GENDER STUDIES

Drawing on a number of theories that have transformed of late the notion of gender in relation to other notions such as sex and sexuality, difference and differences, the body, subjectivity and identity, this Course intends to enquire into the ways in which the language of culture, religious and anthropological discourse, as well as the discourse of philosophy and science articulate the relationship of gender, the body and sexed identity; the Course will also enquire into the ways in which these discourses produce representations and images conveying gendered stereotypes in Western culture through the traditional binaries of nature-culture, body-mind, emotion-reason. Special attention will be given to those discursive constellations and cultural phenomena that have founded and consolidated, or subverted, gendered stereotypes, as well as to those theories that have challenged the epistemological models underlying such stereotypes, thus forcing new themes, subjects and methodologies into ‘high’ cultural contexts.

The notion of gender will be used as a tool to shed light on the interconnections between self and other, culture and society, the social and symbolic dimensions as well as several aspects of representation. This Course intends to enhance new theoretical and critical abilities by drawing on feminist epistemology whose perspectives can be profitably employed in the production of new knowledge. Students of Gender Studies will therefore investigate not just “the condition of women” as subjects and objects of enquiry, the relationships between men and women, or same-sex relationships, but they will become acquainted with issues and conceptual categories meant to expand the scope to those subjects and phenomena of the social imaginary, and to artistic-literary representations and self-representations so far excluded from the fields of traditional academic disciplines.

Teaching and group discussions in the classroom.

This Course will provide a theoretical and practical overview of issues bearing on the representation and self-representation of sexed and gendered identities from different perspectives. Special attention will be given to those theoretical paradigms traditionally marginalised in the humanities with the aim of offering students alternative models for the analysis of – mainly, but not exclusively – British literature and culture (including visual, media, and “pop” culture). The following issues will be analysed in depth:

Gender and sex: real and imaginary (dis)symmetries.

Gender inequalities and biological differences between men and women.

Symbolic, social, cultural, and historical construal of difference.

Gendered apprehension of otherness.

The body and signification.

Eros and desire.

Sexual orientation and identity.

Feminist studies.

Gender as a social power relation.

History of feminist political struggles.

The different forms of gendered violence.

The representation of the body in culture, literature, the arts, and the discourses of science and philosophy.

Gender as rhetorical device in literature, philosophy, the social sciences and new technologies.

Our methodology is a multi- and interdisciplinary approach with contributions from several trends of feminist criticism combined with additional analytical tools from diverse disciplines and theories such as Marxism, New Historicism, Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, postcolonial studies, lesbian and gay studies, queer theories, sexuality studies, body and embodiment theories, etc.

Module 1. Feminist Political Thought from Woolf to Wittig (Prof. S. Arcara)

• The Combahee River Collective Statement, Yale University website, pp. 1-11:

http://americanstudies.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Keyword%20Coalition_Readings.pdf

• de Beauvoir, S., ‘Introduction’ to The Second Sex, Vintage, 1989, University of Berkeley website, pp. xix-xxxvi:

http://burawoy.berkeley.edu/Reader.102/Beauvoir.I.pdf

• Delphy, C., ‘Patriarchy, Feminism, and Their Intellectuals’, in Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women’s Oppression, Verso Books, 2016, pp. 138-153
• Federici, S., ‘Wages against Housework’, Power of Women Collective and Falling Wall Press, 1975, pp. 1-8:
  https://monoskop.org/File:Federici_Silvia_Wages_Against_Housework_1975.pdf
• Guillaumin, C., ‘The Constructed Body’ in Reading the Social Body, eds. C. Burroughs, J.D. Ehrenreich, University of Iowa Press, 1993, pp. 40-60
• ‘Manifesto of Female Revolt’ (‘Manifesto di Rivolta Femminile’), University of Columbia website, pp. 36-40: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/feminism/manifesto.pdf
• Radicalesbians, The Woman Identified Woman, Know, Inc., 1970, pp. 1-4, Duke University Digital Library:
  https://repository.duke.edu/dc/wlmpc/wlmms01011
• Redstockings, ‘Manifesto’, privately printed, N.Y., 1969, n.p.:
  https://www.redstockings.org/index.php/rs-manifesto
• Wittig, M., ‘One is not born a woman’, Feminist Issues 1:2, 1981, pp. 47-54:
  https://medium.com/@thinobiafalx/monique-wittig-one-is-not-born-a-woman-74ed2fce4165
• Woolf, V., Una stanza tutta per sé/A Room of One’s Own (English and Italian text), Einaudi 1995, pp. 53-75; 95-99; 167-73. Or at Project Gutenberg:

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200791.txt

• “A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf”, The British Library website, p.1:
  https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-room-of-ones-own-by-virginia-woolf

Module 2. The Invention of Gender: Masculinity, Femininity and Their Others (prof. M.G. Nicolosi)

• J. Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, Routledge, New York and London, 1997 (available as ebook, 1^st ed. 2013), 200 pages.
• J. Pilcher, I. Whelehan, eds, 50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies, London: Sage 2004, only the following entries: Androcentrism (1-2); Dichotomy (24-26); Domestic Division of Labour (pp. 30-34); Double Standard (34-37); Family (43-47); Feminisms (48-51); First Wave Feminism (52-55); Gender (56-58); Masculinities (2-85); The Other (90-92); Patriarchy (93-96); Pornography (96-101); Power (115-119); Public/Private (124-128); Representation (135-139); Second Wave Feminism (144-147); Third Wave Feminism (169-172); Violence (172-175).

Out-of-print material will be made available through the platform Studium UniCT.

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

Some of the books listed above can be consulted in the Library.