79050 - Studi di Genere/Gender Studies (LM)

Academic Year 2018/2019

Learning outcomes

Students acquire knowledge of gender studies (theories and methodologies) in diverse cultural contexts whereby the notions of identity and otherness, difference and diversity are analysed within an intercultural perspective. The course intends to favour the capability to deconstruct these notions in diverse texts (theoretical, literary, visual).

Course contents

Overview of the course:

Critical theories and methodologiesof gender and women's studies; main issues in Feminist theories and Queer studies. re-reading of the notion of identity/difference;postcolonial re-visions of the symbolic and social order. Postcolonialand African Americancritical debates on the representation and deconstruction of the intersectionality of gender and ‘race'. The course intends:

· To enable the analysis of the representations and constructions of gender, and ‘diversity’ in varied forms of text (theoretical, literary, visual)

· To approach women's and gender studies as a critical field in its intersection with postcolonial studies.

· To re-consider women's and gender studies as an interdisciplinary area and as a methodology of deconstruction of ‘dominant' systems of knowledge. To re-think women's and gender studies (within a postcolonial and global studies frame) as analysis of distribution of knowledge, politics of representation and interpretation.

· To enable students to gain critical tools to reflect upon diverse cultural debates, to elaborate on the interconnections between texts and contexts, to favor critical thinking

· To offer critical instruments enabling competence in terms of gender

· To facilitate students to analyse issues related to cultural memory and countermemories within a postcolonial and gender perspective.

Main issues:

1. critical theories and methodologies of gender and women's studies

2. main issues in Feminist theories and Queer studies;

3. re-reading of the notion of identity, difference, and diversity; gender as a social construction;

4. women's and postcolonial re-visions of the symbolic and social order;

5. the construction of sexual difference as a deconstructive strategy; re-writings of the body; (French Feminism(s) and African American and Postcolonial responses

6. postcolonial and African American critical debates on the representation and deconstruction of the notion of gender and ‘race'. New politics of identity and ‘difference'

7. Intersectionality of ‘race' and gender

18. ‘Case studies': analysis of diverse kinds of texts (literary, theoretical, visual) on main themes in women's and gender studies, with specific reference to the interconnection of gender, ethnicity and ‘race' in trauma studies and post-conflict contexts.

Part 1. Genealogies, theories and methodologies of women's and gender studies.

The course will analyse critical theories and methodologies of gender studies in dialogue with diverse feminism(s), it will make reference to the works of Luce Irigaray, Rosi Braidotti, Hortense Spiller, Gayatri C. Spivak, Judith Butler, Pratibha Parmar.

Part 2. Narratives of the Self and/as Other in Dystopian and Postcolonial Fiction Within a Gender and Postcolonial Perspective.
The course will analyse strategies of representations of self and otherness, the relationship between human and non-human in texts (literary and visual) in English. Lessons will be carried out through gender and postcolonial methodologies. The texts chosen articulate the relationship between identity and otherness as an ambiguous and controversial one and as a projection of the Western imaginary and metaphysics. A close reading of the novels discusses the construction and stabilization of a rhetoric of violence based on a normative notion of identity and otherness, and between human-non human relation.

Readings/Bibliography

IN PROGRESS

Primary sources:

The Village, Director M. Night Shyamalan, U.S, 2004

M. Faber, Under the Skin, 2000 (translation in Italian Sotto la pelle, Einaudi, 2004)

K. Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, 2005 (translation in Italian Non lasciarmi, Einaudi, 2006)

J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace, 1999, (translation in Italian Vergogna, Einaudi, 2000)

Atwood, Margaret, The Handmaid’sTale, McLelland and Stewart, 1985

Movies:

Under the Skin,Director Jonathan Glazer, Great Britain, 2013

Never Let Me Go, Director Mark Romanek, U.S and Great Britain, 2010

The secret life of Words, Director Isabel Coixet, 2005

The Handmaid’s TaleTV series

Bibliography of Secondary texts (essays, articles, volumes). Lesson will make reference to the following critical sources:

Braidotti, Rosi Per una politica affermativa. Traduzione e cura di Angela Balzano. Milano: Mimesis, 2017 (selected chapters from Braidotti, Rosi, Nomadic Theory: The Portable. Columbia UP, 2012)

Braidotti, Rosi, The Posthuman, Polity Press, 2013

Butler, Judith, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2015

Baccolini, Raffaella and Tom Moylan (ed.) Dark Horizons. Science Fiction and The Dystopian Imagination.London and New York: Routledge, 2003. (selected chapters) (available in the Library)

Braidotti, Rosi “Difference, Diversity, and Nomadic Subjectivity” online document, http://women.ped.kun.nl, 2000.

