Sex and Media

Catalog description

This course introduces students to topics in gender and sexuality in German media, literature, film, and their cultural contexts throughout various time periods. We will explore how gender has been constructed through media in the German-speaking world and how notions of gender and sexuality put different demands on people. Topics may include portrayals of femininity, masculinity, gender fluidity, and queerness in various media (e.g., literature, music, the arts, and digital media). Students will discuss the ways in which certain behaviors or lifestyles have been stigmatized or made taboo. Students will analyze how notions of gender and sexuality interact with virtual and physical spaces, the environment, and a multicultural world. This course is conducted primarily in German. This course is repeatable up to twice because different faculty members teach the course in rotation. Faculty members will address this broad topic during different historical periods with different primary and secondary literature. In other words, students will engage with entirely different historical periods, authors and artists, media, and literature if they repeat the course.