School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies

Gender Studies

We bring a range of disciplinary approaches to issues of gender, and apply feminist and queer perspectives to literature, history and culture from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Our work spans the history and cultures of Canada, Latin America, Francophone and Lusophone Africa, Russia and China, as well as France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal and South-East Europe.

 

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Research and activities

Our research covers:

  • The history of feminism
  • Feminist theory
  • Queer theory
  • Theories of masculinity
  • Representations of women, gender and sexual politics in literature and cinema
  • Women’s writing and women film-makers
  • Gender, politics and the media
  • Gender and translation
  • Women’s history.

Individual projects include German women’s life writing; women’s exile; Lusophone queer identities; gender and race relations; gendering Latin American independence; women in German cinema; Francophone Canadian women writers; African women writers; the sexual politics of realist French fiction; gender roles in Weimar Germany; contemporary women’s animal fictions.

Postgraduate study

MA and PhD students work on projects across the continents, cultures, languages and disciplines we cover. Current and recent topics include:

  • Russian Francophone women’s travel writing
  • Gender in Cuban cinema, 1974-1990
  • Latin American women's testimonial literature
  • Gendered uniforms in 1950s East and West German literature and film
  • Queer women in German and British film and television
  • Testimonial writing by female survivors of the Rwandan genocide
  • Sexual abuse in French young-adult fiction
  • Ethics in the theatre of Hélène Cixous
  • Chinese women’s writing in the diaspora.

You can find out more about postgraduate research opportunities by consulting the online prospectus.

Online prospectus

 
 

Contacts

For media enquiries and consultation requests, please contact the School's Director of Research or relevant experts listed below:

Jean Andrews (Hispanic women's poetry) Heike Bartel (German feminist studies) Jane-Marie Collins (Brazil, slavery)
Ute Hirsekorn (German gender studies) Rachel Palfreyman (German gender studies) Mark Sabine (Portuguese queer culture)
 

School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies

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Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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