Gender, Sexualities & The Media

(4 Credits)

This course examines the relationships among media, sexuality, and gender politics. Students analyze theories of the construction of sexuality, femininity, masculinity, and male violence from multidisciplinary perspectives - biological, cultural, psychological, and anthropological. Applying feminist theories, queer theories, film theories, and theories of sexual scripts to the text of popular media and sexually explicit materials (such as pornography), students engage in a discussion of eroticism, sexual fantasy, desire, and the eroticization of violence. Students learn to demonstrate a critical understanding of the key theories of gender and sexuality from multiple disciplines, and to apply these theories in their analyses of the media text.