HSY4960

Gender and history

Barbara Caine

8 points - One two-hour seminar per week - First semester - Clayton

Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should have developed a knowledge and understanding of the theoretical and historical debates about gender which have emerged in the last few years, an understanding of key concepts such as 'sexuality', 'masculinity', 'femininity' and the ability to devise a research essay exploring some of these concepts in a particular historical period.

Synopsis This subject will focus on some theoretical discussions of masculinity, femininity and gender and look at the ways in which they are currently being discussed and analysed in particular works in European, Australian, American and Asian history. Beginning with a look at some feminist theory, at the development of feminist critiques of traditional history, and at the development of 'women's history' and of a 'woman-centred' historical analysis in the 1970s, we will then move on to look at ways in which concern about the differences amongst women in terms of ethnicity, class, sexuality etc. were taken up by historians and at the move from this concentration on women and 'femininity' to a related concern with men and 'masculinity' and at some of the current approaches to gender as an analytic category in feminist theory, in social theory and in history.

Assessment Two 3000-word seminar papers: 35% each - Two oral presentations: 10% each - Seminar attendance and performance: 10%

Preliminary reading

Alexander S Becoming a woman, essays in feminism 1994
Hall C White, male and middle class 1992
Mosse G L Nationalism and sexuality: Respectable and abnormal sexuality in modern Europe 1986
Roper M and Tosh J Manful assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 1991
Scott J W Gender and the politics of history 1988
Sinha M Colonial masculinity: The 'manly' Englishman and the 'effeminate' Bengali in the late nineteenth century Manchester U P, 1995
Walkowitz J City of dreadful delight: Narratives of sexual danger in late Victorian London 1992

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