The encounter between the European conquerors and the inhabitants of the conquered spaces has often been depicted as an encounter between two genders. On the one hand, in numerous cartographies and travel narratives the territory itself is imagined as female. Anne McClintock e.g. speaks of Columbuses‘ "breast phantasies", while in Theodor Galle's famous copper engraving America is allegorically depicted as a woman. On the other hand, many narrations reduce the violent conquest to a romantic love story between a European conqueror and an "indigenous" woman, e.g. in relation to figures like La Malinche or Pocahontas. Conquered masculinity is often represented in figurations of noble savages or helpless children.
By discussing theoretical and exemplary cultural texts (postcolonial and decolonial theories, gender approaches, travel narratives, pictures, maps, cartoons, films), the seminar asks how colonial domination could be made intelligble and justified through the transference to the gender hierarchy and how the own superiority could be constituted against the backdrop of a "female" and thus inferior Other respectively. The structural analogy between colonial and gendered inequalities shapes images of Latin America (and other formerly colonized spaces) as well as those of "Latin American" masculinity and femininity.
Starts: 15.4.2015
McClintock, Anne. Imperial Leather. Race, Class and Sexuality in the Colonial Context. New York and London: Routledge, 1995 (excerpt).
Frequency | Weekday | Time | Format / Place | Period | |
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weekly | Mi | 10-12 | E01-108 | 08.04.-17.07.2015 |
Module | Course | Requirements | |
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23-IAS-M-IAS6 Advanced Studies of Literatures and Cultures of the Americas / Estudios avanzados de literaturas y culturas de las Américas | NorthAmerican Literatures in Context | Study requirement
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Student information |
- | Graded examination | Student information | |
30-MGS-3_ver1 Hauptmodul 2: Sozialisation und Bildung | Seminar 1 | Study requirement
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Student information |
Seminar 2 | Study requirement
Graded examination |
Student information | |
30-MGS-4 Hauptmodul 3: Arbeit und gesellschaftliche Transformationen | Seminar 1 | Study requirement
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Student information |
Seminar 2 | Study requirement
Graded examination |
Student information |
The binding module descriptions contain further information, including specifications on the "types of assignments" students need to complete. In cases where a module description mentions more than one kind of assignment, the respective member of the teaching staff will decide which task(s) they assign the students.
Degree programme/academic programme | Validity | Variant | Subdivision | Status | Semester | LP | |
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Anglistik: British and American Studies / Master of Education | (Enrollment until SoSe 2014) | BaAngPM5 | |||||
Gender Studies / Master | (Enrollment until SoSe 2013) | Hauptmodul 1; Hauptmodul 4 | 3 | (bei Einzelleistung 3 LP zusätzlich) | |||
Geschlechterforschung in der Lehre | |||||||
Studieren ab 50 |
Regular and active attendance, in-class presentation, written paper.