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Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Courses regarding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

"Madame sind korpulenter geworden"- Friedrich II. und die Frauen? Eine Geschichte der Sexualität des Rokoko

In einen Brief an seinen engen Vertrauten Fredersdroff schreibt Friedrich II., er habe zwei Flaschen ungarischen Wein geleert und anschließend habe sein Kammerdiener Carl Friedrich von Pirch, den er liebevoll „Carel“ nennt, „vohr Kitzelln gequipt“. Während sich Friedrich II. mit seinem Kammerdiener vergnügte – eine Geschichte wie viele derer, die Voltaire zu Hauf in Europa über Friedrich II. verbreitete –, war seine Ehefrau Elisabeth Christine seit Jahren nicht mehr Teil des Hofes Friedrichs. Die Aufzeichnungen des Grafen Lehndorff sprechen davon, dass Friedrich II. nach dem Siebenjährigen Krieg nur einen einzigen Satz an die kinderlose Königin richtete, nachdem er sie nach fast sechs Jahren erneut traf: „Madame sind korpulenter geworden.“ Im Siebenjährigen Krieg behauptete sich Friedrich II. gegen die – wie er es einmal ausdrückte – „drei ersten Huren Europas“ (Kaiserin Maria Theresia von Österreich, Frankreichs Madame Pompadour und die russische Zarin Elisabeth) und verhalf Preußen damit zum Aufstieg zur Großmacht.

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Das hier angebotene Proseminar beschäftigt sich zum einen mit Preußen in den Jahren 1712–1786 und zum anderen mit der Geschichte der Sexualität des Rokoko. Dabei wird nicht nur der Blick auf Friedrich II. und die Hofgesellschaften der Zeit geworfen, sondern auch ganz allgemein über die unterschiedlichen Stände hinweg eine Geschichte der Sexualität im 18. Jh. behandelt.

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Ein Erscheinen in der ersten Sitzung ist obligatorisch zur Teilnahme an diesem Aufbauseminar.

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  • Freitag, 10:30 - 12:00 (wöchentlich, 12.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2331.02.22 (Z 16)

„Django Jane“: Transkulturelle Diskurse im Musikvideo*

Ein aktuelles Paradigma audiovisueller Medienkulturen bildet die Medienästhetik des Musikvideos. Aus medienkulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive ist das Genre des Musikvideos an der Schnittstelle zwischen
High Culture und Low Culture, zwischen Akustischem und Visuellem positioniert und bewegt sich damit immer auch an den Grenzen medialer Formen und Gattungen und ist damit als ein dezidiert transmediales Genre
ausgewiesen.

Seit YouTube, Vimeo und andere Streamingdienste von aktuellen Popstars gezielt zur Verbreitung multimedialer Konzeptalben genutzt werden, ist das Musikvideo damit auch wieder ein fester Bestandteil popkultureller
Produktions-und Rezeptionspraktiken und erlebt auch vielleicht deshalb aktuell eine Renaissance. Diese Entwicklung ist auch deshalb neu, da das klassische Mediendispositivs des traditionellen Musikvideokanals nicht mehr existiert.

In diesem Seminar sollen spezifische transmediale und -kultureller Phänomene (wie u.a. Exotismus, Orientalismus, Afrofuturismus, Afropunk, (Trans-)Gender) am Beispiel des Musikvideos untersucht werden. Vor dem Hintergrund der Diskurse der Cultural Studies werden Zitations- und Interferenztechniken der Popkultur im Hinblick auf ihren medienarchäologischen Anfang (Futurismus, Dada, Poststrukturalimus, Pop Art etc.) hin befragt.

  • Mittwoch, 12:30 - 14:00 (wöchentlich, 10.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2301.HS 3B (Z 114)

Bodies and Embodiment in Anglophone Literature

Discarding Cartesian Dualism thinkers and philosophers from the 19th \ncentury on gradually moved towards privileging the body over the mind in\n order to define the self. Today nobody would negate that we are \nembodied subjects. Who we are, what we think and what we do is \ndetermined by corporal categories like gender, race, desire, age and \nillness. Like the body itself these categories are, according to \nscholars like Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon and Judith Buthler, \ndiscursively produced and open to historical and social change.

The\n seminar will introduce basic theoretical texts dealing with definitions\n of the embodied self. From the experience of mental illness in Janet \nFrame's classical novel Faces in the Water to the literally constipating embodiment of a troubling home country in NoViolet Bulowayo's We need new names, and from the disfigured body in Indra Sinha's novel Animal's People to the representations human clones in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go - Anglophone\n writers from different cultural backgrounds offer a variety of corporal\n states and sensations that acknowledge varying forms of subjectivity \nand identify patriarchal, colonial and neo-colonial discourses, thus \nnegotiating and challenging normative worldviews on the body, gender, \nracial and sexual identity.

Students are expected to purchase the \nnovels. To obtain a BN students must either deliver a presentation of a \nchosen topic or a short essay on a subject of their choice.

