Drawing on the internationally recognised and pioneering expertise of staff in the Department of Sociology and Department of Media and Communications in the development of cultural approaches to gender formations and gender theory, the programme offers you the opportunity to develop cutting edge critical skills in a range of sociological and cultural media and communications studies perspectives on gender relations specifically, and on culture more generally. As well as these theoretical and analytical points of orientation, the MA Gender and Culture aims to help you grasp the importance of epistemology and methodology for the evaluation of empirical investigations of gender formations. The programme therefore introduces you to and offers training in the key socio-cultural methods for the study of gender in the contemporary world, including methods for the study of visual culture; the body and affect; and memory and autobiography. These two elements of the programme are brought together in a dissertation study, which involves tailored supervision in the application of research methods to a specific topic.
Overall the programme has the following interrelated aims:
■to provide in-depth interdisciplinary knowledge of contemporary gender formations
■to provide theoretical, analytical and methodological points of orientation for understanding gender and culture transnational and across different societies and geo-political regions
■to offer skilled supervision in the development and completion of a small research project which tests thoroughly a range of research skills
■to expose students to a lively research environment and the relevant expertise of the RAE top-rated and research-led Departments of Sociology and Media and Communications
What you study
Core components of the programme will familiarise you with the wide range of debates integral to the fields of gender studies, feminist theory, and cultural studies. These include: questions about sexual difference and the performativity of gender; gender, science, and reproductive technology; debates on affect and emotion; gender and migration and the new international division of labour; and feminism and autobiography.
You complete one core course and two option courses each term, as well as a dissertation course in the spring term. The first core course introduces key debates and developments in feminist theory, cultural theory and in particular feminist cultural theory. It introduces both early debates which defined these fields and contemporary developments and departures. More specifically, you will be introduced to social constructivist and post-structuralist perspectives, to the ‘new materialism’ associated with Deleuzian thinking, also to debates on feminism, ethnicity and the critique of universalism; to key questions in relation to feminism, biology and reproductive technology; to debates on family, kinship and psycho-analysis and the emergence of queer theory and its intersection with feminist theory.
The second core course examines the place of affect and the body in feminist theory and feminist practice. It will first examine and engage the place of the body within the field of arts, culture and representation; feminist theatre practice; gender, passing and ethnicity, in feminist writing; and in feminist film theory. Secondly, it examines and critically engages the field of emotion, the politics of ‘happiness’, contemporary feminist scholarship on affect, and also the politics of science, technology and transformation in women’s/human bodies. Thirdly it will consider the issues that arise from old and new flows of migration and other kinds of bodily movement; and finally examine the role and value of narrative in feminist writing. This course therefore offers instruction in cutting edge issues in contemporary feminist cultural theory.
There will be a series of dissertation workshops to help you plan and develop your dissertation, especially in regard to issues of methodology and method. Each student will be assigned a supervisor who will work with you to develop your proposal and undertake independent research.
You should have an undergraduate degree of at least second class standard in a relevant subject.
A Progression Agreement is a formal arrangement between two or more
education providers. It spells out what a learner needs to do to be
considered for a place on a named programme of study. Progression Agreements
may vary in the conditions they specify but they all aim to give guaranteed
pathways into higher education.
Advice on courses and careers:-
The Creative Way IAG team provides a specialist service for anyone
interested in finding out about courses and careers in the creative and
cultural industries. We can provide information direct to Students,
Parents/ Carers, Tutors and Careers Advisers via email, phone or organised
workshops and 1 to 1 sessions.
To find out more, visit our IAG page on this site on
http://www.creativeway.org.uk/IAG Or contact one of our career advisers: Matt Ball 07889 001764
m.ball@uel.ac.uk or Sarah
Comerford 07515 051509
s.comerford@uel.ac.uk