Universität Wien

140137 SE VM4 - VM7 - Gender, Sexuality and 'Race' in (Post)colonial History (2014W)

7.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 14 - Orientalistik, Afrikanistik, Indologie und Tibetologie
Continuous assessment of course work
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Tuesday 07.10. 13:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG2 Internationale Entwicklung, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1
  • Tuesday 14.10. 13:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG2 Internationale Entwicklung, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1
  • Tuesday 28.10. 13:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG2 Internationale Entwicklung, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1
  • Tuesday 04.11. 13:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG2 Internationale Entwicklung, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1
  • Tuesday 18.11. 13:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG2 Internationale Entwicklung, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1
  • Tuesday 25.11. 13:15 - 16:00 (ehem. Seminarraum 10 Hauptgebäude, Tiefparterre Stiege 5 Hof 3)
  • Tuesday 02.12. 13:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG2 Internationale Entwicklung, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1
  • Tuesday 09.12. 13:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum SG2 Internationale Entwicklung, Sensengasse 3, Bauteil 1

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

In the process of Europeans' colonial encounters with indigenous others since the 16th century, the so-called superiority of Western culture was asserted in many different ways, including judgments and norms concerning sexuality, 'proper' gender relations and family organisation. These normative discourses functioned as signs and symbols of the alleged Occidental superiority versus the presumptive Oriental inferiority of colonised subjects. Accordingly, constructions of gender, sexuality, and 'race' are inherently intertwined with the history of European colonial expansion and political governance in colonial Asia and Africa and in settler communities. Through an examination of the writings and images of and about colonial missionaries, politicians, and social critics from the early modern period to the post-colonial era, students will acquire an understanding of the ways in which dynamics tied to gender, sexuality and 'race' were implicated in colonialism.

Course Plan:

Week 1: (7 Oct) Introducing Gender and Sexuality in Colonialism
Week 2: (14 Oct) Colonial rule, 'Race', Gender and Sexuality
Week 3: (28 Oct) Science and the construction of Sex and 'Race'
Week 4: (4 Nov) Representations of Gender, Sexuality and 'Race'
Week 5: (18 Nov) Contact Zones: Cultural brokers and Missionaries
Week 6: (2 Dec) Feminism and the Politics of 'Race'
Week 7: (9 Dec) Resisting Colonialism

Assessment and permitted materials

Students will be evaluated on regular attendance and participation, short reflection papers for each session and a final substantive paper.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

After finishing the course, you will
-have been introduced to the historical evolution and scientific justifications of gender relations and constructions of 'racial' difference as they emerged in the Western world and the contact zones established by European imperialisms
-have read key thinkers and topics in the field of gender, 'race', sexuality and (post)colonial history
- have learned about the ways in which the making of gender, sexuality and 'race' is crucial to the power relations in (post)colonial politics
- have engaged with the interplay of gender, sexuality, 'race' on the level of representation, structures and everyday practices

Examination topics

In this course, students are expected to participate actively in classroom discussions and to bring in and respond to materials relating to the topics addressed. The specified compulsory reading (book chapters and articles) needs to be studied autonomously. In every session we will discuss the literature together and critically assess its contributions, as well as applying it to primary documents, such as travel diaries and parliamentary discussions. The three hour sessions will generally combine a lecture format in which the readings can be contextualised and difficult terms clarified, with interactive exercises and discussions.

Reading list

(Selection)
- Alarcón, N. (1989) 'Traddutora, Traditora: A Paradigmatic Figure of Chicana Feminism', Cultural Critique, 13: 57-87.
- Amidon, K. S. (2007) 'Carrie Chapman Catt and the Evolutionary Politics of Sex and Race, 1885-1940', Journal of the History of Ideas, 68(2): 305-328.
- Bernasconi, R. (2001) 'Who Invented the Concept of Race: Kant's Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race', in: Race. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 11-36.
- Burton, A. (1994) 'A Girdle round the Earth: British Imperial Suffrage and the Ideology of Global Sisterhood' in: Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915. University of North Carolina Press, pp. 171-204.
- Ghosh, D. (2004) 'Gender and Colonialism: Expansion or Marginalization', The Historical Journal, 47(3): 737-755.
- Gilman, S. L. (1985) 'Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature', Critical Inquiry, 12(1): 204-242.
- Gouda, F. (1995) 'Gender, Race and Sexuality' in: Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in in the Netherlands Indies 1900-1942. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 157-193.
- Legg, S. (2003) 'Gendered Politics and Nationalised Homes: Women and the anti-colonial struggle in Delhi, 1930-47', Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 10(1):7-27
- Levine, P. (2003) 'Colonial Medicine and the Project of Modernity' in: Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire. New York: Routledge, pp. 61-90.
- McClintock, A. (1995) [selected section of] 'The Lay of the Land: Genealogies of Imperialism' in: Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. London: Routledge, pp. 21-56.
- Mills, S. (1991) 'Gender and the Study of Colonial Discourse'; and 'Mary Kingsley: Travels in West Africa (1897)', in: Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women's Travel Writing and Colonialism. London: Routledge, pp. 47-63 and 153-174.
- Scully, P. (2005) 'Malintzin, Pocahontas, and Krotoa: Indigenous Women and Myth Models of the Atlantic World', Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 6(3).
- Stoler, A. L. (2002) 'Carnal Know ledge and Imperial Pow er: Gender and Morality in the Making of Race', in: Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 41-78.
- Woollacott, A. (2006) 'Women and Gender in Anti-Colonial and Nationalist Movements' in: Gender and Empire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 104-121.

Association in the course directory

VM4, VM7

Last modified: Tu 01.10.2024 00:12