WMST7032 Performing Masculinities: Australian Histories of Contest and Change

2017

4.5

1 x 50-minute lecture weekly
1 x 50-minute tutorial weekly

1 of WMST3008, WMST3012 has been successfully completed

This topic investigates the representation and performance of masculinities in Australian cultures since the late 19th century. It introduces key trends in the study of masculinities, locating these in relation to significant historical events and theories of gender, sexuality and race, in particular those developed from feminism and masculinity studies. It examines how masculinities have been represented in the historical record - in popular culture, political rhetoric, in accounts of work cultures and subcultures and other discursive domains pertaining to fathers, soldiers, workers, lovers and political and social agents. Across a series of lectures and screenings, the topic will explore historical debates about masculinity and how men (and women), in Australia have performed masculinities in the context of debates about national history, social change and global cultural flows, most of which have rich contemporary resonance. Through case studies in tutorials, students will learn how masculinities are culturally encoded and embodied, open to challenge, subject to change, and therefore historical.

This topic aims to:

• Introduce students to the area of the historical study of masculinities,
• Introduce students to key theoretical approaches that inform masculinity studies
• Introduce students to a wide range of case studies which demonstrate both the diversity and the contested nature of the history of masculinities in Australia
• Develop students' oral and written communication skills

Students successfully completing this topic should be able to:

• Demonstrate through written and oral communication familiarity with key debates in the historical study of masculinity in Australia
• Demonstrate through written and oral communication an appreciation of the cultural and political diversity of masculinities in Australia and the contested contexts in which they are constructed
• Critically assess representations of masculinity and both past and contemporary public debates about masculinity, with particular attention to the ways in which ideas about gender, race and sexuality shape, and are shaped by, such representations and debates