It then focuses on ways of doing feminist studies of culture, by engaging with questions of sexual difference, feminist readings, and feminist ethnography. Based on these discussions of bodies and ways of studying culture, the course also includes how posthumanist theory and new materialism have come to challenge feminist understandings of culture. If bodies within cultural studies and cultural theory have often been understood in terms of text, discourse, or language, posthumanist feminist theory approaches questions of bodies and materiality differently (by challenging dualisms such as culture/nature and human/machine). The course shuttles between affirmative and critical readings of the literature, working through questions like: what can feminist cultural analysis look like? What does the material turn mean for feminist cultural studies? What’s “new” in new materialism? And does something important disappear from feminist studies of culture in a shift from culture to nature?

Place: Centre for Gender Studies at Uppsala University and Gender Studies at Södertörn University

Deadline for the final version of course papers: 16/1, 2018

Eligibility: The course is for Ph.D. students. Priority is given to Ph.D. students in gender studies at the hosting universities. Basic familiarity with feminist theory and theories of culture is expected. For additional readings, see syllabus.

Sign up for this course by email to annakarin.kristrom@gender.uu.se no later than September 15, 2017.