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School of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies School of Interdisciplinary Arts School of Natural Science School of Social Science |
Emily Dickinson Hall Franklin Patterson Hall Harold F. Johnson Library Franklin Patterson Hall |
559-5362 559-5501 559-5373 559-5548 |
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HACU 167 Component |
Contemporary Jewish American Fiction Monday, Wednesday 10:30 - 11:50 a.m. |
R. Rubinstein |
This introductory course seeks to explore the terrain of post-World War II Jewish American fiction writing, with a special emphasis on the newest and youngest voices to have emerged over the last decade. We will examine literary responses to phenomena that have shaped the postwar experience of American Jews: the Holocaust, the creation of Israel, suburbanization, civil rights, the womens movement, neo-Orthodoxy, neo- conservatism. We will also consider the particular aesthetic methods, strategies, and forms of contemporary Jewish writing, such as, for instance, magic realism, postmodern narrative, autobiography, the short story. Authors studied may include: Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud, Norman Mailer, Cynthia Ozick, Allegra Goodman, Pearl Abraham, Nathan Englander, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safran Foer.
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HACU 173 Component |
American Strings: Old Time, Bluegrass, and Country Tuesday Thursday 2:00-3:20 p.m. |
R. Miller |
This course focuses on American acoustic, traditional music, specifically southern old- time string band music, bluegrass, and early country song. We will consider these genres both from an historical perspective as well as ethnographically, that is, as vital and active forms that engender community participation today. We will draw on cultural theory to examine issues of music revivalism, the impact of modernity on and commodification of traditional music, the power of the media, as well as gender and the role of women artists in these musical styles.
| HACU 169 |
Feminist Philosophies of Culture and Cross-Cultural Exchange Tuesday, Thursday 10:30 - 11:50 a.m. |
M. Roelofs |
This course examines basic philosophical questions about culture and cross-cultural exchange. What do we mean when we speak of "cultural difference" or "different cultures"? What is it to speak, experience, or value as a member of one's various cultures or as members of several different cultures? Are cultures always implicated in one another? In which sense could it be possible or desirable to "look beyond" one9s own cultures? What are the implications of cultural difference for policies of cultural exchange? What concepts can help to account for the negotiation of feminist positions and identities within and across Western and Third-World cultures? We will consider these questions as they emerge in the context of two basic contemporary insights into the workings of gender: ne, novel constructions of femininity and masculinity in a transnational world call for cultural experimentation and transformation. Two, conceptions of gender can only be meaningfully addressed as they are studied in their interconnections with conceptions of race, economic background, sexual orientation, and ethnic position. Readings by Braidotti, Bhaba, Young, Spivak, Irigaray, Chow, Davis, Lugones, Williams, Alcoff, and others.
| HACU 235 |
Odd Women: Gender,Class, and Victorian Culture Monday Wednesday 10:30 - 11:50 a.m. |
L. Sanders |
In this course, we will analyze a number of female types found in Victorian fiction, poetry, and criticism -- the governess, the fallen woman, the shopgirl, and the 'new woman', to name just a few -- who figure centrally in debates over marriage, work, and the changing position of women in nineteenth-century Britain. Although our reading will range from the late 1840s to the beginning of the twentieth century, we will focus primarily on two historical periods, the 1850s-1860s and the 1890s, during which the "woman question" was hotly debated in the press and in fiction. Topics for discussion will include the convergence of gender, sexuality and politics in late-Victorian feminist and socialist reform movements; the role of class in defining women's experience; and women's conflicted participation in British imperialism. Students will be encouraged to conduct primary research on nineteenth-century women's history in local archives in conjunction with course papers and divisional work.
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HACU 236 Component |
The American West Monday 1:00 - 03:50 p.m. |
S. Tracy |
The American West has excited the hopes and dreams of generations of Americans who have invested it with our most compelling national myths of conquest, success, and progress. Now, new generations of scholars, writers and artists are reinterpreting that history, discovering "lost" narratives, and writing new stories which reflect the diversity of this multiracial region. Paying special attention to European-American ideas about nature and civilization, individualism and violence, race and gender, we will investigate the political, economic, and social history of the West within the context of its mythic narratives. We will examine and interrogate old and new western movies, novels, and other artifacts to see how these cultural products embody and rework important symbols of American life. We will pay special attention to classic and contemporary Western films, with one class a week devoted to film screening.
