Women’s and Gender Studies Courses

Course Offerings Fall 2013

Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
AFST 220-03	Ethnography of Postcol Africa Instructor: James Ellison Course Description: Cross-listed with ANTH 230-01. This course is intended as both an introduction to the ethnography of Africa and an examination of postcolonial situations in Africa. We will learn a great deal about the cultural, social, political, and economic diversity of the continent while avoiding the typological thinking that once characterized area studies. Through ethnography we will learn about African cultures, their historical contingencies, and their entanglements in various fields of power. We will assess the changing influences of pre-colonial traditions, colonialism, postcolonial states, and the global economy.	1330:MR DENNY 303
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
AMST 200-03	20th Century American Radicals Instructor: Kim Rogers Course Description: Cross-listed with HIST 211-01. This course is focused on radical movements in the United States between 1900 and 2000. We will study political, religious, and cultural radicals that range from the Industrial Workers of the World (the "Wobblies") to the Nation of Islam to the feminist movement that featured activists like Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, and Eleanor Roosevelt. The lives and work of cultural radicals Mabel Dodge Luhan, Allen Ginsberg, and Ram Dass will also be explored. Students may expect to take an in-class midterm and final, and to write several short analytical papers.	1330:TF DENNY 103
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
ANTH 230-01	Ethnography of Postcol Africa Instructor: James Ellison Course Description: Cross-listed with AFST 220-03.	1330:MR DENNY 303
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
ENGL 101-01	Modern Women Writing War Instructor: Claire Bowen Course Description: Cross-listed with WGST 101-01. This course studies women's writing about global conflict, moving from the Great War through the "war on terror." How have women's changing social and political roles impacted the genre of war writing? How do women's war works challenge conventional assumptions about genre, gender, sexuality, and identity? Throughout, we will attend to how women poets, fiction writers, and filmmakers have used literary form itself to critique both war and war writing. Authors include: Pat Barker, Kathryn Bigelow, Elizabeth Bowen, Jennifer Egan, Elyse Fenton, Naomi Shihab Nye, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Natasha Trethewey.	0930:MWF DENNY 104
ENGL 101-02	Southern Women Writers Instructor: Carol Ann Johnston Course Description: A course in prose written by women of the American South. We will begin with the diary of Mary Chesnut written during the Civil War and continue with notable writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which may include Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston, Ellen Gilchrist, Ellen Douglas, Kaye Gibbons. Some critical and theoretical texts will also be required. Writing assignments will include short explications,longer essays, and an exam. Attendance and participation in class discussion are required.	1230:MWF EASTC 405
ENGL 379-01	Jane Austen in Her Time Instructor: K Wendy Moffat Course Description: This course may count as either a pre-1800 or post-1800 300-level literature class, depending on the student's research. Those students who wish to earn pre-1800 credit must inform me before add/drop is over, and I will inform the registrar and supplement and guide research accordingly. Students must satisfactorily complete the final research paper as a pre-1800 course to receive pre-1800 credit. Here is a rare opportunity to study the whole of a great writer's oeuvre in a single term. We will read all six of Austen's major novels, biographical material, and selected social history with the aim of understanding the cultural conditions described by the novels, and the novels in their cultural context. Students will lead one class discussion, write one research paper, and present an "accomplishment" befitting Austen's milieu: e. g. performing a musical composition, completing a piece of needlework, learning a card game and teaching it to the class, composing a verbal "charade," and the like. In addition, each week, each student will be expected to write and mail one letter (not e mail) to a correspondent of his/her choosing. (The letters may remain private.)	0900:TR EASTC 301
ENGL 403-03	Elizabeth Bishop & the Poetics Instructor: Siobhan Phillips Course Description: Elizabeth Bishop has been described as the most important American artist of the second half of the twentieth century. But she did not seek or find a large audience in her lifetime. Her work took shape among a group of friends and colleagues who influenced her writing at the time and who have shaped its legacy since. In this course, we will examine Bishops career beside other writers whom she knew, including Marianne Moore, Robert Lowell, May Swenson, and James Merrill. Through a deeper understanding of Bishops work, we will question some assumptions about lyric poetry as a genre and postwar culture as a period. How do Bishop's friendships affect her relationship to confessionalism, postmodernism, feminism, and globalization?" Our methods will include a variety of theoretical approaches, in preparation for English 404, including archival investigation.	1330:R EASTC 312
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
HIST 211-01	20th Century American Radicals Instructor: Kim Rogers Course Description: Cross-listed with AMST 200-03. This course is focused on radical movements in the United States between 1900 and 2000. We will study political, religious, and cultural radicals that range from the Industrial Workers of the World (the "Wobblies") to the Nation of Islam to the feminist movement that featured activists like Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, and Eleanor Roosevelt. The lives and work of cultural radicals Mabel Dodge Luhan, Allen Ginsberg, and Ram Dass will also be explored. Students may expect to take an in-class midterm and final, and to write several short analytical papers.	1330:TF DENNY 103
HIST 211-03	Sex and the City Instructor: Crystal Moten, Regina Sweeney Course Description: Not to be confused with the popular book and television comedy drama of the same name, this class uses the 20th century American city as a site of historical analysis. In this class, we will consider the ways in which gender and sexuality have been created, contested, defined, and performed in the urban environment. We will examine several United States cities to illuminate how gender has been inscribed on the urban environment and the ways in which the gendered city reflects complex intersections of race, class, and sexual orientation. The course might include a day trip to Philadelphia; Washington, DC; or New York City.	1500:MR DENNY 203
HIST 378-01	Society and the Sexes Instructor: Regina Sweeney Course Description: Cross-listed with WGST 378-01.	1330:MR DENNY 112
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
JDST 240-01	Women in Judaism Instructor: Andrea Lieber Course Description: Cross-listed with WGST 201-01 and RELG 250-01. This course examines issues of gender in Jewish religion, Jewish culture and Jewish literature in various historical periods. We will begin by looking at the roles of women in the Bible and other classical Jewish texts, though the course will concentrate on gendered representations of Jews since the 19th century and contemporary debates about gender in modern Jewish life. What are the cultural and historical sources of Jewish stereotypes, such as the Jewish American Princess, the Jewish mother or the effeminate (and nuerotic) Jewish male? In what way has the advent of feminism challenged Judiasm's traditional gender roles and the roles of male/female in the Jewish family? Readings explore the connection between gender stereotypes and anti-Semitism and how they have affected relations among Jews and between Jews and non-Jews.	1130:MWF DENNY 104
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
PHIL 210-01	Philosophy of Feminism Instructor: Susan Feldman Course Description: Cross-listed with WGST 210-01.	1500:TF EASTC 301
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
POSC 390-02	Gender and Politics Instructor: Vanessa Tyson Course Description: This course will explore the effect of gender and sexuality on the political environment in the United States. The course will be divided into three main segments: theory, representation in government and policy effects and implementation. The course will include issues of sexual identity, sexual orientation and discrimination manifested historically and in current forms. Other topics include women's rights, gay rights and the public/private domain.	1330:T STERN 7
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
PSYC 435-01	Gender and Sexual Identities Instructor: Megan Yost Course Description: Cross-listed with WGST 300-02.	1500:TF KAUF 187
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
RELG 250-01	Women, Gender and Judaism Instructor: Andrea Lieber Course Description: Cross-listed with JDST 240-01 and WGST 201-01. This course examines issues of gender in Jewish religion, Jewish culture and Jewish literature in various historical periods. We will begin by looking at the roles of women in the Bible and other classical Jewish texts, though the course will concentrate on gendered representations of Jews since the 19th century and contemporary debates about gender in modern Jewish life. What are the cultural and historical sources of Jewish stereotypes, such as the Jewish American Princess, the Jewish mother or the effeminate (and nuerotic) Jewish male? In what way has the advent of feminism challenged Judiasm's traditional gender roles and the roles of male/female in the Jewish family? Readings explore the connection between gender stereotypes and anti-Semitism and how they have affected relations among Jews and between Jews and non-Jews.	1130:MWF DENNY 104
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
SOCI 233-01	Asian American Communities Instructor: Helene Lee Course Description: This class is designed to move from theoretical understandings of race, and racial identity as it operates in our everyday lives to larger, structural determinants of race with special attention to the unique position of Asian Americans in U.S. race relations. This course focuses on social relations, political identities and activism, immigration and labor experiences to explore the ways Asian Americans have contributed to our larger histories as Americans. Broken down into three sections, this class analyzes the position of Asian Americans in the following interconnected contexts: (a) Asian Americans in relation to dominant society, (b) Asian Americans in relation to other communities of color, and (c) pan-Asian relations. This course fulfills the DIV II distribution requirement and the U.S. Diversity graduation requirement. Offered every year.	1030:TR DENNY 304
Course Code	Title/Instructor	Meets
WGST 101-01	Modern Women Writing War Instructor: Claire Bowen Course Description: Cross-listed with ENGL 101-01. This course studies women's writing about global conflict, moving from the Great War through the "war on terror." How have women's changing social and political roles impacted the genre of war writing? How do women's war works challenge conventional assumptions about genre, gender, sexuality, and identity? Throughout, we will attend to how women poets, fiction writers, and filmmakers have used literary form itself to critique both war and war writing. Authors include: Pat Barker, Kathryn Bigelow, Elizabeth Bowen, Jennifer Egan, Elyse Fenton, Naomi Shihab Nye, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Natasha Trethewey.	0930:MWF DENNY 104
WGST 200-01	Intro to Women's & Gender St Instructor: Amy Farrell, WGST STAFF Course Description: This is an interdisciplinary course, integrating literature, economics, sociology, psychology, history, anthropology, and geography. This course will focus on historical and contemporary representations of women. It will also examine the varied experiences of women, with attention to the gendered dynamics of family, work, sexuality, race, religion, socioeconomic class, labor, and feminism. Prerequisite: one semester of college study, with preference given to sophomores. This course fulfills the DIV II social sciences distribution requirement and US Diversity graduation requirement.	1030:TR ALTHSE 207
WGST 201-01	Women, Gender and Judaism Instructor: Andrea Lieber Course Description: Cross-listed with JDST 240-01 and RELG 250-01. This course examines issues of gender in Jewish religion, Jewish culture and Jewish literature in various historical periods. We will begin by looking at the roles of women in the Bible and other classical Jewish texts, though the course will concentrate on gendered representations of Jews since the 19th century and contemporary debates about gender in modern Jewish life. What are the cultural and historical sources of Jewish stereotypes, such as the Jewish American Princess, the Jewish mother or the effeminate (and nuerotic) Jewish male? In what way has the advent of feminism challenged Judiasm's traditional gender roles and the roles of male/female in the Jewish family? Readings explore the connection between gender stereotypes and anti-Semitism and how they have affected relations among Jews and between Jews and non-Jews.	1130:MWF DENNY 104
WGST 210-01	Philosophy of Feminism Instructor: Susan Feldman Course Description: Cross-listed with PHIL 210-01.	1500:TF EASTC 301
WGST 250-01	Methods in Women's & Gender St Instructor: Gloria Garcia Course Description: This course will provide an intensive workshop introducing students to a range of methods and theories drawn from different disciplines for the study of gender and women's lives. Students will return to these methods and theories in greater depth in 400. Prerequisite (or corequisite): 200. This course fulfills the DIV II social sciences distribution requirement. This course fulfills the WR graduation requirement.	0900:TR ALTHSE 110
WGST 300-02	Gender and Sexual Identities Instructor: Megan Yost Course Description: Cross-listed with PSYC 435-01. In this advanced discussion seminar, we will focus in depth on special topics in the field of psychology of gender and sexuality, particularly highlighting personal and social identities. We will discuss such topics as the development of heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer identities; gender conformity and socialization in childhood; the coming out process; the relationship between gender and sexual orientation; social pressures and compulsory heterosexuality; heterosexism, homophobia, and the stigma and prejudice surrounding sexual minority identity; gender nonconformity and transgender identity; and special issues facing GLBTQ individuals in intimate relationships. We will also discuss social and political activism, with an emphasis on collective action stemming from group identification. The course material will include some sexually explicit material; please carefully consider your degree of comfort in discussing this type of material before enrolling in the course. Class participation will significantly contribute to your final grade.	1500:TF KAUF 187
WGST 378-01	Society and the Sexes Instructor: Regina Sweeney Course Description: Cross-listed with HIST 378-01.	1330:MR DENNY 112
WGST 400-01	Sen Sem in Women's & Gen St Instructor: Amy Farrell Course Description: All topics will draw upon the knowledge of the history and theories of feminism and will be interdisciplinary in nature. Prerequisite: 200, or permission of the instructor.	1330:W DENNY 204