Course overview
This course draws on critical perspectives from feminism, masculinity studies, queer theory, LGBTIQ+ studies and transgender studies to explore how dominant ideas about gender and sexuality are communicated, enforced and resisted in everyday life. It focuses on diverse media representations and cultural expressions, including advertising, film, music, art, writing and social media. Students develop sophisticated understandings of diverse ways that genders and sexualities are experienced and expressed in everyday life, and critical skills for interpreting and reflecting on them.
Course learning outcomes
- Effectively discuss and deploy critical resources from feminism, masculinity studies, queer theory, LGBTIQ+ studies and transgender studies to interpret and critically reflect on how dominant ideas about gender and sexuality are communicated, enforced and resisted in everyday life
- Demonstrate an insightful understanding of concepts of culture and how they intersect with understandings of gender and sexuality
- Include recognition of intersectional dimensions of cultural experiences and expressions of gender and sexuality within critical reflections on such experiences and expressions
- Effectively demonstrate an ability to recognise and critically reflect on expressions of gender and sexuality in diverse forms of media (e.g. screen depictions, memoir, popular music etc.)
- Critically reflect on their own experiences of gender and sexuality
- Demonstrate research literacy, through library searches, research techniques and skills, development of argument, and academic referencing
- Communicate persuasive, logical and coherent arguments based on evidence, and engage in critical debate