Butler, Judith, 1993, Bodies that Matter. On the Discoursive Limits of “Sex”.New York and London: Routledge, 1996, Corpi che Contano. I limiti discorsivi del “sesso”Trad. S. Capelli. Milano: Feltrinelli. (selected chapters and Italian Introduction by A. Cavarero) (available in the Library)

Cooper, Pamela, “Metamorphosis and Sexuality: Reading the Strange Passions of Disgrace” in http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ral/summary/v036/36.4cooper.html(also available in the Reader)

Fortunati, Vita, Gilberta Golinelli, Rita Monticelli (a cura di) Studi di genere e memoria culturale.Women and Cultural Memory.Bologna: Clueb, 2004.(selected chapters) (available in the Library)

Gilroy, Paul, "Urban Social Movements, 'Race' and Community" in P. Williams and L. Chrisman, eds, Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory.A Reader, New York: Columbia UP, 1994, pp. 404-420 Graham, Lucy Valerie “Reading the Unspeakable: Rape in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace” (available online [JSTOR] and in the Reader)

Gymnich, Marion (ed.), Who's Afraid of…? Facets of Fear in Anglophone Literature and Film(Representations and Reflections), V&R Unipress Gmbh, Bonn University Press, 2012. pp. 294. (chapters on Never let Me Go, and Introduction) (available in the Reader)

Gymnich, Marion, Segão Costa, Alexandre, “Of Humans, Pigs, Fish, and Apes: The Literary Motif of Human-Animal Metamorphosis and its Multiple Functions in Contemporary Fiction” in http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/lesprit_createur/v046/46.2gymnich.html

Herron, Tom “The Dog Man: Becoming Animal in Coetzee'sDisgrace”, (available online [JSTOR] and in the Reader)

Irigaray, Luce, “Donne Divine" in Sessi e Genealogie, 1989. Trad. L. Muraro. Milano: La Tartaruga. Sexes et parentés Paris: Minuit, 1987, Divine Women, Occasional Paper, Sydney, 1986, trans. S. Muecke reperibile nel reader. “Donne divine”, in AA. VV, Melusina. Mito e leggenda di una donna serpente. Roma, Utopia, 1986, pp. 134-150 (available in the Reader)

Irigaray, Luce, 1980, "When our Lips Speak Together" (L. Irigaray; C. Burke) in Signs, vol 6, n. 1, 1980, 69-79, Chicago UP. online http://eyegiene.sdsu.edu/2006/spring/imperialbedroom/luceirigaryLIPS.pdf https://www.didaweb.net/risorse/visita.php?url=http://www.women.it/les/testi/labbra.htm (available in French, Italian, Spanish ect.)

Irigaray, Luce, 1985, Etica della differenza sessuale. trad. L. Muraro e A. Leoni. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1984, Ethique de la difference sexuelle. Paris: Minuit. (selected chapters)

Monticelli R., The Politics of the Body in Women's Literatures, Bologna, I Libri di Emil - Odoya, 2012, pp. 176.

Monticelli, Rita, 1997, sezione "Soggetti corporei", in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie, Bologna: Clueb, pp. 205-255 (selected essays) reperibile in biblioteca

Lamb, Jonathan “Modern Metamorphoses and Disgraceful Tales” (available online [JSTOR] and in the Reader)

McDonald, Keith “Days of Past Futures: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me GoAs ‘Speculative Memoir'”, in http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/biography/v030/30.1mcdonald.html

Mediazioni online, Special issue on The Village (available online) www.mediazionionline.it

Monticelli, Rita, 1997, sezione "Soggetti corporei", in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie, Bologna: Clueb, pp. 205-255 (selected essays) (available in the Library)

Rivisiting Feminism: Cultural trajectoriesed. Kalpana Das and Fréderique Apffel Marglin. iim, InterCulture, Intercultural Institute of Montreal, n. 150. INTERCULTURE. vol. 150. anno 2, n. 6. Edizione italiana della rivista canadese dell'Intercultural Institute of Montreal. (selected essays, GEMMA students only), (available in the Library)

Salgueiro Seabra Ferreira, Maria Aline, "Shelley Jackson's Patchwork Girland Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve: A Comparative Reading". Online document

