Admission requirements
Required course(s):
The course is aimed at higher-year students; you should ideally have completed a 200-level course in your Major.
Recommended course(s):
- Introduction to Gender Studies
Description
Ongoing wars, continuous environmental disasters and human emergencies make it all too clear that we live in a world that seems to become more and more vulnerable every day. And yet, carelessness seems to be omnipresent. In personal terms, most of us have been and/or felt vulnerable at some point in our lives, and in need of care. And it is likely that in some way we all have been cared for, have given care to someone (o something). It is also likely that these relations of care and/or vulnerability have been mediated by gender. This is because, whether we like it or not, gender is one of the ways in which everyone’s body is read. Gender is one of the characteristics that exposes both the prevalence of vulnerability associated with identity and family norms (for instance LGBTIQA+ discrimination, domestic abuse, sexual and gender based violence), as well as the precarious conditions affecting care workers (often women, often racialized, often poor). In contexts of increasing vulnerability due to global and national inequalities, and the spread of systemic risks (from domestic violence to civil wars to environmental disasters), there is an urgent need to reflect about the intersections between vulnerability, gender and care as key axes to imagine political alternatives to navigate and adapt to this uncertain times in more humane ways. In the words of a former student, this course “serves as a starting point, but not an end point, for rethinking care” and why that is a fundamental political exercise in contemporary world. Or, in the words of another former student, how care is “a crucial global challenge” today.
This course is a systematic examination of current scholarly debates about vulnerability and care. Taking gender and accessibility as key entry point to understand both, the course explores how inter- and eco-dependence are core tenets of individuality and sociality. Gender is approached from different perspectives ranging from feminism to ecofeminism, including readings from post-structuralist and post-humanist thinkers. Accessibility is approached from critical disability studies to illustrate how access functions as a proxy of power that reinforces patterns of privilege and vulnerability. All in all, the aim of the course is to engage students critically and creatively with scholarly debates in connection to concrete case-studies and the ethical and political dilemmas of care derived from them.
Course Objectives
The main objective of this course is to develop in students an analytical capacity to think about gender, vulnerability and care critically, and in connection to concretely daily life situations.
In terms of contents, upon completion of the course you will:
Identify the connections between violence and vulnerability, particularly using gender and disability as a key descriptors of this relation.
Explore and understand the relationship between gender and disability in relation to the embodiment of vulnerability and care.
Learn the relevant theoretical perspectives in the study of vulnerability and care (politically, and as ethics and practice), from feminist to eco-feminist and post-humanist perspectives.
In terms of skills, this course will serve you to:
Develop the capacity to elaborate a solid and sound argumentative position regarding issues related to the course content.
Learn to communicate your position in speaking and writing.
Connect and use abstract concepts and theories to understand concrete situations.
Practice team-work skills to effectively conduct and present a research-based case-study with others, and do so with care.
Exercise your creative thinking to translate and connect the concepts learned in the course with aesthetic forms.
Timetable
Timetables for courses offered at Leiden University College in 2025-2026 will be published on this page of the e-Prospectus.
Mode of instruction
This course will be taught as a seminar in person twice a week. As a 300 level course, the course is run as a seminar, highly dependent on students participation. This means your critical engagement with the readings and weekly material is essential part of the course and its developments. The sessions are fundamentally organized based on the student’s discussion of the scholarly work assigned for that session and their applicability to daily examples.
Assessment Method
In class presentations: 15%
Case-study research & presentations in groups: 30%
Final assigment: 40%
Final report: 15%
Reading list
Readings will be available via Brightspace to students enrolled at the beginning of the course.
Registration
Courses offered at Leiden University College (LUC) are usually only open to LUC students and LUC exchange students. Leiden University students who participate in one of the university’s Honours tracks or programmes may register for one LUC course, if availability permits. Registration is coordinated by the Education Coordinator, course.administration@luc.leidenuniv.nl.
Contact
Dr. Daniela Vicherat Mattar, d.a.vicherat.mattar@luc.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
-