Anna Cavallin
Bio
Anna Cavallin is currently teaching courses in Gender Studies and in Literature at Stockholm University and at The Swedish Program at Stockholm School of Economics. She has been teaching courses for Swedish university students and American Undergraduate students since the early 2000’s. In literature Anna is specialising in literature for Young Adults, literature from the late 19th century and literature with a gender perspective. In Gender studies, Anna teaches courses in a broad range from first year students’ elementary Gender Studies-classes to supervising BA Candidates’ Theses. Anna is currently working on the final stages of her PhD-project “Hushållspolitik. Kön och konsumtion i August Strindbergs Giftas”(“Domestic Policies. Gender and consumption in August Strindberg’s Giftas”).
Workshop
Gender is one of the strongest categories human beings tend to divide themselves – and others – into, and therefore gender is also crucial in one’s understanding of oneself and the people around us. We are born into a world where interpretations of gender already exist, and so we ourselves are also interpreted as either girl or boy, to become woman or man, from the moment we come into the world. To understand what these interpretations of gender, and thus of our bodies, and minds, and behavior, and ways in the world, mean, is one of the core aims with this course.
During this course, we will explore what images and ideas of gender we carry with us and are surrounding us in our societies. We will also look back into history and try to see where these categories of man, woman, boy, girl were established and why, and how we can find ways to handle present gender categories existing in our time. We will also go into recent gender theory to see how new ways of understanding these important questions can be formulated.
We will use material from outside the room of the course, bringing in images, still and moving, as well as music and texts, and from inside ourselves, using our experiences as human beings to develop our joint body of knowledge. We will also explore how gender categories organizes so many parts of our lives and our societies in terms of relations, sexual as well as intimate in other aspects, and also in the workplace and education system.
We will engage in discussions, both in smaller groups or pairs and in the larger group. We will also use writing exercices as well as spoken presentations by students and teacher, and the teaching sessions will be formed in themes, one for each day, such as, for example: the body; the society; relations; the workplace; traditions; private/public; art and culture.