Swedish name: Feministiska teorier
This syllabus is valid: 2025-06-09 and until further notice
Syllabus for courses starting after 2025-06-09
Syllabus for courses starting between 2023-06-19 and 2025-06-08
Syllabus for courses starting between 2022-08-22 and 2023-06-18
Syllabus for courses starting between 2022-06-20 and 2022-08-21
Syllabus for courses starting between 2020-09-14 and 2022-06-19
Syllabus for courses starting between 2020-09-07 and 2020-09-13
Course code: 2KC030
Credit points: 7.5
Education level: Second cycle
Main Field of Study and progress level:
Gender Studies: Second cycle, has only first-cycle course/s as entry requirements
Grading scale: Pass with distinction, Pass, Fail
Responsible department: Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS)
Revised by: Director of Umeå Centre for Gender Studies (UCGS), 2025-06-09
This course deals with feminist theory and differences within feminist theorizing. Taking
departure from a variety of feminist approaches, the course will address questions such as: What is gender, and what are feminist perspectives?
How have feminists theorized and understood the relationship between gender and power, and other intersecting categories?
The course is divided into three broad themes: 1) sex and gender, 2) feminism and sexuality 3) feminism and coloniality. These themes will be explored through classical texts, lectures, seminar discussions, pedagocial exercises and individual written assignments.
Learning Outcomes
Having completed this course, the students are expected to have the ability to:
Knowledge and understanding:
* understand and explain different feminist perspectives.
* understand and explain how feminist theories conceptualize sex, gender, sexuality, racialization and (post)coloniality.
Skills and abilities:
* independently apply relevant feminist theories on empirical or theoretical problems.
* identify and compare diverging lines between different feminist perspectives.
Judgement and approach:
* In writing, independently present foundational feminist theories within gender studies.
To be admitted to the course applicants must have completed three semesters of full time studies, equivalent to 90 ECTS, of which at least 15 ECTS must be an independent project or four semesters of full time studies equivalent to 120 ECTS.
English proficiency equivalent to English A/6 from Swedish Upper secondary education.
The course is a full-time on-line course in English. The course is taught entirely through an electronic Learning Management System where the student takes part in lectures, mandatory assignments and other learning activities. The studies are characterized by a high degree of independent and active search for knowledge, and critical reflection, both individually and in groups.
The course focuses on active learning, i.e. putting knowledge into practice and critically reflecting upon the knowledge. Different strategies for teaching and learning will be used, such as lectures, and various forms of individual and group exercises on selected topics. To pass the course the student is expected to actively participate in all seminars or complete supplementary written assignments and to pass the final examination.
Examination takes place through fulfillment of two parts:
1) Mandatory assignments during the course
2) Individual written assignment.
For part 1 the grades are Fail (U) or Pass (G). For part 2, as well as for the whole course, the grades are Fail (U), Pass (G) and Pass with Distinction (VG). The grade for the whole course in based on the examination of part 2. The whole course is not graded until both parts are fulfilled.
Students have the right to apply to have a previous education or experience evaluated for transfer of credits. For more
information, see: www.ͯÑÕÊÓƵ/utbildning/antagning/tillgodoraknande/
Abu-Lughod Lila
Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthopological reflections on Cultural relativism and its Others.
Ingår i: American Anthroplogist, 104(3) pp. 783-790. 2003. : 2003 :
Mandatory
Butler Judith
Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire
Included in:
Feminisms
Oxford : Oxford University Press : 1997 : xii, 599 s. : pages 278-85 :
Mandatory
Collins Patricia Hill
Black feminist thought : knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment
Rev. 10th anniversary ed. : New York : Routledge : 2000 : xvi, 335 s. :
Mandatory
Reading instructions: The Politics of Black Feminist Thought, pp 1-20.
Crenshaw Kimberle
Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color
Included in:
Stanford law review.
Stanford, Calif. : School of Law : 1948- :
Mandatory
Reading instructions: pp. 1241- 1299
Dueling dualisms
Included in:
Sexing the body
New York, NY : Basic Books : 2020 : xi, 594 pages :
Mandatory
Introduction
Included in:
Feminist postcolonial theory
New York : Routledge : 2003 : pdf (xi, 754 s.) :
Mandatory
Lorde Audrey
The Master´s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master´s House
Included in:
This bridge called my back
New York : Kitchen Table : 1983 : xxvi, 261 s. :
Mandatory
Feminist Studies: A Guide to Intersectional Theory, Methodology and Writing (Routledge advances in feminist studies and intersectionality ; 1)
Lykke Nina, Max Novick
Routledge :
Mandatory
MacKinnon Catharine A
Sexuality
Included in:
The second wave
New York : Routledge : 1997 : 414 s. :
Mandatory
Reading instructions: pp. 158-180
Mohanty Chandra Talpade
Under western eyes. Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses.
Included in:
Feminist review.
London,c 1979- : 1979- : pages 61-88 :
Mandatory
Norlander Kerstin
Empathetic reading. The art of reading a text in its own terms
Swedish Secreteriat for Gender Research : 2013 :
Mandatory
Reading instructions: pp. 10-13
Key concepts in gender studies
Pilcher Jane, Whelehan Imelda
2nd edition. : 2017 : 194 pages :
ISBN: 9781446260289
Mandatory
Rubin Gayle
Thinking sex
Included in:
The Lesbian and gay studies reader
New York : Routledge : 1993 : 666 s. : pages 3-44 :
Mandatory
Virgins or whores? Feminist critique of sexuality
Included in:
Sexuality
Oxford : Oxford University Press : 2008 : 151 p. :
Mandatory
Reading instructions: pp. 49-74
Vuolajärvi Niina
Governing in the Name of Caring—the Nordic Model of Prostitution and its Punitive Consequences for Migrants Who Sell Sex
Included in:
Sexuality research & social policy : journal of NSRC : SR & SP
2004- : 16 : pages 151-165 :
Mandatory
Doing gender
West Candace, Zimmerman Don H.
Included in:
Gender & society.
Newbury Park, Calif. : Sage : 1987- :
Mandatory
Butler Judith
Who's afraid of gender?
[London] UK : Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books : 2024 : 308 pages :
ISBN: 9780241595824
Reading instructions: pp. 3-36 and 134-228
Mansfield Nick
Subjectivity : theories of the self from Freud to Haraway
New York : New York Univ. Press : 2000 : ix, 198 s. :
ISBN: 0-8147-5651-4 (hft.)
Reading instructions: pp. 51-65
"Sexual traffic. Interview"
Rubin Gayle, Butler Judith
Included in:
Feminism meets queer theory
Bloomington, Ind. : Indiana Univ. Press : cop. 1997 : 341 s.a (xiii, 341 s.) :
Reading instructions: pp. 68-108
Rubin Gayle
The traffic in women: Notes on the ´Political Economy´of sex : I: Reiter R.R. (ed.), Towards an Anthropology of Women. New York: Monthly Review Press, s. 157-210.
1975 :
Reading instructions: pp. 157-210
Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
[Stanford, Calif.] : Stanford University : c1997- :
Reading instructions: Feminist Perspectives on Power: https://plato.sydney.edu.au/archives/fall2008/entries/feminist-power/#radi