Undergraduate Module Descriptor

ARA2118: Gender-Identity and Modernity in the Middle East

This module descriptor refers to the 2017/8 academic year.

Module Aims

This module aims to provide you with an in-depth survey of the social, political, economic and cultural issues that affect gender relations in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa.  We will investigate how gender is socially constructed and experienced, while at the same time exploring how states and regimes invoke gender on the level of politics.  Weekly lectures, discussions and presentations will enable you to analyse how gender, identity and modernity shape – and are shaped by – diverse Middle Eastern and North African contexts.  The course promotes politically active learning, primarily through discussion of current events and project-based assessment.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.

On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. identify and assess the changing social, cultural, economic and political contexts that shape gender roles and relations.
2. evaluate different theoretical and methodological approaches employed in the study of gender in the Middle East
Discipline-Specific Skills3. analyse and assess academic texts and prevailing cultural notions critically
4. distinguish between a range of methodological approaches as well as variety of genres, i.e. anthropological and sociological texts, (auto)biographical writings and fiction
5. demonstrate an awareness and be sensitised to the various processes by which gender, i.e. femaleness and maleness, are socially and culturally constructed
Personal and Key Skills6. engage in independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion
7. digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
8. demonstrate a capacity to examine and review existing literature.