Course description
* Thesis 12,000 words (37.5 points)
* one compulsory subject (12.5 points)
* four elective subjects (50 points)
Total 100 points - subjects are 12.5 points each, unless indicated otherwise.
Students must consult the course coordinator to have their subject selection approved prior to enrolment at the Faculty Office. Applicants should note that they must satisfy any prerequisite as set, before being allowed to enrol in any subjects.
Thesis subject
Subject Semester Credit Points
131-507 Gender Studies Thesis
An approved topic selected in consultation with the convenor of gender studies. Semester 1, Semester 2 37.50
Compulsory subject
Subject Semester Credit Points
131-432 Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective
This subject surveys recent developments in feminist theory and feminist methodology within a cross-cultural context. It explores issues involved in present-day debates about feminist epistemology and knowledge, including debates surrounding the rela... Semester 1 12.50
Elective subjects
Subject Semester Credit Points
131-434 Reading Course
This subject involves a study of theoretical, empirical or historiographical issues broadly related to the thesis topic and conducted through extensive reading, decided by the student in conjunction with the supervisor. The subject should enhance the... Semester 1, Semester 2 12.50
131-547 Rethinking Rights and Global Development
This subject explores the theoretical and political issues surrounding ideas of rights and human rights, with special reference to the development process within the contemporary globalising order. It draws on recent critical, feminist and other (re)... Semester 2 12.50
107-437 The Artist's Body
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
107-414 Film, Censorship & The Media
This subject examines the history of film and media censorship, its relationship to morality and the public sphere. Students will gain a theoretical understanding of the key debates surrounding the controversial area of censorship. They will also stu... Semester 2 12.50
107-421 Contemporary Film Theory
This subject will examine the development of contemporary film theory of the post-1968 period. Students will be expected to critically evaluate the significance and applicability of some of the following theoretical approaches: formalism and structur... Semester 1 12.50
107-432 Melodrama, Class and the Cinema
This subject involves a study of the role the melodrama has played in the representation of class and ideological conflict in the cinema. Students are asked to examine melodramas from periods such as the silent period, the 1930s, the 1950s and contem... Semester 2 12.50
07-440 Hitchcock, Film and Art
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the greatest directors of the 20th century. Recently a number of international exhibitions have documented the receptiveness of Hitchcock's films to the literary and visual arts of his time - from Pre-Raphaelite and Sy... Semester 1 12.50
107-458 Screen Affect: Culture, Bodies, Emotion
This subject will explore visual representations of culture: aesthetic, affective, and political to explore the various levels of affect. Affect is a core concept in interpretive visual methodologies, involving the analysis of bodies within contextua... Semester 2 12.50
107-463 Dream Screen: Film and Psychoanalysis
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
106-403 Reading the Subject: Freud/Fiction/Lacan
The subject provides an introduction to the basic tenets of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory and some of the challenges and criticisms they have attracted. It examines the influences of psychoanalysis on representations of subjectivity and... Semester 2 12.50
106-409 Celebrity Cultures
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
106-423 Romanticism and Modernity
This subject offers an introduction to romanticism as a paradigmatic discourse of modernity, with particular emphasis on questions of gender, aesthetics and subjectivity. It also examines aspects of the role played by the ideology and discourse of ro... Semester 2 12.50
106-428 Media, Politics and Cultural Diaspora
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
106-432 Cultural Studies in Asia
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
106-436 Queer Theory Ten Years On
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
106-448 Theorising the Spectator
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
131-454 Art, Family & Politics: The Renaissance
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
166-416 Justice, Democracy and Difference
This subject provides a critical examination of contemporary debates about ideas of justice, democracy and the politics of difference. The subject critically explores both the major liberal approaches to justice alongside critiques of liberal approac... Semester 1 12.50
166-442 Rights and Public Policy
This subject aims to assist students with the development of skills relevant in the policy-making process. This is carried out by familiarising students with legal and political developments within a variety of rights fields and by requiring them to ... Semester 2 12.50
121-408 Civil Society, NGOs and the State
In the nearly two decades since the end of the Cold War, the world has witnessed a remarkable rejection of the big plans and projects that characterized the period of high-modernization that existed between the Bretton Woods pact of 1944 and the end ... Semester 1 12.50
121-460 Field Methods for Development
The subject will focus on ethnographic or qualitative methods, particularly as they apply to development work. It includes a discussion of varying notions of ethnographic or qualitative research, including the notion of praxis the merger of theory an... Semester 2 12.50
121-461 Gender Issues in Development
This subject will focus on feminist engagements with development theory. Case studies will consider the place of women and men in rural social orders, the relationship between gender, the environment and ethnicity, the gendered dimensions of governan... Semester 2 12.50
121-545 Understanding Development
This subject forms an introduction to the main past and current theories of development, involving the approaches of several social science disciplines. It also considers many of the major issues in development, including the environment, gender, hum... Semester 1 12.50
505-522 Women's Sexual & Reproductive Health
This subject takes as a starting point a consideration of what constitutes sexual and reproductive health over the life course. It provides an overview of key sexual and reproductive health issues in a variety of geographic locations and considers t... Semester 1 12.50
505-523 Gender and Health: Critical Perspectives
This subject examines the way Gender and Health, and particularly Women's Health have been examined within and across the disciplinary fields of Public Health, Biomedicine, Epidemiology, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology. We will examine th... Semester 1 12.50
505-524 Research Methodology in Women's Health
This subject will not be available in 2009 12.50
505-525 Women and Global Health
Developing and newly-industrialised countries experience wide variation in terms of history, politics, demographic transition, development and epidemiology. This subject situates women and their health in a dynamic context of development, globalizati... Semester 2 12.50
131-551 Gender: Representations and Histories
What is gender and why does it matter? In this seminar we will explore how this concept emerged and the multiple meanings it has taken on in academic inquiry and everyday life. Representations of gender will be examined in both theoretical and histor... Semester 1 12.50
161-591 Development, Culture and Conflict
The end of the Cold War and the announcement of the ‘New World Order’ created a rapidly transforming terrain for the practice of development, humanitarian intervention and aid. Cultural, ethnic and religious conflict is a feat... Semester 2 12.50
