Module manager: Dr Elspeth Mitchell
Email: e.r.mitchell@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2026/27
This module is not approved as a discovery module
This module explores how bodies are theorised, represented, and lived through feminist, queer, and postcolonial frameworks. We ask: How are bodies marked as different and with what effects? How is subjectivity embodied and mediated? In what ways can cultural practices refigure the body? Across the module we investigate key approaches to thinking the body—from the politics of the gaze to abjection, racialisation, disability, biopolitics and more-than-human embodiment—alongside film, art and cultural texts. These frameworks help us think critically about how difference operates across intersecting axes of gender, race, sexuality, class, disability and species. The module highlights the urgency of these questions in contemporary culture, showing how they shape debates across media, art, politics, and everyday life. Please note this is an optional module and runs subject to enrolments. If a low number of students choose this module, then the module may not run and you may be asked to choose another module.
This module introduces you to a variety of feminist, postcolonial and queer theories exploring embodiment and difference. You will make use of and become familiar with a range of cultural practices that address the body in different ways. Through lectures, portfolios, in-class discussion and a final essay, the module will enhance your capacity for articulating the complexities and dynamics of embodiment and difference in theory and visual culture.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Analyse images, texts, and cultural practices.
2. Apply theories of embodiment to the study of visual and cultural forms.
3. Examine and assess the significance of feminist, queer and postcolonial critiques of visual culture.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of the methodologies that have been developed to analyse the ‘work’ of gender, sexuality, disability, and race in visual culture.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
5. Argue effectively using evidence drawn from image archives and visual online databases of primary sources.
6. Communicate critically and persuasively in multiple modes, engaging with primary and secondary sources of art historical material and visual cultural analysis.
7. Co-ordinate and disseminate a range of historical, contextual visual information.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module.
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Seminar | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Private study hours | 180 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 20 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
The in-class discussions allow ongoing monitoring of student progress. The weekly portfolio tasks are to encourage a level of critical reflection on students’ own work that develops across the weeks. It includes a ‘critical reflection’ which acts as a statement on their learning and research. There will be a formative review of the portfolio tasks mid-way through the module to offer feedback.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Portfolio | 40 |
| Coursework | Written Assignment | 60 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Check the module area in Minerva for your reading list
Last updated: 30/04/2026
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team