Postgraduate Module Descriptor

ARAM230: Gender, Sexuality and Violence in Palestine/Israel

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 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. You 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 shape – and are shaped by – political violence in Palestine/Israel.
2. Develop an in-depth understanding of the relationship between gender, sexuality and settler colonialism in Palestine/Israel.
3. Evaluate how gender and sexuality intersect with diverse modes of resistance in Palestine/Israel.
Discipline-Specific Skills4. Analyse and assess academic texts and prevailing discursive frames (i.e., ‘conflict’ or ‘occupation’) critically.
5. Distinguish between a range of methodological approaches as well as variety of genres, i.e. anthropological and sociological texts, (auto)biographical writings and fiction.
6. Demonstrate awareness of, and be sensitised to, the various processes by which gender (i.e., femaleness and maleness) is socially constructed and impacts politics.
Personal and Key Skills7. Engage in independent study and group work, including the presentation of material for group discussion
8. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment.
9. Critically examine and review existing literature.

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
221280

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

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activity2211 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).

Other Learning Resources

Videos/films, TV programmes, online materials (news sites, blogs, social media), images, podcasts, play scripts, music, memoirs.