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Women’s and Gender Studies Program

CORE COURSES

10. Sex, Gender, and Society

07F: 10, 12 08W: 10 08X: 2A 08F: 10, 12 09W: 10A

This course will investigate the roles of women and men in society from an interdisciplinary point of view. We will analyze both the theoretical and practical aspects of gender attribution—how it shapes social roles within diverse cultures, and defines women and men’s personal sense of identity. We will discuss the following questions: What are the actual differences between the sexes in the areas of biology, psychology, and moral development? What is the effect of gender on participation in the work force and politics, on language, and on artistic expression? We will also explore the changing patterns of relationships between the sexes and possibilities for the future.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. The staff.

15. (Former 20) Roots of Feminisms: Texts and Contexts

08W: 10 09W: 11

(Identical to Classical Studies 11, when taught by Professor Stewart in 08W). This course will examine pre-twentieth century texts and historical events that set important precedents for the development of contemporary feminist theories and practices. We will survey some of the writings that consolidate legitimated patriarchal/misogynist ideologies in Western worlds (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, the fathers of the Church, the philosophers of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, Rousseau). We will analyze different ways in which women historically have articulated strategies of contestation and/or resistance to systems of power based on gender differentiation. Readings may include works by French medieval thinker Christine de Pizan; sixteenth-century Spanish cross-dresser Catalina de Erauso; seventeenth-century Mexican intellectual and nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz; Mary Wollstonecraft; Maria Stewart, the first African-American political woman writer; the nineteenth-century American suffragists; and anarchist leader Emma Goldman.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Stewart.

16. (Former 21) Contemporary Issues in Feminism: Theory and Practice

08S: 10A 09S: 11

This course explores the theoretical underpinnings of some of the most highly contested issues in society today. We will look at a spectrum of positions on such issues as: questions of difference and equality; women’s health and reproductive rights; identity and identity politics; morality-pornography-violence; eco-feminism-environmentalism; children, family, and human rights; and the representation/performance of femininity/masculinity. Special emphasis will be placed on the connection between theory and practice.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Schweitzer.

18. (Former 47) Introduction to Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies

08F: 2A

This course will examine the ways in which “deviant” sexual and gender behavior and identities, and the political movements that emerge from them, have been conceptualized in U.S. culture. We will cover basic g/l/b/t cultural and political history and the interplay between sexuality, gender, race, class, ethnicity, and economics. Classes will be a mix of lecture and discussion. Students will be expected to work with primary documents (including novels and film), recent work in queer theory and historical analysis.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Bronski.

GENERAL COURSES

19. Contemporary Issues in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies

09S: 10A

In 09S, (Section 2), Sexuality, Identity, and Legal Theory (Identical to Philosophy 50 in 09S, pending faculty approval). This course will examine sexual orientation, gender identity, and the law in the United States. Topics to be discussed will include: The roles of sex, gender, and sexual orientation in the law and the law’s role in shaping these categories; the rights to privacy, equal protection, free speech, and association; workplace discrimination; family law and same-sex marriage

Open to all students. Dist. SOC; WCult: CI. Brison, Robinson.

21. Women and Gender in the Ancient World

08W: 10A 09S: 12

In 08W, (Section 2), Fictions of Sappho (Identical to Comparative Literature 67 and Classical Studies 10 in 08W). Goddess of poetry, sexual predator, exotic holiday destination, lovelorn suicide, schoolmistress, parchment scrap: these are among the associations clustering around Sappho. From antiquity to the twenty-first century her poems and the legends about her life and loves have fascinated writers, artists and musicians as different as Queen Victoria, Willa Cather, Boccaccio, Jeanette Winterson, Ezra Pound, Gounod, and Ovid. We sample some of the twists and turns in this seemingly endless stream of fantasy and creative reaproppriation.

Open to all students. Dist: LIT; WCult: CI. Williamson.

In 09S, (Section 1), Slaves, Wives, and Concubines: Did Roman Women Have a History? (Identical to Classical Studies 11 in 09S). In this course we explore the lives of Roman women first in terms of the larger institutional frameworks that structured and gave meaning to women’s lives, either by inclusion (family, marriage) or exclusion (law, politics). From this basis we investigate the characterization and self-representation of women in literary texts: women as mothers and wives, women as political actors, women as priests and ritual participants. Selected readings of Roman literary and legal sources will be supplemented by evidence from Roman inscriptions, domestic architecture, sculpture and coinage.

Open to all students. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Stewart.

23. Women and Gender in the Americas: Historical Perspectives

08W: 2A 08F: 10 09S: 12

In 08W and 08F, (Section 2), American Women’s History Since 1920 (Identical to History 28). This course traces the history of American women from 1920 to the 1980s. Topics to be discussed include: the breakup of the suffrage alliance during the 1920s; women in the radical social movements of the 1930s; women and war work in the 1940s; women in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s; the ‘second wave’ of American feminism; institutionalization of feminism in the 1970s; and the rise of an anti-feminist women’s movement in the 1980s. The course will also examine the ways gender definitions have changed in the U.S. during this century, and the ways that race and class have shaped American ideas about gender.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Orleck.

