Introduction to Gender Studies in Latin America

3 units

The course offers a critical and theoretical introduction to gender studies in Latin America, focusing on the most relevant aspects of this topic. The first part of the course will be devoted to the definition of key terms, historical processes and critical directions. Binary concepts such as gender/ sexuality, rationality/aGectivity, femininity/masculinity, hetero/homosexuality, public/private sphere, and so on will be explained and deconstructed. Also, terms such as identity, subjectivity, identity politics, patriarchy, homosociality, intersectionality and the like will be analyzed from cultural and political perspectives. After these preliminary sessions, the course will concentrate on various aspects of gender studies in Latin America: 1) The development of the field and the main critical directions it assumes in modern and contemporary times. Gender as critical category. From essentialized perspectives to gender as a social construction. 2) The connections between gender studies and the concepts of power, sexuality, aesthetic/discursive representations of the body. Gender roles, counter-normative practices and critical positions. Students will be introduced to issues on gender in the colonial period (e.g., the position of women in religious environments, women in the court). Relevance of class and race in connection with gender; countercultural practices. 3) Visual, literary and theoretical interpretations and depictions of gender and the body, representative cases related to the performance of gender in the public space will be analyzed, for instance: Women and the Church (Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz); modern women in politics (Eva Peron), women and violence (femicides; author Selva Almada); symbolic constructions in visual arts (Frida Kahlo and/or Ana Mendieta), fictional elaboration of transgender subjectivity (e.g., Camila Sosa Villada). The goal is to familiarize students with basic historical and cultural developments as well as with the vocabulary and main concepts used in the field of gender studies today, thus preparing them for more advanced studies on these topics.