ENG30480 Reading Gender and Sexuality

Academic Year 2018/2019

In this module, we will explore the ways in which gender and sexuality, the body and desire, have been constructed in literary and cultural representation from the 1970s to the present. We will read literary texts alongside key theoretical concepts and social contexts that enrich and deepen our understandings and analyses of literary texts. Our critical lens will be intersectional, with close attention to the way in which gender and sexuality are shaped by race, class, migration and other structures of power, paying attention to key concepts in psychoanalysis, postcolonial, critical race, feminist, queer, and trans theory and masculinity studies. We will explore the diverse ways that a range of literary texts can be read and analysed in light of these histories, locations and concepts. We will think about the relation between cultural representation, social change, and identity, to interrogate to what extent the ways that we identify in terms of gender and sexuality are influenced by social and cultural forces normally understood as ‘outside' of the ‘self'. Special attention will be given to the feminist, queer, trans and gender minority movements and politics that all of the required texts speak to in different and often conflicting ways. We will also pay attention to reentrenchments as well as transformations in the understanding and representation of gender, race, class and sexuality, particularly in relation to what is called the 'manosphere' and the 'new misogyny'.

NOTE: This module is highly recommended for students interested in applying for the MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture. The approach taken in this module is strongly theoretical, so students with an interest in critical theory would particularly benefit from this module.

Indicative primary reading list (subject to change):
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (1979; Vintage, 2013).
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985; Vintage, 2012).
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987; Vintage, 2014).
Imogen Binnie, Nevada (Topside Press, 2013).
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club (Vintage, 1997).

PLEASE NOTE that the School of English, Drama and Film reserves the right to withdraw modules in the period up to and including the first week of the teaching semester.