Postgraduate Module Descriptor

ARAM230: Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Palestine/Israel

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

Module Aims

This module aims to provide you with the skills of critical gender analysis, which will allow you to explore how settler colonialism and political violence are sustained and subverted in Palestine/Israel. You will learn to analyse how gender roles, relations, codes and norms become central to the production of violence, as well as how women and men experience, understand and resist this violence on individual and collective levels. Students are expected to take an active role in creating and leading our learning community. The module encourages politically active learning through discussion of topical 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. Discern the various ways in which gender roles, codes, norms and relations sustain political violence in Palestine/Israel.
2. Identify and critically assess how settler colonialism underwrites ‘conflict’ in Palestine/Israel, in part through gendered and sexualised dynamics.
3. Evaluate how gender shapes diverse modes of resistance to political violence and settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel.
Discipline-Specific Skills3. Analyse and assess academic texts and prevailing discursive frames (i.e., ‘conflict’ or ‘occupation’) critically.
4. Analyse and assess academic texts and prevailing discursive frames (i.e., ‘conflict’ or ‘occupation’) critically.
5. Identify processes by which gender (i.e., femaleness and maleness) is socially constructed and becomes implicated in politics.
Personal and Key Skills6. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument.
7. Critically examine and review existing literature.
8. Carry out independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

Gender, Sexuality & Settler Colonialism

Gendering Political Violence

Nationalism & the Construction of Collective Identities

Borders, Boundaries & the Politics of Space

Displacement & Diaspora

Embodiment: Experiences of Control & Carcerality

The Politics of Everyday Life: Normalcy &‘Getting By’

Feminist Praxis & Women’s Activism

Queer Politics: Pinkwashing & Homonationalism

Resistance: From Ordinary Actions to Popular Protest

Anti-colonial Politics & De-colonial Projects

Toward New Political Futures: Imagination and Cultural Production

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
22128

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activity22Classroom hours (11 x 2-hour seminars)
Guided Independent Study55Weekly reading (5 hours per week)
Guided Independent Study11Class/seminar prep (1 hour per week)
Guided Independent Study30Project (20 hours researching/coordinating, 10 hours writing/preparing presentation)
Guided Independent Study32Essay (20 hours reading, 12 hours writing)

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).