2008 Handbooks

In this unit you will be invited to focus upon the questions of gender and sexuality in European history from the age of the Enlightenment until the end of the First World War. This period saw conceptions of masculinity and feminity radically redefined and gender relations reconceived in the wake of industrialization, the emergence of bourgeois society and the rise of nationalism and imperialism. The nineteenth century particularly saw a 'sexualisation' of European culture due to an increasing medical, scientific and psychological interest in sexuality. The unit will examine the ways in which concepts of gender were effected by issues of class and ethnicity both in relation to Europe and in various discourses around imperialism. The mergence of feminism will also be explored. Students will gain an understanding of the concept of gender as an historical category and a knowledge of the ways in which gender is relevant to the consideration of major intellectual, political and social developments in European history since the Enlightenment.