  • Montag, 12:30 - 14:00 (wöchentlich, 08.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2332.01.42

Debating Gender – Analyzing Difference (Dr. Peta Hinton)

When we study gender, can it be separated out from other forms of social and cultural identity? In this course we will consider this question by asking what it means to analyze social phenomena using a gender perspective and what it is this perspective includes. Starting with arguments for the importance of gender as a category for analysis, we will investigate the ways in which gender is said to be implicated with ideas about sexuality, nationality, race, ethnicity, and even what it means to be human. You will put these different gender perspectives to work in identifying, analyzing and understanding problematics in social and cultural difference in context. In the process you will start to develop and articulate a position on a contemporary problem, and consider together what, where and how social transformation may be possible. Each lesson will focus on a case study drawing from current events, debates and issues that influence social relations and opportunities within Europe and further afield. The #metoo campaign, women in leadership, intersexuality, gender equality, trans* identity, DNA ancestry and immigration will be analyzed, along with some other examples, and you are welcome to bring along examples of your own choice/that interest you for discussion.

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Key objectives:

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  • To see how and why a gender perspective matters in analyzing and understanding social phenomena and relations
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  • To become familiar with a range of theory and gender perspectives that approach diverse forms of social and cultural difference
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  • To apply a gender perspective to a current issue, debate or event
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  • To build a position on a current issue, debate, or event using case material and relevant theory
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Language of instruction is in English

  • Freitag, 10:30 - 14:00 (Einzeltermin, 23.11.2018 - 23.11.2018) - 2303.01.70 (Z 16)
  • Samstag, 10:00 - 14:00 (Einzeltermin, 24.11.2018 - 24.11.2018) - 2302.U1.21 (Z 55)
  • Freitag, 10:30 - 14:00 (Einzeltermin, 30.11.2018 - 30.11.2018) - 2303.01.22 (Z81)
  • Samstag, 10:00 - 14:00 (Einzeltermin, 01.12.2018 - 01.12.2018) - 2302.U1.21 (Z 55)
  • Freitag, 10:30 - 14:00 (Einzeltermin, 07.12.2018 - 07.12.2018) - 2303.01.22 (Z81)
  • Samstag, 10:00 - 14:00 (Einzeltermin, 08.12.2018 - 08.12.2018) - 2302.U1.21 (Z 55)

EInführung in transnationale Queer Studies: Kulturelle Repräsentationen

Queer studies/theory originally emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the US and rapidly spread among Asia in the mid 1990s.

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The course provides students with a basic understanding and a critical approach for Queer studies in/about Asia through cultural representations and popular culture. Gender and sexuality are key perspectives to understand cultures and human activities, however, they are often historically used to misrepresent other cultures and people. Through reading classic texts of Queer theory and representative works of Queer studies in/about Asia (mainly Japan but not limited), the course seeks to discuss the following questions:

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- How have cultural differences, especially between the West and East, been expressed in Queer studies/theory?

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- How did Asian Queer studies adopt Euro-American Queer studies/theory and how did it struggle with Anglophone-centrism/Western-centrism within Queer studies/theory?

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- What are the contemporary issues of Queer studies/theory in/about Asia?

  • Donnerstag, 10:30 - 12:00 (wöchentlich, 11.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2303.01.22 (Z81)

Feminist/Gender/Queer Theory (Mi 10:30-12:00)

Feminist - Gender – Queer Theory

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This seminar explores key debates in 20th and 21st-century feminist, gender, and queer theory. Beginning with such foundational feminist writings as Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, we will examine how late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century feminisms are challenged by, engage, and negotiate issues of race, class, ethnicity and sexuality both in relation to existing academic disciplines and in dialogue with the concerns of diverse constituencies and political agendas. We will pay special attention to the ways in which feminist, gender, and queer theory have influenced the study of literature and culture as well as to how students can work with these paradigms in their own academic projects.

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Readings are likely include works by Gloria Anzaldua, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Kimberle Crenshaw, Hélène Cixous, Eve Kosofsky Sedwick, Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Patricia Williams, Hortense Spillers, Donna Haraway, Lee Edelman, R.W. Connell, Maggie Nelson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

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You are expected to have read A Room of One’s Own for the first session.

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Requirements for a BN and/or exam registration include weekly entries in an ILIAS reading journal and a short writing assignment in addition to your active participation in in-class activities. Your participation has to be documented by extra written work if you miss more than 3 sessions.

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Students are expected to attend a guest workshop on "Pornography" that will take place during the weekend of 1-2 December.  Attendance will be part of the BN requirement for the course, so please organize your schedules accordingly.

