Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Course Outlines

Summer 2024 - IS 310 D100

Gender and Security (4)

Class Number: 2777

Delivery Method: In Person

Overview

  • Course Times + Location:

    May 6 – Aug 2, 2024: Thu, 11:30 a.m.–2:20 p.m.
    Vancouver

  • Prerequisites:

    45 units.

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines security issues and events with attention to gender. Focuses on themes related to war, political violence, post-war reconstruction, militarism, military culture, and peace activism with attention to women and marginalised communities, gender norms, and feminist and queer approaches to rethinking security and imagining peace.

COURSE DETAILS:

This course examines security issues and events with attention to gender, including examining ways that individuals experience security and insecurity differently, depending on their gender; engaging with feminist and queer theory challenges to ‘traditional’ definitions and understandings of war, security, and insecurity; and centring sources of insecurity that largely impact women, transgender, and racialized communities. The unit covers themes related to war, political violence, post-war reconstruction, militarism, military culture, and peace activism. There will be a focus on the Americas, while keeping a Global perspective.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

This course will introduce students to the core discussions on security and gender, turn notions into analytical tools for understanding the multiplicity of gendered experiences of war, conflict and peace, and develop methodologies for professional practice. The course will help students to build a number of skills that are essential to becoming social scientists working in research, teaching or as applied professionals. Through participation in this course, students will:

  1. Gain knowledge of feminist and queer theories of security, war, and peace;
  2. Explore a range of definitions and theories of security and relate these to case studies on security, wars and social movements emerging our of them
  3. Consider how vulnerable populations might experience war, security and peace differently;
  4. Consider innovative alternatives and solutions to pressing global issues related to gender, security and development;
  5. Engage with scholarship that across several disciplines, including international relations, security studies, gender studies, and Indigenous studies.

Grading

  • Class participation & discussion forums 15%
  • Quizzes 50%
  • Proposal & presentation for final paper 5%
  • Final paper 30%

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

López, María Pia, Frances Riddle, translator. Not One Less : Mourning, Disobedience and Desire / María Pia López ; Translated by Frances Riddle. Polity Press. 2020.

Shepherd, Laura J and Caitlin Hamilton. Gender Matters in Global Politics: A Feminist Introduction to International Relations. Milton:Routledge. 2023

Books will be available in library reserves.

 

Registrar Notes:

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: YOUR WORK, YOUR SUCCESS

SFU’s Academic Integrity website http://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity.html is filled with information on what is meant by academic dishonesty, where you can find resources to help with your studies and the consequences of cheating. Check out the site for more information and videos that help explain the issues in plain English.

Each student is responsible for his or her conduct as it affects the university community. Academic dishonesty, in whatever form, is ultimately destructive of the values of the university. Furthermore, it is unfair and discouraging to the majority of students who pursue their studies honestly. Scholarly integrity is required of all members of the university. http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/student/s10-01.html