SOCI8022 Gender and Sexuality

2016

4.5

1 x 3-hour workshop weekly

SOCI3045 has been successfully completed

The course examines the historical emergence and cultural construction of gender & sexuality as categories of human thought and experience. How did gender & sexuality come to constitute the innermost truths of the human individual, the core of personal life, the object of social control and governmental regulation? What are the practical consequences of organising our lives and institutions around the notion of gender & sexuality? Emphasis will fall not on the natural ‘truths’ - biological essentialist assumptions about gender & sexuality - but on the social meanings attached to them in different cultural contexts.

This topic has four aims:

1. To use contemporary issues relating to conventional and new forms of gender and sexuality in Australia and elsewhere to explore:

   • Influences on the changes, challenges and continuities in gendered and sexual life

   • Different perspectives on the implications of such changes for gender and sexual relations, social cohesion and identity

2. To assist in the development of skills relating to the critical analysis of, and reflexive engagement with, relevant academic and professional literature, and popular discourses.

3. To provide an opportunity for the development of research skills.

4. To encourage constructive and informed participation in lectures and tutorial activities.

On completion of Gender & Sexuality you should be able to:

1. Critically evaluate debates about gender and sexuality.

2. Identify, access and evaluate relevant resources and materials from a range of sources; and to relate these to issues / theories discussed in lectures.

3. Demonstrate an ability to address a research question; find and analyse relevant information relating to that question.

4. Construct a coherent academic argument when writing the research essay.