At the end of the course, students comprehend how gender and sexuality organize social life globally. During the course, we will examine the various ways in which gender and sexuality played out in the colonial era and how they shape contemporary political, social, and economic structures in different world regions today. We will study recent scholarship that discusses the multiple ways in which gender shapes global relations. In particular, students learn that gender is an integral element of post-colonial debates such as the critique of Orientalism and the ?white savior?narrative. By studying contemporary phenomena such as homonationalism and the headscarf debate in Europe, students will be familiarized with how gender is embedded in contemporary debates about migration. In this way, students gain a solid understanding of the various ways in which the category of gender intersects with other categories of analysis such as race, class, and nation. In addition to understanding how gender has shaped global relations in the past, the student will learn to analyze contemporary phenomena and debates through the category of gender and critically reflect on contemporary global developments and news coverage.

The course is an introduction to scholarship that discusses how gender and sexuality have shaped global politics in the past, and how the category gender is an integral element of contemporary global debates today. The course offers the student a robust understanding of the scholarship that views debates about contemporary phenomena such as migration, development aid and homonationalism through gender. The student learns how gender intersects with other categories of analysis such as race, class and nation. Theoretical debates are introduced through empirical case studies addressing various world regions such as Europe, the Middle East and the African continent.

Thursdays 12-16, not on week 37. 

Seminar Sessions:

6.9.2018 Introduction & Colonial Legacies I

20.9.2018 Colonial legacies II 

27. 9.2018 The Power of Representations and Revolutions: The Middle East

4.10.2018 Gender, Development and “Africa”

11.10.2018 Gender, Race and Global Migration 

18.10.2018 Headscarves and homonationalism:  Migration discourses in Europe

The course material will be given in the course moodle. In the first two sessions the following articles/ book chapters will be discussed. If possible read before the first session (select minimum 4 texts): 

Burton, Antoinette M. 1990. “The White Woman’s Burden: British Feminists and the Indian Woman,” Women’s International Forum Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 293- 308

Hiji, Nam and Cho, Grace M. 2018. “Yellow Fever: Desire is something that’s irrational, and often delusional. The New Inquiry. March 14. 2018. https://thenewinquiry.com/yellow-fever/

Kandiyoti, Deniz. 1988. "Bargaining with Patriarchy."  Gender & Society2 (3):274-290.

McClintock, Anne.1995. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context. New York & London: Routledge. (Chapters: Introduction; Chapter 1, “Lay of the Land”, pp. 21-36), Chapter 7, Olive Schreiner: The limits of Colonial Feminism). 

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade.“Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles”. Signs. Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter 2003), pp. 499-535

Salem, Sara. 2018. "On Transnationalist Feminist Solidarity: The Case of Angela Davis in Egypt "  Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society43 (2).

Scott, Joan Wallach. 2011. The Fantasy of Feminist History. Durham and London: Duke University Press. (Chapter: Introduction) 

Shohat, Ella. 2002. "Area Studies, Gender Studies, and the Cartographies of Knowledge". Social Text.72. 20 (3), S. 67–78.