COURSES (Spring 2010)
CORE COURSES
WOM 302 (SA)
Topics in the Study of Gender - Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in Colonial Latin America
Jessica Delgado
1:30 pm - 4:20 pm Monday
(Please note change in day – no longer W)
This seminar will explore recent scholarship on the subjects of gender, sexuality and religion in colonial Latin America. Students will be asked to consider the connections between church teachings, spiritual and sexual practices, gendered social relations, and ideas about sex and sexuality in the historical periods we are studying. They will also be challenged to think critically about how scholars have portrayed and explored these connections in recent decades.
WOM 400 No Audit
Contemporary Feminist Theory - Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in Colonial Latin America
Gayle M. Salamon
1:30 pm - 4:20 pm Wednesday
This course will examine feminist theories of embodiment, exploring the ways in which the sexed body and the gendered self are narrated in contemporary theory and literature. We will look at representations of the body in philosophy (Irigaray, Butler), memoir (Nancy Mairs, Harriet McBryde Johnson), and the novel (Steedman), with an emphasis on the intersectional nature of identity and embodiment. Special attention will be paid to the intersection of gender and disability. Readings to include Mary Douglas, Iris Marion Young, Vivyan C. Adair, Charis Thompson, Emily Martin, Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, Donna Haraway.
CROSS-LISTED COURSES
EEB 301 / WOM 301 (STX) No Pass/D/Fail
Evolution and the Behavior of the Sexes
Jeanne Altmann
1:30 pm - 2:50 pm T Th
This course, designed to capitalize on diverse student backgrounds, will use principles of evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology to examine reproductive strategies and their effect on social systems. We will draw examples from group-living mammals, particularly nonhuman primates, and from human populations. Topics will include mate selection, parenting, ontogeny of sex differences, sexual diversity, social bonds and cooperation, and intersexual conflict and aggression.
ENG 358 / AMS 358 / WOM 358 (LA)
Desirous Plots: Queer Narrative and US Popular Culture
Ricardo Montez
1:30 pm - 4:20 pm T
This course will examine queer narrative production in literature and visual culture alongside the historical development of queer studies in the United States. Moving between novels, art, and film, the course explores multiple strategies for communicating and enacting queer desires. Students will not simply look to narratives involving same-sex desire but will be asked to consider reading and writing practices that challenge the limitations and normative impulses of gay and lesbian politics.
ENG 399 / WOM 399 (LA)
The Female Literary Tradition
Maria A. DiBattista
Deborah E. Nord
11:00 am - 12:20 pm M W
This course explores a counter-tradition of women's writing, from the 19th century to the present day, whose focus is not on domestic life, but rather on the defining public issues of the day--war, politics, race, travel, migration, and nation.
FRE 352 (Course conducted in French)
Topics in 17th and 18th century French Literature: Women and the Novel
Marie-Hélène Huet
The course will focus on the representation of women in 18th-century fiction. We will discuss the role of female characters (from prostitutes to emblems of domestic virtue), and the reasons why the novel was thought to be a "feminine" genre in a culture dominated by masculine political identity. We will deal with novels, film adaptations, and critical debates.
GER 321 / WOM 321
Topics in German Medieval Literature: Before Gender: Cross-Dressing and Sex in Medieval Romance
Sara Poor
1:30 pm – 2:50 pm T Th
A young Arthurian knight loses honor because he enjoys having sex with his wife. The Grail King is wounded near fatally in the genitals while trying to win the “wrong” woman. Young kings dress up and act like women in order to woo their prospective brides. This course will explore what it meant to be men and women in love (with each other or with God) in some of the most spectacular literary works of the German Middle Ages. The larger context for our discussion will be a more nuanced understanding of the history of sexuality. Readings and discussion primarily in modern German, some readings and discussion in English.
HIS 384 / WOM 384 (HA)
Gender and Sexuality in Modern America
Margot Canaday
11:00 am - 11:50 am T Th
This course examines the history of gender and sexuality across the 20th century, with emphasis on both regulation and resistance. Topics include early homosexual subcultures; the commercialization of sex; reproduction and its limitation; sex, gender, and war; cold war sexual containment; the feminist movement; conservative backlash; AIDS politics; same-sex marriage; Hillary; and many others.
HIS 454
Women and Gender in Early Modern England
Eleanor Hubbard
JDS 315 / WOM 310 (SA) No Audit
The Family in Jewish Tradition
Ruth K. Westheimer
1:30 pm - 4:20 pm Th
ENROLLMENT BY APPLICATION OR INTERVIEW. DEPARTMENTAL PERMISSION REQUIRED.
This seminar will examine the historic flexibility and variability of the Jewish family in the context of selected times and places: Biblical period, early Common Era Diaspora, 20th Century Europe, contemporary United States and Israel. The major emphasis in this course will be on the different protocols and forms that may collectively be called the "Jewish Family."
SOC 221 / AAS 221 / WOM 221
Inequality: Class, Race, and Gender
Bonnie Thornton Dill
2:30 pm - 3:20 MW
Using an intersectional approach to the study of inequality, this course will examine race, class and gender as interrelated systems of power that create differences in opportunities and resources for groups and individuals in U.S. society. We will study the meanings and histories of these and other dimensions of social differentiation to explore patterns that result in disparate outcomes in such areas as education, health, work, family, and poverty. Unveiling contemporary disparities and rethinking the seemingly familiar will lead to considerations of the relationship between inequality, social policy and social justice.
SOC 354 / WOM 354 (SA)
Queer Theory and Politics
Amin Ghaziani
11:00 am - 12:20 pm Th
We assume people are either "gay" or "straight." What happens when these categories are thrown out the window? "Queer theory" provides an answer that suggests all identity categories are unstable, fluid, multiple, and dynamic. The goal of this course is (1) to use interdisciplinary perspectives to challenge assumptions about the study of sexuality, identity, and politics and (2) to consider the relationship between identity, inequality, and social justice. Course topics will include the history of sexuality, sexuality as a mode of self-understanding, and political organizing that uses identity as the beginning point for activism.
WWS 452 / POL 326 / WOM 451 (SA) na, npdf
Special Topics in Public Affairs - Inequalities
Nannerl O. Keohane
1:30 pm - 4:20 pm Th
This seminar examines various types of human inequalities and considers several thought-provoking explanations for their occurrence. The focus is primarily conceptual and philosophical, although the discussions will include references to current instances of inequality and policies designed to alleviate them. The readings include both classics in political theory and more contemporary works.
COURSES OF INTEREST
AAS 339 / ENG 339
Josephine Baker and the Modern
Anne Cheng
COM 399
Men in Tights: 18th Century Fiction in Film
April Alliston
GRADUATE COURSES
ENG 576 / WOM 576
Literature and Gender: Imagining Intersex
Gayle Salamon
An interdisciplinary exploration of intersex as it is represented in literary, philosophical, psychoanalytic, medical, legal, and anthropological discourses. A variety of materials, from creation myths in Plato to novels both modern (Virginia Woolf's Orlando) and contemporary (Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex), are examined to consider the genesis and circulation of intersex as a category. Do sexually different bodies pose a challenge to the idea of sexual difference? What might literary fantasies about intersex reveal about the construction of normative gender?
SOC 540 / WOM 540
Topics in Economic and Organizational Sociology (Half-term): Gender and Economic Activity
Viviana Zelizer
