(BA) (4-year-programme) - The University of Hong Kong

132HIST2070.Stories of self: History through autobiography (6 credits)Who has felt authorized to narrate their life history and what has compelled them to tell explanatorystories that make sense of their lives? How accurate is it to call autobiography the history of the self?Do we encounter other histories or selves in autobiography? What is the history of autobiography andhow do we read it? Historians reading autobiography for documentary evidence of the past andendeavouring to write about it objectively will find that their task is complicated by theautobiographer's subjective and often highly creative engagement with memory, experience, identity,embodiment, and agency. This course is intended for students who wish to explore theinterdisciplinary links between autobiography, history, literature, and personal narrative, and toacquire strategic theories and cultural understanding for reading these texts.Assessment: 100% courseworkHIST2075.Directed reading (6 credits)The aims and objectives of this intensive reading course are to provide the opportunity for students topursue a specialized topic with a faculty member. Throughout the semester, the student and teacherwill consult regularly on the direction of the readings and on the paper or papers (not to exceed 5,000words) that will demonstrate the student’s understanding of the material. This course cannot normallybe taken before the fourth semester of candidature and subject to approval by the Head of the Schoolof Humanities on the recommendation of the departmental Undergraduate Coordinator. Studentswishing to take this course should consult with a teacher who is willing to supervise the readingproject before enrolling.Assessment: 100% courseworkHIST2081.Gender and history: Beauty, fashion and sex (6 credits)How do societies define what it means to be a man and a woman? Everyone, whatever their age, sexor social status, has an opinion on this issue, even if this is not always articulated consciously. Often,in fact, ideas about gender - the relations between the two sexes - are assumed to be ‘natural’ or‘normal’ and timeless. However, by analysing the question of what being a ‘man’ and being a‘woman’ means at different times and in different places this course sets out to illustrate how theseidentities are socially constructed. HIST2081 aims to introduce students to the various ways throughwhich scholars have sought to understand gender over time. Beginning with the earliest efforts towrite ‘women’s history,’ selections from the recent deluge of historical writing and new research ongender will be highlighted.The topics to be covered will include beauty norms, dress reform, prostitution, women’s suffrage, theimpact of War on constructions of manhood and womanhood, permissiveness in the ‘swinging’ sixtiesand so on, down to the present day. A comparative geographical focus will be used, and the coursewill draw on a wide variety of material from the Early Modern period to the 21st Century, to facilitatethe study of changing gender norms.Assessment: 100% courseworkHIST2084. Sexing the spirit: The history of the modern feminist challenge to Christianity (6credits)Surveys of mainstream feminism have generally omitted the subject of faith. They have taken as agiven wholesale feminist hostility to Christianity and have concluded that religion has littleimportance in the life of modern women. Recent global events are a reminder however that religionremains a passionate if volatile force in contemporary culture and politics. This course will consider ahistory that has been overlooked – the critical engagement of modern feminism with Christianity. The