Beyond Binary: Gender, Sexuality in Arts and Design.

The seminar focuses on central issues of gender and sexuality that evolved from the age of Enlightenment till the #MeToo movement. We will learn how theoretical positions of scholars are linked to activists struggles on rights of women and LGBTQ. Issues of gender and sexuality will be also observed in art representations such as: film, art, design, visual communication, and architecture. In the seminar we will study on presentation, representation and how they are connected to inclusion/exclusion and objectification; we will inspect the genderfication of space and how the distinction between the male and female in western modern society intersect with the definitions between the private and the public spheres; we will look on ‘otherness’ in regard to heteronormative that monitors individuals and society as a whole; we will elucidate how myths structure perceptions about gendered and sexual identities.   

Another aim of the seminar is writing independent research. The seminar’s students will learn reading skeels, analysis of academic texts, handling theoretical materials, and creating synthesis between different sources till they reach an academic research. The students will choose a topic for their research in the first semester. In the second semester they will develop the topic to a seminar.