Women's Studies Courses

Women's Studies | Courses | Faculty

(All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise noted.)

187 Introduction to Women's Studies (IU) (both sem)

Basic concepts and perspectives in Women's Studies, with women's experiences at the center of interpretation. Critical reading and thinking about gender and its interaction with race and class. Focus on women's history and contemporary issues for women.

201 Critical Perspectives in Women's Studies (both sem)

Introduction to fundamental questions and concepts of feminist thought and to the basic intellectual tools of analysis by which women's experience may be reviewed and analyzed across race, class, and sexuality and within the structures of contemporary global power and in the context of North American domination and the "new world order."

291-295 Seminars

Career and Life Choices for Women (both sem) 2 cr

Development of a systematic approach to career, educational, and life planning. Emphasis on prioritization of values and subsequent life choices. Elements of self exploration; relating knowledge, interest, and skills for career goals; current issues for women in the workforce. Career planning skills including budgeting, writing resumes and cover letters, interviewing, and use of resources. Seniors only; preference to WOST students.

297 Special Topics

Women and Health Care

A survey of five areas: 1) women and the professionalization of medicine: critical medieval and modern case histories; 2) the politics of women's health: focus on cancer; 3) violence against women; 4) menstruation and menopause; 5) women, health, and development: international women's health issues. Emphasis on ethics and politics.

Race, Gender and Science

Explores the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, and science. The role science has played in shaping these categories. Also examines the cultural studies of science to understand the centrality of science in the world today. What science is, who gets to practice science, and how science is related to the larger political, cultural and social contexts.

Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgendered Studies Lecture Series (both sem) 1 cr

An interdisciplinary introduction to queer studies featuring an eclectic range of visit-ing and local scholars. Topics vary week to week and cover the range of academic disciplines from music to business, philosophy to economics, and film to biology.

298 Practicum

Everywoman's Center Educator/Advocate Program

Students serve as educator/advocates in the Everywoman's Center Educator/Advocate Program, offering workshops and training to colleges, high schools, and com-munity groups on issues of violence against women. Involves two-semester commitment and 60 hours of training on violence against women, workshop design, and cofacilitation. Admission selective.

Everywoman's Center Counselor/Advocate Program

Students serve as counselor/advocates in the Everywoman's Center Counselor/Advocate Program, helping survivors of rape, battering, incest, sexual harassment, and related violence. Duties include staffing a 24-hour hotline, providing short-term counseling, and advocating for victims and their families with police, courts, social service agencies, etc. Requires 60-hour training, four on-call shifts per month, weekly staff meetings, short-term counseling for up to two participants, arranging appropriate follow-up, adherence to confidentiality policy, completion of required paperwork, and access to car and phone. Admission selective.

301 Theorizing Women's Issues (both sem)

Ways of analyzing and reflecting on current issues and controversies in feminist thought within an international context sensitive to class, race, and sexual power concerns. Topics may include work and international economic development, violence against women, racism, class and poverty, heterosexism, the social construction of gender, race and sexuality, global feminism, women, nationalism and the state, reproductive issues, pornography and media representations of women. Prerequisite: WOST 201 or consent of instructor.

391 Seminars

Writing for Women's Studies Majors (1st sem)

Fulfills Junior Year Writing requirement for majors. Modes of writing and argumentation useful for research, creative, and professional work in a variety of fields. Analysis of texts, organization of knowledge, and uses of evidence to articulate ideas to diverse audiences. Includes materials appropriate for popular and scholarly journal writing. Popular culture reviews, responses to public arguments, monographs, first-person narratives and grant proposals, and a section on archival and bibliographic resources in Women's Studies. May include writing for the Internet. Nonmajors admitted if space available.

392 Seminars

Latin American Feminisms

Contemporary Latin American women's and feminist movements connected to their historical context in order to understand the development of feminist theory in selected countries in Latin America and its relation to political practice. Students expected to have some background in either Women's Studies, social theory, or Latin American studies. Elementary reading knowledge of Spanish required.

393 Seminar: Gender Debates and Caribbean Development

An interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary introduction to the field of gender and development from a Caribbean perspective. A gendered analysis further examines public policy, political activity, the global economics of work, the rise of multinational corporations, the need for cooperation of all Caribbean nation states, the effect of recent trends toward globalization, and the pressures to conform to the new rules of the global economy.

394 Seminars

Women and Islam

Analysis of Muslim women's lives in the modern period within a postcolonial context and beyond an orientalist outlook. The transformation in women's lives and women's resistance to these changes examined by exploring historical, economic, political, and sociocultural issues, including sexuality.

Theorizing Black Feminisms

Introduces the theoretical contributions of African American and African Diasporan feminists working in a variety of disciplinary fields. Black women viewed as producers of knowledge and as transforming agents. Identifies the major issues addressed by black feminists and the various forms of resistance to social structures.

The Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality

Introduction to theories of the relations between sex, gender, and sexuality from a feminist perspective. Topics include: biological determinist, social constructionist, historical, and performative theories of gender and sexuality, sexual identities (hetero-, gay, bi-, trans- and intersexualities, and race, class, ethnic differences), and the politics of sexuality (identity politics, conservative politics, queer theory).

395 Seminars

U.S. Women's Lives in Context: Reading and Creating Political Autobiography 4 cr

Women's autobiographical and oral histories explored in their social, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis on the impact and interaction of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation. Using their own lives as a focus, students create an autobiographical work in one of a variety of forms.

The Social Construction of Whiteness and Women

Exploration of social construction of whiteness, its interaction with gender, and historical and contemporary political resistance to white privilege focusing primarily on the U.S. The historical, economic, and political forces responsible for construction and maintenance of whiteness; exploration of mechanisms which ensure that whiteness is experienced as "the norm"; critical role of gender in the construction of whiteness. Students work in groups to design and implement activist projects. Corequisite: concurrent enrollment in a one-credit WOST practicum. Prerequisites: course work in race and gender; familiarity with historical, economic, and political bases of racism; or consent of instructor.

397 Seminar: The Impact of Globalization on Women

The interrelations between the local and the global, the particular and the universal, and the national and the transnational.

Women's Studies | Courses | Faculty