The subjects of this course are organized as follows:
INTRODUCTION
An introduction to the various subject areas and the philosophy of the course. An introduction to the rationale and the goals of gendered cultural studies.
SPACE - PLACE - GENDER
An analytical approach to the less evident aspects of these three concepts.
THE RESEARCH PRACTICE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF GENDER
Methodological and epistemological issues. Questions related to research practices and the politics of the processes of knowledge production.
BODIES AND CITIES
An approach to the question of the materiality of gendered bodies and the built environment. The simultaneous and parallel construction of bodies and cities. The interplay between the 'natural' and the 'artificial' in the conceptions of the body. Gendered bodies in the cities of "new technologies".
THE GENDERED CONCEPTION OF THE CITY IN POSTMODERNISM
An approach to urban space at the decline of modernity with the 'flβneur' character as a prime. The 'flβneur' as city-dweller and as symbol of modern urbanity. The invisible and unmarked characteristics of the city-dweller.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POSTMODERN THEORIES OF THE CITY
The radical challenging of the category "human" as a dweller and user of urban space. The emergence of multiple subjects and subjective stands. Criticism of the binary conceptual tools of approaching & theorizing about the phenomena of urban space.
FEMINIST APPROACHES TO URBAN SPACE
The gendered re-definition of the category "human" as a dweller and user of urban space. The ambivalence of a woman's presence in the city. The feminist discourse on the notions of 'identity', 'equality', and 'difference' with regard to the experience of urban life. Public and private space in the city in reference to gendered identities. Gender-based division of labor and the problem of 'female labor'. The re-definition of 'workplace' and 'home'.
POST-COLONIAL APPROACHES TO URBAN SPACE
'Race' and ethnicity in reference to gendered conceptions of space. Other issues of this section include the spatial binary construction colonizing/ colonized, the 'third space' and the space of margins, the 'other' and the city, the interplay between the 'familiar' and the 'strange' in urban experience, and so forth.
QUEER APPROACHES TO URBAN SPACE
Sexuality in reference to gendered conceptions of space is the central topic of this section. Other topics are: the critical notion of 'sexism' and its impact upon people's conception of the city and urban life; the interplay of the 'public' and the 'private'; closet space; weak spatialities; places of pleasure and practices of resistance.
The course engages the students in an active in-class dialogue in which the lecture topics are critically analyzed and the related bibliographic materials are presented and discussed. The proposed bibliography draws on both Greek and international sources.
