Course Gender Theories – from Beauvoir to Barad

Course description

The course will describe and discuss gender theories as well as invite reflections on their relevancy and applicability in the projects of the participants

Aim/Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to foster a consciousness about gender as a phenomenon and/or factor in academic research at multiple levels and to qualify the PhD-students through knowledge, understanding and skills to address it from various theoretical perspectives.

The course focuses on developments in theories about gender with the purpose of gaining an overview of:

• Ÿ Differences and similarities between
  • o egalité-feminism
  • o différance-feminism
  • o de-/constructivism
  • o postcolonialism
  • o masculinity studies
  • o queer studies
  • o posthumanist theory
  • o new materialist theory
• Ÿ Seminal texts by some of the most influential thinkers in gender studies

• Ÿ Central concepts in gender studies, including:
• o alterity
• o sex vs. gender
• o égalité
• o différance
• o fallogocentrism
• o jouissance
• o écriture féminine
• o semiotic og symbolic modalities
• o discourse and subjectification
• o sub-alterity
• o performativity
• o subversion
• o intersectionality
• o standpoint epistemology
• o posthumanism
• o diffraction
• o intra-action
• o process ontology

Requirements for participation

• To read the literature prior to the course

Target group/Participants

• The course is relevant to PhD-students in general when working with gender as a phenomenon in specific empirical fields and/or with epistemologies and methodologies where gender is a factor

Workload

• Course/ teaching hours: 25 hours
• Preparation hours: 50
• Written assignments etc.: None, but the curriculum is encompassing, so at least one week of reading prior to the course is to be expected.

Language 

• English

Lecturers

• Marianne Schleicher, Associate Professor, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University

Literature

Curriculum (to be accessed electronically)

Beauvoir, Simone de

2009        The Second Sex (1949) Vintage Books, New York: 23-47; 193-197; 315-325; 802-811

Irigaray, Luce

1985        Speculum of the Other Woman (1974), Cornell University Press, Ithaca: 191-202

Kristeva, Julia

1982        Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980), Columbia University Press, New York: 1-18

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade

1988        “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse”, Feminist Review 30: 61-88

Crenshaw, Kimberle

1989        “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989:1: 139-167

Foucault, Michel

1978        The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, Pantheon Books, New York: 92-114

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky

1985        Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, Columbia University Press, New York: 1-27

Connell, R.W. 

1995        Masculinities, Polity Press, Cambridge: 67-86

Butler, Judith

1999        Gender Trouble (1990), Routledge, New York: 1-22; 127-150; 194-203

Stone, Sandy

1991        “The ‘Empire’ Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto”, http://www.sterneck.net/gender/stone-posttranssexuel/index.php

Cheryl Chase

1998        “Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism”, i eds. Corber & Valocci: Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader, Blackwell, Oxford: 31-45

Butler, Judith

2001        “Doing Justice to Someone: Sex Reassignment and Allegories of Transsexuality”, GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 74: 621-636

Schleicher, MarianneSchleicher, Marianne2021                      “Effects of Materiality in Israelite Jewish Conceptions of Gender and Love: On a Necessary Synthesis of Constructionist and New Materialist Approaches”. In eds. Byrne, Deirdre C and Marianne Schleicher: Entanglements and Weavings: Diffractive Approaches to Gender and Love. Brill, Leiden: 11-33

Haraway, Donna

1988        “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies 14:3: 575-599.

Barad, Karen

2003        “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28:3: 801-831

Grosz, Elizabeth

1993        “A Thousand Tiny Sexes: Feminism and Rhizomatics”, Topoi 12: 167-179

Braidotti, Rosi

2017                  “Posthuman Critical Theory”, Journal of Posthuman Studies 1:1: 9-25

Venue

• 27 May 2026. 09.00-16.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1467, room 116
• 28 May 2026. 09.00-17.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1467, room 116
• 29 May 2026. 09.00-16.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1467, room 116

Course dates:

• 27 May 2026 09:00 - 16:00
• 28 May 2026 09:00 - 17:00
• 29 May 2026 09:00 - 16:00