Contextualizing Gender

By Prof. Rashmi Gaur | IIT Roorkee

Learners enrolled: 916

About the course:
Gender permeates all aspects of the social world and is analyzed in numerous ways, including as an institution, ideology, and process that organizes everyday life. This course aims to introduce students to an interdisciplinary framework that allows them to explore and theorize the intersectional nature of gender and culture. Through various essays and philosophers, the course will stimulate a nuanced discussion on gender inequality, sexuality, masculinity, and the interaction of gendered social processes. The students will get the opportunity to examine new ways of looking at gender possibilities, like contextualizing the plurality of bodies at the intersection of science and technology. The current development of Artificial Intelligence and cyborg technologies formulate a new form of scientific biopower, which can envision concepts such as post-human and post-woman under a transhumanist discourse. A variety of theoretical approaches pertaining to contemporary Gender Studies will generate engaging discussions on the conception of gender in a digital and post-industrial society.

INTENDED AUDIENCE : Interested Students

Summary

Course Status :	Completed
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences English Studies
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate/Postgraduate
Start Date :	23 Jan 2023
End Date :	14 Apr 2023
Enrollment Ends :	06 Feb 2023
Exam Registration Ends :	17 Mar 2023
Exam Date :	29 Apr 2023 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Intersecting Gender and Feminism; Feminist Consciousness and Gendered Experiences in Simone de Beauvoir.

Week 2: Gender and Race: Black Feminism and Intersectionality.

Week 3: Gender Blurring and Unmasking Heterosexual Assumptions: Toni Morrison, Nancy Chodorow and Teresa de Lauretis.

Week 4: Introducing Queer Theory: Eve Sedgwick and Gayle Rubin.

Week 5: Gender and Nonconformity in Queer Literature.

Week 6: Gender Performativity and the Heterosexual Matrix: Judith Butler.

Week 7: Gender, Speech and Subjectivity: Judith Butler.

Week 8: Precarity, Assembly and Gender Politics: Judith Butler; Global Gender Movements.

Week 9: Contextualizing Contemporary Masculinities and Approaches to Men's Studies.

Week 10: Cyborg Women and Technologies of the Gendered Body: Anne Balsamo.

Week 11: Biopolitics of the Gendered Body: Jemima Repo, Emily Cox-Palmer-White and Donna Haraway.

Week 12: Post-Human and Post-Woman: Nomadic Subjectivities and the Futures of Gender: Rosi Braidotti and Francesca Ferrando.

Books and references

Balsamo, Anne. Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women. Duke University Press, 1996.
Beauvoir, Simone D. The Second Sex. Translated by H. M. Parshley, Knopf, 1953.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Translated from the French by Bernard Frechtman. Citadel, 1975.
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge, 1993.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990.
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. Routledge, 2004.
Connell, R. W. Masculinities. Polity Press, 2006.
Jardine, Alice A., and Paul Smith. Men in Feminism. Routledge, 2014.
Lauretis, Teresa D. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. 1987.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
Repo, Jemima. The Biopolitics of Gender. Oxford UP, 2015.
Rubin, Gayle S. "Thinking Sex." Sexualities II: Some Elements for an account of the Social Organisation of Sexualities. Routledge, London, 2002. 188-202.
Sedgwick, Eve K. Epistemology of the Closet. University of California Press, 1990.

Instructor bio

Prof. Rashmi Gaur

IIT Roorkee

Professor Rashmi Gaur teaches courses of Communication, Culture, Gender Studies and Media (Film and Literature) at IIT Roorkee. In her career, spanning three decades, she has guided about 12 Ph.D. theses, published four books, more than ninety research papers in national and international journals, besides participating in many conferences in India and abroad. Widely travelled, she also runs consultancy projects in related areas. She has worked across disciplines and cultures in different research and cultural milieus and formed strong intercultural networks through international collaborations. She is also a member of several academic bodies. At present she is working in the area of Media and Digital Humanities.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.
The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).
Date and Time of Exams: 29 April 2023 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.
Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Roorkee.It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

SWAYAM Helpline / Support