TIME: February 20-22, 2013

DEAD LINE FOR APPLICATIONS: December 19, 2012

Applications should be sent to InterGender Managing Director Dr Pia Laskar (Email: Pia.Laskar@liu.se)

MAXIMUM NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 20

ORGANIZED BY
Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University, Sweden and Unit for Gender Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden, in collaboration with InterGender (Swedish-International Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies), Linköping University, Sweden.

COURSE COORDINATORS:
Associate Professor Helena Wahlström Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University, Sweden, Senior lecturer Pia Laskar and Björn Pernrud, InterGender Managing Directors and Professor Nina Lykke, Director of InterGender, Linköping University, Sweden.

MORE INFORMATION ON THE COURSE:

TEACHERS:
Mark Jerng, Associate Professor of English, University of California, UC Davis

Helena Wahlström, Associate professor, Gender Studies, Uppsala University

Johanna Gondouin, Senior Researcher, Gender Studies, Stockholm University

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
From film to television, fiction and advertising, cultural representations of kinship have undergirded some of the most thorny debates of the 20th century (reproduction; patriarchy; feminism; social welfare, just to name a few) and have shaped deeply-held conceptions around sexuality, masculinity, race, personhood, and even humanness. This course addresses representations of kinship and processes of ”kinning” – or kinship building – in cultural texts. The term “cultural texts” is used broadly to refer to literature, film, television, and images. Whereas exploration of kinship networks has a long history in anthropology, in other disciplines such as literary studies, media and film studies there seems to be a growing interest in investigating and theorizing kin. This work is done in a variety of fields, including, for example, childhood studies, humanimal studies, queer studies, postcolonial studies, adoption studies, and Native American studies. Some of these fields – but not all -- have strong affiliations with gender studies/feminist studies, where the notion of “family” or kinship, and issues of “reproduction” have long been under scrutiny from a wide variety of critical perspectives. What links much recent scholarship on kinning/kinship together is an understanding of kinship as processual rather than static; as based on defining factors beyond blood or law. It is the aim of this course to
1) Introduce, explore, and critique theories of kinship from various critical fields
2) Introduce, explore, and critique representations of kinship in cultural texts from various theoretical and disciplinary perspectives; but also to investigate whether cultural representations in themselves offer understandings of kinship that go beyond such theories
3) Introduce, explore and critique the relationships between cultural representations of kinship and political and cultural categories including but not limited to gender, race, sexuality, nationality, and citizenship.

Schedule:
The course begins at 9.00 day 1 and ends at 16.00 day 3.
Social activities evenings of day 1 and 2

Reading:
Lecture 1: HW
Bruzzi, Stella. (2005) “The Next Best Thing: Men in Crisis and the Pluralization of Fatherhood in the 1990s and 2000s.” Bringing Up Daddy: Fatherhood and Masculinity in Post-War Hollywood. London: BFI Publishing: 153-192. (40 pp)

Carsten, Janet. (2001) “Substantivism, Antisubstantivism, and Anti-antisubstantivism.” in Relative Values. Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, red. Sarah Franklin och Susan McKinnon, Duke UP: 29-53. (44 pp)

Collins, Patricia Hill. (1998) “It’s All in the Family: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Nation.” Hypatia 13 (3) Summer 1998: 62-82. (20 pp)

Franklin, Sarah and McKinnon, Susan. (2001) “Introduction”, in Relative Values. Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, red. Sarah Franklin och Susan McKinnon, Duke UP: 1-25. (25 pp)

Howell, Signe. (2001) “Self-Conscious Kinship: Some Contested Values in Norwegian Transnational Adoption.” in Relative Values. Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, red. Sarah Franklin och Susan McKinnon, Duke UP: 203-223. (20 pp)

Kaplan, E. Ann. (1992) “Women’s Writing, Melodrama, and Film.” Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama. London: Routledge:59-75. (16 pp)

Strong, Pauline Turner. (2001) “To Forget Their Tongue, Their Name, and Their Whole Relation: Captivity, Extra-Tribal Adoption, and the Indian Child Welfare Act.” in Relative Values. Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, red. Sarah Franklin och Susan McKinnon, Duke UP: 468-494. (26 pp)

Weston, Kath. (1997) “Chapter 5: Families We Choose” and “Chapter 8: The Politics of Gay Families.” Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship (1991). New York: Columbia UP: 103-136; 195-213. (55 pp).

