You must choose a topic that you have found interesting from those we have studied throughout this semester and formulate your own research question in discussion with your tutor (one-to-one sessions will be timetabled in weeks 10-11).
You are encouraged to narrow your research to a tightly focused area, period, or topic.You must then do in-depth research in both primary and secondary sources on that topic.
This assessment requires you to integrate theoretical concepts with close analysis of examples from primary sources from the historical period you are discussing.You are encouraged, where appropriate, to take advantage of the many archives of sexuality at the University of Melbourne and the surrounding area.
Choose one of the theoretical concepts below and reflect on its relationship to sexuality in one of the historical periods we have studied in class so far (ancient Greece, the European Middle Ages, the early modern period, or the age of European colonialism) OR in one of the monotheistic sacred texts (the Torah, the Bible, or the Quran).
1. gender fluidity and/or gender binaries
2. the sexed body
3. inequities in research or in primary sources
4. homosexuality and heteronormativity
5. race/ethnicity
6. androcentrism
7. performativity of gender