Sargent, Lyman Tower, The Problem of the « Flawed Utopia »: a Note on the Costs of Eutopia » in Baccolini, Raffaella and Tom Moylan (ed.) Dark Horizon. Science Fiction and The Dystopian Imagination.London and New York: Routledge, 2003 (available in the Library and in the Reader)

Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book”, in Diacritics. A Review of ContemporaryCriticism17 (2), 1987, pp. 65-81. “Figli/e di madre, del padre forse: una grammatica Americana” in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie. A cura di Raffaella Baccolini; M. Giulia Fabi, Vita Fortunati, Rita Monticelli. Bologna: CLUEB, 1997, pp. 255-279, trad. Lucia Gunella e Rita Monticelli. (available in the Library and in the Reader)

Spivak, Gayatri C., 1981, “French Feminism in an International Frame”, in Yale French Studies, No. 62, Feminist Readings: French Texts/American Contexts. (available in the Reader)

Spivak, Gayatri C, 1985, “Can the Subaltern Speak? Speculations on Widow-Sacrifice.” Wedge (Winter-Spring 1985), 7-8:120-130. Issue entitled "The Imperialism of Representation/The Representation of Imperialism. (available online)

Hall, Stuart, “Minimal Selves”, ICA Documents, n. 6, 1987, pp. 44-46. (available online)

Hall,“New Ethnicities” (1989), in J. Donald, A. Rattansi (eds.), Race, Culture, and Difference, London, Sage, 1992, pp. 252-259. (available online)

Parmar, Pratibha, “Black Feminism: The Politics of Articulation”, in J. Rutherford (ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, London, Lawrence & Wishart Limited, 1990, pp. 101-126 (available in the reader)

BIBLIOGRAPHY IN PROGRESS: Please do check this web page for further notice and information.


Teaching methods

Lessons, seminars, discussion in class, students' presentations. Languages: English AND Italian

Bibliography and other information will be provided also during the lessons (and then published in the online reading list and program). The course includes both lessons and seminars with the active participation of the students. Students who cannot attend lessons must contact the lecturer during her office hours, or via e-mail before the end of the course. Students are requested to check the online program also during the course for further notice and information.

B.A students are not admitted. Erasmus students are requested to contact the lecturer before enrolling in the course.

Assessment methods

Gli studenti e le studentesse di Letteratura Inglese/Letteratura dei Paesi di lingua inglese 2 LM dovranno analizzare 3 testi primari (da scegliersi tra quelli in elenco) e saggi/ capitoli di volumi/articoli da scegliere tra le fonti critiche in elenco per un numero di 200/220 pagine. E' inoltre richiesta l'analisi di uno dei film in programma e una tra le serie TV proposte.

Students of the course Letteratura Inglese/Letteratura dei paesi di lingua inglese 2 LMare requested to analyse 3 texts (to be chosen amongst the volumes in the Reading list of the primary sources) and articles/essays/chapters (about 200/220 pages) from the Reading list of the Secondary sources; the analysis of one of the movies proposed and one TV series.

Le studentesse e gli studenti di Feminist Theory between Difference and Diversity dovranno analizzare 3 testi primari (da scegliersi tra quelli in elenco) e saggi/ capitoli di volumi/articoli da scegliere tra le fonti critiche in elenco per un numero di 250 pagine. E' inoltre richiesto lo studio dei film proposti e di una serie TV.

Students of Feminist Theory between Difference and Diversity are requested to analyse 3 primary texts (to be chosen amongst the volumes in the Reading list of the primary sources) and articles/essays/chapters (about 250 pages) from the Reading list of the Secondary sources; the analysis of the movies proposed and one TV series.

Le studentesse e gli studenti di Gender Studies/Studi di genere dovranno analizzare 2 testi primari (da scegliersi tra quelli in elenco) e saggi/ capitoli di volumi/articoli da scegliere tra le fonti critiche in elenco per un numero di 150 pagine. E' inoltre richiesto lo studio di uno dei film proposti e di una serie TV.

Students of Gender Studies/Studi di genere are requested to analyse 2 primary texts (to be chosen amongst the volumes in the Reading list of the primary sources) and articles/essays/chapters (about 150 pages) from the Reading list of the Secondary sources; the analysis of one of the movies and one of the TV series proposed.

All students (divided in groups) are requested to present in class one text (to be chosen in accordance with the lecturer) within diverse critical perspectives, in a date to be confirmed.