| HACU 253 |
Writing for Film and Video Monday 1:00-3:50 p.m. Screening Monday 7:00-9:00 pm. |
B. Hillman |
This production/theory class will introduce students to scripts and texts by independent film and videomakers who are working with subjects of exile and migration. These filmmakers are working in hybrid combinations of essayist, poetic, fictional and non-fictional forms that explore the experiences of wanderers and migrants whose relationships to ideas of home, sexuality and gender, continuity of life history, belonging and language are in question. They work in a context of multiple languages and transnational histories and seek to express the rupture of cultural displacement and the ways in which it impacts questions of gender, language and representation. We will study videos and films by Mona Hatoum, Anri Sala, Ricardo Larrain, Ciro Diran, Dominique Cabrera and Kidlat Tahimik among others. Readings by Helene Cixous, Andre Aciman, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Julia Kristeva and Norma Alarcon. Students will write and shoot two short projects and one longer final project. The course will include workshops in writing for spoken text and visual text as well as workshops in non-linear editing, sound recording, audio mixing on Pro-Tools and lighting. Prerequisites: Introduction to Media, Video I or Film I.
| HACU 271 |
French Feminist Philosophy: Julia Kristeva and and Luce Irigaray Tuesday 12:30-3:20 p.m. |
M. Roelofs |
Kristeva and Irigaray have outlined challenging proposals for a feminist politics, proposals that invite us to reconsider solidly ingrained forms of interaction, experience, and imagination. Kristeva's and Irigaray's proposals for social transformation are grounded in a novel philosophical picture of the gendered/sexed nature of language and psychosocial development as well as a critique of basic tenets of Western metaphysics and epistemology. This course engages you in a close reading of several of their central writings representing different stages of their oeuvres. We will read (selections from) Irigaray's Speculum of the Other Woman, This Sex which is Not One, An Ethics of Sexual Difference, Sexes and Genealogies, To Be Two, and East-West, as well as Kristeva's Desire in Language, Revolution in Poetic Language, Black Sun, New Maladies of the Soul, Time and Sense, and The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt. Where necessary we will strengthen our readings by locating the relevant texts against their background in phenomenology, existentialism, and psychoanalysis. We will also problematize operative assumptions regarding patriarchy, heterosexuality, and white European identity in Kristeva's and Irigaray's writings by giving some thought to alternatives and critiques as formulated by philosophers such as LeDoeuff, Wittig, Butler, Mohanty, Calhoun, Lugones, and Willet.
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HACU 280 Component |
Twentieth Century American Dance: Sixties Vanguard to Nineties Hip-Hop Monday Wednesday 2:30 - 3:50 p.m. |
Hill |
This survey of twentieth century American dance moves from the sixties-- a decade of revolt and redefinition in American modern dance that provoked new ideas about dance, the dancer's body and a radically-changed dance aesthetic-- to the radical postmodernism of the nineties when the body continued to be the site for debates about the nature of gender, ethnicity and sexuality. We will investigate how the political and social environment of the sixties-- particularly the Black Power Movement and the Women's Movement, informed the work of succeeding generations of dance artists and yielded new theories about the relationship between cultural forms and the construction of identities. We will look at how the effervescent experiments and anarchic expressions of the sixties have continued to be embodied in the works of contemporary dance artists; and if the succeeding works can collectively be seen as embodied forms of protest expression, as "activist" works that have continued to challenge and negotiate the social positions and contradictory identities of everyday life. There will be weekly evening screenings scheduled.
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HACU 302 Component |
Advanced Shakespeare Seminar Monday 2:30 - 5:20 p.m. |
L. Kennedy |
This advanced seminar will meet weekly to read closely, in conjunction with selected theoretical and historical material, the texts of nine or ten plays by Shakespeare. (Probable choices include: Henry IV and Henry V, Hamlet, Lear, Midsummer Night's Dream, Anthony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, Titus Andronicus, Othello, Macbeth, The Tempest). Lectures and, predominantly, discussions will explore: issues of language, self and identity; the question of rule and authority; the representation of gender in the drama and the social ideology of the period; the staging of power and social position (including the position of the outsider or "other"); the relation of actor and audience. Students will be expected to give opening presentations for one or two seminar sessions, to write frequent, brief position papers, and to complete a final comparative paper involving substantial outside reading. Plays of other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers may be used in conjunction with the Shakespeare texts. Film or video versions of certain plays will be screened outside of class, requiring a commitment of additional time in some weeks. This course is designed for third and fourth year students in literature, theater, history and cultural studies, as well as other areas of the humanities.
| HACU 350 |
Gender, Race and Class in U.S. History and Society Wednesday 9:00 - 11:50 a.m. |
L. Nisonoff S. Tracy |
This will examine the social structures and ideologies of gender, race, and class. For instance, when we consider the situation of battered women, we see that all women confront gendered social structures and prejudice. Yet, the experiences of those women and their options vary depending on their race and class. Through the use of examples as the one above, drawn from both history and public policy, we will work to hone our critical skills in analyzing gender, race, and class in American society. This course is designed for advanced Division II and Division III students. Students will have the opportunity to develop comprehensive research projects and to present their own work for class discussion. ***********************************************************************
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IA 138 Component |
Latino Theatre in the U.S. Tuesday, Thursday 2:00 - 03:20 p.m. |
P. Page |
How many Latino playwrights can you name? How many of them have you seen produced? Which ones have you read? Who are the influential Latino theater artists today and what are the traditions of Latino theater in this country? In this course, we will study the texts of contemporary Latino playwrights and performers such as Culture Clash, John Leguizamo, Cherrie Moraga, and Jose Rivera. We will also look at the tradition of Latino writers in the theater of the U.S. and their artistic, cultural and political influences. This course will pay particular attention to Chicano and Nuyorican artists. We will look at the historical representations of Latinos both on the stage and in the media. Lastly, we will focus on the specific issues addressed by Latina artists as women of color in the U.S.
| IA 161 |
Living for Tomorrow: Cultural Contestations,Gender Politics and the AIDS Epidemic Tuesday, Thursday 10:30 - 11:50 a.m. |
J. Lewis |
What critical and creative tools can we explore to develop sexual safety education that is vivid and engaging? What does it mean to question gender norms in different cultural contexts? How can we design initiatives that involve young people actively in questioning gendered sexual behaviours that reproduce risk and damage and enable them to help stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic? In this course students will look at cultural texts - to open discussion of gender and how masculinity and femininity are culturally scripted. A particular emphasis will be on masculinity and sexual safety, and on ways gender research importantly questions the institution and behaviours of heterosexuality. The Living for Tomorrow course will take these questions into the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic - relating the cultural scriptings of gender to this urgent contemporary political crisis the world faces. The course draws on instructor's experience of running 3 year pilot project on these issues in Estonia, and working on youth HIV prevention in various different cultures. The course will include participatory learning work and designing creative input for HIV prevention educational action that can stimulate critical literacy about the gender system among young people. It will lay groundwork for participating students to consider education implementation possibilities with young people. ***********************************************************************
| SS 105 |
Immigrant Women & Children: A Transnational U.S.. History Tuesday, Thursday 2:00-3:20 p.m. |
P. Glazer L. Kim |
Women experienced the process of immigration differently from their male counterparts. This course examines the history of different ethnic and racial groups of immigrant women and children during the three large waves of immigration in the United States (1840-1860, 1880-1920, 1965 - present). We will pay particular attention to changes in gender dynamics within the family and community and the impact of these changes on children. We will also examine the ways in which immigrant women workers historically mobilized through unions and negotiated their harsh working conditions. Memoirs by immigrant women will be an important source for the class. Students will conduct independent research on various immigrant groups and will do life histories of contemporary immigrant women.
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SS 120 Component |
Sex, Gender and Embodiment in Buddhism Monday Wednesday 10:30-11:50 a.m. |
A. Zablocki |
Buddhism offers its followers transcendent liberation from worldly suffering. Yet the possibilities for pursuing this goal have, historically, differed for men and women. Furthermore, the ideal of Enlightenment has frequently been challenged by such realities of daily social life as sexuality and embodiment. By examining the variety of approaches that Buddhist societies have taken to issues of sexuality, gender, and embodiment, we seek to understand both the diversity of Buddhist traditions and the tension between transcendence and society. Through an examination of Buddhist patriarchy, monasticism, and tantra, we will investigate the continuing tension between the religion's transcendent goal and the worldly existence of its adherents. We will also consider the ways in which the gender politics of Buddhism are being transformed as it moves into Western societies. Our case studies will be drawn from Thailand, Japan, Tibet, and the United States.
| SS 157 |
Nuns, Saints, and Mystics Tuesday Thursday 9:00 - 10:20 a.m. |
J. Sperling |
Nuns, Saints, and Mystics: Early Christianity radically changed prevailing gender relations in Late Antiquity. Stressing spiritual equality, the church offered -- at least initially -- ample space for women to become active promoters of the new faith, as martyrs and saints, founders of monasteries and churches, or simple followers of Christ. The renunciation of sexuality freed women from their roles as wives, mothers, and concubines; female virginity was praised as the most worthy state any woman might aspire to. In medieval Catholicism, nuns as well as lay religious women wrote mystic literature, practiced charity, and gave political advice to popes and princes. The cult of the Virgin Mary emphasized motherhood, but women also identified with Christ as man, stressing the femininity of his suffering and "being in the flesh." During the Counter-Reformation, new female orders focussed on the education of girls and the evangelization of native Americans. The prosecution of witches -- although more severe in Protestant regions -- was inspired in part by men's fear of female sexuality, and severely limited women's possibilities for active involvement. Focussing on the history of women and gender in Christianity, this course also offers an introduction to the history of religion in Europe. Readings will consist of primary sources as well as historical scholarship.
| SS 260 |
Political Philosophy: Politics, Gender, and Race Monday 4:00-6:30 p.m. |
F. Sheth |
What constitutes an ideal polity? What is the role of subjects and citizens in this polity? How does the sovereign rule? Foucault argues that the role of the sovereign in the contemporary polity is to manage, and decide who will be forced to lives and who will be allowed to die. Is this role of the sovereign any different from polities of centuries past? How is citizenship construed and managed throughout the history of political theory? How do gender, race, and ethnicity manifest themselves in "universalist" political theories? How does the vision of the citizen change in a new global era? How are some populations valorized in order to legitimate the vilification and dehumanization of others? This course will explore these questions, among others, through selections from some of the following authors, among others: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Gilman, Arendt, Foucault, Agamben, Pateman, Fraser, Iris Young, Nussbaum, Charles Mills, bell hooks, Linda Alcoff, Patricia Collins.
| SS 265 |
Family, Gender and Power Wednesday 2:30 - 5:20 p.m. |
M. Cerullo K. Johnson |
In this course we will explore questions concerning the bases of women's power and subordination in different historical, class, race and cultural locations, with particular attention to women's position in relation to kinship and the political order. Our case material will come from Europe, China, and the US. In China and Europe, we will examine the emergence of different patriarchal structures and the role of the state in shaping family, gender and reproduction. In the US we will focus on the racialized production of gender and kinship from the era of slavery to the rise of the US welfare state and its dismantling in the name of "family values." Throughout the case studies, we will highlight various forms of resistance to subordination and the diversity of lived experiences. This course is designed as a core feminist studies course in Social Science. It will also be valuable for students concentrating in child studies or wanting to incorporate gendered perspectives into their study of European, U.S., or Chinese politics and history.
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SS 271 Component |
African Americans in Contemporary America Monday 1:00 - 3:50 p.m. |
L. Prisock |
In this course we will critically examine the current state of African Americans in various areas of American life: education, employment, wealth accumulation, housing, health care, family issues, and race relations. Through close readings of various texts we will analyze the influences race, class, and gender have on African American life opportunities in these areas. We will also focus on the competing political approaches and solutions put forth by different segments of the African American community. ***********************************************************************
| NS 129 |
Topics in Women's Health Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:30 - 11:50 a.m. |
M. Bruno |
Breast cancer, depression, toxic shock syndrome, osteoporosis, heart disease, fertility, and PMS are among a wealth of health conditions of particular interest to women. For many years it was assumed that information learned from medical studies on men applied directly to women. We know now that the incidence and expression of certain conditions and the responses to the same medical treatments may differ. Through small group work on medical cases, reading, and lectures, students will address health issues that are important for women. They will examine how scientists conduct studies about the influences on health of life style, environment, culture, and medical treatments. For their final papers, students will choose particular conditions, diseases or treatments to investigate in depth.
| SS 222 |
Women and Politics in Africa Tuesday, Thursday 10:30 - 11:50 a.m. |
C. Newbury |
This course explores the genesis and effects of political activism by women in Africa, which some believe represents a new African feminism, and its implications for state/civil society relations in contemporary Africa. Topics will include the historical effects of colonialism on the economic, social, and political roles of African women, the nature of urban/rural distinctions, and the diverse responses by women to the economic and political crises of postcolonial African polities. Case studies of specific African countries, with readings of novels and women's life histories as well as analyses by social scientists.
