Spring 2010 Undergraduate Course Descriptions
Course: WS 101
Instructor: Alison Albright
Title: Introduction to Gender & Women Studies
Days: Monday, Wednesday & Friday
Time: 12:00 pm – 12:50 pm
Location: 119 Baldy
Reg. #: 190725
Description: This course is intended to provide an overview of the major themes relevant to and defining of Women’s Studies and the newly developing academic discipline of Gender Studies. We will examine and discuss themes that have affected and are continuing to affect the lives of different women and men. Topics will include: the social construction of gender, race, class, sex, and sexuality; reproduction, work, education, media; the public vs. private divide; the state; the nation; immigration; the global economy; and art. We will also discuss these topics in relation to current and past feminist theory. The goal of the course will be to further the student’s interest in pursuing study in all disciplines while looking through a gendered lens to challenge traditional notions of femininity, masculinity, sexuality, history, science, and the “truth.”
Course: WS 101
Instructor: Tara Viceconte
Title: Introduction to Gender & Women Studies
Days: Monday, Wednesday & Friday
Time: 11:00 am – 11:50 am
Location: 118 Baldy
Reg. #: 207907
Description: This course is intended to provide a basic overview of issues relating to global gender issues from a feminist perspective. We will engage in topics including, but not limited to, race, class, gender, sex, sexuality, age, social constructs, masculinities and femininities, and how different outlets portray these categories of analysis. The themes discussed always focus on social categorical constructs, but specifically how they affect men, women, and even identity categories in between and beyond. The course is designed to push the students into college level analysis, writing, and discussion while allowing the student room for creativity. By the end of the semester, the students should have a grasp on the overall issues affecting gender and understand multiple feminist perspectives regarding these issues.
Course: WS 205
Instructor: Juhi Roy
Title: Women in the Global System
Days: Tuesday & Thursday
Time: 10:00 am – 11:20 am
Location: 708 Clemens
Reg. #: 314225
Description: This course seeks to display and explore how the current expansion of the world market is overturning the seclusion of women in traditional societies and looks at the consequences of globalization on the lives of women throughout the world. Women in developing countries share common patterns of location and differentiation within the international division of labor. It focuses how women are struggling to represent their identities amidst the rapid changes in their societies. It also examines why more and more women are becoming active in the international human rights movement. Further it will discuss in detail how women are attempting to shape the present discourse of development in different regions of the world economy. Intended to develop a multidisciplinary approach to gender and more specifically, to understand how gender is constructed by political, economic, and cultural discourses in industrialized and industrializing societies, to understand the differences between the lived experiences of women in these societies, the heterogeneous nature of women voices across shifting lines of intersecting identities based on class, race, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, language, religion and nationality, and how women's lives are changing in the context of the ongoing crisis in our present global economy. Topics will include unpacking the category of "women's work," changes in women's roles with increased global integration, international migration by women, women's experience of and participation in conflict, and diverse perspectives on the topics of family, health, government, and other institutions. The intended end is to gain understanding of both the commonalities in the experiences of many women around the world as well as the enormous diversity present in their experiences and understandings of those experiences.
Course: WS 225
Instructor: Ram Alagan
Title: Violence in Gender World
Days: Monday & Wednesday
Time: 12:30 pm – 1:50 pm
Location: 123 Baldy
Reg. #: 024393
Description: Violence in a Gendered World (VGW) is widely discussed discourse on Gender and Violence (GV). Violence and Gender is discovering new ways to address the complexities encountered in academic and social research on the topic. Violence against gender seems almost inevitable for many reasons in the complex global world as it has experienced for centuries. Is violence in a gendered world really unavoidable or avoidable? What are the main reasons for such state of affairs against gender? How do we overcome such situation for better social harmony? These are the main arguments that lie at the core of this course. We will explore the fundamental causes, challenges and asking questions of the very structure and systems which allows violence to occur in the global world.
VGW is a major social health and human rights problem in the global world. In addition, VGW has profound serious implications for social development and health but is often ignored. This type of violence is often invisible since it occurs behind closed doors, and effectively, when (certain) legal systems and cultural practices do not treat as a crime, but rather as a "private" family matter, or a normal part of life.
This course will include literature revealing the following aspects; 1) violence occurring at the intersection of gender, race, class, sexuality; 2) violence as it is restricted or ordinary practices in certain cultures, norms, and state itself; 3) examples of diverse forms of violence occurring in different parts of the world; 4) explore and understand the social construction of masculinity and femininity and how these constructions are implicated in the inevitability of violence; 5) explore the social consequences of violence; 6) explore how activists, scholars, policy makers, individuals, and feminists are responding and seeking solutions to the roots of violence in a gendered world. This course will discuss examples from multidisciplinary and global perspectives.
Course: WS 247
Instructor: Gwynn Thomas
Title: Women in Latin America
Days: Tuesday & Thursday
Time: 11:00 am – 12:20 pm
Location: 250 Park
Reg. #: 056164
Description: This class focuses on women’s political mobilization and its effects. Women have been fundamental participants in the development of Latin American and Caribbean countries. We will explore how women in Latin America and the Caribbean have participated in the national movements, revolutions, rebellions, and social movements that have dominated Latin America’s political, social, and economic development. Our readings illustrate the variety of women’s participation by examining women’s activism across time, space and political position. In particular, women’s struggles to improve the quality of their lives and the lives of others are a central component of the course. However, to avoid romanticizing women’s activism, over the semester we will also be discussing women’s actions on behalf of political projects designed to uphold the interests of the elite and the status quo. Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, as elsewhere, live complicated lives, have complicated political goals and commitments, and have different access to political, social, and economic power depending upon their position within the class, racial, ethnic, religious, age, and gender hierarchies of their societies. Over the semester, we will analyze why women have been involved in political movements, the effects of women’s activism on women’s position within these societies, the changing relationship between men and women, contested understandings of gender relations, and the overall impact of all of these struggles on the Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Course: WS 260
Instructor: Shiba Satyal Banskota
Title: Women’s Health: Problems & Practice
Days: Tuesday & Thursday
Time: 9:30 am – 10:50 am
Location: 118 Baldy
Reg. #: 402971
Description: Content includes a history of health care and the changing definition of ‘health’, the current role of women in this system, and, the intersection of the legal system on women’s bodies and women’s health. Addresses the role that women have played in relation to health and health care, the history of women as healers, the shift to women as patients and consumers, and women as workers, both paid and unpaid, in the system of care. It is an attempt to locate such issues in a larger context of feminist theory by asking; What has produced, and continues to produce women's current health status in different parts of the world? What are the political, economic, and cultural values and structures that have an enormous impact on women's health? What is the impact of gender, race, and culture on women's health. Finally, from a feminist perspective(s), what ought to be?
Course: WS 265
Instructor: Josh Cerretti
Title: Sexuality and Orientation
Days: Monday, Wednesday & Friday
Time: 2:00 pm – 2:50 pm
Location: 114 Baldy
Reg. #: 338643
Description: This course seeks to explore the practices, identities, and communities that inform historical and culturally-variant ideas of sex and sexuality. We will begin with examination of the language we use to talk about sexuality before moving on to more specific works from the United States, southern Africa, South Asia, and the Filipino diaspora. We will also watch films by Kevin Smith, Heather Croal, Lizzie Borden, Luis Bunuel, and others. The overall goal of the course is to understand what sexuality is, how it has been used to repress us, and how it might be used to liberate us.
Course: WS 375
Instructor: Deborah Naybor
Title: Women in Leadership
Days: Wednesday
Time: 11:00 am - 1:40 pm
Location: 708 Clemens
Reg. #: 198609
Description: In recent years, many scholars have sought to look into problems and trends visible in the modern world in terms of global development, forces of globalization, state policies, and diffusion of culture. Thus far, however, issues of economic development, political structures, social stratification and existing culture were mainly analyzed as disconnected from opportunities open to women to become leaders. Indeed, there is paucity of studies on the influence of modern developments on women’s visibility and representation in political, administrative and economic leadership functions. This seminar examines research and surveys recent debates and empirical evidence of opportunities open to women to become a leader in the U.S. and/or globally. Using this perspective, this course treats women’s leadership as an indicator of women’s empowerment.
Through guest lectures, movie presentation, reading material and engaged class discussions, this course will assess the impact that the forces of global development have on women’s involvement in leadership position. The invited guest speakers will represent local or global community leaders. Each monthly presentation will be proceeded by class lectures and reading on a specific topic related to women’s well-being or policies aiming at empowerment of women. This curriculum will enhance course offering in our refocused Department of Global Gender Studies. The course is consistent with one of the department’s educational mission to educating men and women to consider becoming future local community, national or global leaders and is intended for students who consider working in communities or are planning to have professional carriers combined with community engagement.
Course: WS 376
Instructor: Theresa Warburton
Title: Between Woman & Nation
Days: Monday, Wednesday & Friday
Time: 1:00 pm – 1:50 pm
Location: 210 Norton
Reg. #: 232782
Description: In this class, we will seek an answer to the following question: what happens to gender, national and sexual identities when ‘borders’ are crossed? In this context, ‘borders’ refers to physical borders such as national borders but also ideological borders, such as popular social norms. To begin to enter into such a conversation, we will need to think about and respond to questions such as: are gender and sexuality static identities? Does the ‘citizen’ have a gender? A sexuality? Can crossing national borders affect one’s gender or sexual identity? Can crossing gender or sexual ‘borders’ affect one’s nationality?
In an attempt to answer these questions, we will seek to interrogate the places where these identities intersect, where they are in conflict, where they are appropriated, where they are mutually constitutive, where they are divided, where they are brought together, and where they hold revolutionary potential. To this end, we will focus on four specific arenas that offer a particularly useful lens through which to consider these locations, both literally and metaphorically—theorizing gender and sexuality on the US/Mexico borderlands, theorizing gender and sexuality in colonized spaces, Indigenous women and sovereignty, and queer sexualities and citizenship. We will use a diverse range of texts, from literature, poetry, and theory to visual art and film as a way of exploring the relationship between gender, sexuality and ‘border crossing.’
Course: WS 382 (cross-listed with AAS 395)
Instructor: Lillian Williams
Title: Black Gender Studies
Days: Thursday
Time: 3:00 pm – 5:40 pm
Location: 6 Clemens
Reg. #: 240077
Description: “Bonded Women” will examine the Atlantic slave trade and the evolution of slavery in Africa, the United States and other regions of the African Diaspora. It will explore the visions, values, themes, social identity (race, gender, ethnicity and class), work, and sexuality of bonded women. We will begin by discussing slavery on the continent of Africa and women’s legal status and the impact of various geo-political systems. While the major focus will be upon the United States, we also will examine bonded women in Canada and the Caribbean. Students will read texts generated by the slaves themselves as well as those of other chroniclers of black women’s history and slavery. They will include individuals such as Marie-Joseph Angelique of Montreal, Canada; Celia of Missouri, USA; and Nancy Prince, Jamaica, West Indies to shed light on the status of bonded women throughout the Americas. Literary, film and popular accounts will also be used to elucidate our understanding of these women’s lives and the institutions that circumscribed them.
This is a seminar and students are expected to be active participants. There are two major components: discussions and the writing of position papers. Each student is expected to prepare a unit that focuses upon slave women in a region of the world. They will prepare an annotated bibliography that includes primary and secondary source materials, films, literary works, etc. A critical analysis of the sources is essential.
Course: WS 421 (dual-listed with WS 521)
Instructor: Barbara Wejnert
Title: Democracy and Gender
Days: Tuesday
Time: 6:00 pm – 8:50 pm
Location: 708 Clemens
Reg. #: 311777
Description: How are democracy and transition to democracy interconnected with gender? This course will survey recent debates about transitions and diffusion of democracy. Conceptual and practical understanding the concept of democracy; democratic principles; processes of democratization and re-democratization; types of democratic systems; and the most suitable conditions for development of democracy, will constitute the core of our investigations. Through lively class discussions, we’ll assess the impact these forces have on gender relations; culture and cultural identity; women vs. men social, economic, and political opportunities; and maternal health in contemporary United States and in other countries.
The course will conclude with the comparative investigation of the conditions and processes embedded in democratic, vs. democratizing, vs. undemocratic countries. Course objectives will be achieved through lectures, guest lectures, individual work, and class work on conducted projects.
Course: WS 466
Instructor: Seela Aladuwaka
Title: Women, Work & Social Change
Days: Tuesday & Thursday
Time: 12:30 pm – 1:50 pm
Location: 328 Fillmore – Ellicott Complex
Reg. #: 180416
Description: This course is intended to study of women work and social change in developing world, focusing how women’s’ work change over time and how women's lives are changing in the context of the global economy where labor intensive manufacturing jobs, subcontracting work in formal and informal sector and migration of women for work continue to expand ever before. The readings will examine many processes that generate and contribute women’s subordination, paying attention to many ways in which women assert their own agency and autonomy, and have power to act on their own behalf. By utilizing a comparative –cross-country framework, the class will address the larger issues of the feminization and globalization of poverty via the struggle of working women in relation to economic development in global era. The reading will also focus on women who are trying to deal with effect of social and political change in their own communities. The objective of the courses is to provide a gendered perspective on work, and social change in a localized context and to highlights the importance of women’s agency through their experience of work and living. We will learn how women take responsibility and struggle to make differences in their lives and their societies.