Women’s & Gender Studies

This course combines anthropological approaches with interdisciplinary theories to understand experiences of mobilities and immobilities shaped by race, gender, sexuality, citizenship and class.

This course offers an in-depth exploration of the major debates, key thinkers, and intellectual trajectories in feminist thought. Through close engagement with both classic and contemporary texts, we examine feminist critiques of liberalism, capitalism, and the state, as well as theories of gender, sexuality, race, and embodiment.

The course also introduces alternative theoretical frameworks, including care ethics, intersectionality, and decolonial/postcolonial feminisms. Throughout the semester, we critically examine the conceptual foundations of feminist theory while considering how these frameworks can be applied to contemporary politics and social practice.

This course offers an introduction to the history of women in medieval Islamic societies (600 - 1500 AD), through their experiences and representations in art and literature. The course aims at finding the boundaries that divided the worlds of women and men in the economic, legal, and spiritual spheres. It does so by looking at a variety of texts, including the Qur'an, Prophetic traditions, marriage contracts, travelers' accounts, and the tales of the Arabian Nights. By comparing sources from diverse cultural perspectives, students consider the development of a cultural, economic, legal, and spiritual female identity in the Middle Ages, and critically examine medieval and modern discourses on women and Islam.

This course examines the core vocabulary and approaches that are common in global development today. It covers strategies to stay up to date with the ever-shifting terrain of development practice, and develop the sensibilities to work effectively with a range of development partners. Students will gain critical insight into how to make development ‘inclusive’ for all people, regardless of gender, (dis)ability, sexuality, socio-economic background and so on.