240128 VO+UE VM4 / VM7 - Understanding Gender, Power and Representation Through Female Icons of In-/justice (2020S)

In this course, we will develop an understanding of gender, intersectionality, media, representation, and power by focusing on the 'iconization' of female figures in globalized discourses on in-/justice. We will read and discuss selected theoretical texts (cultural studies, media studies, feminist and post-colonial approaches) in order to develop an analytical basis that we will use to analyze a variety of primary sources. Our aim is to understand and contextualize the contradictions and dynamics of the mediatization and representation of (young) women from different contexts as “secular icons” that serve ideological purposes.
Among the examples we will examine are Neda Agha-Soltan (Iran), Malala Yousafzai (Pakistan), Bana al-Abed (Syria), and Greta Thunberg (Sweden) – they all have been constructed as projection surfaces for diverse political ends on local, regional, and global levels.
How can we understand the contested discourses around these figures from a global cultural studies perspective informed by intersectionality? And what do the differences and similarities, spectacles and silences tell us about gendered (and racialized) cultural politics in trans-/national spaces in the context of neo-liberalism?