In 09S, (Section 1), Gender and Power in American History, 1607-1920 (Identical to History 27). This course examines the history of men and women from the period of colonial settlement to the achievement of woman’s suffrage. We will explore the construction of gender particularly as it relates to social, political, economic, and cultural power. Topics will include: the role of gender in political thought and practice, the intersection of gender with categories of class and race; gender in the debate over slavery and the Civil War; and the rise and evolution of the woman’s rights movement.

Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors. Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Butler.

30. Women, Gender, and the Economy

07F: 12 08W: 11 08X: 10A

In 07F, (Section 1), Women, Gender, and Development (Identical to Geography 26 in 07F). This course will examine various aspects of gender and development. We will begin by defining development and identifying the places where economic and social development is orchestrated and experienced. This will lead to discussions and critical inquires into the spaces and scales of economic development including issues of mobility, migration, global labor, and markets. Gender, development, and conflict will also be addressed with regard to reconstruction and reconciliation in post-conflict spaces.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Fluri.

In 08W, (Section 2), Women and the Economy. This course uses economic theory and data analysis to investigate the accuracy of popular beliefs about women in the labor market. These beliefs include “employers pay women less than men”, “divorce makes a woman worse off”, and “children of working mothers and those from broken homes perform worse than others”. The course has two main parts: the role of women within the family (including marriage and fertility decisions) and the role of women in the labor market, along with the consequent policy implications.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Chaudhury.

In 08X, (Section 3), Why the Devil Wears Prada: The Economics of Fashion. Women use clothes and fashion as a means to express themselves and to show their social identity. Highlighting the manifold roles that fashion has played in history, and how it is interpreted in the societal context, this course aims, in particular, at incorporating cognitive and feminist views into economic theory.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC. Gick.

32. Women, Gender and Law (Identical to Government 68)

09S: 2A

In 09S (Section 1), Gender and Law (Identical to and described under Government 68). This course examines how gender and law in the United States are used to confer rights, create obligations, and define identities. We explore the theoretical, historical, and empirical basis for gender in law, and pay particular attention to how and when gender-based laws have changed over time. Specific topics covered include, for example, federal legislation on educational and workplace equity, constitutional doctrines of equality and privacy, and state policies on family law, criminal responsibility, and domestic violence. We analyze the relationship between gender politics, legal theory, legal doctrine, and social policy. We also ask whether the gender of legal actors (litigants, lawyers, judges) makes a difference in their reasoning or decision-making.

Prerequisite: Government 3 or a law course strongly recommended. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Bohmer.

33. Women, Gender, Family, and Community

08W: 2

In 08W, (Section 1), Constructing Black Womanhood (Identical to Sociology 46 and African and African American Studies 25). This course is a critical examination of the historical and contemporary status of black women in the United States, as presented in fiction, primary accounts, and social science literature. We will explore the nature, extent, and consequences of the multiple discriminations of race, sex, and class, as the context in which these women shaped their social roles and identities within the black community and the larger society. We will consider the themes of family, motherhood, and sexuality; educational, economic and political participation; aesthetics and religious traditions; and self and social images.

Open to juniors and seniors. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. King.

34. Gender, Self, and Identity

08W: 12

In 08W, (Section 3), The Masculine Mystique. Why are so many boys and men fascinated by sport and war? Why are young boys more threatened by the term “sissy” than girls are by the term “tomboy”? What are the distinctive qualities of men’s friendships with other men and of their intimate relationships with women? Are our conceptions of masculinity dominated by models of white male development? What is the connection of biological sex with contemporary western notions of masculinity? Readings from anthropology, sociolinguistics, sociology, and race and ethnic studies, and movies will also be utilized in this interdisciplinary and multicultural course.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Travis.

36. Cross Cultural Perspectives on Women, Gender, and Sexuality

08W: 2A 09W: 12

In 08W, (Section 2), Women in Africa (Identical to African and African American Studies 41). This course will examine different aspects of the female experience in Africa. Beginning with a consideration of roles of women in pre-colonial African societies, with particular reference to descent, marriage and the family, ritual and religion, productive and reproductive systems, and political organization, the focus will then move through the colonial and contemporary periods to assess changes in female roles. Contrasting experiences for contemporary African women will be emphasized through exploration of their participation in national liberation and politics, of urban and rural lifestyles, Muslim, Christian, and animist religious traditions, educational background, and status differences arising out of social class. The focus for the course includes an analysis of formal political, social, and economic institutions, yet it assumes that African society has also been shaped by the ‘muted’ perceptions and models of society held by women themselves, and by social processes to which both females and males have contributed.

