Fall 2020 Course Guide : Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies : UMass Amherst

WGSS

Attention Majors and Minors - requirements have changed! Students who enter the major or minor Fall 2020 or after are under new requirements. For those of you that will need the distribution requirements the lists are here: critical race feminisms, sexuality studies, transnational feminisms. For questions, contact the undergraduate advisor.

WGSS 187 – Gender, Sexuality and Culture
Monday, Wednesday 10:10-11:00 a.m.
Friday discussions 9:05, 10:10, 11:15 and 12:20
Kiran Asher

This course offers an introduction to some of the basic concepts and theoretical perspectives in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Drawing on disciplinary, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural studies, students will engage critically with issues such as gender inequities, sexuality, families, work, media images, queer issues, masculinity, reproductive rights, and history. Throughout the course, students will explore how experiences of gender and sexuality intersect with other social constructs of difference, including race/ethnicity, class, and age. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which interlocking systems of oppression have shaped and influenced the historical, cultural, social, political, and economical contexts of our lives, and the social movements at the local, national and transnational levels which have led to key transformations. (Gen. Ed. I, DU)

WGSS 201 – Gender and Difference: Critical Analyses
Section #1 Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m. – Rachel Briggs
~~Section #2 Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m. – Miliann Kang~~

An introduction to the vibrant field of women, gender, and sexuality studies, this course familiarizes students with the basic concepts in the field and draws connections to the world in which we live. An interdisciplinary field grounded in commitment to both intellectual rigor and individual and social transformation, WGSS asks fundamental questions about the conceptual and material conditions of our lives. What are “gender,” “sexuality,” “race,” and “class?” How are gender categories, in particular, constructed differently across social groups, nations, and historical periods? What are the connections between gender and socio-political categories such as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, (dis)ability and others? How do power structures such as sexism, racism, heterosexism, and classism and others intersect? How can an understanding of gender and power enable us to act as agents of individual and social change? Emphasizing inquiry in transnational feminisms, critical race feminisms, and sexuality studies, this course examines gender within a broad nexus of identity categories, social positions, and power structures. Areas of focus may include queer and trans studies; feminist literatures and cultures; feminist science studies; reproductive politics; gender, labor and feminist economics, environmental and climate justice; the politics of desire, and others. Readings include a range of queer, feminist and women thinkers from around the world, reflecting diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives in the field.

WGSS 230 – Politics of Reproduction
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Laura Briggs

From the Black Panther Party and Young Lords in the 1970s to SisterSong and Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice in the 1990s to Ferguson and Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement in the present, communities of color and socialist feminists have fought for a comprehensive reproductive freedom platform--birth control and abortion to be sure, but also the right to raise wanted children that are safe, cherished, and educated. The names of these issues have included freedom from sterilization, high quality affordable day care, IVF, immigrant justice, social reproduction and wages for housework, welfare and neoliberalism, foreclosure and affordable housing.

WGSS 290B – Introduction to Sexuality Studies: Movements for Justice in the Contemporary World (DG, SB)
Monday, Wednesday 11:15-12:05 p.m.
Friday discussions 12:20 and 1:25
Svati Shah

This interdisciplinary course will help students to understand what the term "sexuality studies" means by providing a foundation in the key concepts, historical and social contexts, topics, and politics that inform the fields of sexuality studies; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies; and queer studies. Course instruction will be carried out through readings, lectures, films, and discussions, as well as individual and group assignments. Over the course of the semester, students will develop and use critical thinking skills to discern how "sexuality" becomes consolidated as a distinct category of analysis in the late nineteenth century, and what it means to speak about sexuality and transgender politics and categories today. Topics will include queer theories and politics, trans theories and politics, LGBTQ social movements within and outside of the US, relationships with feminist reproductive justice movements, heterosexuality, homophobia, and HIV/AIDS and health discourses. The range of materials covered will prioritize developing analyses that examine the interplay between sexuality and class, gender, race, ethnicity, and neoliberalism. (Gen. Ed. SB, DG)

WGSS 290C – History of Sexuality and Race in the U.S.
UWW Section – Kirsten Leng
Section 1 – Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m. – Kirsten Leng
Section 2 – Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m. – Derek Siegel

This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary feminist study of sexuality. Its primary goal is to provide a forum for students to consider the history of sexuality and race in the U.S. both in terms of theoretical frameworks within women's and gender studies, and in terms of a range of sites where those theoretical approaches become material, are negotiated, or are shifted. The course is a fully interdisciplinary innovation. It will emphasize the links rather than differences between theory and practice and between cultural, material, and historical approaches to the body, gender, and sexuality. Throughout the course we will consider contemporary sexual politics "from the science of sex and sexuality to marriage debates" in light of histories of racial and sexual formations. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

WGSS 292S - Damsels in Distress and Heroes: Issues of Representations in Film
Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Rachel Briggs

This course will examine representations of damsels in distress and heroes in cinema. We will screen a wide variety of films, mostly mainstream Hollywood movies since the 1970s, including Thelma and Louise, Set it Off, and Jordan Peele?s Us. Course content will use feminist theories to explore and critique how race and gender work to construct both the damsel and the hero in cinematic representations. We will view and analyze films that construct white femininity as vulnerable and in need of protection, often from villains that are problematically depicted as ?other? and dangerous. Films that complicate narratives of the hero and the damsel will be viewed to explore ways in which our ideas of heroes, damsels, and narratives are constrained by generic categories prevalent in film?particularly in mainstream movies. We will interrogate the figure of the hero in relation to an ideology of individualism prevalent in U.S. neoliberalism and examine how narratives might depict characters that instead work in collective to create change.

WGSS 293D – Public Health/Private Decisions: Ethics and Medicine
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Banu Subramaniam/Karen Lederer

The field of medicine is shaped by both private and public dimensions. At the individual level, we are assured of privacy through HIPAA, and decisions on our individual health cannot be made without our consent. But there are also larger public dimensions to health that impinge on our individual and collective wellness. For example, if an individual chooses not to vaccinate themselves, that impacts the larger health of the public. What are the public costs and consequences of enacting or not enacting such rules? What are our public health and social obligations vs. our private needs and preferences? Using the tools of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, the course investigates the real life practices and dilemmas in medicine and the U.S. health care system. What ethical and professional guidelines do or don't or should doctors follow? How much authority should governments (state, local or federal) have to control actions for example in quarantines, reallocation of resources, and other questions. How should health care costs be regulated? What is and should be the role of industry and profit in producing medical products? Should governments be involved in production? Some of the issues explored include: the politics of health care, epidemics and pandemics, medicalization of childbirth, dr/patient confidentiality, categories of race, sex, and sexuality in medicine, disability, genetic testing, abortion, organ transplants, vaccination, euthanasia and more.

