Education :: Centre for Gender and Diversity

Education

Minor Crucial Differences

Coordinator: Dr. Agnes Andeweg

Overview of the programme

September - October 2009 (8 weeks, 12 ECTS) Course A: The Making of Crucial Differences

November - December 2009 (8 weeks, 12 ECTS) Course B: Crucial Differences in the 21st Century

January 2010 (4 weeks, 6 ECTS) Course C: Crucially Different Lives

Course A: The Making of Crucial Differences (8 weeks, 12 ECTS)

Course coordinator: Dr. Agnes Andeweg

The Making of Crucial Differences (8 weeks, Sept-Oct 2009) deals with historical configurations of race, class, gender and sexuality. It looks at the way in which self and other, black and white, east and west, male and female, hetero- and homosexual, upper, middle and lower class were conceptualised and sometimes newly invented in science, philosophy and social theory, and how these concepts were constructed and ‘lived’ in social reality. The diffuse process of what is known as Enlightenment is taken as a meaningful starting point. This political and cultural transformation promised liberty, democracy and equality between races, sexes and classes, yet at the same time it has built the crucial forms of in- and exclusion which structure society and individual identities until the present day.

Course B: Crucial Differences in the 21st Century (8 weeks, 12 ECTS)

Course coordinator: Dr. Agnes Andeweg

Crucial Differences in the 21st Century(8 weeks, Nov-Dec 2009) deals with contemporary configurations of race, class, gender and sexuality. It looks at the way in which the crucial differences are constituted nowadays. We will study how constructions of gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality are contested and how they are changing. We are especially interested in intersectional approaches, which state that crucial differences interact with each other and are often defined in terms of each other. This course is radically interdisciplinary, with lecturers from Law, Economy, Health Sciences and Arts & Culture.

Course C: Crucially Different Lives (4 weeks, 6 ECTS)

Course coordinator: Dr. Agnes Andeweg

Crucially Different Lives studies biographies and autobiographies of ‘crucially different’ subjects and how the stories of their lives are told. Literature and other materials will be announced. In this minor you will not only read key-sources and interdisciplinary academic articles/ books from the domains of gay studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, social history and science studies, but also novels, (auto) biographies and films which represent the way in which crucial differences were created and lived.

Minor Crucial Differences
Information: e-mail
Internet: website
Registration: e-mail

Courses at the UCM

Overview of the courses

September - October 2009 (5 ECTS) HU105 Pop songs and Poetry: Theory and Analysis

February - March 2010 (Introductory, 5 ECTS) HU203 Cultural Studies I: ‘Race’, Sexuality, Gender and Class in Historical Perspective

April - May 2010 (5 ECTS) HU211 Cultural Studies II: reading contemporary culture

April - May 2010 (5 ECTS) HU218 Literary Negotiations of Modernity: the Case of Gothic Fictions

HU105 Pop songs and Poetry: Theory and Analysis

Course coordinator: Prof. dr. Maaike Meijer, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Centre for Gender and Diversity

Semester	Period	ECTS	Concentration
Fall	1	5	Humanities

Prerequisites

None

Objectives

To analyze pop songs and poems in depth;
To explore the theory of the lyric;
To integrate gender and diversity into the study of the lyric;
To become familiar with a number of classic Anglo-American poems and influential pop songs;

Description of the course

This course is based on the following textbook: Helen Vendler. Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology. Second edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002. In three respects we shall amplify Vendler’s book:
First, by reading some of the theory on the lyric by literary theorists such as Jonathan Culler, Barbara Johnson, Veronica Forrest-Thomson, Jan de Roder, and others. As an academic, you must learn to read literary theory from firsthand sources.
Second, by applying all of the chapters of Vendler’s book to modern songs. Songs are also poems, although they are never considered in the conventional histories of poetry and in lyric theory. This is a strange omission, for not only do the “lyrics” of songs show all properties of poetry, the music of the song can also be seen as an exteriorization or enhancement of the musical element of language, emphasized in “regular” poetry through the use of rhyme, rhythm, structure, and images. The lack of attention to the pop song in books on poetry makes these books a bit outdated. Aim of this course is to give the theory of poetry a new life, by reconnecting it with the song.
Finally we will amplify Vendler’s book by focusing on gender, ethnicity and sexuality as relevant categories of analysis in the study of poetry and song. There are significant differences in the ways in which male and female poets and singers express themselves: differences in themes, in the intertextual universes poets/singers choose to position themselves, in the use of genre, in forms of addressing the reader. We will address the question how gender, ethnicity and sexuality could be integrated into the theory of the lyric.

