Teaching Gender Studies: Challenges, communication problems, future tasks

As a literary scholar in Gender Studies and for more than 10 years also in Postcolonial Studies, my research and teaching has changed in the past two decades. On the one hand because of methodological discussions, on the other political reasons.

The most profound theoretical debates began in the 1990s and lasted until the turn of the millennium. It was a time of joyful and critical examination of postmodernism, poststructuralism and deconstruction. Many of these struggles have fortunately come to an end: A pragmatic pluralism of methods allows for different ways in which philological work is carried out as part of cultural studies work — and in my case Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies are part of cultural studies.

There is no time here to tell you all about the great changes in gender studies, so I will concentrate on fundamental long-term dynamics and recent changes, which are both a result of interdisciplinary cooperation. And this is why in the first session of my lecture „Introduction to Gender and Postcolonial Studies“–to give just one example of my classes at the University of Trier–I tell my students this:

For you as literary scholars, your main focus is on dealing with logics of representation and learning to describe literature in the interplay of media–specializing in media-specific aesthetics. You will learn how literature plays a part in the production of knowledge orders, that there are different functions of aesthetics as legitimation or critique of differences, including–sometimes–subversive impulses: Literature as a space of thought and possibility. You will learn to use theories as tools to read cultural differences and social structures, to describe orders of knowledge and social positioning of subjects in past and present. Gender studies offer also explanations as to why there are people who find it difficult to value diversity, why some hesitate to make diversity visible and why they struggle to endure ambiguities–but by thinking about these obstacles you will also learn from history that discriminatory structures can be changed, that there are ways to foster empowerment and solidarity. In a nutshell: In my classes I want you to learn theories and methods that help you to develop a more complex look at social norms.

Interdisciplinarity and intersectionality: It’s the material that demands an intersectional approach–not the fact that there is a field called Gender Studies!

Interdisciplinary approaches are one reason why gender Studies (and also Postcolonial Studies) are doing so well. There is a vital field of research in various disciplines. Again and again, interdisciplinary thinking challenges us. It fosters discussions about fundamental issues like the modelling of key concepts and forces us to learn more about method pluralism. Gender Studies have grown in response to these challenges in recent decades and have become more differentiated in regard to methods and research topics. To convey an understanding of method pluralism and interdisciplinarity are therefore central to my teaching: I want to give students an understanding of the opportunities offered by interdisciplinary work and its added value for German Studies. Teaching Gender Literary Studies today means for example to talk not only about the cultural construction of gender differences, but about the interdependencies and interrelations of categories like race, religion, sexuality, age, ability etc. On the one hand it is widely recognized that it no longer makes sense to examine just one individual category — but at the same time it must be made clear that individual categories like class, sexual orientation, age, ability and so an can also be emphasized and that there are research fields that have their own traditions of dealing with them. And to know about interdependencies and structural analogies of gender and race for example does not mean that they are applied in the same way in every field of research. While researchers in gender studies are used to the fact that gender is just one of several categories and that one has to look at intersectionality, this is by no means to the same extent the case in postcolonial studies although both deal with power relations in representations, subject positions and speaking positions. For this reason, we also work on some of the same topics, but the way in which questions of race and gender and there intersections are highlighted still differs. I’m struggling a lot with this fact as a researcher in both fields of research, and this is why I wanna point out to you that in my opinion this is one of our major future tasks, and we must make significant progress here: Because it’s the material that demands an intersectional approach–not the fact that there is a field called Gender Studies. Gender is for quite some time no longer just a category of gender studies, and race is in no way just a category of postcolonial studies. Taking intersectionality seriously means that there are no such links between research fields and analytical approaches. There should be much more critical interdisciplinary discussion on this topic. For it is a question of how we develop our fields of research, especially gender and postcolonial studies.

For me, this is the most challenging but also the most important task in the training of humanities scholars, and a requirement for any interdisciplinary discussion. This does not only applies to intersectionality but to seemingly transdisciplinarily attractive key concepts such as inclusion or diversity. They also owe their existence to a fruitful interplay of individual and interdisciplinary research, which are characterized by constant critical exchange: The identification of blind spots in relation to the investigation, categorisation and conceptualisation of the thinking of difference in the subjects of social, cultural and literary studies has produced an interdisciplinary theoretical discussion, which in turn has repercussions in our individual disciplines. So, it’s important for Students to know quite a number of theories, understand that method pluralism does not mean arbitrariness, that concepts are sometimes modelled differently due to research traditions of disciplines, and understand the relationship between interdisciplinary work and individual disciplines.

Because no matter where our students will work in the future: To recognize that the categories and terms that determine our perspectives to the world are part of traditions of thought is the key for gaining a sensitivity for the cultural preconditions of perceptions, descriptions and framings of problems. One might say that this is the most important resource if we want to finally understand German society as a multicultural immigration society. The concepts of nation, affiliation, family, equality and so on. This is the work.

Gender studies as a research field is doing well. But at the same time there is a clear crisis scenario. Gender studies have a massive communication problem.

So much for the good news. I want to add shortley: There are still some struggles, and they have to do with an increasingly aggressive criticism of gender studies in the public sphere. Because it is not only the research paradigms that have changed. Today, I am also reacting to a discourse about my research, and I discuss this with students, because research does not take place in a vacuum. All scientists may be potentially aware of this, but it does not affect everyday life in the same way for everyone. Almost every day an article is published about our field of research, but it rarely deals with research topics or results. This is not a totally new phenomenon. It began at the end of the 1990s, but with the success of the AfD („Alternative für Deutschland“) it became an urgent topic in the political arena, and affects our work too. These defamations have a signalling effect in public space. And the startling thing is that even journalists who report critically on it use the terms invented by antifeminists and right-wing extremists and thus hammer them into people’s heads.

Now you might say: Do yourself a favour and ignore that. Instead, concentrate entirely on your research. Well. Our students also experience this. Some students who have chosen the Master programm Intercultural Gender Studies at the University of Trier explicitly told me that they have to struggle not only with ignorance but hostility. That’s why I tell some banal sentences every time I begin to speak about Gender Studies to a mixed audience: Gender studies do not want to take away their gender from anyone. They give you reasons to reflect on gender norms and to think about the social effects of those norms. So simple. I pick up stereotypes, I address them directly in the lecture hall, instead of hiding this nonsense, as we have done for a long time.

And additionally: I became active in social media. Because we are all called upon to communicate much more of our scientific work and to forge alliances: Inside and outside the universities. Again: Gender studies as a research field is doing well. But at the same time there is a clear crisis scenario. Gender studies have a massive communication problem.

And I would like to discuss this with you who are present here: How are Gender Studies doing in your disciplines? How well are gender studies networked within the university? Are they supported by the university management when they are under attack? How can researchers of all disciplines become better #GenderStudiesBuddies in the ongoing struggels? I am looking forward to the discussion.