Contested Bodies: Gender and Power in the Renaissance
| Code | School | Level | Credits | Semesters |
| HART3027 | Cultural, Media and Visual Studies | 3 | 20 | Spring UK |
- Code
- HART3027
- School
- Cultural, Media and Visual Studies
- Level
- 3
- Credits
- 20
- Semesters
- Spring UK
Summary
The first part of the module will provide an introduction to women's history in the later medieval and early modern (ca. 1300-1600 for the purposes of this module) Italian context, looking at womens domestic and political roles in the light of gender and sexuality. Where possible, this module will aim to address the situation of women of different ages, marital status and class.
The second part of the module will then look at the role of the Renaissance woman in the art of the period (c 1400-1600): how have women be represented; how did women play a part in the consumption and commissioning processes of art, how did women, if at all, become active as the creators of art. The surviving visual evidence comprises such diverse objects as painted furniture and funerary epigraphs as well as portraiture, again from very diverse contexts. Classes will focus on:
the role of biblical and patristic writings in shaping attitudes towards women
the role of the family and marriage in fashioning gender relations
representations of good and bad women
women as patrons and producers of art; bringing together methodologies from a variety of disciplines, such as history, art history and gender studies
The module aims to provide students with a broad introduction to a rapidly expanding field of study.
A single coursework assessment will replace all failed assessment components at the reassessment stage.
Target Students
Only available to History of Arts Students, International Media and Communication Students, Film and Television Studies students, Liberal Arts students and Exchange students.
Classes
- One 1-hour seminar each week for 11 weeks
- One 2-hour lecture each week for 11 weeks
Assessment
- 100% Coursework: 3,500 words portfolio of written work and equivalent
Assessed by end of spring semester
Educational Aims
• Aims:• To develop students' existing analytical and research skills in the context of a challenging historical subject area• to encourage students to develop an in-depth knowledge of attitudes to women and the realities of women's lives in Renaissance Italy, through critical readings of a wide range of secondary and some primary material, both written and visual•to engage with the field of gender studies•to study a wide range of artefacts not necessarily considered ‘high art’Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and Understanding:
- engage with a selection of primary texts dealing with women's lives in Renaissance Europe
- engage with the diverse - often competing - attitudes towards women revealed in both texts and artefacts and their consequent value as historical and art historical sources
- examine wider patterns, particularly the changes in attitudes to women in this formative period in European history
- study the methodologies necessary for analyzing gender relations and sexuality in a well-documented period
Professional and Transferable Skills
- analyze information and arguments from a wide range of secondary and some primary sources, both written and visual
- provide footnotes and a bibliography in essays
- use IT to access sources and to complete written assignments
- managing large and often incomplete bodies of information
- develop oral and written communication skills
- take responsibility for their own learning
- improve IT skills in word processing
Intellectual Skills:
- think critically and imaginatively on the history of gender and especially women
- to engage with key problems in the social and cultural history of the Italian Renaissance
- to assess competing explanations put forward in the historiography
- construct coherent and independent arguments on the subject matter
- compare and contrast differing art historical explanations, drawing, where appropriate, on a variety of approaches