Literature

Vendler, H. (2002). Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology. (2nd ed.). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
E-readers

Instructional format

Tutorial group meetings, lectures and film viewings.

Examination

Writing a poem or pop song of your own
Performance of a poem or song
Midterm essay
Presentation
Final essay

HU203 The Making of Crucial Differences: ‘Race’, Sexuality, Gender, and Class in Historical Perspective

Course coordinator: Dr. Agnes Andeweg, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Centre for Gender and Diversity

Semester	Period	ECTS	Concentration
Fall	1	5	Humanities

Prerequisites

None.

Objectives

To acquaint students with historical configurations and intersections of ‘race’, class, gender and sexuality;
To acquaint students with the way these categories of difference were conceptualised and sometimes newly invented in science, philosophy and social theory;
To acquaint students with the way in which these configurations have structured cultural texts and images, individual identities and organisations;
To acquaint students with the way in which such intersecting categories of difference have constituted (and still constitute) inequalities and differences of power, resulting in invisibility, restricted access to sources etc.

Description of the course

This course offers a historical inquiry into the evolution of intersecting categories of difference: gender, sexuality, class, ‘race’, from the eighteenth century until World War II.

It aims, firstly, to trace and illustrate the ways in which the Enlightenment has provided a rationale to mark gendered, classed and racialized boundaries in science which, more often than not, resulted in inequalities. These inequalities became embedded in European society in such a way that the active, dominant subject came to be seen as ‘white, male, and middle class.’ Moreover, this dominance grew beyond ‘Europe’ and helped to carry out the imperial project. The centrality of empire discursively and materially forged a ‘European-ness’ that was distinctively gendered, classed and racialized. This will introduce you to how middle class was defined in relation to the working class.

Secondly, the course will problematize social divisions such as ‘race’, class, and gender as well as norms like heterosexuality, middle-class-ness etc. by looking at shifting boundaries of these divisions and norms. Thus, it will examine the dynamic processes of their formation and contradictions, which emerged out of these processes. We will heed our attention to some of the salient ways in which women and men of the different classes and ‘races’ became embedded in social relationships, thereby often transgressing taken-for-granted lines of differences. We will primarily draw on examples from ‘European’ history. This indeed urges us to look at the world of empire, through which ‘European-ness’ has come to the fore.

Finally, the course aims to introduce a wide range of debates that offer the possibility to analyze the ways in which differences have intersected with one another in different periods and how they have manifested themselves in power relations.

Desciplinary perspectives: History, Philosophy, Gender and Diversity Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociology.

This course has been developed by the Centre for Gender and Diversity of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. In case you are interested in enriching your education and life with other courses in the field of Gender and Diversity Studies, we offer several other courses at UCM.

Literature

UM Library
E-readers.

Instructional format

Tutorial group meetings and lectures.
Essay: Comment on film related to the course
Closed-book, In-class Exam

HU211 Cultural Studies II: reading contemporary culture (5 ECTS)

Course coordinator: drs. Josje Weusten, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Centre for Gender and Diversity

Semester	Period	ECTS	Concentration
Spring	5	5	Humanities

Themes: gender, ethnicity, and identity; popular culture; representations.

Perspectives: Cultural Studies, semiotics, discourse analysis.

Literature

e-readers
Stuart Hall: representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London (Sage/The Open University) 1997.