Open to all students. Dist: INT; WCult: NW. Amadiume.

In 09W, (Section 3), Black Feminism/Womanism in Contemporary U.S. Popular Culture (Identical to African and African American Studies 85 in 09W). In this course we will explore the emergence of Black feminism(s)/womanism(s) in twentieth- and twenty-first-century U.S. popular culture. We will specifically address how the work of African-American women artists-scholars critiques sexism, racism, classicism, ethnocentrism and heterosexism within the U.S. context. In order to examine Black feminism(s) and womanism(s) in popular culture from myriad perspectives, the required readings for this course reflect a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as a range of genres.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Naylor.

37. Gender and Space

09W: 2

In 09W, (Section 1), Gender, Space and the Environment (Identical to Geography 19). This course is meant to help students understand the relationships between the gendered construction of our society, and the ways we have organized our spaces and places, including our homes, places of work, cities, nations and environments. Accordingly, the course will be organized around these different spatial scales, examining everything from the ways we organize our living rooms, to the ways we have shaped empires, to the way Western society has dealt with environmental issues. Dist. SOC; WCult: CI. Domosh.

40. Gender, Race, and Nation

09W: 11

In 09W, (Section 1), Gender Issues in Native American Life (Identical to Native American Studies 42). We will address issues of gender in indigenous communities as it relates to culture, policy, history, and social life. Indigenous in the context of this class will focus on the diversity of Native people within/across settler-colonial nation-states. The project based assignments will tackle common misperceptions, the complexity of changing gender patterns, the methods Native communities develop to balance out gender inequities, and various organizing of Native women’s activism. The aim of this class is to create an understanding of how gender issues are a vital component in the process of decolonization

Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Goeman.

42. Gender and Conflict

08W, 09W: 2A

In 08W, (Section 4), War and Gender (Identical to English 62 in 08W). Throughout history, war has been constructed into a powerfully gendered binary. From The Iliad onward, battle is posed as a sacred domain for initiating young men into the masculine gender and the male bond, and the feminine as that which both instigates male-male conflict and that which wars are fought to protect. With a special concentration on U.S. culture of the past century, this course will examine the way our modern myths and narratives instantiate this cultural polarity through film, fiction, non-fiction and various media material. Dist: SOC; WCult: W. Boose.

In 09W, (Section 1), Gender and Resistance: Radicals, Reactionaries and Revolutionaries. This course explores the use of gender and space in various resistance movements. We will specifically focus on five different groups/movements: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, Algerian Resistance to French Colonialism, The Black Panther Movement, the Irish Republican Army and Iranian Islamic Revolution. This seminar will consist readings, films and website analysis. Students will be required to write a research paper on resistance group as well as write their own revolutionary newsletter as an exercise in persuasive writing.

Open to all students. Dist: INT or SOC. Fluri.

43. Women, Gender, and Religion

07F: 2 08S: 10A 08F: 2

In 07F, (Section 2), Sex, Celibacy and the Problem of Purity: Asceticism and the Human Body in Late Antiquity (Identical to Religion 31 and Classics 11 in 07F). This course examines a crucial period in the history of Christianity—Late Antiquity. Between the years 300 and 500, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, established standards of doctrine and ecclesiastical organization, and developed the attitudes towards the body, sexuality and gender which informed Christian teaching for centuries to come. In this class we will ask: why did virginity become such an important aspect of Christian religiosity? What effect did Roman concepts of gender and sexuality have on Christian understanding of the relationship between men and women? What did martyrs, gladiators and monks have in common.

Open to all students. Dist: TMV; WCult: W. MacEvitt.

In 08S, (Section 1), Beyond God the Father: An Introduction to Gender and Religion (Identical to Religion 13). A survey of contemporary writings that explore the relations between gender and religion in the West from historical, anthropological, theological, and philosophical perspectives. The course serves as an introduction both to gender studies and to the study of religion. Topics to be discussed include: current theories of “gender” and of “religion,” androcentric scriptures, patriarchal institutions and matriarchal myths, sexual prohibitions, body politics, queering religion, feminist theology, and the emergence of feminist philosophies of religion. Authors may include: Mary Daly, Judith Butler, Caroline Walker Bynum, Donna Haraway, Pamela Anderson, Grace Jantzen, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, Pierre Bourdieu, Rosemary Ruether, Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, or others.

Open to all students. Dist: TMV; WCult: W. Frankenberry.

In 08F, (Section 4), Goddesses of India (Identical to Religion 42). This course will use both elite and popular Hindu religious texts in conjunction with contemporary sociological and anthropological accounts, scholarly analyses, visual art, and film to explore the diverse identities and roles of India’s many goddesses, both ancient and modern. Special emphasis will also be given to the relationship between goddesses and women.

Open to all classes. Dist: TMV; WCult: NW. Ohnuma.

44. Women, Gender, and Religion: Comparative Perspectives

08S: 2A

In 08S, (Section 1), Women’s Rituals: From Africa and Around the World (Identical to Religion 52 and African and African American Studies 66 in 08S). This course focuses on women’s ritual practices in different cultures and societies, both traditional and modern. It examines and describes women’s ritual actions, cultural beliefs, values and social practices, through alternative theories and models that enable us to better understand the full possibilities of culture and religion in shaping our daily lives for a happier and more just world. It aims to de-emphasize the marginalization, invisibility and exclusion of women in male-dominated religious, cultural and social practices by studying women’s lives in a multiplicity of roles as shaped by women’s knowledge systems, religions and cultural traditions from the cradle to the grave. The course is multidisciplinary and will use sources from social history, religion, anthropology, literature, Art, documentary film, and science feminisms and religions discourses.

Open to all students. Dist: TMV; WCult: NW. Amadiume.

46. Philosophy and Gender

08W: 2A 09W: 10A

In 08W and 09S, (Section 1), Feminism and Philosophy (Identical to Philosophy 22). This course examines the relationship between feminism and philosophy. The focus is on such questions as: Is the Western philosophical canon inherently sexist? How should feminist philosophers read the canon? Are Western philosophical concepts such as objectivity, reason, and impartiality inherently masculinist concepts? The course may focus on either the ways in which feminists have interpreted great figures in the history of philosophy (e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche), or on the ways in which feminists have rethought basic concepts in core areas of philosophy (e.g., epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, political philosophy, philosophy of science), or both.

Open to all students. Dist: TMV; WCult: CI. Brison.

47. Women, Gender, and Literatures of the Americas

09S: 10A

In 09S, (Section 2), The Borderlands: Latina/o Writers in the United States (Identical to Comparative Literature 52 in 09S). In this course we will focus on the writings of US Latina/o writers. We will analyze how writers (Anzaldua, Alvarez, Cisneros, Castillo and others) negotiate a path between the two cultures (the US and Latin America) and the two languages that inform their literary production and shape their identity. This in-between status translates into an experimentation with genres and a questioning of traditional gender divisions as well as the construction of transcultural icons and objects.

Open to all students. Dist: LIT or INT; WCult: W. Spitta.

50. Women, Gender, and Literatures of Africa

08S: 10A

In 08S, (Section 2), Gender and Islam in the North African Novel (Identical to Comparative Literature 37 in 08S, pending Faculty Approval). While the European novel takes a notoriously orientalizing view of the exotic, often veiled, Muslim woman, in the hands of Muslim writers the novel has become a site for contestation of traditional gender definitions, even reinterpretation of legal and religious texts. We will read novels by Naguib Mahfouz, Assia Djebar, Tahar ben Jelloun, Nawal El saadawi, Leila Ahmed, Fatima Mernissi, Leila Abouzeid, and Mariama Bâ. Dist: LIT; WCult: CI. M. J. Green.

51. Women, Gender, and Literature: Comparative Perspectives

08W: 11

In 08W (Section 6), Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Gendered Images in the Literary Fairy Tale (Identical to Comparative Literature 39 in 08W). This course is a survey of the way gender images have evolved in the genre of the literary fairy tale, from the sixteenth century to the present. We will pay special attention both to the subversive potential of the fairy tale and the ways in which the Western fairy tale has consolidated conventional gender and narrative paradigms. We will use a variety of critical approaches to the fairy tale and, put our encounter with the fairy tale to dynamic use by writing, telling, and performing tales.

Open to all students. Dist. LIT. Canepa.

52. Women, Gender, and Postcolonial Perspectives

07F: 2A

In 07F, (Section 1), Colonial and Post Colonial Masculinities (Identical to AAAS 67 and Comparative Literature 67 in 07F). In this course, we will develop an understanding of masculinity as a construct which varies in time and space, and is constantly (re)shaped by such factors as race, class, and sexuality. The contexts of the colonial encounter and its postcolonial aftermath will set the stage for our examination of the ways in which social, political, economic, and cultural factors foster the production of specific masculinities. Texts include Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Lafferiere’s How to Make Love to a Negro, and additional writings by Irish, Indian, and Australian authors. Our study will be organized around the questions of the production of hegemonic and subaltern masculinities, the representation of the colonial and postcolonial male body, the militarization of masculinity, and the relation between masculinity and nationalism. Theoretical material on masculinities will frame our readings. Dist: LIT. Coly.