WGSS 293J/COMP-LIT 293J - Gender and Global Literatures
Tuesday, Thursday 4:00-5:15 p.m
Sandra Russell

Using the prisms of gender and sexuality studies, this course explores how "desire" is represented in global literatures. Adopting a comparative perspective, the course will examine representations of gendered, racialized, and sexualized bodies in contemporary works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and criticism. We will look at both the “local,” in the United States, and the “global,” in transnational contexts, including literatures from East/Central Europe and the Global South. The course will also explore how bodies and their literary representations shape and are shaped by our imaginings about nation, citizenship, and belonging. Authors may include, Audre Lorde, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Oksana Zabuzhko, Mariama Bâ, Carmen Maris Machado, Dubravka Ugrešić, among others.

WGSS 301 – Theorizing Gender, Race and Power
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m
Laura Briggs

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.

WGSS 310 – Writing for Majors
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45
Rachel Briggs

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. You must have fulfilled your CW Gen. Ed. requirement to enroll in this course.

WGSS 391A – Rape and Representation
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Laura Ciolkowski

Rebecca Solnit has written, "Liberation is always in part a storytelling process: breaking stories, breaking silences, making new stories. A free person tells her own story. A valued person lives in a society in which her story has a place." This course approaches the study of rape and other forms of gender-based violence with particular attention to storytelling, narrative, and the politics of representation. Our focus will be on the representation, politicization and theorization of violence through the interdisciplinary and intersectional lens of social justice feminism, gender and sexuality studies, and critical race theory. We will explore literary, artistic, legal, and activist efforts to interpret and address violence and, ultimately, to re-imagine and re-build the world otherwise; and we will interrogate the politics of silence and speech and the act of witnessing and testimony in the long history of organizing against sexual violence by a wide variety of actors, including people of color, incarcerated people, gender non-conforming people, enslaved, and undocumented people. Course materials will include fiction, poetry, and memoir, along with readings in law, trauma theory, carceral studies, reproductive health, rights and justice, and media studies.

WGSS 392J/692J – Feminisms and Environmental Justice
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Kiran Asher

While feminism and environmental justice are both political projects of social change, their objects or objectives are not the same. As we sink into the 21st century, amid looming fears of ecological catastrophes and socio-economic crises, is a conversation between these two projects likely to be productive for both struggles, or are their goals at odds with each other? This class will examine the perceived, existing, and potential links (or disjuncts) between feminism and environmental justice. Our interdisciplinary inquiry will be guided by questions such as: What is understood by the terms "feminism" and "environmental justice"? How have nature and the environment figured in feminist writings and feminist ideas of justice? Conversely, how do women and gender figure in ideas and struggles for environmental justice? Indeed, how do feminist ideals inform (or not) other struggles for social change (such as those of peasants, workers, ethnic groups, queer folk, and more)?

WGSS 392T/ENGLISH 392T - Reading Transgender
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Joy Hayward-Jansen

From newspaper chronicles of nineteenth-century gender outlaws to the present-day explosion of transgender poetry, our personal, cultural, and political understandings of gender nonconformity in the United States have long been tied to particular modes of representation. Through sustained engagement with such creative work, as well as background reading in transgender history and theory, this course will explore the literary history of trans. Although we will pull material from across time and genre, we will focus on contemporary writers like Janet Mock and Joshua Jennifer Espinoza. Together, we will ask questions about authorship; the relationship between social conditions and representational strategies; the possibilities and limitations of different genres; and, ultimately, what makes literature "trans."

WGSS 395J – Imagining Justice
Tuesday 6:00-8:30 p.m.
Laura Ciolkowski

This course was designed to be conducted inside the Hampshire County Jail and House of Corrections in Northampton, enrolling an equal number of students from UMass and students who are incarcerated in the facility. Due to the ongoing health concerns both inside the jail and in the UMass community, however, the course has been changed to a fully remote format and may include incarcerated students only if the jail is able to accommodate distance learning this semester.

This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the critical, aspirational, artistic, and creative forms that Justice takes in literature and the humanities more broadly. What sorts of ethical, social, and political questions are animated by writers and thinkers who seek to imagine and build a different world? What are the tangled roots of inequality and the legacies of sexual, racial, and economic injustice? How do writers, poets, artists, and “freedom dreamers,” as Robin D.G. Kelley so memorably called them, labor to expose injustice and re-invent our universe? Ursula Le Guin has written, “We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.” Taking Le Guin’s focus on the radical imagination as a starting point, this course explores the relationship between literature, the arts, and a wide range of social justice projects. Topics will include: Afrofuturism; utopian and dystopian fiction; art and social justice; bioethics and literature; prison writing, poetry, and the literature of restorative and transformative justice; diaspora studies and literary and artistic representations of movement, forced migration and displacement.

WGSS 492G/692G – Gender and U.S. Empire
Thursday 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Laura Briggs

There is an old debate among historians of the United States over whether to consider the US an empire; the answer turns, basically, on how you define ?empire.? This course is not very interested in that question. Rather, it begins with the problem of how to collapse two very different faces of the analysis of US imperialism. One is public/boy/policy/official: the military, diplomacy, NGOs, and medicine and science. The other is private/girl/racialized/marginal: questions of gender, children, race, indigeneity, sexuality. The course, asks, then: how has the United States gained influence globally through settler colonialism, territorial government, military interventions, counterinsurgency, the rule of experts, military bases, and U.S. global markets? What is the relationship of enslavement and debt in the context of the Americas? How have scholars in a variety of fields, including particularly history, anthropology, and interdisciplinary queer, feminist, ethnic, and American Studies, shed light on how gender, racialization, and sexuality are configured and reconfigured in relationship to US empire? This seminar will be reading-intensive.

WGSS 493W/693W (also ANTHRO 693W) - Worlds of Migration
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Svati Shah

This seminar takes an expansive view of migration, beginning with readings from archaeology, physical anthropology and antiquity, all of which show that humans have always traveled great distances, for resources, because of climate disturbances, and for reasons that are yet to be understood. Indeed, migration has been a consistent feature and `producer? of human existence. Taking human migration as the norm rather than the exception, we will examine when, how and why `nativism? and reactionary discourses of ethnic and racialized citizenship began imagining a different view of migration to the one we find in the records of human history. Readings on contemporary migration will focus on India, South Africa, Greece, Australia and the US, all of which have had intense debates on questions of nation, sexuality, race and labor in recent years. Theoretically, we will rely on critiques of migration that emphasize temporality, political economy and postcoloniality, especially with respect to understanding borders and how they are surveilled and enforced. Our readings and discussions will expand the terrain of what counts as `migration?, why certain forms of human movement across great distances are not thought of as `migration? at all, and why legal and policy debates around the world tend to focus on cross-border migration, often at the expense of equally important discussions of domestic, `circular? and seasonal migrations that people everywhere undertake as a means of survival.

WGSS 791B – Feminist Theory
Tuesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Fumi Okiji

This graduate seminar in feminist theory constitutes a core course for students enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies. The seminar will be organized around questions that emerge for feminisms from the rubrics of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, transnationalism, human rights, economics and postcolonialism. Feminist theory is inherently interdisciplinary and we will draw on classic and contemporary writings from the many fields that contribute to the "field."

