Introduction to gender studies

The world is gendered. People, behaviour and nations are categorised as masculine or feminine. The masculine is the norm of theory and politics; women are seen in most cases as a special case. This course will offer an introduction to gender studies from a postcolonial studies perspective. We will discuss feminism, the social construction of gender, gender as a perspective of analysis and look at queer and intersectional criticism.

The course will offer brief introductions to critical theories in order to illustrate the basic approaches. We will read in particular theoretical texts from India. The meetings will be organised interactively. The students will be asked to apply the theories on the basis of the course literature both to their life in the Czech Republic and to development studies.

Handout as pdf

Time table

The course literature will be made available as pdf by the middle of September.

Credit requirements:

• register yourself in STAG (DEV1)
• and then register for a presentation latest by 27th September with Simona Šafaríková (please pay attention to having same sized groups for all presentations)
• students can miss only 1 sessions from 4
• reading for each session is obligatory
• each student has to be part of a group presenting the literature for one session
• form of the presentation:
  • 15 minutes
  • visualised
  • content of the presentation: see questions in the respective sessions
  • presentations should be sent to the lecturer (class@urmila.de) by the Monday before the presentation
  • will be discussed with the lecturer on the Wednesday before the presentation (place and date will be communicated later by email)