ways in which sexuality is lived by diverse people, drawing primarily on the Australian context. The unit draws on approaches from the history of sexuality, cultural studies, and feminist, gay and lesbian, and queer scholarship. It makes extensive use of Australian independent film as a way of presenting alternative representations of sexuality.
HAF203/303 Gender, Sexuality and the Past
Introduce students to critical accounts of the ways Australia's past is represented through ideas about gender and sexuality. The unit focuses on recent representations of/about Australian history in oral histories, film, tv and other popular media, and in political debates. It considers ways that representations of the past interact with and shape personal and collective memories to form the present, with an emphasis on contests over the past. It discusses the challenges to conventional histories posed by 'adding in' those often left out, and, further, by understanding gender and sexuality as central categories in history. Topics to be discussed may include federation, Gallipoli, the removal of indigenous children from their families, battles over women's reproductive bodies, pre-1970s homosexual sub-cultures and others.
HAF205/305 Buffy to Big Brother
This unit uses recent feminist and cultural studies interdisciplinary approaches to move on from HAF102 The Representation of Gender to consider a range of concerns regarding gender and sexuality in relation to contemporary popular culture. It will have a particular focus on new popular culture phenomenon. The unit will include discussions of a selection of topics from the following: the gendered nature of genres, eg reality tv, soaps, horror films, action films; the gendered nature of fan cultures eg Buffy/Angel online communities, Star Trek; magazines, celebrity and stars; the gendered nature of reception, eg the phenomenon of cult tv programs like Sex & The City, and Queer as Folk; the gendering of particular sub-cultures and counter-cultures, eg punk, gothic, hip-hop, grrrl culture.
HAF215/315 Contemporary Feminist Thought: Themes, Issues and Conflicts
Provides an introduction to themes, issues and conflicts in contemporary feminist thought in the Western world. Particular attention is paid to the shift from the unifying themes in earlier feminist theorising to the destabilising influences of recent social theory upon feminism. The issues to be addressed centre around debates about the category of `woman`, the politics of difference, the basis of feminist knowledge, the conception of power, the body, the stability of sexed identity and feminist engagements with mainstream politics. There is an emphasis on applying feminist theoretical tools to contemporary debates and events within feminism and in mainstream public life.
Cross-listed Gender Studies units - Level 200/300
Please check handbook links for more details. Some course are offered in alternate years so please confirm with the appropriate school.
HPA270/370 Sex, Gender and Philosophy
Considers the impact that recent theorising on sex and gender issues is having in philosophy. In particular, the unit examines the challenges that feminist theory makes to philosophy and philosophical practices. It also reflects on the possibilities that philosophy offers to the rethinking of gender roles and sexualities in contemporary life. The material is discussed in relation to several topics, such as the body, technology, the history of philosophy and feminism, sex roles and sexualities, equality and difference.
HEA257/357 British Literature 1800-1850
Offers an opportunity to study classic texts in British literature from the first half of the 19th century. Explores cultural pressures and changes of this particular period through the study of canonical poetry and prose. The works of a number of authors, including William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and the Bronte sisters, are studied. This unit complements, but is not a prerequisite for, HEA204/304 British Literature 1850-1900.
HAB232/323 Aboriginal Women
Provides students with an understanding of the roles, functions and status of women in past and present Aboriginal societies from Aboriginal womens' perspectives. Particular areas of study include feminism and racism, gender politics, Aboriginal women and power, and Aboriginal women and social issues.
HGA272/372 Gender and Power (NB Launceston & Distance)
Explores the complexities of power in relation to gender. The concept of gender is examined from a variety of contemporary feminist and postmodern theories to show how gender/sexuality is a primary way of signifying relationships of power. Theories of power are also critically examined to explore how power works in everyday life. The unit goes on to analyse how gendered power is constructed and the ways in which it affects women and men in specific social settings such as the workplace and bureaucracy.
ESG778 Language, Gender and Communication in Education
This unit is part of a program of study in communication, gender and education. The unit develops participant`s awareness of gender issues embedded in language and the implications of these for learning, teaching and education. This leads to the establishment of principles to be applied to a case study approach which asks participants to observe their teaching or other professional situations and to examine the gender related differences and patterns of communication which exist and which may influence learning. A transformative approach to teaching and learning is an important part of the course.
ESG780 Education of Women and Girls
Reviews recent research on women`s education in western societies and the teaching and performance of girls in our classrooms. Understanding the implications of this research for classroom and professional practice is an important objective of the unit. This unit makes important connections with the education of boys. It examines how constructions of gender impact on the educational opportunities for both boys and girls. It moves towards a transformative agenda.
FST207 Fashioning the Body
he unit focuses on the body as a site of cultural transformation, investigating the various ways in which the body has been moulded and adorned in accordance with culturally defined ideals. It covers such topics as facial decoration, hairstyling, tattooing, scarification, the slender body, the muscular body, cosmetic surgery, and male and female dress.
HPA271/371 Philosophy and the Body
Feminist philosophy, psychoanalysis, existential phenomenology and queer theory have raised stimulating questions about the body. How important are our bodies to our identity? Can I change my gender? Do men and women experience the world differently? Can there be an ethics of sexual difference? The unit examines how the body is theorised, how it interacts with questions of culture and class, and explores the implications of our understanding of the body and gender for epistemology, ethics and politics. Students of philosophy, gender studies, fine arts and psychology will find this an exciting unit.
HPA242/342 Law, Society and Morality
This is a fully on-line unit in applied philosophy. Students will consider the relationship between the individual and the State, which encompasses the relations between one's personal life, fellow citizens and the law. The unit begins with an introduction to some philosophical accounts of the basis of social life and the moral justification of law. It goes on to consider a range of contemporary social issues. Many of the debates canvassed in the unit concern the scope of personal liberty, especially in relation to sexuality and the family. Topics include morality within the family; sexuality and marriage law; reproductive rights, surrogacy and the law; sado-masochism and assault.
