AH610 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY

Course Objectives

The main objective of the course is to familiarize students with the literature on gender, sexuality and architectural history. Students are expected to develop skills to employ “gender” and “sexuality” critically as analytical categories for the study and writing of architectural history.

Course Content

The first part of this PhD seminar is designed as an interdisciplinary survey of both seminal and current scholarship on theories of gender and sexuality in a loosely chronological order. The second and third parts focus on related approaches and perspectives within studies of space, architecture, and architectural history. The aim is to provide students the requisite knowledge and skills to employ ´´gender´´ and ´´sexuality´´ critically as analytical categories for the study and writing of architectural history. A layered history of multiple trajectories of feminist practices alongside complex historical cases of gendered and sexualized spaces are given. The emphasis is on the modern era starting from the I 9th century covering both revisionist accounts of canonical examples and those exploring new territory. While a sufficiently nuanced understanding of multiple modalities of such categories and their specific historical manifestations is aimed at the limits and challenges to that position arc also questioned.

Course Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course students are expected to acquire:

* Familiarity with seminal and current scholarship on theories of gender and sexuality

*A layered historical understanding of gendered and sexualized spaces and architectures

* Knowledge and skills to employ “gender” and “sexuality” as analytical categories for the study and writing of architectural history

*Ability to critically engage with related terminology from earlier conceptualizations such as “womanhood,” equality, difference to intersectionality.