231166 Violence against Women and Girls in Cultural Production (S) (WiSe 2025/2026)

The aim of the course is to examine how representations of VAWG appear in cultural texts produced by women, and to address how this types of violence, physical and non-physical, its representations, and their cultural meanings can be studied and analyzed from a decolonial, multicultural, and intersectional feminist perspective, drawing particularly on approaches from cultural and gender studies. Course literature will also be applied to the analysis of a self-chosen topic or material. The chosen topic must always be such that it can be examined using the course literature as a foundation, along with any additional sources selected by the student. Key theoretical concepts explored in the course include the iceberg model of gender-based violence, rape culture, the male gaze, as theorized by Laura Mulvey, and its feminist critiques and rearticulations referred to as the female gaze, as well as the beauty myth, drawing on Naomi Wolf’s foundational work The Beauty Myth. These concepts will be used as analytical tools to examine how violence, power, gender, and embodiment are represented and negotiated in cultural texts. Ultimately, the course aims to facilitate the critical identification of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in cultural representations in order to contribute to its understanding and prevention.

Bibliography

The primary texts and authors include: Sarah Kane's Blasted; Beatriz Cabur's Breakfast at Daddy’s, The Mind-Boggling Shrinking Woman, and Goodbye, Mother. The proposed novels are Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi and Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo.