ART280A/ HONORS300A: Gender and Genius
4 credits
Gimenez-Berger, Alejandra
This course will explore the lives and works of women in the history of western art, surveying examples from Prehistory to the present. Students will become familiar with visual language and terminology, and will engage in discussion of artworks that illuminate historic, social, personal, and political issues related to the artworks. The course will also introduce the student to gender theory, and examine how feminist theory has brought attention to the relationship between gender constructs and issues of race, ethnicity, class, and sexual preference. Students will develop skills to conduct interdisciplinary research.
Chinese 130: A/C Chinese Women Writers: Ancient and Modern
4 Credits
Chan, Shelley
Chinese women have been known as the suppressed sex for thousands of years. Nevertheless, women’s writing has always been an important part of Chinese literature. Whereas the long history of pre-modern China produced a rather large number of women writers, the concept of “women’s literature” emerged only in the early twentieth century when enormous changes in Chinese women’s social status occurred after the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Moreover, since 1949 Communist China has witnessed further rapid changes as far as women’s writing is concerned.
This course is a general introduction to Chinese women writers in different historical periods, namely, pre-modern, modern, and contemporary. To help students understand the gender issue, it provides them with a cultural background from the Confucian patriarchy to the Maoist “equality” between the sexes, as well as a background on cultural norms toward Chinese women. It discovers women’s voice in a traditionally male-centered society and literature, examines the feminine / masculine opposition, studies how Chinese women writers have not only formed their own voice, but also often led the way in the literary development of the post-Mao period. The readings, including poetry, prose and fiction, will be buttressed by films. All readings, discussions and lectures will be in English. The movies will have English subtitles.
COMM 320 Topic: The(R)evolution of Human Romantic Relationships
4 credits
Warber, Kathleen
This course will explore various aspects of human mating by detailing various facets of sex appeal in terms of evolution and function. We will look at content related to genetic, hormonal, and neurological components, as well as a variety of psychological, communicative, and sociological links to mating. We will explore the role of the 5 senses in perceiving attraction, and expand on the implications for our biological, psychological, and social relationships. Evolutionary psychology will guide understanding of how preferences in human mating behavior have adapted over the course of human history. In addition, the effect of historical and political events on issues related to child rearing, puberty/ adolescence, dating, cultural conceptions of marriage and the family, sexuality, and infidelity will also be discussed.
COMM 361 Gender and Communication
4 credits
Waggoner, Catherine
Prerequisites: COMM 200 and 270S, 280, or 290S; or permission of instructor.
This course considers public understandings of gender and sexuality in America and the way in which they are represented in popular discourse. In particular, the focus is on cases of “gender trouble” or gender ambiguity, in which dominant cultural assumptions of gender and sexuality are challenged (e.g., drag performances, female masculinity, metrosexuality). Our goal is to discover how those challenges to gender norms are rhetorically configured, and if/how they are disciplined or realigned in the support of dominant gender norms, or if/how they constitute acts of resistance to such norms. Experience in rhetorical criticism (i.e., COMM 301) is preferred, but not required. While the course is not writing intensive in that there will not be instruction in writing per se, there is an assumption that students are skilled in writing the required papers. Assignments include analytical papers, exams, oral presentations and a final project.
ENGL 180 - Themes in Children’s Literature
4 credits
Ravenwood, Emily
Prerequisite: ENGL 101E
The stories we tell our children display many of our beliefs about how the world is and how it should be. This class will read a wide variety of children’s and young adult books from the past century, and analyze the themes we find in them. We will look for patterns that repeat over time, and examine what elements change or remain the same. We will read closely to discover what actions thoughts, and ways if relating are supported or denigrated by these stories.
Class work will include reading one book a week, participating in discussion in class and/or online, six two-page papers, and a term paper.
Some learning goals for the course are:
To gain skill in close reading and textual analysis
To become familiar with some of the vocabulary of literary study
To learn how to find cross-connections between multiple texts
To research historical context and existing analyses
This is a writing-intensive course. Students will be expected to already have experience writing academic essays to Wittenberg standards. This class will focus on increasing the skills particular to writing and supporting literary analysis.