HTA205/305 Gender in European Thought
Europeans have expressed their ideas and beliefs about gender and sexuality in a variety of ways which have differed over time. Those beliefs have had an enormous effect on the way we live our lives. What beliefs were held, at what times, and by whom? How were notions of gender and sexuality shaped? The unit examines these issues in the context of persecutions of women as witches and the policing of sexual preference.
HGA207/307 Sociology of Law
Provides a sociological perspective on the relationship between law and society through a critical analysis of the basic processes of law, issues of social power and legal institutions, and law reform and social change. The aims of the subject are to evaluate the social basis of the construction of the legal subject; to assess liberal conceptions of rights and justice; and to analyse the relationship between law and social inequality by considering issues related to rurality, disability, class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity.
ESG781 Education and Women's Careers
Examines critical policies and practices in women's education. Feminist and anti-feminist theories about education are included. There is an emphasis on students analysing their own education experiences and career opportunities. The relationship between gender and work will be explored. There is an examination of the cultural ideologies that separate men's work from women's work. Changing attitudes towards the role of women are examined. This unit examines current issues which challenge, constrain and sustain career pathways for both women and men.
ESG779 Literature, Gender and Education
This unit is part of a program devoted to communication, gender and education. Selected literature is examined to develop an awareness of the literary narrative as a shaper of changing human subjectives. The unit studies the effects of both language and literature on the understanding of gender difference and how these influence learning and teaching style and the choice of materials. It also studies changing views of the lives of women and men in the literature studied and the implications these views may have for the formulation of educational goals. The unit encourages a transformative approach to the teaching of literature in classrooms which is informed by a social justice agenda.
FST214/215 Imaging the Body
Analyses the various ways in which the body has been depicted in Western visual culture, examining the changing social and cultural meanings which have been invested in the body both in past and in contemporary imagery. The unit covers such topics as: the portrait; the female and male nude; non-Western bodies; the mechanical body; the medicalised body; the body as political symbol and the sacred body.
HGA212/312 Love, Family and Sexuality: East--West Comparison
All civilisations develop preferred interpretations of the relationships between love, sexuality and family, privileging some of these relationships and marginalising others. The unit outlines western-based developments in and explanations of these relationships in a comparative exploration with a number of specific Asian socio-cultural examples. Theoretical debates on family and on sexual identity are examined to see how well they explain the social and cultural diversity encountered, as well as the changes currently taking place in these various societies. The unit also critically reviews the processes by which some western accounts continue to use notions of family and of sexuality to exoticise Asian social relations and values.
HGA221/321 The Individual and Society
ocuses on social interaction as providing a point of articulation between the macro analysis of social institutions and identity formation and change at the level of the individual.
HEA258/358 American Women Writing
Examines the work of women writing in the United States between the middle of the 19th century and the First World War. It considers the literary strategies by which they negotiated the gender restrictions and stereotyping of their time, and asks how their specific circumstances (including class, education, marital status, race, and region) affected the public voice of their writing.
HEA213/313 Medieval and Gothic Fictions
Examines the two related notions of 'medieval' and 'Gothic' as these terms are used to understand specific literary, historical and cultural fictions. The unit begins with invention of the Gothic in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and traces developments through mid-19th and 20th-century forms. The unit includes some versions of contemporary medieval and Gothic fiction in television and film media.
HEA227/327 Ovid and Chaucer
Examines the relations between two major authors of the western canon, classical Ovid and medieval Chaucer. In the case of Ovid, we will examine Heroides, a collection of letters by mythological women to their lovers, and Metamorphoses, a quasi-epic poem centrally concerned with sexual passion. In the case of Chaucer we will examine the Legend of Good Women, Chaucer's legendary rollcall of virtuous women and immoral men, The Book of the Duchess, Chaucer's elegy on the death of his patron's beautiful wife and The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's account of a group excursion to Canterbury and the stories told along the way. We will pay particular attention to specific relations between Ovid, Chaucer and their antecedents, intertextuality and the trope of translatio studii, literary and historical contexts, questions of genre and the representation of sexual politics and desire.
HEF322 French-Canadian Women Writers
With the `Quiet Revolution` as a political and cultural background, women writers have placed an important, innovative and inspiring role in 20th-century French-Canadian literature. The unit focuses on works by three major writers: Sur la route d`Altamont and Bonheur d`occasion by Gabrielle Roy, La Sagouine by Antonine Maillet and Kamouraska by Anne Hébert. They raise issues such as the place of women in society and the burden of poverty and deal with the French linguistic and cultural specificity in an Anglo-speaking environment.
HTA223/323 Islam, Law and Women -- Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Explores the historical and contemporary situation of Muslim women in the specific context of the interplay of religion and law in Islam, with special reference to the vast Muslim world of South Asia. The region provides an excellent comparative framework to explore the problems of Muslim women, law and religion in the varying contexts of their secular and Islamic constitutions on the one hand, and democratic and authoritarian governments on the other. The explication of the general and theoretical issues concerning religion, law and women in Islam will be grounded on historical and empirical illustrations drawn largely from the three countries in this region -- India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The raging controversies surrounding Muslim Personal Law and the issue of Uniform Civil Code in relation to women, including its underlying politics, will receive particular attention.
HSD240/340 Women and Public Policy
Examines the role of women in public decision-making in Australia. The unit will specifically address the issues of women as citizens and consumers of policy; women as public officials making and delivering policy; and women as politicians representing the electorate in policy-making.
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