Spring 2009 Courses
Women's Studies Spring 2009 Courses
Introduction to Women’s Studies
Professor Lily Hoang
WOST 207
TR 3:30-4:45
This course will introduce students to key topics, concepts, approaches, and problems in Women's Studies as the field has developed over the past 40 years in the United States. We will focus on the lives, work, and beliefs of women in the United States but will adopt comparative and transnational perspectives at certain points. As part of the course, we will investigate the significance and meanings of gender at different periods in U.S. history and will explore the development of feminism and feminist theory. The ways in which race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, and age shape experience, culture, ideology, and politics will be central areas of inquiry. We will also address the means through which women have resisted inequality and effected social and political change. This course will be interdisciplinary in its approach, meaning that we will read feminist essays from a wide range of disciplines, including cultural studies, economics, history, philosophy, political theory, psychology, and sociology. Gen Ed.
Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies
Professor Amanda Littauer
WOST 220
TR 2:00-3:15
This course will provide an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) studies. We will explore the historical, sociological, cultural, psychological, political, literary, artistic, and philosophical foundations of LGBTQ studies. We will study the emergence and transformation of LGBTQ identities, cultural practices, and political movements within the broader context of changes in social constructions of sexuality, as well as cultural, social, political, and economic transformations. Throughout the course, we will pay particular attention to the ways in which gender, race, ethnicity, and class have shaped same-sex sexuality in different historical periods, with an emphasis on the United States. The aim of this course is to consider not only how individuals experience same-sex sexuality or transgress gender norms, but also how same-sex sexuality leads people to form communities and social movements. We will investigate the ways different cultural conditions sanction—in both senses, to restrict or make possible—the development of sexual identities and differences in order to understand the construction of gender and sexuality in society at large.
Independent Study
WOST 497
Ann Clark, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Lily Hoang, Phyllis Kaminiski, Frances Kominkiewicz, Terri Russ, and Jennifer Zachman are among the Women's Studies faculty willing to direct independent study projects. Students interested should speak first to the Women's Studies faculty member who willguide the project, then contact Professor Jennifer Zachman to formalize the proposal and ensure proper registration.
Internship
WOST 499
Practical off-campus experience in a Women's Studies related field at an approved site. The internship will be jointly supervised by a faculty member and a representative from the sponsoring agency. Internships are open to junior or senior Women's Studies majors or minors who have taken at least two Women's Studies courses. Must be approved by Professor Jennifer Zachman. Graded S/U. May be repeated for up to three hours. A reflection paper appropriate to the nature of the internship will be required.
Cyberfeminism
Professor Krista Hoefle
ART 390
MWF 1:00-2:40
Using contemporary cybertheory and cyberpunk fiction as a foundation, students will be exploring the tools and techniques of new media through the lens of cyberfeminism. In the creation of digital art works through projects and assignments, we will be exploring the key issues of cyberfeminism, namely: the position of women working in technological disciplines; the unique experiences of women within technoculture; and the gendering of various technologies. Students will be introduced to a variety of digital media technologies and tools in their web-based creative projects, including but not limited to: website construction, generative/software art, gaming, hypertexts/textual aesthetics, podcasting, etc. Readings and projects will be augmented by lectures related to contemporary cyberfeminist artists presented through their videos, images of their work, websurfing, in-class and virtual discussions. This course is open to students from all disciplines. THEORY
Gender and Race Issues in Management
Professor Ujvala Rajadhyaksha
BUAD 329
TR 2:00-3:15
This course is intended to highlight challenges faced by persons who are not part of the dominant culture of management practice—namely, women and persons of non-Euro-American background—in their bid to advance in the managerial hierarchy. Topics in the course include: the changing nature of the workforce and its implications for management; barriers to the advancement of women in management; gender differences in managerial and communication styles; the glass ceiling; career breaks and re-entry in to the workforce; work-life balance and dual career issues; sexual harassment; working with diverse groups, including African Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans and Arab Americans; and organizational pay-offs and challenges of pursuing diversity. Open to non-business majors.
Female Beauty: Discourse, Rhetoric, and Theory
Professor Terri Russ
COMM 420
MW 3:00-4:15
This course will examine the cultural expectations and standards of female beauty as embodied and enacted through various discourses including: cultural, media, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Through studying the ways that female beauty is communicated through these discourses, students will come to a greater understanding of their own experiences of female beauty and formulate ways to move beyond and resist the dominant norms of beauty. The material will be approached from a feminist, critical perspective with theoretical readings from communication studies, feminist theory, and cultural studies, amongst other areas. Prerequisite: Jr. status or permission of instructor. THEORY
Women of Genius
Professor Thomas Bonnell
ENLT 203
TR 2:00-3:15
At the turn of the last century talented women of every description were fighting to have a voice – in politics, in society, in marriage; over their education, their bodies, and their economic destiny. How that struggle found its way into the fiction and drama of the era (roughly 1880 to 1920) is the focus of this course. A recurring motif is the woman of natural abilities – the woman with a “genius” for this or that calling – who attempts, against steep odds, to win a public audience for her talents, whether from the lectern, the stage, the pulpit, or print. Requirements: two papers, two exams. Texts will include The Bostonians, A Saloonkeeper’s Daughter, The Awakening, Sister Carrie, A Man’s World, House of Mirth, and A Woman of Genius.
Feminist Memoirs
Professor Lily Hoang
ENLT 331
TR 12:30-1:45
The last decade has seen the memoir become one of the most popular forms of critical non-fiction. Memoir writing, however, is never just a reporting of facts, never history recorded as it really was. Rather, it always involves deliberate decisions regarding what aspects of one’s life will be revealed, what will be emphasized or ignored, and ultimately, what story of the self will be told. In this course, we will read a wide range of memoirs by feminist writers in order to critically analyze the memoir as a literary form. Central to our course will be the ways in which feminist writers have used memoir writing to describe both personal and political experiences and to theorize from these experiences. As such, our course will be centered on the feminist notion that “the personal is political” and that personal experience can be the basis for feminist analysis. We will explore how feminist writers have used memoir to develop feminist theory and how memoirs function as theoretical texts. In addition to selected critical essays on memoir and autobiography, we will read recent memoirs by feminist writers such as Jane Gallop, bell hooks, Jane Lazarre, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Audre Lorde, and others. THEORY
Major Literary Figures (British): The Brontës
Professor Laura Haigwood
ENLT 417
TR 11:00-12:15
We will read fiction by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, with particular attention to Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Additional reading in the Brontes' juvenilia, letters and journals will deepen our insight into these enduringly popular authors, their remarkable creative collaboration and their extraordinary artistic development. Critical and biographical readings will be selected to foreground women's issues, including the distinctive challenges faced by nineteenth-century British women writers. Course requirements: Two 5- to 7-page papers, occasional quizzes, a take-home final exam. Fulfills Gen Ed requirement; counts as an elective toward the Women's Studies minor; fulfills 18th/19th century requirement for ENLT/ENWR Majors and ENLT Minors.
History of Women in the U.S.
Professor Amanda Littauer
HIST 324
TR 3:30-4:45 pm
Over the past four decades, the field of women’s history has emerged, developed, and transformed within the U.S. academy. Informed by feminism and feminist theory, historians of American women first strove to show that (mostly racially and economically privileged) women have influenced important historical events and processes. In the late 20th century, historians broadened their perspectives to include women of color, immigrants, lesbians, and working-class women. Most recently, historians have reformulated dominant narratives of U.S. women’s history in light of the striking diversity of their subjects. They have also considered the ways in which historically changing social categories position gendered subjects in relation to social power. This course will introduce students to this dynamic and engaging field of intellectual inquiry. Our major goals in this course will be to explore the histories of women in the United States from a multicultural perspective and to relate those histories to larger themes in U.S. history. In the whirlwind of the survey format, we will begin with 17th-century Native American women and gender systems and will end in the 21st century. We will employ tools from feminist theory in order to analyze categories of race, gender, nation, sexuality, and class as constitutive elements of American women’s identities and social status. Readings will consist of articles by historians as well as primary source documents. Students will develop skills in primary source analysis, historical writing, and critical interpretation. By the end of the course, students should feel comfortable with the methodologies and vocabularies of U.S. women’s history and should feel better prepared to investigate the gendered world of their own times. THEORY
International Women’s Movements
Professor Edith Miguda
HIST 390
T 6:00-8:30
This class aims to provide students with the ability to understand, critique, and comparatively analyze the politics of the international women’s movements. The course will trace the multiple ways in which women have organized to improve their lives in a variety of geopolitical settings, and explore ways in which these have shaped and been shaped by international women's movements. The course will explore the connections between feminism, colonization, nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and globalization and map the political agendas of women's movements globally. The class is interdisciplinary and draws on writings by local and international scholars, activists and theorists. THEORY
Golden Age Spanish Literature: Twisted Desire
Professor Luzmila Camacho-Platero
MLSP 412
MWF 11:00-11:50
As a course cross listed with WOST, MLSP 412 will examine Golden Age texts from an interdisciplinary, feminist theoretical perspective, utilizing concepts by Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, and Eve Sedgwick Kosofsky. By reading and discussing some of the most representative writers of Golden Age Spanish literature, such as female authors, Maria de Zayas and Catalina de Erauso and male authors, Garcilaso, Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca, Tirso de Molina, and Cervantes, we will understand how the perception of love, desire, and the body in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Spanish culture was shaped by the gender of these writers and the social construction of gender in Golden Age Spanish culture. We will pose questions and think critically about the constructs of religious, racial, gender, and sexual identities and how they influence the authors’ world views. Studying the memoirs of Catalina de Erauso (transgendered conquistador), we will deconstruct her/his performance which crosses boundaries of gender, race, and sexuality and challenges the status quo. An analysis of Maria de Zayas, who wrote about lesbian relationships, will question the notion of heterosexual love. A feminist examination of the above mentioned male authors will offer a different perspective of their works, exposing the homo-social aspect of Spanish culture. In addition, our analysis of Golden Age works will be guided by texts from other disciplines such as sociology, history, anthropology; as well as gender and queer theory.
Women’s Health Professor
Ella Harmeyer
NURS 222
TR 3:30-4:45
This class is designed to explore the concept of health and its significance for women. We will discuss the physical, emotional, social, and cultural factors that affect the health of women. Health promotion and healthy lifestyle choices are also a strong focus, along with women's responsibilities and leadership in health awareness. Non-nursing majors
Quest for Human Rights
Professor Amy Cavender
POSC/JUST 301
MWF 1:00-1:50
This course will provide the students with an overview of the historical, theoretical and practical underpinnings that have shaped and continue to shape the development of human rights in both domestic and international arenas. We will discuss the origin of the human rights concept and how this idea has been crafted into international declarations, domestic law, and policies that enforce and monitor the human rights record of global, national and local communities. The class will also explore specific human rights issues concerning women, children, immigrants, refugees, the environment, and other topics.
Gender and Politics
Professor Patrick Pierce
POSC 365
TR 2:00-3:15
This course will investigate the role of women in political life in the United States. We will examine the experience of women as citizens, elites, and policymakers in our political system. We will then seek to understand factors that affect women’s participation in each of these arenas as well as how women’s participation changes politics at each level.
Psychology of Child and Family
Professor Rebecca Stoddart
PSYC 304
TR 2:00-3:15
This course expands upon Developmental Psychology (301), examining the changing ecology of children’s development and ways of supporting children in contemporary family systems. The course focuses on the effects on children of the following systems: dual career families, divorce, single parent and blended families, the role of the father, and daycare. The course is organized as a seminar with assigned readings from texts and journal articles. Students will be asked to develop and administer a survey, and to write and present a short literature review on a topic of interest. Prerequisite: Psyc 301 or permission of the instructor.
Reading and Interpreting Hebrew Bible Prophets
Professor Stacy Davis
RLST 314
TH 3:30-4:45
This course is a study of the fifteen prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, written from the 8th century BCE to approximately the 4th century BCE. The books will be read in conversation with contemporary work on methods of biblical interpretation, with a sustained emphasis on the theory and practice of feminist biblical criticism. No prior knowledge either of the Hebrew Bible or feminist criticism is necessary. A number of prophetic books describe the relationship between humankind and God in gendered terms; God is the long-suffering but frustrated husband trying to maintain a relationship with his sexually unfaithful wife, Israel. The texts present God with two alternatives—either God continues to plead with Israel to forsake her lovers or God allows her lovers to assault her and leave her for dead. Such patriarchal language and imagery present a challenge to embodied women who live in communities that call the Bible a sacred text. Feminist critics argue that no text is objective; in other words, no text contains the absolute truth. Therefore, all texts have something to say about God’s character as described by the men who wrote the biblical texts and speak of God in male terms. The task of feminist critics is “to read behind what men have written. We must deal with texts that are not ours, texts that were not written for us or by others like us" (Fewell 1999: 270). This task will raise for us a number of questions about who/what God is, how humans ought to relate to God, “appropriate” and “inappropriate” ethical behavior, and what it means to say that God rewards good and punishes evil (the theory of divine retribution). THEORY
Sociology of Families
Professor Mary Ann Kanieski
SOC 257
MWF 1:00-1:50 & MWF 2:00-2:50
In this course, we will consider the various forms of families and their relationships to their social environments. For example, we will examine historical trends, economic pressures, and the impact of public policies. We will also consider life within families as we examine gender, childrearing, household labor, divorce, and family violence. Finally, we will always examine the ways in which family life varies because of gender, cultural differences, class position, race, and sexualities.
Contested Masculinities
Professor Susan Alexander
SOC 220
TR 5:00-6:15
This course will introduce students to the topic of masculinity and men’s studies. Students will learn to identify and analyze the ways in which various forms of masculinity are performed in various social and cultural contexts both within the United States and in select other nations. Additionally, students will engage in an applied research project on masculinity. These projects will be designed and completed by student teams. THEORY
Sexuality, Intimacy, and Relationships
Professor Toni Hanke-Wheeler
SW 341
W 6:00-8:30
This course is designed to provide students with an opportunity to examine human sexuality and intimacy within a lifespan, relational context. Students will address these topics through knowledge of the biological, social, spiritual, and psychological aspects of relationships, sexuality, and intimacy. We will also explore populations-at-risk–namely, those who are experiencing issues with intimacy, sexuality, and relationships. Perspectives from feminist literature will be used to strengthen the analysis. Psychosocial issues are emphasized.
Family Violence and Sexual Abuse Issues
Professor Frances Kominkiewicz
SW 370
TR 9:30 a.m. -10:45 a.m.
This course introduces students to issues of family violence and sexual abuse across the lifespan. We will examine different types of family violence and sexual abuse, including domestic violence, international violence against women, courtship violence and date rape, sexual assault, cultural issues related to abuse, school violence and abuse, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, abuse against parents, elder abuse, sexual harassment, and abuse among vulnerable populations. Ethics and values, as well as criminal justice issues regarding family violence and sexual abuse, are emphasized. The history, policy, effects, and practice regarding family violence and sexual abuse will also be examined. Students will have the opportunity to interact with local experts in the field.