WGSS 692G/492G – Gender and U.S. Empire
Thursday 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Laura Briggs

WGSS 692J/392J – Feminisms and Environmental Justice
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Kiran Asher

WGSS 693W/493W (also ANTHRO 693W) - Worlds of Migration
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Svati Shah

UMASS

UMass Courses Outside of WGSS (Departmental)

AFROM 391K – Black Love, Sex and Marriage in the U.S.
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Traci Parker

This course explores African American love, sexual encounters, and marriage from slavery to present. It pays special attention to intraracial relationships among African Americans in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements and beyond; but it also considers interracial relationships; sexual violence; reproduction and reproductive rights; childrearing and family; pleasure, happiness, and desire; pornography (or more broadly, the commodification and exploitation of black bodies); autonomy and property; and disease and medicine. As we interrogate these topics, we will investigate the political, economic, and social drivers of the aforementioned and their implications on black experiences.

ANTHRO 205 – Power and Inequality in the United States
Monday, Wednesday 11:15-12:05 p.m.
Discussions Wednesday and Friday
Jennifer Sandler

The roots of racism and sexism and the issues they raise. The cultural, biological, and social contexts of race and gender and examination of biological variation, genetic determinism, human adaptation, and the bases of human behavior. (Gen Ed SB, DU)

ART-HIS 397R/697R – Women in Architecture
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 p.m.
Margaret Vickery

This course begins with an examination of gendered, architectural spaces and how and why they were structured for women in the 19th century in both Britain and America. Looking at primary and secondary sources, students will gain insight into societal norms and how they conditioned architecture generally associated with women, such as houses, asylums, and early women's colleges. This study will serve as a platform from which to understand the pressures upon women and the pioneers who rejected such norms and pursued architecture as a profession. The latter half of the course will look at the work of early women architects, the hurdles they faced and the examples they set. The course will conclude with a critical examination of women architects practicing today and how they navigate the profession.

CHINESE 394WI – Women in Chinese Cultures
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 p.m.
Elena Chiu

This course focuses on the representation of women and the constitution of gender in Chinese culture as seen through literature and mass media. It focuses on literary and visual representations of women to examine important issues such as the relationship between gender and power, self and society, and tradition and modernity. This course has a dual goal: to explore how women's social role has evolved from pre-modern China to the present and to examine important issues such as women's agency, "inner-outer" division, and the yin-yang dichotomy in Chinese literature and culture. Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Chinse majors.

CLASSICS 335 – Women in Antiquity
Tuesday, Thursday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
~~TBD~~ Lauren Caldwell

Lives, roles, contributions, and status of women in Greek and Roman societies, as reflected in classical literature and the archaeological record. (Gen.Ed. HS)

COMM 288 – Gender, Sex and Representation
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Sut Jhally

This course will examine the relationship between commercialized systems of representation and the way that gender and sexuality are thought of and organized in the culture. In particular, we will look at how commercial imagery impacts upon gender identity and the process of gender socialization. Central to this discussion will be the related issues of sexuality and sexual representation (and the key role played by advertising). Students can register for the in-person lecture version or the online lecture version. The in-person lectures will be available a day later to watch online. Exams for all students will take place in person three times during the semester.

COMM 497QP – Queer Performance and Publics
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Kimberlee Perez

The culture and legislature of the United States shape discourses that produce the rights, recognitions, relations, im/mobilities, in/visibility, and mis/understandings of LGBTQIA persons and groups. In the context of history and from various social positions, these changes are read and enacted in multiple ways. This course considers the ways LGBTQIA persons and groups use performance, on the stage and in everyday life, as a form of communication, as communicative strategies that generate dialogue, resistance, and social action in order to more fully participate in mainstream publics as well as create counterpublics and queer world-making.

ECON 347 – Economics of LGBT Issues
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Lee Badgett

The economic, social, and legal position of LGBT people has changed very rapidly in the U.S. This course focuses on how policy change happened and whether and why LGBT people still face economic inequality. This course explores that position from the perspective of economics, politics, and policy, primarily in the U.S., but also in other regions of the world. Major questions addressed include: What was the role of the economy and political factors in shaping LGBT identities and social movements? What factors made the LGBT social movement successful? What are the remaining sources of legal inequality? What causes employment discrimination against LGBT people? Does the state of the economy affect anti-LGBT prejudice and political change? Are LGBT families different? Why and how? Do public policies reduce economic inequality for LGBT people? What kinds of economic inequalities do LGBT people still face? What has been the role of business in supporting LGBT equality? How do businesses gain from LGBT equality? How does economic development contribute to LGBT equality and vice versa in other parts of the world?

ECON 348 – Political Economy of Women
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Lisa Saunders

A critical review of neoclassical, Marxist, and feminist economic theories pertaining to inequality between men and women in both the family and the firm. Open to students whose primary major is ECON, RES-ECON, STPEC, or MANAGECON. Prerequisite: ECON 103 or RES-ECON 102 Open only to Econ/STPEC/ResEc/MANAGECON primary majors until after juniors enroll.

ENGLISH 132 – Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:15-12:05 p.m. – ~~TBD~~ Angela Rain Kim
Monday, Wednesday 12:20-1:10 p.m. – ~~TBD~~ Tyler Smart

Literature treating the relationship between man and woman. Topics may include: the nature of love, the image of the hero and heroine, and definitions, past and present, of the masculine and feminine. (Gen. Ed. AL, DG)

ENGLISH 378 - Amerian Women Writers
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 9:05-9:55 a.m.
Gloria Biamonte

Fiction by women exploring the social and sexul arrangements of American culture.

GERMAN 363 – Witches: Myth and Reality
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1:25-2:15 p.m.
Kerstin Mueller Dembling

This course focuses on various aspects of witches/witchcraft in order to examine the historical construction of the witch in the context of the social realities of women (and men) labeled as witches. The main areas covered are: European pagan religions and the spread of Christianity; the "Burning Times" in early modern Europe, with an emphasis on the German situation; 17th-century New England and the Salem witch trials; the images of witches in folk lore and fairy tales in the context of the historical persecutions; and contemporary Wiccan/witch practices in their historical context. The goal of the course is to deconstruct the stereotypes that many of us have about witches/witchcraft, especially concerning sexuality, gender, age, physical appearance, occult powers, and Satanism. Readings are drawn from documentary records of the witch persecutions and witch trials, literary representations, scholarly analyses of witch-related phenomena, and essays examining witches, witchcraft, and the witch persecutions from a contemporary feminist or neo-pagan perspective. The lectures will be supplemented by related material taken from current events in addition to visual material (videos, slides) drawn from art history, early modern witch literature, popular culture, and documentary sources. Conducted in English. (Gen Ed. I, DG)

HISTORY 297WL/LEGAL 297WL – Women and the Law
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Jennifer Nye

This course examines the legal status of women in the United States, focusing specifically on the 20th and 21st centuries. How has the law used gender, sex, sexuality, and race to legally enforce inequality between women and men (and among women)? We will examine the legal arguments feminists have used to advocate for legal change and how these arguments have changed over time, paying specific attention to debates about whether to make legal arguments based on formal equality, substantive equality, liberty, or privacy. We will also consider the pros and cons of using the law to advocate for social justice. Specific issues that may be covered include the civil and political participation of women (voting, jury service), employment discrimination, intimate relationships, reproduction, contraception and abortion, violence against women, women as criminal defendants, and women as law students, lawyers, and judges.

