GENDER, MINORITY & CULTURE - SOC251 Spring 2024
Course
Lessons
Here is the course outline:
1. Gender, term, history, debatesGender equality is the desired goal, but what are the strategies available? Everyone can speak about men and women, but how do we put it on an academic platform? What are the scientific facts and theories? |
2. Feminisms a Global Herstorywhile the first wave of feminists fought for the right to vote and access to high education, the second dealt with reproduction rights, domestic violence, etc. The third-wave feminists included the LGBTQA agenda and nonwhite and non-middle class and postcolonial discourse. What are some of the current debates about? |
3. Czech Gender Herstory, communist concepts of gender equalityVenus of Vestonice is 26000 year old. Princess Libuše is a seer. Eliška Krásnohorská write librettos for Smetana. Plamínková resists Hitler, Horaková is executed as an anticommunist. communist concepts of gender equality |
4. Gender and AdvertisingTopic: Gender and advertising EU versus the US. Sexually Explicit Billboards. Beer commercials Advertisements cannot be ignored They flood our minds like invisible radiation. To be able to protect ourselves we must decipher them to understand their lethal potential |
5. The Beauty MythWhat is the beauty myth, how universal is it? How do media shape out identity? Reading: Naomi Wolf. The Beauty Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1991. pp. 86-130 Susan Bordo Twighlight Zones. The Hidden Life of Cultural Images from Plato to O. J. “Never Just Pictures.” Berkeley: U of California Press, 1997. Documentary film showing: The Beauty Exchange |
6. Gender and MinorityTopic: Gender and Minority Film showing: Where the Spirit Lives |
7. MidtermMidterm test F23 This in-class Midterm Test consists of short answers and some three one paragraph responses |
8. Midterm breakBe safe, take photos, use gender lenses to observe the world around you, and finish your Gender Lognotes midterm project |
9. Where Have All the Children Gone.Control of Women’s Bodies. Case study: China and the one-child policy. Transcultural adoptions. |
10. Gender and FilmFilm feminist avant-garde. Laura Mulvey and Vera Chytilova |
11. LGBTQAJudeo-Christian prescriptions against same-sex relationships took millennia to break. Psychiatry, at least in the USA, stopped treating it as a mental disorder in 1973. Join the rapper Cupcakke (2016 Audacious) and keep rolling with the LGBT! |
12. Gender and artTopic: Gender and Art, possibly a visit to DOX gallery or a vernisage Description: Reading: Nochlin, Linda. 1971. “Why There Have Not Been Any Great Women Artists” In: The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, ed. Amelia Jones, Routledge, 2003 Klienhamplova, Barbora, Stejskalova, Tereza. Who Is an Artist? Praha: Academy of Fine Arts, 2015. |
13. Gender and MusicTopic: Who can create music? Why there have not been any great women composers? Rock Music as a platform for women’s rebellion. Description: Reading: REQUIRED READING: Reynolds, Simon, Press, Joy. The Sex Revolts. 1995. Powers, Amy. 2005 „Angry Women“ Spin magazine Film: The Runaways, Punk Attitude II Assignments/deadlines: reading check 9 November 20 |
14. Final projects presentationTopic: Final Projects Presentation The final project can have two forms: 1. Research Paper 2. Creative Project The description below refers to the CREATIVE PROJECT Note: The Research Paper is described in a separate assignment, which is part of the same Final Project assignment group. General Specifications for the Creative Project Final Project on the topics covered in class (graffiti and street art, music, etc.). The Creative Project has two parts: 1. the Artifact itself, 2. an Exegesis (a 2-page explanation (500-750 words) of the project. The creative project may have different forms including but not necessarily limited to video, poetry, songs, zines, culture jamming, graffiti, etc. |
15. Gender and SubculturesStreet art and graffiti are masculine subcultures, yet, from the beginning there is the photographer Martha Cooper, Swan and the Czech Suny. |
16. Ecofeminism vs Living on the edge |
17. Sex Work vs Prostitution debates |