53. Gender, Language and Writing

07F: 11 08W: 2

In 07F, (Section 2), From Hand to Mouth: Writing, Eating, and the Construction of Gender (Identical to Comparative Literature 49 in 07F). Our perceptions of food are often limited to familiarity with its preparation and consumption, but do we consider food as an extension of the self or as a marker of class, gender, and sexuality? This course will look at food as an intersection of production, consumption, and signification, and at how different cultural traditions regulate gender by infusing food with socially determined codes. Readings include Margaret Atwood, Isak Dinesen, Marguerite Duras, Laura Esquivel, among others.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: W. Reyes.

In 08W, (Section 4), Woofenstein (Identical to English 67.3 in 08W). Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein occupy a central place in European and American modernism, their work having influenced successive generations of writers. Using a series of thematic and theoretical frameworks, we will explore the intersections between the two, asking how they staged their resistances to traditional/patriarchal literary and cultural structures. Possible frameworks are gender and genre; queer texts and contexts; war, nation, and gender; class, ethnicity, and authority; iconization. We will also be reading a selection of critical and/or feminist theory.

Suggested background courses are English 15, Comparative Literature 72, Women’s and Gender Studies 16. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. Silver, Will.

54. Feminist Literary Criticism

08S: 2A

In 08S, (Section 3), Latina Feminisms: Acts of Intervention (Identical to LACS 54 in 08S). Through an engagement of narratives mediated by recordings, literature, visual art and performances for, by and about Latinas, this course examines the highly contested and still-evolving site of Latina feminist practices. Students will be introduced to foundational writings in Latina feminist theory. We will pay particular attention to how the shared—and the divergent—experiences of Latinas in the US are produced, reflected, and resisted in cultural expression. Our central task will be to analyze how these women-centered texts redefine sexuality, gender, race and class. Several questions frame our studies in the course, including: How do we theorize a Latina feminist tradition? How has Latina feminism reshaped the field of ethnic and gender studies? Topics include, but are not limited to: triple oppressions theory, identity politics, mestiza consciousness, Latina subjectivity, and lesbian identities. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Herrera.

56. Gender and the Media

07F, 08S: 2A 08F: 10A

In 07F, (Section 5), Women and the Film Industry (Identical to Film Studies 47 in 07F). Women have worked in the film industry since its very beginnings in the 1890s, although there is a popular conception that this is a recent phenomenon. This course will examine how women participated in the mainstream American film industry from the 1890s to the present as producers, directors, writers, photographers, fashion designers, performers, and audiences. Concepts about female authorship, as well as historical questions about the cultural, social, and industrial contexts for women’s power in the industry, will be explored. Films made by prominent women producers, directors, and writers will be screened.

Open to all students. Dist: ART; WCult: W. Desjardins.

In 08S, (Section 2) Beatniks, Hot Rods and the Feminine Mystique: Sex and Gender in 1950’s Hollywood Film (Identical to Film Studies 47 in 08S). Common opinion holds that the 1950’s in the United States was a decade of severe sexual repression and political conformity. Yet the decade’s popular culture exhibits a startling range of images and ideologies that not only resist social norms but posit a vibrant array of alternative, subversive ideas about sex, gender, race, and power. We will view popular Hollywood films, selected television shows and commercials, and listen to stand-up comedy, and discuss them within the broad cultural context of the 1950’s. Readings for the class will include feminist film theory by writers such as Teresa DeLauretis, Mary Ann Doane and others, critical cultural theory, and popular literature of the period, such as pulp novels, movie magazines, and popular non-fiction memoirs, as well as sociology such as John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Affluent Society, and political propaganda such as J. Edgar Hoover’s Masters of Deceit.

Open to all students. Dist: ART. Bronski.

In 08F, (Section 1), Television and Histories of Gender (Identical to Film Studies 46 in 08F). This class examines the ways American commercial television has historically “assumed” gendered positionings of its audience, as well as operates as one of the strongest cultural touchstones of gendered identity in patriarchal, consumer society. After tracing television’s place in the construction of gendered ideals through the history of the situation comedy, we examine “gender-specific” genres, such as sports, westerns, cop shows, and soap operas. Representative programs will be screened, and feminist essays on television history/theory are among assigned readings.

Open to all students. Dist: ART; WCult: CI. Desjardins.

59. Gender, Music Theater and the Performing Arts

07F: 2A

In 07F, (Section 1), Inside Out: Prison, Women and Performance (Identical to College Course 8 in 07F). Hidden in our midst is an ever-growing incarceration system, which has become increasingly privatized and retributive, especially with regards to ethnic minorities. Some critics are calling for the “abolition” of prisons. Yet, most of us know little about prisons, the prisoners in our communities or the issues they face inside and outside prison. This course offers students the unique opportunity to study the prison system from two distinct perspectives: theoretical and practical. For half the week, students will study the history of prisons and women’s incarceration in the traditional classroom. For the other half, students will join inmates in a performance program offered in the Windsor Women’s prison whose goal is the creation and performance of an original production. The final project for the course will combine critical analysis and self-reflection on the effectiveness of service learning and performance in rehabilitation. Schweitzer, Hernandez.