Description of the course

This is a further exploration of the exciting world of cultural studies. In this course the focus is on representation as a ‘key moment’ in the ‘circuit of culture’, which some of you have studied in ‘Cultural Studies I: Doing cultural studies’. Cultural Studies II immerses you in the interdisciplinary theories and practices of (textual and visual) representation, which is basic for the critical analysis of contemporary culture.

The connection between ‘representation’ and ‘culture’ is language, for it is through language that we construct, convey, share and communicate meanings. In cultural studies language is broadly defined as ‘a signifying practice’. Language is not just a system of words and their meanings, but also a ‘system of representation’ in which signs and symbols represent concepts and meanings, each ‘language’ consisting of its own signs. Spoken language uses sounds, written language words, in musical language the signs are notes on a scale, and in ‘body language’ the signs are gestures. In themselves such signs are meaningless; they become meaningful practices for what they do in a specific ‘system of representation’.

In this course you will study the poetics and politics of cultural phenomena such as photography and film, museum and fashion. The poetics of representation refers to a semiotic reading of (textual and visual signs) as developed by linguistic theorists and philosophers as Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes. The politics of representation deals with the discursive reading of language, which emphasizes the way in which discourses are always involved in power relations, according to Michel Foucault.

Throughout this course you will collect and analyze texts, visual materials, phenomena and artifacts from contemporary culture, such as striking pictures and ads of male models, pictures of black athletes, television series and museum exhibitions.

HU218 Literary Negotiations of Modernity: the Case of Gothic Fictions

Course coordinator: Dr. Agnes Andeweg, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Centre for Gender and Diversity

Semester	Period	ECTS	Concentration
Spring	5	5	Humanities

Prerequisites

HU111 Introduction to Art, or HU 103 Cultural Studies I

Recommended

HU205 Enlightenment and Romanticism, HU228 Disenchantment and Ideology/HU217 Demystification and Ideology, HU229 What is Literature?

Objectives

To provide insight into the complex ways in which the arts (in this case, Gothic fictions) respond to the increasing rationalization, disenchantment and individualization of modern Western culture.
To equip students with research skills that will enable them to make an original contribution to comparative inquiries into gothic fictions.

Description of the course

The Gothic novel arose in Britain when the increasing preoccupation with individual consciousness that began in the early 18th century collided with the unique cultural anxieties of the late 18th century. It is a response to the tensions and instabilities caused by the innovations of Enlightenment rationalism, political upheaval at home and abroad (the French Revolution) and the transformation of the family from a socio-economic into an affective unit, which introduced new psycho-sexual realities.

The Gothic novel is devoted to an exploration of illegitimate forms of sexuality that subvert the social order, of supernatural phenomena that cannot be accounted for empirically, of experiences and sensations beyond rationality, and of social inequities that are at odds with progressive, emancipatory ideals. One could say that the Gothic novel expresses an ambivalent wavering or double pull between modernity and anti-modernity, and as such, it has accompanied the complex process of modernization ever since, up to this very day.

The Gothic has proved to be a prolific cultural strategy, manifesting itself in other countries and other forms of cultural expression such as (pop) music, film, games and fashion. Although the main focus of the course will be on historical Gothic fictions, there will be ample room to discuss contemporary examples.

The following novels will be read during the course:

Horace Walpole. (1764). The Castle of Otranto.
Mary Shelley. (1818). Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus.
E.A. Poe. (1838). The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. OR E.A.Poe. (1839). The Fall of the House of Usher.
Henry James. (1898). The turn of the screw. OR Robert Louis Stevenson. (1886). Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Gaston Leroux. (1911). The Phantom of the Opera.

Literature

Botting, F. (1996). Gothic. London: Routledge.
Three Gothic Novels. (1986). London etc: Penguin Classics OR: Four Gothic Novels. (1994). Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks.
Reading Room
UM Library
E-readers

Instructional format

Tutorial group meetings and lectures.

Examination

A research outline
A written paper

Information: e-mail: info@ucm.unimaas.nl
Internet: website: http://www.ucm.nl/
Registration: e-mail: study@unimaas.nl