PhD Courses in Denmark

Gender Theories – from Beauvoir to Barad

Graduate School, Arts at Aarhus University

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

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:

  • Differences and similarities between
    • egalité-feminism
    • différance-feminism
    • de-/constructivism
    • postcolonialism
    • masculinity studies
    • queer studies
    • posthumanist theory
    • new materialist theory
  • Seminal texts by some of the most influential thinkers in gender studies
  • Central concepts in gender studies, including:
    • alterity
    • sex vs. gender
    • égalité
    • différance
    • fallogocentrism
    • jouissance
    • écriture féminine
    • semiotic og symbolic modalities
    • discourse and subjectification
    • sub-alterity
    • performativity
    • subversion
    • intersectionality
    • standpoint epistemology
    • posthumanism
    • diffraction
    • intra-action
    • process ontology

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

Language

  • English if some participants do not speak Danish; otherwise in Danish

Form

  • Introductions, close readings, discussions, project presentations, and developments

ECTS-credits

  • 3

Lecturers

  • Marianne Schleicher, Associate Professor, PhD

Literature (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, Marianne. 2021. “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

  • 26 May 2025:Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1485, room 642
  • 27 May 2025:Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1485, room 642
  • 28 May 2025:Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1485, room 642

Course dates

  • 26 May 2025 09:00 - 17:00
  • 27 May 2025 09:00 - 17:00
  • 28 May 2025 09:00 - 17:00
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