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  • Mittwoch, 10:30 - 12:00 (wöchentlich, 10.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2332.01.66

Japans moderne Gesellschaft verstehen - Theorieansätze in den Cultural Studies

Die LV soll dazu dienen, Theorieansätze, die in den Cultural Studies diskutiert und praktiziert werden, vorzustellen. Über kurze Quellentexte, die wir intensiv gemeinsam lesen und diskutieren, werden wir uns im Verlauf des Seminars mit insbesondere vier Bereichen befassen, die in der Analyse von sozialen und kulturellen Formen moderner Gesellschaften präsent sind:

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  1. Soziale Schichtung und Produktion
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  3. Haushalt, Konsum und Lebensstil
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  5. Geschlecht, Körper und Sexualität
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  7. Populärkultur und Massenmedien.
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  • Donnerstag, 16:30 - 18:00 (wöchentlich, 11.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2421.00.94 (Z64)

Queering the Stage (Fr 12.30)

Stage plays and the theater play a particular role in queer discourses. Not only are theaters inherently queer places and have at times been seen as a community on the margins of society themselves, stage plays in their direct relationship with the audience have also always had a very particular impact on viewers which differs considerably from the impact a literary text has on a singular reader.

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This seminar wants to look for queer undercurrents and queer performances from the mid-20th century to the present. The plays discussed will be from a wide range of US-American texts and different epochs and will be examined with regard to possible queering mechanisms underlying so-called mainstream plots, with regard to how gay and lesbian theater of the later 20th and early 21st centuries engages with queer discourses and how political movements have influenced theatrical productions. With Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, the course will discuss in detail one of the most important literary texts inspired by the HIV/AIDS pandemic from the early 1980s onwards. Questions of gender and sexual identification, ‘gay rights,’ and theater as a highly political medium will be central to all discussions.

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Furthermore, participants will be asked to look beyond the printed text of the play script to the possible performance piece resulting from the script, to go beyond textual analysis and examine closely the peculiarity of theater, the staging and acting.

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Students will be given the opportunity to present topics and texts of their own choice in a 'project session' towards the end of term.

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Participants should be prepared to engage in the discussion of - at times - sexually explicit literary texts.

  • Freitag, 12:30 - 14:00 (wöchentlich, 12.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2332.01.43

Sexualität und Medien

Kaum ein Thema sorgt regelmäßig für solch kontroverse Debatten wie die Sexualität. Dabei ist der Sexualitätsdiskurs stark verknüpft mit den jeweiligen Bedingungen seiner medialen Repräsentation. Er umfasst viele Fragen und Themenfelder, wie etwa:

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  • Was ist im Hinblick auf Sexualität erlaubt oder verbotenen, bzw. was wird von welchen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen akzeptiert oder abgelehnt? (Handlungen, Verarbeitung von sexuellen Themen in den Medien oder in den Künsten)
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  • Wie verhalten sich Privatsphäre, Sichtbarkeit und Zensur zueinander?
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  • Wie prägen die Darstellungen von Sexualität deren Entwicklung in der Gesellschaft? (z. B. der mögliche Einfluss von Pornografie für die sexuelle Entwicklung und die damit verbundenen Herausforderungen für die Sexualpädagogik)
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  • Welche Perspektiven eröffnet der Sexualitätsdiskurs für Fragen von Geschlecht und Differenz? Bzw. wie ist der aktuelle Stand der Diskussion zu Fragen von Sexualität in den Gender Studies und anderen Forschungsdisziplinen?
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  • In welchem Verhältnis stehen Politik, Medien und Sexualitätsdiskurse zueinander? (z. B. Jugendschutz, Kunstfreiheit, #MeToo, Abtreibungsdebatten)
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Diese und weitere Fragen werden im Seminar behandelt. Es werden themenbezogene Texte und Fallbeispiele diskutiert.

  • Dienstag, 12:30 - 14:00 (wöchentlich, 09.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2303.01.22 (Z81)

Women Writers and the Anglophone Short Story

What is a short story? Defining it merely by its length does not do it justice even if the term alone might suggest such an approach and length has to be taken into account to some extent - most critics, for example, put the typical short story length in a range of 1,000 to 10,000 words. However, the short story's inherent qualities seem to be a much more appropriate way of defining the genre: unity of plot, setting, characters and effect (cf. Edgar Allan Poe), the significance of minute details (cf. Anton Chekhov) and the moment of revelation or epiphany (cf. James Joyce) seem to be prominent contenders for the required elements to make a short story. The fact that all of these characteristics were first established by these writers in particular may already showcase a certain dominance of British or American (with the exception of Chekhov) as well as male writers in short story theory and publishing.

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This course aims to look at this already understudied genre by examining the works of (sometimes twice) marginalised writers of short stories: Anglophone women writers, as the course title suggest. Anglophone, in this case, refers to literature from predominantly English-speaking countries or countries with an English literary tradition such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, various African countries and India, but also to such works which are of more transcultural nature such as Black British Literature by writers like Jackie Kay and Andrea Levy or diasporic writing by Shani Mootoo and others.

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We will look into short story theories, select aspects of postcolonial theory and various other issues and themes that predominate in short fiction by Anglophone women writers - for example, ecocriticism, gender studies and queer theory will be a part of our discussions.

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Most short stories (a selection that covers both realistic and fantasy writing) will be provided via ILIAS, but students are expected to buy two collections (to be announced) before the beginning of class. Texts are to be read and prepared before each lesson.

  • Mittwoch, 14:30 - 16:00 (wöchentlich, 10.10.2018 - 01.02.2019) - 2421.00.94 (Z64)

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