TTEASK028U Philosophy of Gender

Volume 2023/2024
Education

The course is planned with physical attendance, but can also be accessed as live streaming of registered participants.

Content

This course constructs a philosophical framework for the interdisciplinary examination of gender. Against a historical outline of the development of contemporary gender studies, we examine biological, sociological, and psychological perspectives on gender. These theoretical perspectives are put into discussion with ethical issues concerning sexuality, selfhood, personal identity, and autonomy.

By the end of this course, you will be able to make sense of the interdisciplinary examination of gender and discuss the historical, theoretical, and ethical aspects of what it means to exist with a gender identity. Our identity is rooted in our experience of gender. This experience is deeply personal, and yet there are biological and societal aspects to the experience of gender that complicate and challenge our sense of identity. The course will provide you with a philosophical foundation for thinking critically about the complexity of human experience of gender. The most important elements of this philosophical foundation are a sense of history, conceptual clarity, and an understanding of interdisciplinary methodology. 

The sessions are structured as a combination of lecture, discussion, and group work with a focus on engaging the student. Each session is framed by a systematic PowerPoint presentation of the themes and readings in question. The presentation will encourage and guide the discussion in the class. The student can expect a lively and systematically oriented teacher who will attempt to make the issues both interesting and relevant to a contemporary setting while maintaining a substantial theoretical level and the necessary historical perspective. 

Principal Course Literature

 

Textbooks

  • Susan Kingsley Kent. Gender and History. London: Palgrave Macmillan
  • Tina Chanter. Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy. London: Continuum 2006.

     

    Articles and chapters in books

  • Katherina Jenkins. “Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman”. Ethics

    126 (2016): 394-421

  • Sara Haslanger. Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012, ch. 1 (“On Being Objective and Being Obejctified”): 35-82.
  • Luce Irigary. An Ethics of Sexual Difference, trans. C. Burke and G.C. Gill. London: Continuum 2004, ch. 8 (“An Ethics of Sexual Difference”): 99-110.
  • Donna Haraway. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”. Feminist Studies, 14: 575–600.
  • Judith Butler. Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2015, ch. 1 (“Gender Politics and the Right to Appear”): 24-65.
  • Ian Hacking. “Making Up People”. In M. Heller et al (Eds.) Reconstructing Individualism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  • Talia Mae Bettcher. “Trans identities and first-person authority”. In Laurie Shrage (ed.), You've changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity, pp. 98-120. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009. 98–120.
  • Cressida Heyes. “Changing race, changing sex: The ethics of self-transformation”. Journal of Social Philosophy 37: 266–282.
  • Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir. “The Social Construction of Human Kinds”. Hypatia 28 (2013): 716-732.
  • Toril Moi. “I am not a Feminist”. PMLA 121 (2006): 1735-41.
  • Sally Haslanger and Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir. "Feminist Metaphysics". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .
  • Linda Martín Alcoff. Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. Oxford: Oxford University 2006, ch. 6 (“The Metaphysics of Gender and Sexual Difference”): 151-175
  • Anne Cambell. A Mind of Her Own: Evolutionary Biology of Women, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013, ch. 1 (“Biophobia and the Study of Sexual Differences”). 1-41.
  • Melissa Hines. “Gender Development and the Human Brain”. Annual Review of Neuroscience 34, 2001: 69-88
  • Theodore Bach. “Gender Is a Natural Kind with a Historical Essence”. Ethics 122 (2012): 231-272.
  • Charlotte Witt. The Metaphysics of Gender.  Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011, ch. 3: 27-49.
  • Sara Heinämaa. “A Phenomenology of Sexual Difference: Types, Styles and Persons”. In C. Witt (ed.) Feminist Metaphysics: Explorations in the Ontology of Sex, Gender and the Self, pp. 131-155. Dordrecht: Springer 2011.
Class Instruction
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Class Instruction
  • 28
  • Preparation
  • 122
  • Exam Preparation
  • 150
  • Exam
  • 120
  • Total
  • 420
Written
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Credit
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Type of assessment details
Undergraduate requirements (bachelor students):

Requirement to pass the course for undergraduate students (bachelor students) are: a) A syllabus of 1,200-1,500 pages. The syllabus includes both the course literature covered in connection with the course and the assignment literature on which the written homework assignment is based, which the student finds and has approved by the teacher. The syllabus (course and assignment literature combined) may not exceed 1,500 pages. b) Active participation (at least 75% of the hours attended documented by protocol) and preparation of a written home assignment with a scope of 24,000-28,800 characters, i.e. 10-12 pages, based on 600-800 pages of literature as agreed with the course teacher. The assignment is assessed by the teacher. The assessment is based on the 7-point grading scale.

Graduate requirements (kandidat/master students):

Requirement to pass the course for graduate students (kandidat/master students) are: a) A syllabus of 1,200-1,500 pages. The syllabus includes both the course literature covered in connection with the teaching and the assignment literature on which the written homework assignment is based, which the student finds and has approved by the teacher. The syllabus (course and assignment literature combined) may not exceed 1,500 pages. b) Active participation (at least 75% of the hours attended documented by protocol) and preparation of a written home assignment with a scope of 36,000-48,000 characters, i.e. 15-20 pages, based on 800-1,000 pages of literature as agreed with the teacher. The assignment is assessed by the teacher. The assessment is based on the 7-point grading scale.
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Exam period

Winter and Summer Exam