Women’s & Gender Studies

In order to approach the Feminine/Masculine dichotomy or its complementarity, it is worth taking a diachronic approach that embraces different literary genres and philosophical arguments. From the earliest texts of Antiquity to contemporary novels, it's important to note the clichés and canons of the two genres in order to better reopen representations of binarity. Starting with Plato's myth of the androgyne, which proposes the invention of the sexes, the course works on the definitions of masculine and feminine, as well as their relationships. It then studies extracts from medieval literature to analyze the implementation of a codified image of masculine behavior and feminine posture. This highlights works less frequently found in school anthologies, and discovers original voices that sing of the links between men and women. The Renaissance period is explored through a painting by a man depicting a woman: starting from this banal subject, it sees the stakes, both poetic and aesthetic, in the figuration of the symbols chosen. Crossing the Grand siècle, with its coquettes, inconstants and honest men, the course moves on to the Age of Enlightenment, where the question of gender becomes pressing, with the proposals of Poulain de la Barre, for example. The poetics of uncertain or metamorphosed genders is explored using texts from the 19th and 20th centuries: the castrato, the hermaphrodite, and transvestites are studied. The course looks at new ways of referring to these figures as they find their representation in literature. Intersexuality will thus be examined in the light of works chosen for their literary interest and the philosophical reflection they generate. Finally, it takes a closer look at representations of male and female bodies in contemporary literature, focusing on the poetics of weakness, injury and ageing, with particular reference to the motif of the gaze of a third party and that of the mirror to which one speaks of one's own body.

This course offers a critical analysis and introduction to the fundamental concepts of feminist theories including citizenship, body, mind, rights, equality, freedom, patriarchy, and the sex/gender system.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. This course provides students the tools to address humanities research in general, and in particular in women and gender history. The specific focus is on methodological sources and sites of memory for women’s studies.

During their lives, women produced and received documents (e.g. letters, diaries and memoirs), which are preserved in several public and private archives. This material is particularly important to understand women's status and stories: marginalized in the private sphere, they enjoyed fewer rights than men, also for what concerned access to wealth. However, as the analysis of women's papers shows, they stood for themselves and negotiated the boundaries of the spaces and roles society assigned to them. The analysis of documents by women allows us to recover their voices and to clearly understand the importance of the ordinary in the wider societal context. By approaching women's documents from a theoretical and practical perspective, this course provides students with tools for research in the humanities, with a particular focus on women and gender history.

This course examines the relationship between Buddhism and gender in a broad variety of historical and Buddhist thematic contexts. To accomplish this, we will immerse ourselves in Buddhist texts and teachings, analyze material and visual culture, and delve into the lived experiences of Buddhist practitioners spanning from Early Buddhism to the present day, across a range of Buddhist traditions, cultures, and geographical settings. In so doing, we will explore topics including the role and status of women, the construction of Buddhist masculinities and femininities, the gendering of religious roles, institutions and practices, and activism towards gender equality in Buddhist communities. 

This course explores debates around gender and sexualities as a way both of deepening knowledge about the politics of gender continentally, and of exploring the complexity of different African contexts’ engagement with broad discussions on sexual rights. The course is divided into two sections which broadly focus on South Africa, Kenya and Uganda. The first section addresses concepts on gender and sexualities through an examination of how sexualities were remade as a result of colonial conquest as well as how debates over gender and sexualities shifted post-‘independence’. The second section looks at contemporary debates in gender politics and sexualities. These include debates of the (de)criminalization of sex work, culture and sexuality, reproductive health rights and sexual rights, and gender and the media. DP requirements: Students are expected to attend all classes, and to submit all required assignments by deadlines identified in the course curriculum. Assessment: Continuous assessment (essays, projects, tests, etc.) counts 100%.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The title of the course is "FEMMINISMS." Women’s thinking and movements, in Europe, in the Americas, in the Arab context, in southern Africa and in the Asian context are analysed in chronological order, but also showing the deep connections that were established between the various areas of the world. Alongside some thematic reconstructions, starting from the American Revolution and the French Revolution and the publication of the first "manifestos" of contemporary feminism, the lectures analyze particularly important texts and experiences still hard to define within the scope of “classical” history (centered upon the West and its successive “waves”) of the feminisms. At the end, the students understand the complexity of the females thinking and movements in their peculiarity and in a transnational and global perspective. Students acquire in-depth knowledge of the origins and development of women's movements in Italian Early Modern and Contemporary history, through methodological investigations which allow them to research autonomously.

This course examines gender and sexuality in a Scottish context. As binary understandings of gender and sexuality are increasingly shown to be outdated and outmoded, developments in our understanding of gender and sexuality are making headlines and becoming a regular part of our daily discourse in both our social and working lives. This course enables students to apply their knowledge of identity politics to a dynamic range of relevant texts. The texts examine the decline of traditional, industrialist, "hard man" masculinities in Scotland. Through an exploration of dynamic, contemporary and highly acclaimed texts, this course examines broken masculinities, resistant femininities, and resurgent Scottish LGBT+ fictions. A select range of relevant secondary sources accompany this exploration of primary literature, introducing students to iconic theorists, as well as relevant contemporary critics examining Scottish literature from a gendered perspective.

The Celtic literatures contain a variety of strong and memorable female and male characters, some positively portrayed and others negatively. The idealized gender characteristics which may underpin these portrayals is explored in the lectures. In the case of the ultimate model of masculinity, the male hero, the myth of heroic prowess coupled with the underlying threat of unpredictability and violence is examined. In addition, the blurred lines of gender identity in poetry is a particular focus. Saints' Lives of the Middle Ages, often an expected source of gender role reversal and fluidity, is also covered. A range of representative texts are read in translation, and discussed and analyzed in lectures.

This course provides theoretical and methodological tools to approach, analyze, and question research from a gender perspective. It examines basic concepts of gender studies.

This course examines key issues and debates in western feminist art movements between the 1960s and 1980s. The inclusion of case studies on the works of women artists, including Mona Hatoum, Nikki S. Lee, Yin Xiuzhen, Shen Yuan, and Megumi Akiyoshi. It also covers new artistic contents, and alternative cultural formats and theoretical paradigms to the on-going construction of a feminist history of art within the increasingly interconnected, yet unevenly developed globalizing contemporary society.