Contemporary feminisms in Asia

This unit as a whole explores what constitutes feminist knowledges and practices in Asia. As feminisms are historically 'western-centred', the unit considers the ways in which these resonate with lived realities in Asia. As such, feminist knowledges and practices of 'women of colour' (e.g. feminist-postcolonial thought) are privileged in this unit. Highly interdisciplinary in its concerns, the unit examines fluid and contextual characteristics of a 'who is a feminist'; how feminisms are practised vis--vis transformations in and through the body, dress (e.g. veiling) or fashion, gender-based violence and gender justice; what constitutes feminist knowledge (i.e. standpoint epistemologies) and who owns or produces such knowledge (e.g. those who inhabit the margins such as queers, masculinities, diaspora, cyborgs, etc.). The unit aims to enable you to reflexively engage with the relevance of feminist theorising and practice by critically applying concepts and questions of identity, agency and feminist praxis to contemporary debates, issues or concerns. Feminisms have relevance when it potentially questions assumptions or biases even prejudices, reviews existing practices, particularly those that lead to gender-based discrimination and violence, opens-up possibilities for providing solutions to a particular problem or redress to a social injustice or spaces of negotiation to a controversy or impasse.

Online learning - Structured learning pathways provide clear signposts to nurture independent learning that is appropriate for this capstone unit of the Gender Studies major and well supported by invaluable learning resources which includes but is not limited to micro lecture recordings.

Active learning - Active learning engages your ability to apply feminist and queer concepts that you have learned to your lived realities and global contemporary issues.

Problem-based learning - Through the main assessment tasks, in particular, the Reflective Practice, you are introduced to the Research Skills Development framework that is embedded in the marking rubric to hone in their researching skills. The problem-solving component is worked through and achieved when you are able to appreciate the wider significance of applying specific feminist and/or queer concepts to media texts that would enable them to: question biases or underlying assumptions in media texts; review existing practices that lead to sexual and gender-based discrimination and violence; and open up possibilities for providing solutions to a particular problem, redress a social injustice, spaces of negotiation to a controversy or impasse.

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.