61. Women, Gender, and Health

07F: 2A

In 07F, (Section 2), Plagues and Politics: The Impact of AIDS on U.S. Society. This course will survey the AIDS epidemic in the United States from 1981 to the present. We will examine the history and social impact of the epidemic by exploring its immediate and long lasting effects on issues such as health care, anti-discrimination law, immigration, education strategies, government drug policies, welfare services, as well as glbt culture. We will also be examining its effects on popular thinking on sex, gender, and sexual culture through mainstream and independent film and media.

Open to all students. Dist: SOC. Bronski.

65. Special Topics in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies

08W: 2A

In 08W, (Section 5), How Hollywood Films Shaped Post-War GLBT Politics (Identical to Film Studies 47 in 08W, pending faculty approval). This course will examine the interplay between post-war GLBT film representation and the development of a national GLBT political consciousness and movements. It will also explore how this new consciousness shaped popular culture. Readings will in include feminist and queer film theory, primary source movement documents as well as popular writings on homosexuality in books and the mainstream press. Emphasis will be placed on how the GLBT movement worked in conjunction with other movements for social change and how these alliances were reflected in Hollywood films.

Open to all students. Dist: ART; WCult: CI. Bronski.

67. Special Topics in Feminist Theory

09S: 10A

In 09S, (Section 5), Freud: Psychoanalysis, Jews and Gender (Identical to German 42 and Jewish Studies 51 in 09S). After a brief historical introduction to Freud’s time and environment, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, we will discuss how Freud’s own writings, his biography and his biographers have shaped the perception of psychoanalysis as a specifically Jewish theory and practice. Through a close reading of Freud’s seminal texts on gender, sexuality, language and religion, we will trace the connections between psychoanalysis, Jewishness and gender that have impacted theoretical discussions until today, i.e., on hysteria or on anti-Semitism. We will close the class with historical, theoretical readings that explore and critique Freudian psychoanalysis on issues of anti-Semitism, politics, gender and sexuality (among others Karen Horney, Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse) and discuss the most recent debates on the status of Freud in the US.

Taught in English. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Fuetchner.

80. Seminar in Women’s and Gender Studies

07F: M 3-6p 08F: 10A

The seminar in Women’s and Gender Studies is designed to be both a culminating experience for Women’s and Gender Studies students and an intensive preparation for future work (such as independent study, honors theses, graduate work, or any kind of advanced feminist scholarship). Consequently, this course will address such questions as What is a feminist approach? What kinds of questions do feminists ask? What is the relation between feminist theory and feminist activism? The focus will be on feminist methodology, examining through reading, exercises in class, written assignments, and research projects, how feminist scholarship is done within a given area.

Permission of the instructor is required. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Martin.

85. Independent Study

All terms: Arrange

This will involve an independent project carried out under the direction of one or more of the Women’s and Gender Studies faculty.

Prerequisite: permission of the instructor.

98, 99. Honors Thesis I and II

All terms: Arrange

This two-course sequence involves an extensive investigation of a topic in a student’s area of concentration and submission of an undergraduate thesis. Only students accepted into the Honors Program may take this sequence.

Permission of the instructor and the Steering Committee required.

ASSOCIATED COURSES

Associated courses, listed below, are those with a central focus on gender, women, or women’s experience, and making use of recent scholarship on women and gender. Courses not on the following list may also count as associated courses for certificate students and modified majors. To obtain credit, students must petition the Women’s and Gender Studies Steering Committee outlining how their work in a particular course corresponds to the above definition of an associated course.

