131-033 Contesting Genders: From Greer to Queer

Note

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Usually 25 points of first year History, see Prerequisites.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject examines the history of the western feminist movement from 1970 to the present. It explores the key theoretical ideas and the various social currents which gave rise to the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Through the works of writers like Germaine Greer, Kate Millett and Adrienne Rich, the contribution of radical feminists, liberal and Marxist feminists to the formulation of a feminist politics will be explored. The challenge of post-colonial critiques, which emerged in response to, and from within the movement, will be a key consideration in the course. In the final part of the subject, the influence of post modernism and post structuralism within feminist analysis will be considered. This will be done by interrogating the contribution of queer theory towards shaping a feminist politics for the next millennium, especially in relation to psychoanalysis and the construction of subjectivities.

Assessment

A research essay of 2500 words, and a reflective essay of 1500 words, and 10% tutorial participation.