WMST7020 Researching Women's Life Stories

2019

4.5

1 x 50-minute lecture weekly
1 x 50-minute seminar fortnightly

1 of WMST2004, WMST2018, WMST7010, WMST8020, WMST8043 has been successfully completed

Women's Studies (Honours)

The topic offers an advanced consideration of the different ways in which women's lives may be researched and represented from feminist perspectives. Examples of women's life stories in various genres (biography, autobiography, oral history, life-story writing and documentary film) will be considered. The topic focuses on researching the diversity of women's lives, as individuals and as groups, in different contemporary cultures. It encourages critical thought about the processes of feminist research and representation, and will enhance students' research, oral and writing skills.

The topic aims to develop knowledge at an advanced level about the variety of ways in which women's lives are researched and represented. It engages with a range of contemporary feminist theories about the representation of women's lives. It aims to develop critical perspectives on the ways that stories of women's lives have been told and the limits on and possibilities for the ways that they can be told. It aims to foster an ethical sense of the ways in which representations of the lives of women, in particular those from non-culturally dominant backgrounds, play a part in the power relations of social life. It will develop students' research and communication skills in the area of representing women's lives.