Research project session 1: student papers

Seminar 1
Octavia Butler, Fledgling 2005. (310 pp)

Haraway, Donna. (1995). "Universal Donors in a Vampire Culture: It's All in the Family. Biological Kinship Categories in the Twentieth Century." Uncommon Ground: Reinventing Nature. William Cronon (Editor). New York, W.W. Norton & Company: 321-366. 45 pp. (NB also listed for lecture MJ)

 
Lecture 2: MJ
Balibar, Etienne. (1991). The Nation Form: History and Ideology. Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein. London: Verso: 86-107. 21 pp.

Butler, J. (2000). Antigone's claim : kinship between life & death. New York, Columbia University Press. 82 pp.

Lydia Maria Child, “Loo Loo” (short story) (22 pp)
Freud, S. (1959). “Family Romances.” The Standard Edition of The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, volume IX. J. Strachey. London, Hogarth Press: 237-241. 5 pp

Hartman, S. V. (1997). Scenes of subjection : terror, slavery, and self-making in nineteenth-century America. New York, Oxford University Press: 115-125. 10 pp.

Haraway, Donna. (1995). "Universal Donors in a Vampire Culture: It's All in the Family. Biological Kinship Categories in the Twentieth Century." Uncommon Ground: Reinventing Nature. William Cronon (Editor). New York, W.W. Norton & Company: 321-366. 45 pp.

Jerng, Mark. (2010). “The Right to Belong.” Claiming Others. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 125-168. 43 pp.

Mauss, Marcel. (1985). “A category of the human mind: the notion of person: the notion of self.” The Category of the Person: Anthropology, philosophy history. Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, Steven Lukes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1-26. 25 pp.

Spillers, H. J. (2003). Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture. Chicago, IL, U of Chicago P: 203-230. 27 pp.

Stevens, Jacqueline. (1999). Reproducing the State. Princeton: Princeton University Press: 172-209. 37 pp.

Research project session 2: student papers
Seminar 2:
David L. Eng (2010), ”The Language of Kinship. Transnational Adoption and Two Mothers in First Person Plural”, in The Feeling of Kinship. Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy, Durham and London: Duke UP: 93-137 (44 pp). (NB also listed for Lecture LG)
First Person Plural (Deann Borshay Liem, 2000), 60 min. (Day 1)

 
Lecture 3: JG
Dyer, Richard (1997), ”The light of the world”, in White, London and New York: Routledge: 82-144 (62 pp).
David L. Eng (2010), ”The Language of Kinship. Transnational Adoption and Two Mothers in First Person Plural”, in The Feeling of Kinship. Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy, Durham and London: Duke UP: 93-137 (44 pp).
Gondouin, Johanna, ”Adoption, Surrogacy and Swedish Exceptionalism” (20 pp), Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, V8.2 2012: Directions and Intersections.
May be downloaded at: http://www.acrawsa.org.au/ejournal/
Hall, Stuart (1995). “The Whitest of Their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media” i Dines, Gail & Lean M. Humez (eds.) Gender, Race and Class in Media, London: Sage: 81-84 (4 pp).
Keskinen, S. et al (eds.), Complying with colonialism: Gender, race and ethnicity in the Nordic region, Surrey & Burlington: Ashgate, 2009, chapter 1-3 (50 pp).
Amrita Pande, ”It may be her eggs, but it’s my blood: Surrogates and Everyday Forms of Kinship in India”, Qual Sociol (2009) 32: 379-397 (20 pp). Available online.
Shome, Raka (2011), ”’Global Motherhood’: The Transnational Intimacies of White Feminity, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 28:5: 388-406 (18pp). Available online.
Roberts, Dorothy, ”Feminism, Race and Adoption Policy” in Adoption Matters. Philosphical and Feminist Essays, eds. Sally Haslanger & Charlotte Witt, Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 2005: 234-246 (11 pp).
Winddance Twine, F. (2011), Outsourcing the Womb. Race, Class and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market, New York and London: Routledge (66 pp).

