Women's studies is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry which is broadly
concerned with the history and representation of women and sexual difference
and with the complex construction of gender relations in the past, present and
future. It also operates from the premise that women's different experiences,
sexual subjectivities, ideas, needs, and interests are valid in their own right
and should be incorporated into our processes of knowledge formation. In this
way, women's studies attempts to correct the absence of material on women and
gender relations which for a long time characterised more traditional areas of
study. Women's studies also emphasises the diversity of women's experience.
Beyond general considerations of the changing status of women and where
dominant ideas and assumptions about women and sexual difference come from,
women's studies also covers specific issues such as how different cultures
shape women's identities and sexualities, shifting cultural and historical
modes of femininity and masculinity, how questions of sex or gender relate to
questions of class and race, how women are represented in film, literature and
the media, the relationship between gender and technology, and the role of
women and gender in important political, economic, sociological and
philosophical debates.
The aim of the graduate program is to provide the opportunity for a range of
links between staff and students not only between a variety of disciplines
within the Faculty of Arts, but also with several vocationally oriented and
professional courses offered by other faculties. The Centre for Women's Studies
and Gender Research organises a series of regular staff and graduate seminars
on topics of general concern to those engaged in feminist and women's studies.
Research students are normally expected to attend these seminars. The centre
also organises occasional symposia and conferences.
Areas
of particular research strength include postcolonialism, indigeniety, gender
and cultural difference; feminist cultural studies; women's writing and
feminist literary theory; feminist film theory and studies of performance and
contemporary art; feminist anthropological theory; and cross-cultural gender
relations and identities. For further information refer to the Arts research
section and http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/prospective/ postgraduate/
disciplines/ See also the entry for 'Humanities, communications and social
sciences' (gender research).
Mid-year entry is available for the program listed below.
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