Women’s & Gender Studies

This course addresses gender and sexuality in healthcare contexts. The course provides a basis for understanding health from interdisciplinary social science perspectives, drawing in the ways gender and sexuality play important roles for understanding and shaping healthcare experiences. Issues around gender, sexualities and health are intimately shaped by social, cultural, political and economic forces; they are contemporary issues with ongoing debates around the globe concerning rights, justice, activism, and access to services, all of which can be examined using the lens of sex and gender. The course is delivered by a multi-disciplinary team of experts within the School of Health in Social Science, and introduces students to social scientific approaches to exploring issues around gender, sexualities and health. The course draws on the sociology of health and illness, as well as gender studies, anthropology, policy and politics, law, and history.

This course introduces feminist perspectives into established aesthetics by illuminating the systematic elimination of sex, sexuality, and the body from conceptual frameworks such as beauty, the sublime, pleasure, and reason. At the same time, the course analyzes and critiques artwork and practices from feminist perspectives, examining art produced or performed by women. 

The main concepts of modern aesthetics, such as 'beauty', 'hobbies', 'art', and 'genius', were surprisingly not evenly distributed to everyone. In other words, they were ideological, sometimes very gendered. As a result, there were people who questioned these aesthetic concepts, and these questions provided a place for a new view of new art. In this lecture, starting from the question of the gender ideologies hidden by the basic concepts of aesthetics, we examine the novelty opened up by feminist aesthetics with a focus on contemporary art, and furthermore, we will glimpse the future imagined by feminists' posthuman-centered thinking. 

Topics include body and mind, subject and object, the debate of nude representation, beauty and the sublime, theory of genius and romanticism, gender in modern aesthetics, art as other, woman as other, modernism, rethinking body, abject body, queering body and performativity, anti-human, non-human, and posthuman, and more. 

Although this course focuses on Islamic and Muslim feminisms (in the plural) it also cover women’s experiences with radical Islam, masculinities, LGBTQ+ Islam, and similar phenomena. The course consists of five modules. The first module studies Muslim migration to Denmark and explores Islam in Copenhagen through a field study in which students do photo-journalism. The second module focuses on female and LGBTQ+ imams in Europe. In the third module, students read and listen to artistic productions by Muslim minority women and men in the form of novels, poetry, and music. As part of this module students do a semi-structured interview with either a Muslim or a non-Muslim on private and public perceptions of Islam. The fourth module investigates current Muslim civil rights organizations, and the final module focus on Muslim female piousness.

This course examines the role of gender in Western political theory and the implications for the practice of politics.

This course examines issues related to gender, sexuality, and the body, including health, media representations, gender-based violence, and forms of resistance.

The course examines theoretical and research perspectives on gender in education, with particular attention to the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexualities. It investigates how educational policies and practices address gender issues and introduces discourse analysis as a critical analytical tool. The course explores the role of feminist thought in understanding gender in educational contexts in Aotearoa New Zealand, engaging with contemporary feminist debates and questions such as: Does feminism still matter? Are we in a post-feminist phase? Or does feminism matter more than ever? Topics include gender-inclusive curriculum, pedagogy, and policy; the critique of popular gender-normative advice literature; and approaches to queering the curriculum, with opportunities for discussion and engagement with current media debates.

This course examines the developments of feminist theories and feminist activism over the last 200 years. Topics include: types of feminism, genealogies of exclusion; private vs public and equality vs difference; conceptions of sex and genders; queer status and a deconstruction of binaries; intersectionality and decentered feminism in the context of post-colonial or de-colonial views.

The world faces a variety of identity-based politics that are considered a cause of social divisions today. Ongoing globalization—the process of human movements, networking, and intensifying interconnectivity—has facilitated various interactions, often causing disparities, conflicts, and injustices. At globalization hubs, racially and culturally diversifying populations experienced geographically uneven social transformation. Sometimes, people form “identity” to create “others” as an enemy, and other times, they do so to become “we” to achieve a common goal.  

This course pays special attention to women’s experiences in the United States, a nation known for the diversity of its population. Hoisting the banner of freedom, democracy, and capitalism, the United States engaged in settler colonialism and imperialism through the nineteenth century to lead in shaping the world order and globalization process. The course examines major historical events in their respective socio-historical contexts. By taking local, national, and transnational perspectives, the course explores the complex workings of gender, class, race/ethnicity, ideology, sex, age, etc., in women’s collective power-building and analyze how they affected their identities and society. The course discusses similarities and differences among American, Japanese, and/or societies of class interest, pursuing lessons to be learned from American examples and how this knowledge can better communities today. 

This course considers the philosophy and politics within gender studies. It briefly examines the works of Plato and Aristotle before exploring modern texts on feminism, gender, and sexual identity. Topics of study include: natural and cultural constructions of sex and gender; equality and difference; sex, gender, and sexual identity; intersectionality.

Students complete an internship with a local organization or company. Each placement includes oversight and regular check-ins with an internship supervisor from the company or organization. The Internship Methodology Seminar accompanies the internship placement and offers a platform for reflection, enhancement of skills, and development of cultural competence. It focuses on practical skill application, cultural understanding, and adaptability within professional environments to provide a bridge between academic learning and real-world experience.