Browse Hierarchy SOCI6003: Gendering Intimate Relationships

This module explores the sociology of contemporary intimate life, with a particular focus on gender, identities, relationships, family lives and shifting intimate/household arrangements. Societal transformations have changed possibilities in relation to how individual and family lives are lived and understood in the intimate sphere, but tensions and apparent contradictions also configure the ways in which 'appropriate' and gendered behaviours are (discursively) regarded. These include societal ideals, made more immediate through digital technologies, which can powerfully reinforce ideas of essentialism and 'normalcy', especially in relation to attractiveness, reproductive bodies, caring practices and ageing. Thus practices of femininities and masculinities in contemporary society are subject to increased (self) scrutiny and broader surveillance in contexts which can be difficult to negotiate and are morally infected. This module will take a life-course approach enabling students to understand, analyse and theorise the interplay of these topical, complex and diverse aspects of the contemporary intimate sphere.