Research project session 3: Student papers

We will also screen the following in Uppsala:

First Person Plural (Deann Borshay Liem, 2000), 60 min. (Day 1)

1-2 episodes from Desperate Housewives (Day 2)

Literature: altogether 295 pp. (JG); 317 (MJ) and 246 (HW) = a sum total of 858 pages.
PLUS a novel of 310 pages (v. easy to read – should not count as more than 100 pages!)

Structure of the course:
The course consists of three days of lectures and seminars. Students are asked to have completed course readings before sessions in Uppsala.

The course will include two kinds of sessions: 1) lecture-discussion-sessions on the proposed readings. Course participants are expected to have read the relevant chapters/articles before the course.
2) group sessions with presentations of students' papers, where students are given the opportunity to present their doctoral research and receive comments from teachers and co-participants.
Participants will be divided into three working groups to make individual presentations and discuss research questions from their doctoral project.
Each of the three lecturers will have responsibility for one group each. Based on the research description, each participant is asked to make a presentation of her/his research project for 10-15 minutes, followed by 30 minutes for questions and discussion. All group participants are expected to read the papers of their fellow group members and be ready to give comments.

Preparation:
* See reading list. 

* Paper (2-5 pages describing research problems related to the PhD project of the participant) to be sent to InterGender Managing Director Dr Björn Pernrud (Email: Bjorn.Pernrud@liu.se) 
AT THE LATEST TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE COURSE START
; remember to mark it with your name and the course name.
* All participants are expected to read the papers of their fellow group members before the course and be ready to give comments in the group sessions.
* The students’ papers and some of the other readings for the course will be available to all the participants via our intra net.
 Books must be bought or borrow. More info on this will be given to registered participants.

Essay

* 15 pages to be handed in at the latest 3 months after the course; one copy should be sent to the teacher, who is going to evaluate it, and one to InterGender Managing Director Dr Björn Pernrud (Email: Bjorn.Pernrud@liu.se). The teacher has 3 months to evaluate the essay.

* The essay should strike a balance between addressing a theme, which have been part of course (lectures, discussions, reading material), and be relevant for the PhD research of the student.

* The essay should, moreover, be considered as an exercise in doing a written presentation to an academic readership, which is not familiar with the author's PhD research. It should constitute a whole and explain relevant contexts.

ACCREDITATION AND EXAMINATION
a) 7,5 ECTS Credits is given for active participation and a short paper, maximum 5 pages.
b) 15 ECTS Credits is given for active participation, + essay (evaluated as pass/fail). An essay should be of 10-15 pages. The selected topic shall be related to the course content and readings. The essay is to be sent to the teacher as well as to the academic coordinator no later than 3 months after the final day of the course.

Info on admission and grants can be found here.

Applications should be sent to InterGender Managing Director Dr Pia Laskar (Pia.Laskar@liu.se) no later than December 19, 2012.

InterGender: Swedish-International Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies
The School is funded by The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). It is organized as a joint venture between Gender Studies Units and doctoral programmes at Linköping University (host university) and at eight other Swedish Universities: Blekinge Institute of Technology, Göteborg University, Lund University, Luleå Technical University, Stockholm University, Uppsala University, Umeå University, Örebro University and at three international partner institutions: Graduate Gender Program at Utrecht University (The Netherlands), The Finnish National Doctoral School of Women's and Gender Studies (Helsinki University, Finland) and Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany).