GNDS 125/3.0: Gender, Race and Pop Culture

This course is available to both Queen’s and non-Queen’s students. Non-Queen’s students (including interest students, visiting students, and new online degree students) must first apply for admission. The following course description is presented for informational purposes only and is subject to change.

Instructor

TBA Learn more about the instructor...
E-mail: TBA

Course Description

Explores popular culture from feminist and anti-racist perspectives, with attention to sexuality, gender, race and nation in a variety of media.

Course Introduction

This online gender studies course examines the construction of gender - both femininity and masculinity - in popular culture with a consideration of how social, political and hisotrical forces influences media practices as well as audience consumption preferences.

The primary methodology will be feminist and ideological analysis of gender and media texts within an interdisciplinary context. This is an introduction to sex, gender and popular culture so no prior knowledge base will be assumed; that said, this is a course that works with feminist, anti-racist and anti-homophobia methods and premises as well as with counter-ideological assumptions. A working definition of ideology is the naturalization of cultural conditions and beliefs, especially those about identities, and our primary concern in this course is how this process occurs in media (film, television, documentary, etc.) texts.

Please be advised that this is not a course in film, video and television appreciation; rather, our purpose is to deconstruct the way that mass media texts work in order to develop a comprehensive and critical understanding of the social, political and historical contexts from which they emerge and which conditions how they function. Your grade for the course will be based on your demonstrated ability to understand and engage the course material in a complex manner.

Course Objectives

Goals of the course include the development of critical, feminist and theoretical skills for reading and representation and construction of sex and gender in popular culture; analysis of the relationship between media and ideology; and introduction to the practices, goals, and strategies of alternative (which is to say, feminist) cultural production.

Lesson Schedule

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More information:

• Computer Requirements and Internet Access
• Moodle, Our Online Learning Environment 
• Academic Integrity
• Evaluation
• Suggested Time Commitment
• Required Material