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Module Specifications.

Current Academic Year 2024 - 2025

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Date posted: September 2024

Module Title Gender & Sexuality
Module Code EL202 (ITS) / LIT1002 (Banner)
Faculty Humanities & Social Sciences School English
Module Co-ordinatorJennifer Mooney
Module TeachersKit Fryatt, Sharon Murphy
NFQ level 8 Credit Rating 5
Pre-requisite Not Available
Co-requisite Not Available
Compatibles Not Available
Incompatibles Not Available
None
Description

This course considers Irish, British, and American textual and visual works from the eighteenth century up until the present that explore cultural constructs of gender and sexuality. It includes work in different genres by both prominent and lesser known writers/ artists who show that gender and sexuality might be more complex than we initially assume. In so doing, it examines a range of topics including the relationship of power and gender, the significance of body image, concepts of feminine and masculine in relation to nature, theories of the gaze. To assist in the examination of works that introduce such central human questions related to gender and sexuality, students will also read supplementary theoretical texts.

Learning Outcomes

1. Engage with central arguments related to the constructed nature of gender and sexuality as treated in literature, visual material, and theory.
2. Appreciate the different generic approaches to central questions in relation to gender and sexuality
3. Understand the historical development of changing approaches to gender and sexuality
4. Analyze a range of the political and cultural issues in relation to literature’s treatment of gender and sexuality.
5. Understand how literature engages with the relationship of identity to issues of gender and sexuality.



Workload Full-time hours per semester
Type Hours Description
Lecture21Lectures
Independent Study104Independent Learning
Total Workload: 125

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

Gender Politics: (3)
Richardson; M. Wollstonecraft; M. Edgeworth (essay; novels)

Bodies of Poetry: (2-3)
Keats and Tennyson (poetry)

Sisterhood: (1)
Christina Rossetti (poetry)

Gender performance: Fin de siècle aesthetics (2)
Somerville and Ross; George du Maurier (illustrated novels)

Gender transformation: (1)
Virginia Woolf (novel)

Gender and Nature: The Frontiersman (1)
Jack London (children’s book)

Gender and Race (1)
Richard Wright (short fiction)

Image and identity: The Silver Screen goddess (2)
Angela Carter; Mankiewicz, All About Eve (novel and film)

Body and self: sexuality and animalism (2)
Angela Carter (fairy tales)

Sex and censorship in Ireland (1)
Kate O’Brien (novel)

Gendering the Nation (2)
Lady Gregory and E. Boland (play and poetry)

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment100% Examination Weight0%
Course Work Breakdown
TypeDescription% of totalAssessment Date
EssayEssay25%n/a
Reassessment Requirement Type
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories:
Resit category 1: A resit is available for both* components of the module.
Resit category 2: No resit is available for a 100% continuous assessment module.
Resit category 3: No resit is available for the continuous assessment component where there is a continuous assessment and examination element.
* ‘Both’ is used in the context of the module having a Continuous Assessment/Examination split; where the module is 100% continuous assessment, there will also be a resit of the assessment
This module is category 1
Indicative Reading List

  • Belsey, Catherine and Jane Moore, eds.: 1997, The Feminist Reader, Macmillan, London,
  • Boland, Eavan: 1996, Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time, Vintage, London,
  • Cullingford, Elizabeth Butler: 2001, Ireland’s Others: Ethnicity and Gender in Irish Literature and Popular Culture, Cork University Press, Cork,
  • Du Gay, Paul, Jessica Evans, and Peter Redman, eds.: 2002, Identity: A Reader, Sage, London,
  • Innes, C.L.: 1993, Woman and Nation. 1880-1935., Harvester, London,
  • Mirzoeff, Nicholas, ed.: 1998, The Visual Culture Reader, Routledge, London,
  • Sage, Lorna.: 1994, Flesh and the Mirror. Essays on the Art of Angela Carter, Virago, London,
Other Resources

None

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