Please do check this web page for further notice and information

Assessment methods:

Active participation in class discussions: 25%. By participation in class we mean the ability of the student to enter the debates, contributing with questions and/or elaborations of the topics proposed by the lecturer. This participation does not aim at testing students' specific preparation in the field, rather, they want to favor their ability to take part in discussions and their capability to discuss in group.

Students' Presentation: 25%. Students are requested to do a group presentation of one text to be chosen from the reading list in accordance with the lecturer.

Final oral exam: 50%

The final oral exam will test the student's critical capability, his/her knowledge of the methodologies employed, her/his ability to combine theories with the analyses of the case studies chosen. The close reading of the texts aims at showing the student's critical ability, their knowledge not only of the texts but also of their context of creation together with the cultural politics that inform them. Students are requested to use an appropriate language, to be able to articulate their thought in English and Italian (high level) and to have an accurate knowledge of the bibliography chosen for the exam.

Grades:

Excellent: Students' high capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, originality of thought and excellent knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them within a gender perspective, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography chosen, accurate and appropriate language.

Very good level: Students' capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, originality of thought and very good knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them within a gender perspective, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography chosen, and appropriate, accurate language.

Good level: Students' capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them within a gender perspective, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography chosen, and appropriate language.

Pass: Students' capability to enter the exiting debates on the topics chosen, knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them within a gender perspective, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography chosen, and appropriate language.

Fail: Student's lack of knowledge of the theories employed during the course, incapability to critical reading of the novels, inappropriate and inaccurate language.

Please do check this web page for further notice and information

Teaching tools

Power point, slides, movies, visual texts.

The course is divided into two modules (teachers Prof. Rita Monticelli and Prof. Francesco Cattani). It also includes a compulsory seminar held by Dr. Cristina Gamberi.

SEMINAR (for GEMMA students) related to the course (timetable of the seminar will be announced at the beginning of the course)

PRESENTATION

The seminar includes a cycle of six meetings where original texts from the second and the third wave feminism are presented in a historical perspective. It aims at familiarizing students with traditions of contemporary feminist thought and at pointing out issues that are central to feminist theory, enhancing students' understanding of the meaning, function and methodological values of the key concepts of feminist theory. The seminar introduces the students to various debates and traditions of feminist theory and elaborate on such issues as the use of female genealogy, relationship between sex and gender, personal and political, bodies and power. It is also shaped to support the main course of Feminist Theory between difference and diversity.

First week seminar

In Search of Feminist Genealogies

  • Rita Monticelli, “ 'I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess': Genealogies, Re-Visions of the Body, and Feminist Figurations”, 2018.
  • Rita Monticelli, “Oltre lo specchio: politiche e poetiche degli studi di genere e delle donne”, «MODERNA», 2013, 1-2 . 2012, pp. 219 – 233.
  • Alice Walker (1972), “In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens”, in In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, Womanist prose, Harcourt, San Diego, 1983.

Second week seminar

The Personal IS Political – Adrienne Rich

  • Adrienne Rich, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision”, College English, Vol. 34, No. 1, Women, Writing and Teaching (Oct., 1972), pp. 18 30.
  • Adrienne Rich (1984), “Notes Towards a Politics of Location”, in Blood, Bread and Poetry. Selected Prose 1979-1985, Norton, New York, 1986, pp. 210 231.
  • Adrienne Rich (1980), “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”, in Blood, Bread and Poetry. Selected Prose 1979-1985, Norton, New York, 1986.

Third week seminar

The Sex-Gender System – Gayle Rubin and Teresa de Lauretis

  • Gayle Rubin (1975), “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex”, in Rayna R. Reiter (ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women. Monthly Review Press, New York London, pp. 157 210.
  • Teresa de Lauretis, “Chapter 1: Technology of Gender”, in Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film and Fiction, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1987, pp. 1 – 30.

Fourth week seminar

Feminist Reappropriation of Post-Structuralism – Michel Foucault and Rosi Braidotti

  • Rosi Braidotti, “Chapter 4: Bodies, Texts and Powers” and “Chapter 6: Towards a Philosophical Reading of Feminist Ideas”, in Patterns of Dissonance: A Study of Women and Contemporary Philosophy, Routledge, New York, 1991, pp. 76 – 97 and 147 – 173.

Fifth and Sixth week seminar will elaborate on the theoretical texts discussed in class, enabling students to clarify issues and discuss them together.

 

Office hours

See the website of Rita Monticelli

See the website of Francesco Cattani