| Unit name | Feminisms, Gender and International Relations |
|---|---|
| Unit code | POLI30021 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Weldes |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
none |
| Co-requisites |
none |
| School/department | School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
This unit will consider the role of feminisms and gender in the study and practice of International Relations (IR) as a (sub-)discipline and of world politics as a global set of practices. Beyond asking ‘where the women are’ in international practice and its theorization, which itself remains an important analytical as well as empirical question, it asks what it means to bring gender into the study of world politics. The unit will examine various concerns raised by diverse feminisms, including the intersections of gender with other structures of privilege/oppression, and the implications of these concerns for both IR and world politics. These concerns will range from the theoretical (such as questions of difference or similarities among women in their experience of world politics and the problem this presents for theorizing women in IR) to the practical (issues such as nationalism, the state, security, the international economy, and human rights) and the empirical.
The aims of this unit are:
On successful completion of the unit, students will be able to:
#1 critically engage with relevant literatures in relation to gender, feminisms and IR
#2 demonstrate the ability to combine theory and relevant empirical material
#3 develop the ability to make a cogent and theoretically-informed academic argument
#4 develop the ability to craft a doable research question
#5 demonstrate the ability to carry out a self-designed research project that deploys gender as a category of analysis in relation to issues in global politics and International Relations
Three hour seminar per week (to include an informal lecture either at the outset of each seminar or, more likely, at the conclusion of each seminar)
Enloe, C. (2014) Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of World Politics, 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Butler, Judith (2006 [1999]) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York and London: Routledge.
Connell, R.W. (2005 [1995]) Masculinities, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Enloe, Cynthia (2005) The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Shepherd, Laura J., ed. (2010) Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations, London and New York: Routledge.
Charlotte Hooper (2001) Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics, New