  • African and African American Studies 19: Representations of African American Women in Cinema
  • African and African American Studies 25: Constructing Black Womanhood
  • African and African American Studies 40: Gender Identities and Politics in Africa
  • African and African American Studies 41: Women in Africa
  • African and African American Studies 43: Indigenous African Religions
  • African and African American Studies 62: African and African American Women Writers: Race, Class and Social Justice
  • African and African American Studies 66: Women’s Rituals From Africa and Around the World
  • African and African American Studies 67: Colonial and Post-Colonial Masculinities
  • African and African American Studies 85: Black Feminism/Womanism in Contemporary U.S. Popular Culture
  • African and African American Studies 86: Black Women Writers
  • African and African American Studies 87: Women’s Spirit Possession Narratives in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Nwapa and the Ezilis
  • Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 19: Writing Gender in Islamic Space
  • Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 21: Writing Korean Women, Reading Korean Women
  • Anthropology 12: From Lover to Mother to Witch: The Politics of Gender in Art
  • Anthropology 12: Gender and Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective
  • Anthropology 31: Politics of Latin@ Ethnography
  • Anthropology 33: Crossing Over: Latino Roots and Transitions
  • Anthropology 34: Comparative Perspectives on the US-Mexican Borderlands
  • Anthropology 44: Globalization from Above and Below
  • Arabic 63: Society, Culture, and Gender in the Middle East
  • Art History 16: Age and Status in the Ancient World
  • Art History 16: Women Artists and Gender Theories
  • Art History 48: Gender, Race, and Politics in Eighteenth Century Visual Culture
  • Art History 80: Sex, Gender, and Identity in the Arts of the Ancient World
  • Art History 82: Angelica Kauffman: Art and Gender in 18th and early 19th Century Europe
  • Art History 82: Women and the Art of Japan
  • Classics 10: Fictions of Sappho
  • Classics 11: Roots of Feminism
  • Classics 11: Sex, Celibacy, and the Problem of Purity: Asceticism and the Human Body in Late Antiquity
  • Classics 11: Slaves, Wives, and Concubines: Did Roman Women Have a History?
  • College Course 01: Assisted Reproduction in the Twenty-First Century
  • College Course 04: Virtual Gender: Popular Culture and The Construction of Gender
  • College Course 08: Inside Out: Prison, Women and Performance
  • College Course 08: Sexuality and Science
  • College Course 10: The Performative Body: Culture, Queerness, and the Limits of Genre
  • College Course 80: Advanced Research on Special Topics in Assisted Reproduction
  • Comparative Literature 29: Tears, Love, Happiness: Feminine Territories/Feminist Readings
  • Comparative Literature 37: Gender and Islam in the North African Novel
  • Comparative Literature 39: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Gendered Images in the Literary Fairy Tale
  • Comparative Literature 39: Trauma and Prose Fiction
  • Comparative Literature 46: Mothers and Daughters
  • Comparative Literature 47: Medea
  • Comparative Literature 49: Writing, Eating, and the Construction of Gender
  • Comparative Literature 52: The Borderlands: Latina/o Writers in the United States
  • Comparative Literature 55: The Karma of Love: Japanese Women Writers and the Classical Canon
  • Comparative Literature 67: Fictions of Sappho
  • Comparative Literature 67: Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies
  • Comparative Literature 67: Women’s Identities in Migration
  • Comparative Literature 67: Women and Surrealism
  • Comparative Literature 67: Colonial and Post-Colonial Masculinities
  • Comparative Literature 73/101: Feminist Readings
  • Education 10: Psychology of Women, Education of Girls
  • Education 54: Moral Development and Moral Education
  • Education 62: Adolescent Development
  • English 25: Gender and Power in Shakespeare
  • English 60: Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature
  • English 62: American Women Poets
  • English 62: Gender and Cyberculture
  • English 62: Gender and Memory
  • English 62: Animals and Women in Literature
  • English 62: Jewish Women Writers
  • English 62: Immigrant Women’s Writing in America
  • English 62: The Poetry and Rhetoric of Love: From Petrarch to nerve.com
  • English 62: Women, “Race” and Writing: American Drama and Performance
  • English 62: War and Gender
  • English 62: Queer Poetries
  • English 66: Feminine/Masculine: Visions and Revisions of Early America
  • English 66: Whitman and Dickinson
  • English 67: Black Women Writers
  • English 67: A History of Asian America in Novels and Prose
  • English 67: From Cyberspace to MySpace: Studies in Cyberculture
  • English 67: Native Cultural Production: (Re)Mapping Race, Gender, and Nation
  • English 67: Toni Morrison
  • English 67: Woolfenstein
  • English 67: Contemporary Women Writers
  • English 67: A History of Asian America in Novels and Prose
  • English 67: Mixed Race Experience in Asian American Literature and Culture
  • English 67: Black Women Writers
  • English 70: Witchcraft and Early Modern England
  • English 70: Love, Gender, and Marriage in Shakespeare
  • English 71: Not Your Father’s Walt Whitman
  • English 72: Victorian Queer: Constructing Nineteenth Century Sexualities
  • English 72: Odi et Amo: Men, Women, and the Love Lyric
  • English 72: Transnationalism in Asian American Literature and Cultural Criticism
