Spring 2012 WGST Courses

Introduces students to the field of Women & Gender Studies. Examines gender issues in the United States from interdisciplinary, multicultural, and feminist perspectives. Covers such topics as sexuality, beauty ideals, women’s health, violence against women, work, the economy, peace and war, and the environment. Meets MAPS requirement for social science: general. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: human diversity.

Examines contemporary experiences of people around the world as they negotiate dominant and subversive understandings of gendered identities. Focuses on the ways in which the material and discursive circumstances of people’s lives shape their opportunities for resistance and creative construction. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: human diversity.

Explores diverse cultural forms such as film, popular fiction and non-fiction, music videos, public art, websites, blogs and zines which are shaped by, and in turn shape popular understandings of gender at the intersections of race, class, ability, religion, nation, and imperialism. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: human diversity.

Examines the positionality of women in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and power relations in a global context. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: contemporary societies.

Examines the origin of patriarchal culture in the theology and practices of Judaism and Christianity. Explores attitudes and beliefs concerning women as Judeo-Christian culture impacts gender roles and gender stratification through reading and discussion. Women’s religious experience is studied from the perspective of feminist interpretations of religiosity. Prereq., WMST 2000 or WMST/RLST 2800.

Examines ways Latin American women have engaged in politics and their participation in social movements, war, peace processes and elections. Focuses on why women “Do politics” in certain ways, the role of the State in women’s politics, the (dis)advantages of various political strategies, and how political, economic and social changes have affected women’s political opportunities and interests. Prereq., WMST 2000 or instructor consent. Recommended prereqs., WMST 2400, 2600, 3600 or 3730. Restricted to juniors/seniors. Same as PSCI 3052.

It comes as no surprise that the mediated world in which we live is awash in Disney products. From theme parks to films to a television channel to a global media presence, Disney’s reach is extensive. Disney’s media products are, for the most part, uncritically accepted as good, clean entertainment and, most importantly, good for children. Indeed, Disney-branded productions are seen as a kind of media “safe haven,” praised both for not pandering to the sex and violence crowd and for offering content that provides positive role models for young girls, introduces audiences to important moments in history, and offers culturally diverse characters.
In this course we will examine these assumptions. Working from the perspective of media literate consumers looking through a feminist lens, we will take a critical look at a representative sample of Disney’s animated films, paying particular attention to Disney’s representations of gender, race, class and sexual orientation. Too, we will examine some of the practices of the corporation itself in order to better understand the Disney phenomenon in its totality.
May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours for different topics. Prereq., WMST 2000 or 2600.

Are women inherently non-violent by nature? Is aggression an essentially masculine trait? Can men suffer gendered violence? Are violent women being “masculine”? Are Third world societies more violent and misogynist than those of the First world? Is colonial occupation a queer issue? In this interdisciplinary course we will address such questions by examining feminist debates on rape, “Slutwalking”, “honor killing”, suicide bombing, female terrorism, and war. Rather than considering women only as objects of violence, we will also think about women as agents of violence, as well as men as objects of gendered violence. Apart from a range of critical scholarship, novels may include J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace and Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers; films may include Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry, and Kabir Khan’s New York.
May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours for different topics. Prereq., WMST 2000 or 2600.

Offers expository writing and training in analytical and descriptive skills, structures or argument, critical thinking, the rhetoric of persuasion, and the development of a personal voice. Readings and papers focus on basic issues in gender studies. Prereq., WMST 2000. Restricted to juniors/seniors. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: written communication.

Offers expository writing and training in analytical and descriptive skills, structures or argument, critical thinking, the rhetoric of persuasion, and the development of a personal voice. Readings and papers focus on basic issues in gender studies. Prereq., WMST 2000. Restricted to juniors/seniors. Approved for arts and sciences core curriculum: written communication.

Studies the commercial trade of sexual labor in the global economy, examining theories and assumptions about sexual-economic exchanges and gendered and racialized relations of power in the sex trade. Emphasizes prostitution. Recommended prereq., WMST 2600 or 3100. Restricted to juniors and seniors.

Provides students with the opportunity to actively reflect on their education and to complete a research project that incorporates an interdisciplinary and feminist approach to the study of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. Offered each spring. Prereq., WMST 3020. Restricted to senior WMST majors.

Explores feminist methodology across a range of disciplines. Themes include experience and interpretation, the social position of the researcher, language and argument structure, knowledge and power, bias and objectivity, and the ethics and politics of research. Meets the requirements for the WGST certificate.

In this interdisciplinary course we will read sociological, historical, literary and cinematic texts from different parts of the world in order to examine the relation between gender, violence and representation. Rather than considering women only as objects of violence, we will also think about women as agents of violence, as well as men as objects of gendered violence. We will attend consistently to the relation between gender, violence and representation: in what ways may violence itself be an act of representation; how might particular ways of representing violence transmit or contain violence; how can and should violence be represented in academic or popular texts—and what does gender have to do with all of this? Our readings will introduce us to key feminist and queer debates on rape, “Slutwalking”, “honor killing”, suicide bombing, female militancy, the occupation of Palestine, transphobic violence, and the complex relation between gender, feminism and war.
Critical readings may include the work of Valentine Daniel, Saidiya Hartman, Allen Feldman, Urvashi Butalia and Gyan Pandey; novels may include J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, or Toni Morrison’s Beloved; cinematic texts may include Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry, and Kabir Khan’s New York.
May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. Meets the requirements for the WGST certificate.