HISTORY 349H – Sex and Society
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Jennifer Heuer

This honors course examines the social organization and cultural construction of gender and sexuality. We will look at how women and men experienced the dramatic changes that have affected Europe since 1789 and consider how much these developments were themselves influenced by ideas about masculinity and femininity. We will explore topics such as revolutionary definitions of citizenship; changing patterns of work and family life; fin-de-siecle links between crime, madness, and sexual perversion; the fascist cult of the body; battle grounds and home fronts during the world wars; gendered aspects of nationalism and European colonialism, and the sexual revolution of the post-war era.

HISTORY 389 – U.S. Women’s History Since 1890
Tuesday, Thursday 5:30-6:45 p.m.
Adeline Broussan

Explores the relationship of women to the social, cultural, economic and political developments shaping American society from 1890 to the present. Examines women's paid and unpaid labor, family life and sexuality, feminist movements and women's consciousness; emphasis on how class, race, ethnicity, and sexual choice have affected women's historical experience. Sophomore level and above. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

HISTORY 397REH – Race, Sex, and Empire: Britain and India
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m
Priyanka Srivastava

Imperialism cannot be understood merely as an economic-military-territorial system of control and exploitation. Cultural domination is integral to any sustained system of global exploitation. Focusing on cultural aspects of imperialism, this course explores the racial and sexual politics of British Empire in India from the late eighteenth to early twentieth century. Using a combination of primary and secondary sources as well as visual and literary material the course will examine how socially constructed racial and gendered hierarchies, and myths about the sexual practices of colonized people were linked to the pursuit and maintenance of imperial rule over India. Simultaneously, we will consider how the complex intersection of race, sexuality, and class influenced the political and social cultures of both Britain (the metropole) and India (the colony). We will analyze key scholarly perspectives on the following: forms of colonial knowledge, theories of Aryanism, colonial masculinities, regulation of sexual behavior and prostitution, and the varying roles of colonial institutions, medical practices, popular discourses, and cultural artifacts in producing racial and sexual stereotypes and in creating distinctions between the colonizers and the colonized.

HISTORY 397RL – Rape Law: Gender, Race, (In)justice
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Jennifer Nye

The history of the legal response to rape has often resulted in injustice for both the victim/survivor and the alleged perpetrator. This course will examine the evolution of the U.S. legal system's treatment of rape, paying particular attention to the movement against lynching in the post-civil war era, the rise of the feminist anti-rape movement in the 1970s and the student movement against campus sexual assault. Through an analysis of court cases, legislation, and other texts we will consider the role sexual violence has played in maintaining gender and racialized power relationships. We will examine how and why such violence came to be seen as a crime, including who is worthy of the law's "protection" and who is subject to the law's “punishment." We will explore issues such as: rape as a form of racialized and imperial violence, especially against black and Native American women; the criminal legal treatment of rape and the evolution of the legal concepts of force, resistance, and consent; and the civil responses to rape under the Violence Against Women Act and Title IX. We'll also look at the international law responses to rape as a weapon of war. Finally, we'll think about how the legal responses, or non-responses, to rape have differed over time depending on factors such as the race/ethnicity, income level, immigration status, sexual orientation/gender identity, age, and marital status of the victim/survivor and the perpetrator. Finally, we’ll consider how the legal system can or should respond to rape, particularly in this age of mass criminalization and mass incarceration, and whether restorative justice responses might be preferable. Prior law-related coursework is helpful, but not required.

HONORS 499CN – Women Organize/Better World
Tuesday, Thursday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Graciela Monteagudo

Throughout the planet, women create common spaces for a better world in response to threats to their livelihood. This course uses the concept “woman” to refer to bodies feminized by power, to include both transgender and cis women. Students will analyze the axis of oppression and resistance that sit at the core of women’s experiences. Focusing on gender, sexuality, the economy, and ethnic/racial oppression will help students zero on the structural aspect of women’s organizing. Students will prepare to write their thesis by learning about a wide range of movements, such as movements against gender violence, against racism, for access to full reproductive rights, for living wages, and to de-naturalize domestic work’s hidden unpaid labor.

JAPANESE 391S/591S – Women Writers of Japan
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Amanda Seaman

See department for description.

JAPANESE 391M/591M – Queer Japan in Literature and Culture
Tuesday, Thursday 5:30-6:45 p.m.
Stephen Miller

See department for description.

JUDAIC 383/WGSS 391D – Women, Gender, Judaism
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Susan Shapiro

Historically, the figure of the "Jew" has been thought of as male. Making male experience normative has in turn shaped how Judaism itself has been understood. Shifting the basic terms and focus to include attention to women, gender, and sexuality significantly re-shapes our understanding of both Judaism and of Jewish culture/history. This course not only "fills in the blanks" of the missing women of Jewish history and tradition, but attends to questions of contemporary forms of Jewish women's and men's gendered lives, identities and sexualities. Beginning with the Bible, the course proceeds historically, concluding with contemporary views of and debates surrounding matters of gender and sexuality.

PHIL 371 – Philosophical Perspectives on Gender
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Louise Antony

This course will offer systematic examination of a variety of philosophical issues raised by the existence of gender roles in human society: Is the existence or content of such roles determined by nature? Are they inherently oppressive? How does the category gender interact with other socially significant categories, like race, class, and sexual orientation? What would gender equality look like? How do differences among women complicate attempts to generalize about gender? In the last part of the course, we will bring our theoretical insights to bear on some topical issue related to gender, chosen by the class, such as: Is affirmative action morally justifiable? Should pornography be regulated? Is abortion morally permissible? Reading will be drawn from historical and contemporary sources. Methods of analytical philosophy, particularly the construction and critical evaluation of arguments, will be emphasized throughout. (Gen. Ed. SB)

POLISCI 392AP – Activism, Participation and Protest
Wednesday 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Sonia Alvarez

This course examines contemporary forms of political activism, participation, and protest. Drawing on select case studies, principally from Latin America, the U.S, and Europe, we will pay particular attention to the dynamic development of feminisms, anti-racist/Black mobilizations, anti-austerity and pro-democracy protests, and LGBTQ organizing.

POLSCI 395F – Women and Politics
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Sarah Tanzi

Women have made tremendous gains in every aspect of social, economic and political life in the United States, particularly since the second wave of the women's movement in the 1960s. Yet, women's progress in terms of achieving elected office has reached a puzzling plateau since the 1990s. We will examine the course of women's movements towards achieving political incorporation in the United States. We consider the debate over why women's political progress has stagnated and we consider the impact of the gender imbalance in American electoral politics - to what extent do these disparities matter? We begin by exploring women's suffrage campaigns and voting behavior in the period immediately following their achievement of the right to vote and beyond. We then turn to the relationship between women and party politics before discussing the challenges women face as candidates in American politics. We will focus on understanding why women remain underrepresented as legislators. We then consider the extent to which women's participation in campaigns and elections makes a substantive difference in policy making.

PSYCH 391ZZ – Psychology of the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Experience
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:15-12:05
John Bickford

Students in this course will explore psychological theory and research pertaining to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Topics include sexual orientation, sexual identity development, stigma management, heterosexism & homonegativity, gender roles, same-sex relationships, LGB families, LGB diversity, and LGB mental health.

PUBHLTH 328 - Fundamentals of Women's Health
Thursday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Sara Sabelawski

This course will provide a comprehensive overview of issues related to health in women, addressing areas including but not limited to biology, psychology, geography, economics, health policy, and social issues.

PUBHLTH 372 – Maternal and Child Health in the Developing World
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Bridget Thompson

This course is designed to give students a broad overview to pertinent topics in the field of global maternal and child health. Topics covered include causes of maternal and infant mortality, treatment of malaria in pregnancy, HIV and pregnancy, infant nutrition, maternal and child nutrition, gender roles, and cultural and religious concepts in relation to working in a global setting. This course will explore approaches to public health programming that acknowledge and incorporate cultural differences.

SOC 106 – Race, Gender, Class and Ethnicity
Society RAP Section in Moore Hall
Kelly Giles

Introduction to Sociology. Analysis of the consequences of membership in racial, gender, class and ethnic groups on social, economic and political life. (Gen.Ed. SB, DU)

Open to first year Exploring Society RAP students in Moore Hall. http://www.umass.edu/rap/exploring-society-rap
Students in Exploring Society RAP in Moore Hall will enroll together in "Race, Gender, Class and Ethnicity" (Sociology 106). In this class, we will examine how sociologists study social inequalities related to race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. (1) We will begin by exploring how these identities are experienced in people's everyday lives. (2) Next, we will examine how these identities are constructed and maintained within our dominant institutions from families, schools, and workplaces, to media and the state. (3) We will end the course by considering creative solutions that work to end social inequalities as seen through resistance and social change efforts. Besides thinking sociologically about the world around you through engaging with foundational and cutting edge sociological research and theory, you will take part in interactive lectures, class discussions and group work with your peers. This course is designed to be useful for your success in college by developing your critical thinking, writing, researching, and speaking skills. It will also be of interest to those concerned with social justice efforts, and who wish to discuss ways of creating positive social change.

SOC 106 – Race, Gender, Class and Ethnicity
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
C.N. Le

Introduction to Sociology. Analysis of the consequences of membership in racial, gender, class and ethnic groups on social, economic and political life. (Gen.Ed. SB, DU)

SOC 283 – Gender & Society
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:15-12:05 p.m.
~~TBD~~ Pia Furkan

Analysis of: 1) historical and cross-cultural variation in positions and relationships of women and men; 2) contemporary creation and internalization of gender and maintenance of gender differences in adult life; 3) recent social movements to transform or maintain "traditional" positions of women and men. Prerequisite: 100-level Sociology course.

UMass Courses Outside of WGSS (Component)

For component courses, majors and minors must focus their work on WGSS topics in order for these courses to count. Note that 100-level courses only count towards the minor.

AFROAM 245 – The Slave Narrative
Tuesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
A Yemisi Jimoh

An examination of the African American genre of slave narratives, from the shortest paragraph-long examinations to book-length manifestations that captured the imaginations of 19th century America and the world. The course will encompass issues of race, gender, sexuality, and historical and literacy contexts of important narratives, which may include those of Olaudah Equiano, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and Harriet Jacobs, as well as modern and contemporary narratives influenced by the genre.

AFROAM 297B – Black Workers in the U.S.
Wednesday 6:00-8:30 p.m.
John Bracey

This seminar will attempt to accomplish two goals; to examine some of the significant issues in the history of African American workers since Emancipation and to introduce you to some of the most recent scholarship addressing those issues. We will begin with general studies of the history of capitalism in the U.S. and Black workers then proceed to a study of 1) The role of Black labor in several industries, 2) Black women as workers 3) Black labor and the Black power movement and 4) Herbert Hill's critiques of organized labor and the labor history establishment.

AFROAM 391L – Soul, Country and the USA
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Stephanie Shonekan

Soul and country are musical genres that are unmistakably and proudly native to the United States. However, they often appear to be poles apart in terms of their audiences, aesthetics, messages, and most importantly how they communicate the notion of what it is to be an American. In this class, students will be inspired to think critically about the impact and significance of American popular music generally. More specifically, students will focus on how soul and country music are rooted in the history, culture and identity of the people who create and "consume" them. Students will study the evolution and aesthetics of these genres and will interrogate how they deal with concepts like identity, class, race, religion, and ethnicity; gender and sexuality; politics and patriotism.

ANTHRO 258 – Food and Culture
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
~~TBD~~ Dana Conzo

This course surveys how cultural anthropologists have studied the big questions about food and culture. How and why do people restrict what foods are considered "edible" or morally acceptable? How is food processed and prepared, and what does food tell us about other aspects of culture like gender and ethnic identity? How have power issues of gender, class, and colonialism shaped people's access to food? How has industrialization changed food, and where are foodways headed in the future? Along the way, students will read and see films about foodways in Europe, Africa, Asia, the United States, and Latin America. (Gen. Ed. SB, DG)

ART-HIS 324/624 – Modern Art, 1880-present
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Karen Kurczynski

This course takes a new and interactive look at 20th Century art, from the move toward total abstraction around 1913 to the development of Postmodernism in the 1980s. We examine the impact on art of social and political events such as World War I, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Fascism, the Mexican Revolution, the New Woman in the 1920s, World War II, the Cold War, and the rise of consumer culture. We will investigate the origins and complex meanings of movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Mexican Muralism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. We will reconsider and reevaluate major issues in Modern art and culture such as the evolution of personal expression, the recognition of non-western culture in Euro-America, the interest in abstraction as a universal language, new technologies in art, the politics of the avant-garde and its attempts to reconnect art and life, issues of gender, race and representation, the role of myth and the unconscious, and the dialogue between art and popular culture. (Gen. Ed. AT, DG)

ART-HIS 391C – Caravaggio
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Monika Schmitter

Was Caravaggio a "rebel" artist? What was so revolutionary about his art? How did it relate to violence of his times, to the Catholic Church, to his own sexuality? These are some of the questions we will investigate in this course. Together we will create a virtual exhibition of Caravaggio's paintings examining the themes of his art and investigating their resonances for our lives today and for contemporary art. Assignments include assembling the collaborative exhibition website, as well as writing individual research papers.

ASIAN 397B – Bridging Asian and Asian American
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
C.N. Le

Talks by local and visiting faculty, as well as film screenings and performances, designed to introduce students to the multi-layered connections between Asia and Asian America. Areas that will be considered include: popular culture, youth subcultures, labor, issues of gender and sexuality, and migration and immigrant communities. Discussions emphasize how issues play out at local, national and transnational levels.

COMM 271 – Humor in Society
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Stephen Olbrys Gencarella

This course examines humor as a significant form of creative expression in social and political life. In recent decades, scholars of all persuasions from the humanities, social sciences, and even hard sciences have examined this subject through a critical lens, leading to the development of an interdisciplinary field known as humor studies. This course provides an introduction to that burgeoning field. Topics will include different theories of humor, the relationship between humor and play, the differences between humor and comedy, the use of humor in the redress of political and social tensions, the importance of the body in humor, and the role of humor in maintaining identity, especially in the negotiation of race, gender, class, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. (Gen. Ed. SB) This course was formerly numbered COMM 297C. If you have already taken COMM 297C you cannot take this course.

COMM 297FA – Spirit and Stories: The Folklore of Alcohol
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Stephen Olbrys Gencarella

This course examines the vast store of folklore inspired by and directed at alcohol and its cultural reach. Folklore means traditional expressive practices ranging from the verbal arts (such as stories and songs) to material culture (such as crafts and medicine) to customary activities (such as rituals and beliefs). The range of folklore herein is both global and ancient; that is, it concerns the entire history of alcohol, which in effect necessitates attention to the entire history of humanity in a global perspective. Specific lectures will address cultural differences concerning alcohol in the negotiation of race, ethnicity, class, nationhood, religion, gender, and political identity.

COMM 297FS – Introduction to Fashion Studies
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Anne Ciecko

See department for description.

COMM 338 – Children, Teens and Media
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Erica Scharer

In this seminar, we will explore the role of media (television, Internet, video games, mobile media, film, etc.) in shaping the lives of children and teens. We will consider how much time children devote to various media, what they think about what they encounter through media, and the implications of media for children's lives. We will draw on social science research to examine a wide range of topics, including: depictions of race, class, gender, and sexuality in ads, programming, and other media forms; the role of media in the development of adolescent identity; media uses and effects in the realms of educational TV and apps, advertising and consumer culture, violence, and sex; and the possibilities of media literacy, parental rules and dialogue, and public policies to shape children's interactions with media.

COMM 394I – Performance and the Politics of Race
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Kimberlee Perez

This course looks at the ways race, racial identities, and interracial relations are formed through and by communication practices in present-day U.S. America. Though focusing on U.S. America in the current historical moment, the course takes into account the ways history as well as the transnational flows of people and capital inform and define conversations about race and racial identities. Race will be discussed as intersectional, taking into account the ways race is understood and performed in relation to gender, sexuality, class, and nation. The course will focus on the performance and communications of race, ranging from everyday interactions, personal narratives and storytelling, intra- and inter-racial dialogue, and staged performances.

COMP-LIT – Comedy
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
TBD

Our course begins with the premise that contemporary American comedy is informed by the histories of ethnic American groups -- African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and U.S. Latinos/Latinas -- along with issues of race, class, sexuality and citizenship. American comedians, independent filmmakers, feminists and transgendered comics deploy the language of comedy to invoke serious social matters in contemporary American life: racism, heterosexism, homophobia, class biases against the poor and the undocumented, misogyny, war and other burning issues of the day. We will thus consider that the ends of comedy are more than laughter. Comedy confronts political issues that are constitutive of and threatening to the U.S. body politic. (Gen. Ed. AL)

EDUC 590Z - Critical Pedagogy of Media and Literature
Tuesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Kysa Nygreen

This course brings the rigorous study of educational inequality together with the tools of critical media analysis to explore representations and realities of inequality in schools with a focus on race, class, ability, gender, and sexuality. Students will also develop skills to teach for critical media literacy using critical pedagogical methods.

ENGLISH 269 – American Literature and Culture after 1865
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Sarah Patterson

Figures of Contestation in American Literature and Film. In this class, we will address literary and theoretical works that tackle America’s changing cultural landscape from 1865 to 1930. In mainstream entertainment culture, fiction constituted the one of the nation’s most popular forms of artistic and political expression, creating spaces for dissent and hagiography alike. From images of workers in industrial squalor, poverty and prostitution in urban city streets to utopian depictions of feminist communities and rallying orations at national conventions, this course will introduce turn-of-the-century figures of contestation taken from the Civil War, Gilded Age, Women’s Rights and the Harlem Renaissance eras. Canonical and lesser-known readings include Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s The Sport of the Gods, Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and the 1915 propaganda film Birth of a Nation. Alongside core readings and film viewings, students will have an opportunity to experience the textual formats and iconography that undergirded past reading cultures using digitized historical newspapers and image archives. Assignments include discussion, a class presentation and short critical responses.

ENGLISH 279 – Introduction to American Studies
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Hoang Phan

Interdisciplinary approach to the study of American culture. Focus on issues of race, class, gender, and ethnicity. Readings drawn from literature, history, the social sciences, philosophy and fine arts. Supplemented with audio-visual materialsofilms , slides of paintings, architecture, photography and material culture, and music. Required for students with a concentration in American Studies. (Gen. Ed. AL, DU)

ENGLISH 359 – The Victorian Imagination
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Jill Franks

We will focus on Jane Austen and Charles Dickens—their lives and selected works. Austen’s prolific years were the 1810s; Dickens’s, the 1840s and 1850s. Reading key works of both authors, we’ll trace developments in English history from Austen’s Regency period through Dickens’s mid-Victorian era. Supplementing our novels with Claire Tomalin’s authoritative biographies of the writers, we’ll ground our reading of fictional narratives in real-life events and the authors’ personal challenges. Discussion of social issues will include these topics: gender roles, the marriage market, class satire, poverty, imperialism, the prison system, and racism.

FRENCHST 280 - Love & Sex in French Culture
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Patrick Mensah

Is love a French invention? How do we explore, through literature, the substance behind the stereotypical association of love, romance, and sexual pleasure with French culture? Do sex, passion, and love always unite in the pursuit of emotional fulfillment in human relations, according to this literature? What affiliations does this literature interweave between such relations of love, requited or unrequited, and pleasure, enjoyment, freedom, self-empowerment, on the one hand, and on the other hand, suffering, jealousy, crime, violence, negativity, notions of perversion, morbidity, and even death? How are problems of gender roles and human sexuality --i.e. Hetero-, bi-, homo- and other forms of sexuality--approached in this literature? What connections or conflicts are revealed in this literature between human love relationships and the social norms and conventions within which they occur, as well as the forms of political governance that have been practiced in France over the centuries? Those are some of the issues that are investigated in this course, which offers a broad historical overview of selective ways in which love, passion, desire and erotic behavior in French culture have been represented and understood in Literature and, more recently, in film, from the middle ages to the twentieth century. Readings are from major French authors drawn from various centuries such as Marie de France, Beroul, Moliere, de Sade, Flaubert, Gide, and Duras. They will be supplemented with screenings of optional films that are based on those texts or are pertinent to them in important ways. (Gen. Ed. AL)

FRENCHST 444/644 – Eighteenth Century Theatre and Novel
Thursday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Patrick Mensah

The French Enlightenment involved a critical renewal of European political and philosophical self-understanding through an iconoclastic revision of literary and philosophical representational forms associated with the ancient regime. This ‘renewal’ entailed a rethinking of the role of reason in political and social life, a re-conception of gender relations, and a redefinition of Europe’s relationship with non-European cultures. We will follow the staging of this triple agenda in the works (novels and plays) of Montesquieu, Beaumarchais, Marivaus, Rousseau, Diderot, Laclos, Prevost, Voltaire, and other luminaries of the Encyclopedie movement.

GERMAN 270 – From the Grimms to Disney
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Sara Jackson

This course focuses on selected fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (Hansel & Gretel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Iron Hans) and Hans Christian Andersen (Little Sea Maid, The Red Shoes), locating them in the 19th-century German or Danish culture of their origins and then examining how they became transformed into perennial favorites of U.S. popular culture through their adaptations by Disney (feature animation films), Broadway (musicals), or bestselling self-help books (Iron John, Women Who Run With the Wolves). As a point of comparison, this course will also introduce popular fairy-tale films of the former East Germany (GDR) from the UMass DEFA archives & library, which present the same stories as popular fare in a Cold War communinistcommunist cultural context. Conducted in English. (Gen. Ed. AL).

HISTORY 154 – Social Change in the 1960s
Social Justice RAP – Moore Hall
~~Joie-Lynn Campbell~~ Jason Higgins

Open to first-year students in the Connecting to Social Justice RAP in Moore Hall. Students in Connecting with Social Justice RAP in Moore Hall will enroll together in "Social Change in the 1960s" (History 154). This course examines the major historical events and social justice movements that took place from the mid ?1950s into the 1970s through the lens of pop culture, including rock 'n' roll. Considering race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation, students will be encouraged to think critically about music's impact then, as well as its connections to the world today

HISTORY 154 – Social Change in the 1960s
Social Justice RAP – Kennedy Hall
Andrew Grim

Few periods in United States. history experienced as much change and turmoil as the "Long Sixties" (1954-1975), when powerful social movements overhauled American gender norms, restructured the Democratic and Republican parties, and abolished the South's racist "Jim Crow" regime. This course examines the movements that defined this era. We will explore the civil rights and Black Power movements; the student New Left and the antiwar movement; the women's and gay liberation movements; struggles for Asian American, Chicano/a, Native American, and Puerto Rican freedom; as well as the rise of conservatism. Throughout the semester, we will assess Sixties social movements' ideals, strategies, and achievements, and their ongoing influence upon U.S. politics, society, and culture. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

HISTORY 264 – History of Health Care and Medicine in the U.S.
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-10:5 a.m.
Friday discussions
Emily Hamilton

This course explores the history and social meaning of medicine, medical practice, health care, and disease in the United States from 1600 to the present. Using a variety of sources aimed at diverse audiences students will investigate topics such as: the evolution of beliefs about the body; medical and social responses to infectious and chronic disease; the rise of medical science and medical organizations; the development of medical technologies; mental health diagnosis and treatment; changing conceptions of the body; the training, role, and image of medical practitioners and the role of public and government institutions in promoting health practices and disease treatments. We will pay particular attention to the human experience of medicine, with readings on the experience of being ill, the delivery of compassionate care, and the nature of the relationship between practitioners and patients. Course themes will include race, gender, cultural diversity, women and gender, social movements, science, technology, politics, industry, and ethics. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

LABOR 297S/SOCIOL 297S – Sports, Labor and Social Justice
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Jerrold Levinsky

Protests by professional and amateur athletes against racial and gender discrimination are not new or isolated events in U.S. history. In fact, sports have long been connected to the social, economic, and political issues of the day. With a particular focus on labor and civil rights struggle, our goal is to better understand the history of sports as it relates to social class, race, and gender. Students will analyze current controversies through this critical approach to sports and society.

PUBLHLTH 389 – Health Inequities
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:10-11:00 a.m.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:!5-12:05 p.m.
Jya Plavin

While the health and wellbeing of the nation has improved overall, racial, ethnic, gender and sexuality disparities in morbidity and mortality persist. To successfully address growing disparities, it is important to understand social determinants of health and translate current knowledge into specific strategies to undo health inequalities. This course will explore social justice as a philosophical underpinning of public health and will consider the etiology of disease rooted in social conditions. It aims to strengthen critical thinking, self-discovery, and knowledge of ways in which socioeconomic, political, and cultural systems structure health outcomes. (Gen. Ed. SB, DU)

PSYCH 391U – Close Relationships
Tuesday, Thursday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Evelyn Mercado

This course will explore the many psychological mechanisms that play a part in close personal relationships. Using psychological research as our foundation, students will be led in discussions and about attraction, love, lust, and other topics pertinent to close relationships. Students will be asked to think deeply about the social constructs that influence human preferences, and the bio-psychosocial processes at play. The course will begin by dissecting the concepts of attraction and love. We will also discuss attachment theory and interpersonal dynamics such as jealousy, power, and communication. We will explore how notions of love and attraction are defined or re-defined or lived by the LGBTQ+ community, and how or why these relationships come/came to be stigmatized. Lastly, we will finish the course discussing the portrayal of sex in the media and online, and its implications on sex education and sexual understanding.

SOCIOL 222 – The Family
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:20 p.m.
Discussions Friday
Naomi Gerstel

First part: historical transformations in family life (relationships between husbands and wives, position and treatment of children, importance of kinship ties); second part: the contemporary family through life course (choice of a mate, relations in marriage, parenthood, breakup of the family unit). (Gen.Ed. SB, DU)

SOCIOL 224 – Social Class & Inequality
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:10-11:00 a.m.
~~TBD~~ Venus Green

The nature of social classes in society from the viewpoint of differences in economic power, political power, and social status. Why stratification exists, its internal dynamics, and its effects on individuals, subgroups, and the society as a whole. Problems of poverty and the uses of power. (Gen.Ed. SB, DU)

SOCIOL 248 – Conformity and Deviance
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 9:05-9:55 a.m.
~~TBD~~ Anthony Huaqui

This course examines the social processes of rule-making and rule-breaking, and how categories of "normal" and "deviance" change historically. We examine different theories of conformity and deviance, using topics such as sexuality and politics.

SOCIOL 288 – Introduction to Latin American Societies
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Millicent Thayer

This class will serve as a gateway into the discipline of sociology. It examines Latin America using a sociological lens and helps students to grasp some of the basic concepts that sociologists use to understand the social world. At the same time, it takes an interdisciplinary approach drawing on history, anthropology, political science, development and education, as well as sociology.

SOCIOL 329 – Social Movements
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Millicent Thayer

Explores how and why social movements occur, what strategies they use, how they create collective identities, how issues such as civil rights, workers' rights, women's rights, the environment, the global economy mobilize activists' participation within the circumstances faced.

SOCIOL 397ED – Sociology of Eating Disorders
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Veronica Everett

This course is designed to look at eating disorders through the lens of Sociology. We will be discussing relevant topics such as social narratives around body image and media (including social media), gender norms, race, feminism, socioeconomic influences related to weight, the history of some of these variables and how they've evolved over time. We will also look at issues related to development and mental health including self-esteem, peer relationships, family systems/environment, mood disorders, trauma, diagnoses, healthcare policy and treatment. Lastly, as its relevant to you as students, we will look at college life and eating disorders as it is often a time when eating disorders develop or peak.

