University of Warwick Department of Sociology Module: International Perspectives on Gender, 2008/9 Convenor: Caroline Wright Tutors: Caroline Wright, Dominic Pasura Introduction

Week 3 Gender, School and Work in Contemporary Britain

Week 4 Gender, Family and Sexuality in Contemporary Britain

Week 5 Gender and State Socialism: The USSR

Week 6 Reading Week

Week 7 Gender and Post-Soviet Russia

Week 8 Gender and State Socialism: China

Week 9 Feminism, Orientalism and Nationalism

Week 10 South Africa: Apartheid and the articulation of gender, ‘race’ and class

Spring Term Lectures
Week 11 South Africa: Gender, resistance and the post-apartheid era

Week 12 Gender, Colonialism and Nationalism in India

Week 13 Gender and Post-colonial Nation-building in India

Week 14 Gender and Religious Fundamentalism

Week 15 Gender, Religion and the State in Iran

Week 16 Reading Week

Week 17 Multiple Meanings: Islamic women and the ‘veil’

Week 18 Women, the Nationalist Struggle and the Irish Free State

Week 19 Gender and Modernisation in the Irish Republic

Summer Term Lectures

Week 21 Revision Lecture

Week 22 Revision Lecture

Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module the student should have an understanding of:

1. 
   the diverse social and cultural manifestations of gender in the twentieth and twenty first centuries in Britain, Russia, China, South Africa, India, Iran and Ireland
   
2. 
   the complex ways in which individual capacities to exercise agency are differentiated by gender
   
3. 
   the way in which gender is constructed in articulation with other social and cultural identities, such as ‘race’, ethnicity, age, sexuality, class, religion
   
4. 
   the relationship between gender and nationalism, and gender and orientalism
   
5. 
   the diversity of social movements established to tackle unequal gender relations and the challenges they face
   

With reference to the above students should be able to:

1. 
   understand and analyse the historical, social and political processes which underpin manifestations of gender in different parts of the world
   
2. 
   locate, retrieve, process and evaluate a wide range of materials about gender manifestations internationally
   
3. 
   participate effectively in seminars
   
4. 
   draw on a range of sources to construct their own reasoned arguments
   
5. 
   make scholarly presentations, verbal and written, on international perspectives on gender
   

1. 
   assess critically comparative social and cultural manifestations of gender, the complex ways in which gender is constructed in articulation with other social and cultural identities, and the differential impacts this has on individual capacities to exercise agency
   
2. 
   locate, retrieve, process and evaluate a wide range of materials about gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, age, sexuality, class, religion and nationality in the twenieth and twenty first centuries
   
3. 
   evaluate competing and complementary theoretical frameworks for understanding the interaction of gender with other social and cultural identities
   
4. 
   make scholarly presentations, verbal and written, on the substantive and theoretical issues covered in the module material
   

1. 
   A framework of 16 lectures that establish the module’s outer limits and internal logic
   
2. 
   Weekly seminars, over 16 weeks, for structured discussions, including student presentations on specific topics
   
3. 
   Two class essays, with written feedback
   
4. 
   Self-directed individual and collaborative study in the library and on the internet, in preparation for seminar discussion and presentations
   

determine the final mark for this module)

One 2,000 word essay (due Tuesday 28 April 2009) 33% AND

One three-hour examination in the Summer term 66%

2. 
   ‘Equal opportunities in the workplace: fiction not fact’. Discuss.
   

2. 
   How ‘symmetrical’ is the contemporary British family?
   

2. 
   What is the crisis in the British family a crisis about? How is the crisis gendered?
   

2. 
   Why might state socialism in the Soviet Union have been described as patriarchal?
   

2. 
   How is gender implicated in nationalist projects? Use particular examples in your answer.
   

2. 
   ‘It is impossible to make sense of the lives of female domestic workers in apartheid South Africa without analysing the complex intersections of class, race and gender’. Discuss.
   

2. 
   To what extent has the end of apartheid brought gender equality in South Africa?
   

2. 
   Critically assess the symbolic and material roles of Indian women and men in the nationalist movement to overthrow British rule.
   

All the additional readings listed below for each topic are available in the library and should be used when doing more in depth work, eg. for a seminar presentation, class essay, assessed essay or revision for exams.