Gender Studies MA

Lury, Celia: "The Rights and Wrongs of Culture: Issues of Theory and Methodology" in Beverly Skeggs (ed.) Feminist Cultural Theory: Process and Production. Manchester University Press. 1995. "current feminist cultural studies are repeatedly held back by the continued dominance of ungendered understandings of culture, both in its general uses, as a shared set of meaning resources, and in relation to particular cultural processes, as in definitions of signification, parody, performance and so on." p.33 "how conceptual and methodological issues are inextricably intertwined, through an exploration of the place of theorising in feminist work." p.33 "the historical emergence of the social as a category of political life was dependent upon particular understandings of 'women', and, vice versa, that the category 'women' has been defined in and by its relation to the social." p.34 Accepting this definition as a uni...

Reproductioon as a process - childlessness is choosing not conceive, and is also a part of reproduction. IVF and infertility are also part of the process. The choice to have children is ongoing, with many actors involved. Value attached to children - figure of a child as a promise of futurity - how women make sense of the loss of a child - conditions show how certain, more viable children are given preferential treatment. Going towards infertility - inability to reproduce - freezing eggs in preparation for disability. Donating/selling eggs - your data/your genes out in the world for sale Claiming female autonomy through freezing your eggs

Human dignity is not included in 14 countries constitutions that were enacted after 1980 Human rights and human dignity - what is the difference? Human dignity is held as the core of human rights in the constitution of Germany and Hungary Human dignity - criticism - it is a blurred vision and can be detrimental to human rights, context specific and open for interpretation Human dignity - in support - something that is not a specific right, but a way of respecting the safety/independence of an individual Function of human dignity - supreme value, goal or justification for the entire constitution. Autonomy - "A person' right to be her own master is violated if she is subject to another's will" Kant Consent is based on autonomy When a person sins, they hurt someone else's dignity (murder) they are punished and therefore hurt their own dignity (incarceration) Who is charge when dignity needs to be interpreted? One way to respect human dignity is to re...

Presentation is 15 minutes long (solo) One text response between week 2-6 to send to Hyesin - double-spaced ----- Turner + Turner What is the pedagogical aim? What does ethnographic performance as a learning tool offer that the conventional ethnographies don't? What is performative in everyday life? (Marriage) Performance is a twice enacted act Aesthetic drama is art Social dramas are rituals/sports -----  Cartesian split between body/mind - knowledge production can be a physical rather than textual expression. Experiential knowledge is not necessarily split between mind/body. Different forms of communication - creative and academia can be expressed together - with interpretation on both sides. Who defines clarity? How is it used to regulate? Listening - is it an invitation, surveillance, eavesdropping? In silence - let yourself be touched by others as a form of performance. Passivity is also performance.

Dwight Conquergood, “Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research,” TDR 46 (2), 2002   "the "local" is a leaky contingent construction, and... global forces are taken up, struggled over, and refracted for site-specific purposes." p.145 "Performance studies struggles to open the space between analysis and action, and to pull the pin on the binary opposition between theory and practice." p.145 "Donna Haraway locates this homely and vulnerable "view from a body" in contrast to the abstract and authoritative "view from above," universal knowledge that pretends to transcend location (1991:196)." p.146 "Michel Foucault coined the term "subjugated knowledge" to include all the local, regional, vernacular, naive knowledges at the bottom of the hierarchy - the low Other of science (1980: 81-84)." p.146 "The visual/verbal bias of Western regimes of knowledge blinds researchers to m...

Victor Turner and Eddie Turner, “Performing Ethnography,” TDR: The Drama Review 26 (2), 1982 The professors asked the students to perform parts of another culture to try and understand the 'other'. This is a problematic task - akin to asking students to put on a blindfold in order to feel what it is like to be blind. p.34 Cultural modes of framing: "a direct or indirect way of commenting on the mainstream of social existence." p.34 The students participated in a fake wedding, that ended up staying with them for weeks. There were moments when it was on the edge of reality, the bonds had to be acknowledged as fake, and lots of students lost themselves in the wedding - surprised at how much they know of the ritual. "The reviews are important, as important as the production itself, for they define the commonality of the experience." p.43 "One has the feeling rituals are magical, that for some reason as yet unknown to science the...