Course detail

Feminist Seminar 1

FaVU-FEMS1Acad. year: 2020/2021

Lecture and seminar series will introduce feminism as a plurality of views and matters related to issues of emancipation of women and social justice.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

doc. Mgr. Richard Fajnor

Department

Department of Art History and Theory (KTDU)

Offered to foreign students

Of all faculties

Learning outcomes of the course unit

Students will gain elementary knowledge about issues concerning feminism and feminist thinking.

Prerequisites

A keen interest in feminism and social justice issues. Willingness and an ability to read more complex texts in English.

Co-requisites

Not applicable.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Lectures and seminar sessions. Each lecture will introduce one feminist issue via engagement with related texts, the subsequent seminar will facilitate discussion about thoughts introduced in the lecture. Based on evaluation of the epidemiologic situation, lectures and seminars will take place either in person or online. In preparation for the lecture students will be required to read one of recommended texts.

Assesment methods and criteria linked to learning outcomes

Credits awarded on the basis of home preparation (reading of recommended texts) and lecture and seminar participation, in person or online. In case of a number of absences: writing a paper on one of the feminist issues discussed in seminars.

Course curriculum

1. Social Construction of Femininity — natural/cultural origin of sex inequality, language heteronormativity and the construction of difference in psychoanalysis, straight mind, sex/gender distinction, one is not born a woman, gender performativity, technologies of gender.
2. Social Reproduction and the Sexual Division of Labour — reproduction of everyday life, emotional labour, reproduction of social system, birth strike, production and reproduction, “feminization” of labour, commons, communities of care, making kin.
3. Technoreproduction — feminism and biopolitics, reproductive justice, assisted reproduction, ectogenesis, seizing the means of reproduction.
4. Nature as Feminist Space — entanglements of environmental and gender justice, mobilization of “nature” in ecofeminism, subsistence.
5. Science, Technology and Gender — science, rationality and technology as the means of feminist thought and practice, the figure of a cyborg, cyberspace and gender, afrofuturism and the subversive potential of technoaesthetics.
6. Feminisms for the 21st Century — material feminisms, posthuman feminisms, anthropocene feminisms, xenofeminism.

Work placements

Not applicable.

Aims

The course aspires to initiate a debate about social justice issues and the ways of their addressing in art, theory and activism.

Specification of controlled education, way of implementation and compensation for absences

Attendance compulsory (80%).

Recommended optional programme components

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Not applicable.

Type of course unit

Lecture

5 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

MgA. Lenka Veselá, M.A., Ph.D.

Seminar

8 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

doc. Mgr. Richard Fajnor