HIST510 WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE WITH HIERARCHY & THE STATE
| Course Code: | 2400510 |
| METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): | 3 (3.00 - 0.00) |
| ECTS Credit: | 8.0 |
| Department: | History |
| Language of Instruction: | English |
| Level of Study: | Graduate |
| Course Coordinator: | |
| Offered Semester: | Fall Semesters. |
Course Objectives
Course Description:
COMPARATIVE APPROACHES TO MEDIEVAL AND EARLY-MODERN WOMEN: POWER, AGENCY, AND GENDER
How have scholars studied the historical experience of women? How should we study the historical experience of women in light of new understandings of gender and political culture? These questions are the starting point of how we will approach women, individually or collectively, in comparative historical contexts, informed by the latest theoretical approaches.
We will survey the secondary literature, looking at the historiographical debates which have shaped the field and how the history of women and gender has changed over the decades. We will relate these histories to political, ideological and economic developments. We will likewise examine how gender affected women’s agency and access to power, and explore the relationship between class and gender. We will also look at the entanglement of kinship, gender, and political culture in dynastic ruled polities.Finally, we will consider how to integrating women into modern historical narratives by reading our sources with a more critical eye and by questioning modern assumptions in regard to gender roles in past societies
In addition to familiarizing ourselves with the most influential theoretical contributions to the study of women’s history and gender, we will ground ourselves empirically from the medieval to modern periods, covering a variety of geographical spheres: Christian Europe, the Islamic Middle East, and the Mongol World.
Course Content
Focusing on two empires, the Ottoman and Chinese, the course will explore the changing role and status of women over time. Taking cultural factors into consideration womens role will be examined within the changing patterns of state traditions of these two sedentary empires, counter examples will be drawn from Inner Asian nomadic empires as well as from the tribal peoples of the border areas.
Course Learning Outcomes
- Students will have acquired a firm grasp of the history of women with a comparative aspect focusing on the Christian and Muslim Worlds over time
- Students will have developed their reading, writing, and analytical skills through the engagement with primary sources and secondary literature
- Students will have gained new insight on our present attitudes and values toward women and gender through a deeper understanding of past historical, social and cultural developments
Program Outcomes Matrix
| Level of Contribution | |||||
| # | Program Outcomes | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1 | Demonstrate competence in their chosen fields of study including the sources and the historiography relevant to it | ✔ | |||
| 2 | Construct arguments based on developed research skills that enable them to access, analyze, synthesize and evaluate primary, secondary and tertiary sources efficiently | ✔ | |||
| 3 | Disseminate and communicate research findings effectively in oral and written form | ✔ | |||
| 4 | Develop the ability to work cooperatively on investigation of an area of historical inquiry and to share own findings with co-researchers | ✔ | |||
| 5 | Conduct research in Ottoman archives and other national and international research institutions | ✔ | |||
| 6 | Have a command of language skills necessary for their research | ✔ | |||
| 7 | Act in accordance with a universal understanding of academic ethics | ✔ | |||
| 8 | Contribute to society through a sense of personal responsibility and awareness for social issues | ✔ | |||
0: No Contribution 1: Little Contribution 2: Partial Contribution 3: Full Contribution