teaching

What is gender? What is sexuality? How can we understand and conceptualise them in the East Asian

social context? By focusing on key societies in the East Asian region, such as Japan, China, Hong Kong,

Taiwan, North and South Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia, this course introduces students to the field of

gender and sexuality.

This interdisciplinary course integrates the study of migration and mobility with broader processes of development and social transformation world-wide. It provides an introductory theoretical understanding of human mobility and the role of international migration in economic and political processes, social change and globalisation with a particular focus on queer migration and queer diaspora.

This intermediate course is an introduction to the idea of "intersectionality" in gender studies― in which we take as our starting point the idea that gender itself is largely a social achievement and a phenomenon that intersects with other constructs that societies have about race, age, nationality, body, sexuality, desire, ability, privilege, power, science and many other discourses. Indeed, gender is embedded so deeply in nearly everything we do and think that it is quite difficult to become conscious of the ways in which we literally gender our world and create hierarchies that empower some people and marginalise others.

Throughout the course, we will examine themes of bias, equality, hegemony, marginalisation and minorities, social justice and human rights. We will also look especially at how gender studies is useful in thinking about Japanese history and histories of the larger Pacific and Asia region. In so doing, we will examine how understanding gender helps us to think critically about power and the institutionalisation of inequality. At the same time, we will engage in our study and discussion in a spirit of self-reflexivity, creativity, and open-mindedness, attempting to go beyond binaries and overly fixed categories.