Marriage, Property, and Citizenship ~ Women and Gender Studies 4900 / Sociology 4850

Marriage, Property and Citizenship is cross-listed as a Women and Gender Studies course and a Sociology course. In Fall 2023 Dr. Lenon described this course this way: Grounded in feminist socio-legal studies, this course examines the public character of marriage and the way it shapes the body politic. We will investigate both the historical and contemporary ways in which marriage law and policies in Canada and elsewhere are intertwined with, and underpinned by, norms regarding property, personhood, and citizenship. We will then examine marriage as a commodity in popular culture and consumer markets and what this teaches us about the fashioning of the self under conditions of neoliberalism. The course ends with provocations that seek to unsettle the institution of marriage itself in order to reimagine other forms of kin-making.