Module MELA2031: MEDITERRANEAN SEXUALITIES: CULTURAL STEREOTYPES AND TRANSCULTURAL EXCHANGES

Department: Modern Languages and Cultures

MELA2031: MEDITERRANEAN SEXUALITIES: CULTURAL STEREOTYPES AND TRANSCULTURAL EXCHANGES

Prerequisites

• Arabic Language 1 (ARAB1012) OR French Language 1 (FREN1011).

Corequisites

• Arabic Language 2 (ARAB2002) OR French Language 2 (FREN2051).

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• For students to read and analyse historical examples of transcultural observation.
• For students to make culturally and historically informed comparisons of materials from different cultural traditions.
• For students to reflect on their own practice as transcultural researchers and culturally informed interpreters.
• For students to gain experience in using gender and sexuality as a cultural analytic.

Content

• Patterns of power, gender, and sexuality and their alternatives in patriarchal social formations in pre-modern Europe and the Islamicate World.
• Historicizing the relationship between religious orthodoxy and literary representations of gender and sexuality.
• Continuity and disruption in the eroticized representation of alterity.
• The reception and re-imagination of Ancient Gender and Sexuality in pre-modern European and Islamicate cultures.
• Orientalist depictions of Gender and Sexuality in Muslim-majority societies.
• The depiction of European social mores in the accounts of Muslim travellers.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this module, students will understand how gender and sexuality was represented and understood in a variety of pre-modern discourses around the Mediterranean Basin.

• By the end of this module, students will understand how to apply gender and sexuality as analytical tools in cultural and literary research.

• By the end of this module, students will demonstrate their ability to use primary and secondary resources relevant to the field of pre-modern gender and sexuality studies; undertake independent research; and construct critical arguments using rigorous textual and cultural analysis.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• This module will be taught through lectures and seminars. The two members of staff will share teaching responsibilities for the lectures and will be present for all lecture sessions over twenty teaching weeks. Staff will divide the teaching responsibilities for the seminar sessions, though this division will not necessarily be equal as that will depend on the linguistic competencies of enrolled students from year to year. Students studying the module as a French cultural module will attend seminars in which French-language primary sources are discussed, while students studying the module as an Arabic cultural module will attend seminars in which Arabic-language primary sources are discussed. The ultimate division of the original-language seminar groups will depend on the linguistic competencies of the students enrolled in a given year. Some seminar meetings will depend on the medium of translation so that students can discuss relevant texts from a wide transcultural sphere. These may include Italian, Spanish, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc. The translation of pre-modern texts and the impact of translational choices on the representation and reconstruction of attitudes toward gender and sexuality will be a topic of critical inquiry in the module.
• Formative assessment activities, which may include in-class presentations and student-led discussions, will prepare students for summative assessment tasks. Summative assessment components will require students to reflect critically on relevant secondary and primary sources as a preparation for the research essay that forms the largest assessment component in this module. In the research essay, students will be challenged to demonstrate critical, linguistic, and cultural competencies in analysing materials related to the topic of this module.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

In-class presentations, student-led group discussion.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University