Course Descriptions
Spring 2012 Courses
Fall 2011 Courses
WOST 207 Introduction to Women’s Studies
TR 2:00-3:15, Professor Sonalini Sapra
WOST 207 Introduction to Women’s Studies
MWF 10:00-10:50, Staff
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 affected 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.
WOST 497Independent Study
There are many Women's Studies faculty willing to direct independent study projects. Students interested should speak first to the Women's Studies faculty member who will guide the project, then contact Professor Jennifer Zachman to formalize the proposal and ensure proper registration.
WOST 499 Internship
Practical off-campus experience in a Women's Studies related field at an approved site. Jointly supervised by a faculty member and a representative from the sponsoring agency. 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 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.
BUAD 329 Gender and Race Issues in Management
TR 11:00-12:15, Professor Ujvala Rajadhyaksha
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. Jr/Sr. standing.
COMM 369Public Communication
TR 5:00-6:15, Professor Terri Russ
As a women’s studies course, we will be considering the numerous interconnections between gender and communication. We live our gender both through and within our communication. As gendered beings, when we communicate our gender influences how we communicate and how what we communicate is received. In addition to examining the role of gender in our communication, we will also consider how race, socioeconomic class, and sexuality work in connection with our gender to enable and constrain our communicative attempts. Through our work within a service agency specifically working with women, we will be able to come to a greater understanding of the ways that these social constructs play out in individual lives and impact identity.
ENLT 341 Novel Women
TR 9:30-10:45 Professor Tom Bonnell
This course charts the 18th-century origins in Britain of the predominant literary form of the last 275 years: the novel. Women played a key role in this genre from the start. Never before had women been so influential as writers, and their burgeoning numbers as readers were crucial to the market for the new form. Given their importance in the reading public, it made sense for many 18th-century novels to examine the lives of women characters, and hence to explore women’s concerns. These characters and concerns will be our focus in the course, as we situate our discussions in the wider contexts of literary history and life in the 18th century. Texts: Austen, Persuasion; Burney, Evelina; Defoe, Moll Fanders; Hays, Memoirs of Emma Courtney; Haywood, Love in Excess; Lennox, The Female Quixote; Opie, Adeline Mowbray: or, the Mother and the Daughter.
ENLT 384 Romantic Era Feminism
TR 11:00-12:15, Professor Laura Haigwood
Women writers of the romantic era did not call themselves “feminists,” but their vindication of the rights of woman inspired all subsequent “waves.” Responding to parallel political demands for democratic government and the abolition of slavery, Romantic women authors began a movement that – despite obstacles and backlashes –blazed a steady trail into the present day. We will begin by reading Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility to situate educated, Romantic era, Englishwomen in their time and place. Our central focus will be the life and work of Mary Wollstonecraft, whose career exemplifies persistent tensions between “sense” and “sensibility” in feminist discourse and feminine experience. We will also read her contemporaries for a wide range of perspectives on women’s issues. The good news that good men side with feminists against patriarchal oppression will be demonstrated by William Godwin and John Stuart Mill, among others.
ENLT 417 Major Literary Figures (British): Jane Austen
TR 5:00-6:15, Professor Laura Haigwood
Intensive study of Jane Austen’s fiction, with emphasis on her contribution to the novel's development, her career as a woman author, her values and ideas in the social and historical context of Regency England, and the reasons for her continuing popularity.
HIST 370 Modern European Women
TR 2:00-3:15, Professor Jessica Weaver Baron
In this course, we will focus on the everyday lives of ordinary women in Modern Europe. They lived through some extraordinary times. We will be reading firsthand accounts of the lives of women in the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, the industrial revolution and urbanization of Europe in the nineteenth century, and the Resistance and Holocaust in the twentieth century. The class will be taught as a seminar, incorporating group work and class discussion, and participation will be a major part of the grade.
HIST 415 International Women’s Movements
T 6:00-8:30, Professor Edith Miguda
This class aims to provide students with the ability to understand, critique, and comparatively analyze the politics of the international women’s movement. The course will trace the multiple ways in which women have organized to improve their lives in a variety of geopolitical settings, and explore the ways in which women's organizing in different contexts has 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 and feminist movements in various countries around the world. Through case studies from the global South and the global North, concerns and challenges facing the international women's and feminist movements in the 21st century will be discussed. The class is interdisciplinary and draws on writings by local and international activists and theorists. THEORY
HIST 425 Topics in Women's History: Images of Women in Film
TR 12:30-1:45, Professor Carol Meaney
Some of the earliest Anglo women in America were labeled witches if they became too difficult or independent. We still live with witches in our culture; there is both a dread of and fascination with powerful women that continues to be perpetuated in America, particularly through the medium of film. In this course, we will see how movies both reflect and create cultural trends. We begin by studying the alleged sins of the original 17th Century witches, and we will see in what ways their collective transgressions and disgrace were resurrected in popular culture during and after the modern feminist movement, as warning and reprimand for future generations of would-be witches.
MUS 342 Pop Music, Gender and Sexuality
TR 11:00-12:15, Professor Daniel Party
This course studies popular music as a space in which gender and sexuality are performed. The course is structured as a series of case studies illustrating a wide range of popular music styles (including Broadway musicals, heavy metal, folk music, boy bands) and the performance of a rainbow of gender and sexual identities (including heterosexual femininity and masculinity, gay and lesbian identities, and queer subjectivities).
MLSP 429 Latin American Women Writers
MW 4:30-5:45, Professor Sarah Grussing
Readings of works of women writers from a range of literary texts (novels, short stories, dramas, poems, essays) which raise questions about the female discourse vs. the dominant male canon of Latin American culture.
POSC 365 Gender and Politics
TR 9:30-10:45, Professor Sonalini Sapra
This course will combine theoretical and empirical analysis of gender as a political issue. The first part of the course will examine the role that gender plays in the construction of global politics and how these gender roles may help to explain women’s absence from positions of power. The second part of the course will examine a variety of global political issues such as war, human rights, development, and the environment through a gendered lens. The course will end by examining women’s involvement in social movements and politics from below. THEORY
PSYC 302 Psychology of Adult Development
TR 2:00-3:15, Professor Rebecca Stoddart
This is a seminar course that focuses on personality development from late adolescence through old age. Emphasis is placed on the changing personal growth issues which the developing adult faces. The course follows Erikson’s stages, and includes the following topics: identity development, Jung’s individuation theory of adult personality development, midlife crises, intergenerational relationships, and an examination of similarities and differences in men’s and women’s development. Prerequisite: Psyc 156 and 301 or permission of the instructor.
RLST 390 Reading and Interpreting Hebrew Bible Prophets
TR 12:30-1:45, Professor Stacy Davis
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).
SW 341 Sexuality, Intimacy, and Relationships
W 6:00-8:30, Professor Toni Henke-Wheeler
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.
SOC 257 Sociology of Families
MW 4:30-5:45, Professor Henry Borne
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 mate selection and discuss transitions across the family life cycle. These discussions will help us focus on daily 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.
