The aim of this seminar is to provide an overview of the depiction of gender issues in dramatic works written by female authors of the 20th century and to investigate the development of this genre as a means of description and criticism of a binary gender system and the individual problems, which may result from this social construct. In order to grasp the complexity of social criticism included in literary works as well as its impact on society, a diachronic approach will be applied to highlight changes and tendencies as well as continuing discussions and challenges governing our current understanding of gender as a social category.
