Politics of Representation: Critical Approaches to Gender, Race and Culture

Course goals

- Students learn to practice critical ways of looking at cultural representations as employed in Gender Studies and its related fields. 
- Students learn to identify the main themes, theories and approaches connected to gender, race, and other markers of difference, and apply them to the analysis of cultural objects and practices.
- Students learn to make an academic intervention pertaining to the above issues, both in written and in oral form.
 

Content

The aim of this interdisciplinary course is to identify, handle, and apply key critical tools to analyse historical and contemporary cultural representations. We study the logics of these representations in various manifestations: in popular culture as well as in the arts, media, and literature. Cultural representations – novels and paintings; advertisements and TV programs; movies and exhibitions – are understood as sets of practices by which we give meaning to the world and that are inextricably linked to politics. When interpreting and analysing those practices, we pay special attention to the way gender, sexuality, race, and other markers of difference shape them.

This course is the second course in the minor Gender Studies. For more information about this minor, see: https://students.uu.nl/en/academics/minors/gender-studies.

LAS and TCS students who follow this course as part of the core curriculum of their major (hoofdrichting Postcolonial and Gender Studies) are required to complete one of the following compulsory preparation courses: Introduction to Gender Studies (block 3), Gender, intersectionaliteit en cultuurkritiek (blok 1), or Gender, Intersectionality and Cultural Critique (blok 1). See, for more information, https://tcs.sites.uu.nl/ .

Additional information

Priority rules
This course has priority rules and a waiting list. Your enrolment is guaranteed if you

• are enrolled in the Gender Studies minor
• are enrolled in the Geesteswetenschappen in Praktijk minor
• are a student in the BA Liberal Arts and Sciences or Taal- en Cultuurstudies and this course is part of your specialisation (kernpakket)
• 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. 

Early Exit option for international exchange students (5 ECTS)  
Exchange students who are required to return to their home university before January, are allowed to choose an Early Exit option for this course. The Early Exit option means that students can finish the course before the Winter break, receiving 5 ECTS for the course. Students must make arrangements with the course coordinator at the start of the course.