Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

This module aims to give students an advanced grounding in the political sociology of gender and violence, exploring how sexual and gender-based violence operates within the intersecting systems of heteropatriarchy and colonial racial capitalism. It will culminate in students individually writing up the collaborative design of their own intervention, grounded in a clear theoretical framework and which can be at any scale they wish, which could truly move us towards a world without sexual violence.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module involves examining all the ways sexual and gender-based violence enters the world: how acts and threats of violence impose binary gender and extract free social reproduction; and how imputations and punishment of violence justify colonial expansion and military-industrial projects, border regimes and the prison-industrial complex. The module will also help students to understand how all these aspects of violence work together: how the acts and threats that make us docile subjects of capitalism also drive us into the arms of the carceral-colonial state and enable other kinds of violence in the service of capitalist accumulation. Finally, the module will engage students in critical conversations about how to intervene in this process and how initiatives to end sexual and gender-based violence can dismantle oppressive systems rather than strengthening them. The module will also incorporate a study skills component focused on critical reading and writing, and a reflective praxis element directed towards the assignment.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

At the end of the module, students should be able to:
•       Articulate the relationships between intersecting economic and social structures and gender-based violence;
•       Engage critically and analytically with a diverse range of key theorists and thinkers;
•       Think creatively and transformatively about interventions to end gender-based violence.

Intended Skill Outcomes

At the end of the module, students should be able to:
•       Demonstrate skills in critical thinking and analysis;
•       Collaboratively design an intervention on gender-based violence with a clear theoretical grounding;
•       Demonstrate skills in operationalising theory into practice;
•       Achieve independence in their learning;
•       Express complex ideas clearly, both verbally and in writing.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Teaching methods are designed to both give students theoretical input and support their independent learning. The module is heavily discussion based to enable students to develop their own ideas and to work towards their assignment from the beginning. Each week the discussion seminar will be focused on one key reading, supported by recommended readings and other forms of input (pre-recorded materials, podcasts for example) to be inclusive of a variety of different modes of learning. Students will also begin thinking about the assignment from the beginning and in reflective online workshops, allowing them to develop a strong theoretical grounding for their work and to receive plenty of formative feedback.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The submitted report, written individually on a collaborative project, will enable students to show a clear understanding of theory and the political sociology of gender and violence. It will also require students to put theory into practice in the design of an intervention, which should be explained clearly and step-by-step according to a template they will be provided with. The report will include the theoretical grounding for the intervention together with its format and structure, and a reflective section where students will talk about their own experience of the module and designing the intervention. It will be fully referenced with academic literature.

General Notes

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