English 180A: “By Any Means Necessary”: African American Literature and Political Resistance
4 Credits
Askeland, Lori
400 years of trans-Atlantic slavery, 100 years of Jim Crow, and a legacy of structural racism. Black writers in the “land of the free” have had no choice but to fight the power. Writing is, in itself, a non-violent act of resistance in a world that commits the violence of keeping some people in ignorance—but so were the spirituals that enslaved people sang in the fields, often containing coded messages of freedom or literal escapes. And while some black writers consistently advocate non-violent resistance, some used their pens to call for the sword. Or the bullet. David Walker, for example, printed an Appeal to black people in 1829 that justified violence against white people in self defense. (He was found dead on his doorstep a little while later). His friend, Maria Stewart, was so radical that she angered both blacks and whites—and she was the first black woman to speak in public in the US, at a time when few white women dared to speak publicly (women weren’t even allowed to clap after performances!). Frederick Douglass justified stealing from any slaveholder, and called black men to arms in the Civil War. And then the great Ida B. Wells in the post-Reconstruction era wrote exposes of lynching that very nearly resulted in her death. And of course we’ll spend a lot of time with 20th century writers—Nella Larsen, W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Loraine Hansberry, Angela Davis, TuPac Shakur, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Toni Morrison. This is a writing intensive course—which means you’ll write some papers, but you’ll get a lot of support. Can be taken as a CLAC course. Cross-listed: WMST and AFST.
English 290 – American Gothic
4 credits
Hinson, Scot
Prerequisite: ENGL 170, ENGL 180A or ENGL 190A/C
Toni Morrison writes in Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, that ARomance, an exploration of anxiety imported from the shadows of European culture, made possible the sometimes safe and other times risky embrace of quite specific, understandably human, fears: Americans= fear of being outcast, of failing, of powerlessness; their fear of boundarylessness, of Nature unbridled and crouched for attack; their fear of the absence of so-called civilization; their fear of loneliness, of aggression both external and internal. In short, the terror of freedom-the thing they coveted most@ (37). Morrison=s comments serve practically as a definition of the American Gothic. Through an examination of the American Gothic, its origins and its contemporary manifestations, we will explore the difficult, bloody, and painful birth of American literature as well as its continued fascination with the terror of what Melville called the Apower of blackness,@ Included in the course are works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry James, Raymond Carver, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Jamaica Kincaid, Charles Chestnutt, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Anne Rice, Don DeLillo, and many others. We=ll also consider contemporary expressions of the Gothic in such films as Francis Ford Coppola=s Dracula, Alien, and Blue Velvet. Writing and reading intensive, the course requires two long essays, a midterm and final, and in-class presentations, and is definitely not for the squeamish.
English 318 Bad Girls: From Eve to Mary (Wollstonecraft)
4 credits
Richards, Cynthia
Prerequsite: ENGL200 and ENGL280A/Non-majors must have junior standing
This course will examine the work of women writers from the medieval period to the early nineteenth century and will be organized around the most common tropes by which a woman becomes a “bad girl.” I am sure you know those “tropes” already, but to remind you (and to use their less vulgar incarnations) they are: the fallen woman, the shrew, the prostitute, the coquette, and the promiscuous woman. The course will begin by looking at the original “bad girl,” Eve and will examine in detail a period of particularly virulent misogynist attacks during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all played out through an examination of Eve’s original transgression. We will look at the feminist responses to these debates, including—I would argue—Milton’s representation of Eve in Paradise Lost. We will then go back to discuss the shrew or masculinized woman, starting with Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe’s account of her spiritual life and concluding in Margaret Cavendish’s early foray into science fiction The Blazing World (1665). We will then move on to the figure of the prostitute, focusing primarily on the Restoration stage and the work of Aphra Behn. From there, we will examine the coquette or the tease, a figure of womanhood intrinsically connected—interestingly enough—with the birth and development of the novel in the eighteenth century. We will conclude with the figure of the promiscuous woman, focusing on the overtly feminist work of Mary Wollstonecraft and how that intersected with the complexities of her own romantic history. As a coda to the class, we will look at two early nineteenth-century novels, Emma and Frankenstein, one written by a “good girl”—Jane Austen—and another written by a “bad girl”—Mary Shelley—and examine how the “bad girl” goes underground in both these novels, with one experiencing a happy ending and the other a tragic one. The course will include a midterm and final, one shorter paper (@five pages) and one researched paper (12-15 pages.) There will also be response papers along the way and the research paper will include a personal component. Writing Intensive.
HFS 086P Fitness Programs for Women
1 Credit
Arena, Linda
HFS 245H - HISTORY OF WOMEN IN SPORT
4 Credits
ARENA, LINDA
Historical Perspectives of Women in Sport studies the development of sport from early religious ritual to a modern corporate model in western society. The genesis and development of recreation, sport, and exercise for women has been influenced by religion, medicine, economics, politics, and ideology. The intersection of gender, race, and socioeconomic class for women of color is examined, as is the struggle by women for admission in the Olympics. Sport has served as a historical site for feminist transformation and the development of alternative western sport forms. Women have “dared to compete”. The struggle of women to gain entry into sport is both sad and inspirational. Class structure includes short lectures, videos, small group discussion, and analytical minute papers. Students write a sport autobiography, conduct a short cross generation sport interview, and study a related topic of interest in depth.
HIST 111H 01. Medieval Europe
4 Credits
Livingstone, Amy
Prerequisite: Students who have earned credit for HIST 101H Life, Love and War in the Middle Ages may not earn credit for this class. SUPPLEMENTAL INSTRUCTION AVAILABLE. Knights in shining armor, peasants toiling in the fields, damsels in distress, castles, cathedrals, crusades … these are some of the enduring images of the medieval world. This course will explore the social, cultural, and economic changes that made up the dynamic period we call the middle ages. Through lectures, discussion, films, debates and readings, the important developments, accomplishments and failings of the medieval centuries will be brought to life. Students will write thematic and analytical essays examining a particular topic or source of medieval history. This course counts toward the PAST minor.
HIST 203H 1W. Historian’s Craft: Fact and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code
4 Credits
Livingstone, Amy
Prerequisite: None. Sophomore standing.
Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, has stirred up a lot of controversy. What was so controversial? This course will examine the fact and fiction of The Da Vinci Code. Students will read primary sources and historical monographs relevant to the topics covered in the novel to determine what is “fact” and what is “fiction” in the novel. Specifically the course will examine the historical figure of Mary Magadalene, analyze the Gnostic Gospels, and understand the historical Knights Templar. The aim of the course is to help students determine what is the “real” history behind The Da Vinci Code. This course is designed to teach students the basic skills in researching and writing a history paper. As a result, class time will be devoted to discussion of writing skills and research techniques. Production of a piece of historical research relevant to The Da Vinci Code will be the main criteria for assessment. Part of this assessment, however, will be assignments key to the production of a research paper, including a paper proposal, outline, bibliography, revised proposal, etc. In addition, students will be required to write analyses of primary and secondary sources and two written exams. Writing Intensive. This course counts toward the PAST minor.
Honors 300H: Orphans! Adoption in History, Literature, Law, and Public Policy.
4 Credits
Askeland, Lori
Secrecy and privacy, shame and joy. Adoption and foster care are institutions grounded in complex emotions and complex realities—in both loss and love. As institutions, they purport to be “in the best interest of the child,” but of course that means that they always address adult needs and desires, and the broader social need for stable, healthy citizens, as well. Especially when large sums of money are involved, e.g., as adoptive parents pay for adoption services, some would in fact say that the whole enterprise inevitably serves their needs as consumers—and gravely risks turning children into commodities. In this course, we will focus on the stories Americans of a variety of ethnicities have told about abandoned, orphaned, displaced, indentured, adopted and/or abducted children throughout U.S. history, and the way such stories have helped shaped, and have themselves been influenced by, social practices, laws, and public policies. We will ask very basic questions about how immigration, Westward expansion, enslavement, and poverty have created significant numbers of displaced children, and grieving birthparents, at various times during U.S. history. We will examine how different groups, at different times, have answered the question of what a community is morally obliged to do for these most vulnerable persons in their midst—and/or how to incorporate them into the existing social order—and how much time, attention, and money to invest in the preservation of families with few resources. We will take a hard look at public policies that have had the deliberate or unconscious effect of making some parents and children, both in the US and in our increasingly globalized world, especially vulnerable to serious disruption of their family ties. On the other hand we will also explore the degree to which certain legal or social traditions privilege “blood” relationships, and certain kinds of families, over adoptive or wider kinship-care arrangements—or vice versa—and what this privilege means for adoptive and other care-giving families outside the “biological” norm. And, finally, we’ll be examining the supply and demand aspects of the “baby market.” As Ricki Solinger puts it, “There is no such thing as adoption except off the backs of resourceless women” (Chronicle of Higher Ed. 11/2002). The asymmetries inherent in adoption and foster care can cause deep and lasting scars for birthparents (or “first families” as I will sometimes call them), and can traumatize some young children who are placed for adoption or foster care. These painful facts, finally and inevitably create a complex moral landscape for adoptive and fostering parents, social workers and adoption agents, and all those involved in creating laws and public policies related to adoption and foster care. Books will include: Children and Youth in Adoption and Foster Care (ed. Askeland), The Girls Who Went Away (Fessler); Our Nig (Wilson); American Indian Stories (Zitkala-Sa); The Kid (Savage); We Should Never Meet (Phan), and One Small Sacrifice (DeMeyer). Service learning is required in this course (12 hours); a reading journal, service learning journal and reflection; midterm exam, two analytical papers, one of which is a 15-page researched paper. Writing Intensive. Can be taken as a CLAC course. Cross-listed: WMST.
PHIL 200R 04. Race, Gender, Science and Medicine
4 credit hours
McHugh, Nancy
Prerequisite: None.
Supplemental instruction available.
In Race, Gender, Science and Medicine students will critically analyze: 1. The role of race and gender in science and medicine; i.e. how these impact the doing of science and medicine. 2. How science and medicine have studied race and gender. 3. The interaction between science, medicine, and marginalized people. We will look at variety of views on these issues, assess the evidence and arguments that are presented to us through our texts and hopefully have energetic class discussions about the material. You will be assessed through quizzes, written assignments, essay exams, and a final project. This course is reading intensive.
Optional Course Component: Cultures and Language Across the Curriculum (LANG 230)
Interested in using your foreign language skills to earn extra credit connected to this course and to learn more about the subject matter of this course at the same time? If so, register for the CLAC components offered here. You don’t need to be fluent in the language to exercise this option. In fact, you need only to have completed two credits beyond 112 or to be currently enrolled in a course beyond 112. Your work will be guided by your professor and by faculty from the Languages Department. The CLAC module is designed for intermediate level language learners. Students who select the CLAC option will complete work in a foreign language that will supplement the work in this course. Students who complete the CLAC assignments successfully will earn 1 credit for the CLAC component.
To register for the CLAC component, you must also register for a one-credit LANG 230 CLAC module listed among the Language Department’s offerings. Meeting times and location will be arranged at the beginning of the semester. Credit for CLAC modules may be counted toward the requirements for International Studies and as elective credit in the Language department.
SOCI 110 Cultural Anthropology
4 Credits
Hammar, L.
There is a heavy East Asia focus to this course to accommodate the needs and interests of East Asian Studies majors. The course will introduce you to cultural anthropology, which is one of the four sub-fields of Anthropology with a capital A. The other three are linguistic anthropology (the study of the origins, evolution, and uses of speech and language); archaeology (the study of the material remains of human cultures); and physical anthropology (the study of human origins, of evolution and of our relationships to non-human primates).
The course will address human evolution, the doctrines of cultural relativity and ethnocentrism, aspects of social life such as kinship and social structure, the organization of subsistence strategies, the many meanings and aspects of gender and sexuality, and certainly globalization and social change. This course will lead you to question things, practices, attitudes and behaviors you’ve not likely examined and open your eyes to things going on around you about which you should know. The middle of the course will focus on HIV and AIDS in both East Asian and Melanesian countries and cultures.
SOCI 301 S/C East Asian Anthropology
4 credits
Hammar, L.
Social, cultural, political and economic change in the countries and cultures of East Asia has consumed the interest of academic researchers for many decades. They have asked what are the main drivers of change in the region? How best are Westerners to understand those changes? How do these changes affect local populations (and us, here in the West)? What is the likely near future of East Asian countries and cultures? To what degree do these changes reflect longer-term continuity? The course will survey topics and themes specific to Japan, the Himalayas, Tibet, Korea, China, Mongolia and Taiwan, including descriptions and analyses of East Asian cultures such as the Na, the Tibetan nomadic pastoralists, the throat-singers of Tuva, and the Japanese, Korean and Chinese “Comfort Women” prostituted to the Japanese Imperial Forces prior to and during World War II. We will address early hominid origins; the doctrines of cultural relativity and ethnocentrism; kinship and social structure; the organization of subsistence strategies; gender and sexuality; and globalization and social change especially post-World War II. There will be an especial focus on HIV and AIDS and on various labor forms of prostitution.
WMST 100 1W - Introduction to Women’s Studies
4 Credits
Cunningham, Sheryl
This course is an introduction to Women’s Studies, serves as the foundational course for the Women’s Studies minor, and will be of interest to students who wish to explore how gender and sex have shaped and continue to shape the lived experiences of men and women. Women’s Studies, as an academic discipline, is deeply connected to feminist movements in which issues of power and gender identity were and are central. Students taking this course should expect to learn about the history of women’s movements in the United States, theoretical concepts developed by feminist scholars and writers, and contemporary issues in the U.S. as well as around the globe that are the focus of feminist analysis. Such issues will include human trafficking, media representations of gender, gender and leadership and many others. This course is writing intensive.
