Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Intensive analysis of a particular topic in the general area of communication.

COURSE DETAILS:

Special Topics in Communication:  "Sex Machines:  Technologies of Sexuality and Gender"

Prerequisites:   60 units; or written consent of an Instructor (druick@sfu.ca) or (mvdroume@sfu.ca). GSWS 102 is recommended. 
A minimum CGPA of 2.25, and approval as a communication student is required for entry into most communication upper division courses.

Overview:
The end of ‘normal’ gender and sexualities has been upon us for some time, with identity politics and intersectional analyses at the forefront of public conversations about gender. But, still, gender inequalities persist. What role do media play in constructing our shifting notions of gender and sexuality, of femininities and masculinities? How do technologies enable us to embody, police, and even hack genders, and sexualities? How can we think of gender itself as a technology that we operate and perform in everyday life?

This course provides a foundation, in the context of critical communication studies, for an analysis of the different ways that “gender” and “technology” are understood and applied within the study of media and technology. The course will take an intersectional feminist perspective on exploring, critiquing and developing alternatives to technologies of gender, at the same time tracking shifting notions of femininities and masculinities.

Topics for the course include: feminist methodologies in cultural studies; the cyber feminism debates; theories of performativity, the body and subjectivity; gender and surveillance; post-feminism; gendered historiographies of technology; experiences of work in the media and tech industries; sexuality and spatial relations.

Learning Goals:

·      To investigate an intersectional framework for considering gender in relation to sexuality, dis/ability, ethnicity/racialization, and socio-economic class.
·      To develop a theoretical foundation for understanding gender and sexuality as intrinsic to the introduction and social operation of media and technologies.
·      To consider feminism as a radical epistemology for understanding social constructions, including political and economic structures, media and technology.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: