WOST 187
|
Introduction to Women's Studies (ID)
Monday, Wednesday 10:10
Friday discussion sections at 9:05, 10:10 and 11:15
|
Lisa Robinson
|
Lecture, discussion. Placing women's experiences at the center of interpretation,
course introduces basic concepts and perspectives in Women's Studies. Focusing on
women's lives with a particular emphasis on the ways in which gender interacts
with race, class, sexual orientation and ethnicity. Central aim is to foster
critical reading and thinking about women's lives, the ways in which the
interlocking systems of colonialism, racism, sexism, ethnocentrism and
heterosexism shape women's lives, and how women have resisted them.
WOST 187H
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Introduction to Women's Studies (ID)
Tuesday, Thursday 9:30-10:45
|
Alexandrina Deschamps
|
Orchard Hill residential education course. Same description as WOST 187. 4
credit honors.
WOST 201
|
Critical Perspectives in Women's Studies
Section #1 - 11:15 - 12:30 p.m.
Section #2 - 1:00-2:15 p.m.
|
Arlene Avakian
Sima Fahid
|
Introduction to the fundamental questions and concepts of Women's Studies and to
the basic intellectual tools of analysis integrating gender, class, race, and
sexual orientation. Also addresses the multifaceted dimensions of women's lived
experiences primarily in North America, with some comparative connections to women
globally.
WOST 297
|
Women of Color & the Legal System
Monday, Wednesday 3:35-4:50 p.m.
|
Lisa Robinson
|
Through a critical race feminist lens, this course will examine the relationship
between women of color and the legal system. During the course we will address
how women of color have been treated as victims, advocates, employees and as
offenders by the legal system. Some of the topics covered will include sexual
harassment, child custody, domestic violence, crime, and the prison system. The
following questions will be explored: What are the connections between women's
involvement in crime and women's victimization? Is there a relationship between
"gender roles" and involvement in the legal system? What connection is there
between issues of class, race, gender and the legal system? Through discussions,
case studies, video clips, documentaries, and articles, the course will
specifically examine the effects of public policies such as welfare, affirmative
action and anti-immigration laws and the impact these policies have on women of
color. Fulfills the Women of Color requirement for the Women's Studies major and
minor.
WOST 301
|
Theorizing Women's Issues
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
|
Alexandrina Deschamps
|
The objective of this course is to introduce ways of analyzing and reflecting on
current issues and controversies in feminist thought within an international
context. Main subject areas are: feminism and nationalism; culture as revolution
and reaction; the construction of gender, race and sexuality; perspectives on
pornography and racial hatred propaganda/speech/acts; and international sex
trafficking and prostitution. Questions addressed are: What constitutes theory in
Women's Studies? How does theory reflect, critique, challenge and change dominant
sex/race/class power structures? What is theory's relationship to practice? What
are the contemporary issues important to feminist/womanist theory? The common
thread of this course is to provide students with some tools of analysis for
addressing these issues. Oral class presentations, two short papers and one
take-home exam.
WOST 391E/
ECON 348
|
Political Economy of Women
Tuesday, Thursday 9:30 - 10:45
|
Lisa Saunders
|
This course uses a wide range of women's issues to teach varied economic
principles and theories. Popular women's topics in past semesters include women's
increasing labor force participation; gender differences in hiring, promotions,
and earnings; the growing poverty rate for female headed households; trade policy
effects on women in the U.S. and other countries; and race and class differences
in the economic opportunities of women. Empirical assessment of women's work in
the market and in the home in the U.S. and other countries. Reconsideration of
traditional issues of political economy, comparative economic history, and labor
economics.
WOST 391G
|
Sex/Sexuality and Asian/Pacific/American Women
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
|
Kathleen Zane
|
The course examines how Asian/Pacific/American women are "made" as sexual
commodities in institutions of tourism, prostitution, war, bride sales and how
these practices are reproduced in representations of them/us as hypersexualized
icons in popular culture. The examination of their resistance to these
representations and their recovery of sexual agency in the work of
Asian/Pacific-identified women writers, artists, film and video-makers, activists
and cultural critics will be an essential part of this course. Topics of special
focus are issues of miscengenation and hybridity and lesbian/bisexual/transgender
identities. Fulfills the Women of Color requirement for the Women's Studies major
and minor.
WOST 392H/
PHIL 381H
|
Philosophy of Women
Tuesday, Thursday 11:15 - 12:30 p.m.
|
Ann Ferguson
|
This honors course will investigate the ways that women and their bodies have been
viewed by some important Western philosophers, as well as writings by contemporary
feminist theorists on female embodiment. Issues will include: the relation
between sex, gender and sexuality, dichotomies between ideals of
masculinity/femininity, reason/emotion, subject/object, connection between
oppression by race, class, sexuality and gender, feminist visions and knowledge,
representations of women and theories of self, identity and subjectivity. Texts
will include: (1) Conboy, Medina and Stanbury, eds. Writing on the Body: Female
Embodiment and Feminist Theory, (2) De Beauvoir The Second Sex, and (3) either
Mahowald, ed. Philosophy of Woman or Osborne ed. Woman in Western Thought, and
selected readings. Prerequisites include either a 100 level Philosophy class or
WOST 201 or permission of the instructor. Phil 381 satisfies I and D gen.ed.
requirements. Course requirements include individual class reports and reading
questions, 3 short papers, a mid term exam and an 8-10 page term paper. Short
papers carry a re-write option. Course receives 4 credits.
WOST 393D
|
Gender Debates & Caribbean Development
Wednesday 3:35-6:05 p.m.
|
Alexandrina Deschamps
|
The aim of this course is to provide an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary
(history, sociology, anthropology with particular emphasis on the family,
development studies and labor studies) introduction to the field of gender and
development from a Caribbean perspective. Critical analyses of case studies will
bring to the forefront the necessity for a holistic and decompartmentalized study
of gender in the Caribbean, where it is impossible to separate the influence of
class, caste, race, ethnicity and gender from the development process given the
ongoing debate between two opposing view points - profit-oriented and
people-oriented. This gendered analysis will further examine 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, and where and how have women been able to challenge
and transform development and current economic politics and policies. Fulfills
the Women of Color requirement for the Women's Studies major and minor.
WOST 395M/
POLSCI 375
|
Feminist Theory and Politics
Lecture #1 - Tuesday, Thursday 1:00 p.m.
Discussion on Friday at 10:10, 11:15 and 1:25
|
Pat Mills
|
A theoretical consideration of the varieties of feminism (liberal feminism,
socialist-feminism, anarcha-feminism, radical feminism, eco-feminism). Also
examines the relation between feminist theory and practice, the historical
development of feminism and political theory, and current feminist issues.
WOST 397B
|
The Impact of Globalization on Women
Tuesday, Thursday 9:30 - 10:45
|
Sima Fahid
|
The focus of this course will be on the interrelations between the local and the
global, the particular and the universal, and the national and the transnational.
The following issues will be emphasized in the course: (1) political and economic
analyses and reorganization of local/global configuration in relation to women's
lives; (2) the cultural aspects of gender construction through the impact of the
process of globalizing the local and localizing the global; (3) the key dimensions
of gender construction in relation to nationalism and transnationalism. Fulfills
the Women of Color requirement for the Women's Studies major and minor.
WOST 397L
|
The Social Construction of Whiteness and Women
Tuesday, Thursday 9:30 - 10:45 a.m.
|
Arlene Avakian
|
Exploration of the social construction of whiteness, its interaction with gender,
and the historical and contemporary political resistance to white privilege
focusing primarily on the US. Course goals: (1) understanding of the historical,
economic and political forces responsible for the construction and maintenance of
whiteness; (2) exploration of the mechanisms which insure that whiteness is
experienced as the norm and not as a race; (3) exploration of the critical role of
gender in the construction of whiteness; (4) foster students' ability to position
themselves on the multiple axes of race, gender and class and to help them gain an
understanding of the role they play in maintaining the privileges they have; (5)
exploration of effective action to challenge white privilege. Prerequisites:
Course work in race and gender or permission of instructor. Co-registration in
one-credit practicum required. Register for practicum in the first class.
WOST 491A
|
The Medicalized Woman
Tuesday, Thursday 4:00-5:15
|
Kathleen Zane
|
Beginning with ways in which medical models of the body operate in the formation
of women's identities and the definition of their lives, this course views
contrastive systems of medicalizing women's life cycles. The impact on women's
lives of the intersection of legal, medical, and technological systems of
discourse is examined in relation to issues such as reproductive and contraceptive
technology, birthing methodology, plastic surgery, sexuality, aging, psychological
health, healing professions, alternative and traditional medicine, and
race/class/ethnic identity.
WOST 691B
|
Issues in Feminist Research
Wednesday 11:15 - 1:45 p.m.
|
Ann Ferguson
|
This seminar will investigate some general questions of feminist methodology and
ethics of research. Besides readings on these topics, the course is organized
around graduate student presentations of their own research which will be open to
the public at lunchtime during the seminar in the Campus Center. This is a
required course for Women's Studies Graduate Certificate students but is open to
all graduate students. In addition to student presentations, lectures may include
visiting faculty talks on issues of feminist research. Enrolled students will be
expected to give an oral and written presentation on actual or proposed research
that includes reflections on ethics and/or methodology, to revise this paper in
the light of seminar comments to become a term paper, and to write two short
papers on issues raised in the reading and seminar discussion.