  • English 72: The Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop
  • English 73: Virginia Woolf: Writer/Icon
  • English 73: Virginia Woolf: Theory and Practice
  • Environmental Studies 15: Gender and the Environment
  • Film 46: Television and Histories of Gender
  • Film 47: Beatniks, Hot Rods, and the Feminine Mystique: Sex and Gender in 1950’s Hollywood Film
  • Film 47: Representations of African American Women in Cinema
  • Film 47: Women and the Film Industry
  • Film 47: How Hollywood Films Shaped Post War GLBT Politics
  • Film 47: Woman/Nation
  • French 45: Masculinity/Femininity
  • French 60: Gender and French Literature
  • French 60: Gender and Genre in the Eighteenth Century
  • French 60: Feminist Theory and the Practice of Writing
  • French 75: Women Filmmakers in the French Tradition
  • German 42: Freud: Psychoanalysis, Jews and Gender
  • Geography 09: Women, Gender, and Science
  • Geography 19: Gender, Space, and the Environment
  • Geography 26: Women, Gender, and Development
  • Geography 41: Gender, Space, and Islam
  • Geography 43: Geographies of Latin America
  • Geography 48: Geographies of the Middle East
  • Geography 80: Gender, Globalization, and Democratization
  • Government 49: Gender Politics in Latin America
  • Government 60: Global Feminism
  • Government 68: Gender and the Law
  • Government 83: Women in Public Office
  • Government 84: Gender and American Politics
  • Government 86: Justice, Legitimacy and Power
  • Hebrew 31: Readings in Modern Hebrew Women’s Literature
  • History 06: Gender and War in Modern European History
  • History 06: Asian American Women’s History
  • History 06: Gender and Sexuality: Asians in America
  • History 27: Gender and Power in American History, 1607-1920
  • History 28: American Women’s History Since 1920
  • History 29: Women in American Radicalism: Left and Right
  • History 42: Gender and European Society From Antiquity to Reformation
  • History 48: European Society in the Industrial Age
  • History 63: History of Recent Science and Technology
  • History 82: Women in Latin American History
  • History 96: Marriage and Divorce in the African Context
  • History 96: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in American History
  • Italian 10: What About Italian Women
  • Japanese 61: Gender and Nationalism in Japanese Literature and Film
  • Japanese 63: Karma of Love: Japanese Women Writers and the Classical Canon
  • Jewish Studies 15: The Jewish Body
  • Jewish Studies 15: The Middle East Conflict in Film and Literature
  • Jewish Studies 22: Jewish Women and Humor
  • Jewish Studies 27: Jewish Women Writers
  • Jewish Studies 52: Judaism, Sexuality and Queerness
  • Jewish Studies 56: Women in Islam and Judaism
  • Jewish Studies 61: Freud: Psychoanalysis, Jews and Gender
  • Latin American and Caribbean Studies 52: Gender and Politics in Latin America
  • Latin American and Caribbean Studies 54: Latina Feminism: Acts of Intervention
  • Latino Studies 41: Representations of/from Latin@s in the Media and the Arts
  • Latino Studies 44: Crossing Over: Latino Roots and Transitions
  • Latino Studies 45: Comparative Perspectives on the US-Mexican Borderlands
  • Latino Studies 51: Beyond Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll: Radical Latinos in the 60’s
  • Native American Studies 30: Native Cultural Production: (Re)Mapping Race, Gender, and Nation
  • Native American Studies 42: Gender Issues in Native American Life
  • Philosophy 09: Love and Friendship
  • Philosophy 22: Feminism and Philosophy
  • Philosophy 50: Sexuality, Identity and Legal Theory
  • Public Policy 41: Sexuality, Identity, and the Law
  • Psychology and Brain Science 54: Psychology and Gender
  • Religion 13: Beyond God the Father: An Introduction to Gender and Religion
  • Religion 14: Women, Religion and Social Change
  • Religion 19: Gender and the Religious Imagination
  • Religion 19: Women in Islam and Judaism
  • Religion 31: Sex, Celibacy, and the Problem of Purity: Asceticism and the Human Body in Late Antiquity
  • Religion 40: Goddesses of India
  • Religion 50: Indigenous African Religions
  • Religion 51: Women’s Spirit Possession Narratives in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Nwapa and the Ezilis
  • Religion 52: Women’s Rituals From Africa and Around the World
  • Religion 56: Women and the Bible
  • Religion 79: Feminist Ethics
  • Religion 80: The Bible, Sex, and Sexuality
  • Russian 13: Slavic Folklore: Vampires, Witches, and Firebirds
  • Russian 38: Contemporary Russian Women Writers
  • Sociology 39: Reproductive Rights and Technologies
  • Sociology 43: Dangerous Intersections: Race, Class, and Gender
  • Sociology 46: Constructing Black Womanhood
  • Sociology 49: Youth and Society
  • Spanish 62: Gender and Writing in Twentieth Century Spain
  • Spanish 62: Women Writers in Twentieth Century Spain
  • Spanish 72: Latin American and Latina Women: Gender, Culture, Literature
  • Spanish 78: Living in the Borderlands: Latino/a Culture and Identity
  • Spanish 79: Latino/a Literature: Between Literary Traditions, Languages, and Cultures
  • Theater 21: American Women Playwrights
  • Theater 21: Feminism and Theater
  • Theater 24: Engendering Asian Performance
  • Many other courses contain material of particular interest to students in Women’s and Gender Studies. To identify those related courses that would be most important in enriching their own program of study, students should consult with their Women’s and Gender Studies adviser.