Gender, Intersectionality and Cultural Critique (EN)

Course goals

After the course:
 

1. the student can recognize different conceptual approaches from gender and postcolonial studies within the humanities and explain them in their own words.
2. the student is able to conduct a cultural critique of mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in media, art and culture
3. the student can, based on the concepts of reflexivity and situated knowledge, reflect on their disciplinary formation and positionality.

Content

This interdisciplinary course trains students in cultural critique: making invisible power relations in media, art and culture visible. Students are provided with theoretical tools to become aware of how intersectional power relations impact the production, consumption and interpretation of communication, literature, film, language, (art) history, science, games and social media. Throughout the course, the emphasis is on the way in which representations are never neutral, but always partial, biased and implicated with processes of inclusion and exclusion. Building on feminist and post-colonial theory, students learn to analyze how media and cultural expressions are formed by sexist, racist, heteronormative, transphobic, classist, ageist and Eurocentric norms.  Attention will be paid to the question of how scientific knowledge is created and how science contributes to hierarchical power relations.

In the course we will work with the textbook "Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture. A Contemporary Guide to Gender Studies", which was developed especially for this course, edited by Rosemarie Buikema, Liedeke Plate and Kathrin Thiele (3rd edition, Routledge, 2026). Core figures ranging from Simone de Beauvoir to Gloria Anzaldua and from Florence Nightingale to Malala Yousafzai serve as prisms of intersectional analysis for each chapter. A selection of authors who have contributed chapters to the handbook provide guest lectures in this course.
 
The course is open to students from all bachelor programs across Utrecht University. It serves as an introduction to the fields of Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies within the Humanities.

The course serves as an introduction to the Minor Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies (which are open to all UU students) and the “Hoofdrichting Gender and Postcolonial (TCS/LAS)”.

This course is an elective course for students of the Bachelor Media and Culture English track. After following the 4 courses in the minor Gender Studies or the 4 courses in the minor Postcolonial Studies they can chose to follow Research Seminar in Gender and Postcolonial Studies and take the course Bachelor Thesis in Gender and Postcolonial Studies.

The course is also an optional course for students in the Minor “Seksualiteit in Interdisciplinair Perspectief” consisting of courses offered across the Social Science faculty and this Humanities course. Grounded in the Humanities, this course offers students from this minor the opportunity to expand their horizon and learn how to study representations of sexuality, and critique normative cultural conceptions of sexuality in media, art, culture and science.  
 
 

Additional information

Priority rules
This course has priority rules and a waiting list. Your enrolment is guaranteed if you
- are a student in the BA Media and Culture and this course is part of your major 
- are a student Liberal Arts and Sciences and this course is part of the General Education offer 
- are enrolled in the Seksualiteit in Interdisciplinair Perspectief minor
- are an exchange student and meet the course’s entry requirements
In all other situations, you will be placed on a waiting list if you enrol in this course. For any remaining slots in the course, lots are drawn among the students on the waiting list.

Equivalency
The following courses are equivalent to this course. You can only follow one of these courses.
- Gender, etniciteit en cultuurkritiek (MC2V18001)
- Gender, Etnicity and Cultural Critique (MC2V19001)
- Gender en cultuurkritiek (MC2V24001)
- Introduction to Gender Studies (VR2V14002)