STPEC 189 – Introduction to Radical Social Theory
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Graciela Monteagudo

This is an introductory course to radical social theory. Our focus is the history of social thought in the West, and the decolonial critiques of some of these ideas. In this course, students will learn that "radical" means "at the root," and radical social theory is theory that explains the roots of social inequalities and proposes ways of transforming society to build a better world. As a General Education course, our goal is for students to have the opportunity to discuss key societal issues through a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, history, economics, Black, Latinx, and gender and sexuality studies. Through analysis of readings and films, we will explore the connection between cultural processes and power in the West and the implications for People of Color on a global scale and across time and space. Seats in this course are reserved for freshmen and sophomores of SBS or HFA. STPEC students may enroll. Gen Ed: HS and DG

STPEC 391H – Core Seminar I
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Graciela Monteagudo

STPEC Core Seminar I focuses on major theoretical currents in political theory and the historical circumstances that gave rise to those theories - in particular Liberalism, Marxism, Anarchism, Decolonial, and Poststructural theories. As this is an interdisciplinary class, we will be bringing in analytic tools from various disciplines paying attention to the historical construction and reception of ideas. Enrollment is limited to 15 students. STPEC majors only.

STPEC 392H - Core Seminar II
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Shemon Salam

STPEC Core Seminar II focuses on the development of social struggles, political economy, and theory from the 1960s to the present. Continuing our analysis of racial capitalism and empire, Core II will explore how these formations changed due to economic crisis, national liberation, and class struggle. We will research the connections between race, class, gender, sexuality, disease, and other axes of oppression under racial capitalism. A major research paper of the student's choosing will be produced over the course of the semester allowing students to more deeply engage with a topic, and to practice applying the critical methodological and theoretical tools developed in the STPEC curriculum. Enrollment is limited to 15 students. STPEC majors only.

STPEC 492H – Focus Seminar II
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Stellan Vinthagen

Topic: Constructive Resistance: Building a new society out of the ashes of the old
This course focuses on movements and communities that apply "constructive resistance" or build new societies while simultaneously resisting the existing oppressive systems. Constructive resistance is pre-figurative action that change here and now (as "direct action"), and as such it stands in contrast to "protest," "demands" or "respectability politics" by activists who wants to compel or force the state, elites or others to create the change. Constructive resistance is a neglected concept, in academia and among activists, despite being practiced everywhere. It shows a wide variation, with more or less "construction" of alternatives or “resistance” to existing systems; and, is guided by very different values, principles, strategies and visions. Such productive resistance is particularly developed among Indigenous communities and poor people's movements in the Global South. They fight to survive against physical and cultural genocide, marginalization or colonization of their land, resources and communities, and stay alive by regenerating, recreating and developing resilience through autonomous social structures. They create parallel societies of political, economic, cultural or spiritual organizations, which also serve as the basis of their ability to resist repression, cooptation and marginalization. We also find at least elements of "constructive resistance" in the Global North, as for example within cooperatives, counter-cultural centers, food-banks, mutual aid networks, local exchange trading systems, non-profit banks, and within resistance movements that care for each other during repression. This course builds on both academic and activist texts, films and examples, making sure the course has both a clear activist perspective and an academic basis. The course gives social science concepts and theories to analyze resistance, creation of alternatives and parallel structures, but focuses on empirical examples of how poor and marginalized communities go to direct action: try to create autonomy, self-governance and build their own constructive programs and resist injustices. Key themes are community-based struggles and the combination of resisting injustice with building new societies and alternatives. Seminars will involve students through discussions, which follow up on background lectures, guest visits from researchers and activists, films, literature readings, student projects, etc. Assignments consist mainly of a book review, oral presentations, and a course paper analyzing a chosen case of relevance. Extra credits are offered for excursions to relevant projects in New England. The overall aim with this course is to develop strategies of social change: to critically assess popular struggles that build alternative ways of life, and what challenges and possibilities movement activists face when they try to combine resistance with the building of new societies.

STPEC 320 – Writing for Critical Consciousness
Monday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Graciela Monteagudo

Students hone skills necessary to write in the genres that STPEC majors encounter most often in the course of their academic and professional careers. Contact department for details.

SPANISH 324 – Introduction to Latina/o Literature
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Stephanie Fetta

In this course students will think critically about the various "wild tongues" that have defined U.S. Latinx literature and culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. Our analysis will center on issues of power as they are experienced by diverse U.S. Latinx populations. Specifically, we will focus on Latinx writers, performers, and scholars that push the boundaries of acceptable gender, sexuality, and racialization within U.S. Latinx cultures, focusing specifically on Caribbean and Chicanx populations in the United States. Students will be required to engage critically with primary texts, as well as reflect on the ways in which these issues exist in the world around us. Because Latinx thinkers often blur the boundaries of traditional literary and scholarly genres, we will consider pinnacle works of Latinx studies - such as those of Pedro Pietri, Gloria Anzaldua, and Junot Diaz - alongside other forms of cultural production, such as performance art and film. We will also try our hands at these art forms in an effort to find new, embodied ways to interact with expressions of Latinx culture. Course texts are written in both English and Spanish. Class discussion will take place in Spanish. All assignments must be completed in Spanish. (Gen. Ed. AL, DU)

THEATER 130 – Contemporary Playwrights of Color
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m. – Priscilla Page
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m. – ~~TBD~~ Tatiana Godfrey

Theater movements of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans, and the body of literature by contemporary playwrights of color within a historical context. (Gen. Ed. AL, DU)

THEATER 329 – Contemporary Native American Performance
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Priscilla Page

Contemporary Native American Performance is an area of study with deep roots in culturally specific production and an ever-evolving practice by a wide range of artists. In this Junior Year Writing course we will read plays and performative texts created by Native American artists since the 1960's. We will begin our study by acknowledging the limitations of language and the always contentious issue of labels. Within this critical framework, we will study the art as well as the attending social, political, and historical contexts. We will examine innovations and experimentation with artistic form and study each artist’s use of language, style and thematic content. Imperative topics of discussion will include gender roles, expressions of sexuality, class position, and cultural identity as articulated by the artists we study. Theater is an interactive, living art form. With this in mind, we will attend relevant performances and generate in-class performances.

Graduate

WGSS 692G/492G – Gender and U.S. Empire
Thursday 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Laura Briggs

There is an old debate among historians of the United States over whether to consider the US an empire; the answer turns, basically, on how you define “empire”. This course is not very interested in that question. Rather, it begins with the problem of how to collapse two very different faces of the analysis of US imperialism. One is public/boy/policy/official: the military, diplomacy, NGOs, and medicine and science. The other is private/girl/racialized/marginal: questions of gender, children, race, indigeneity, sexuality. The course, asks, then: how has the United States gained influence globally through settler colonialism, territorial government, military interventions, counterinsurgency, the rule of experts, military bases, and U.S. global markets? What is the relationship of enslavement and debt in the context of the Americas? How have scholars in a variety of fields, including particularly history, anthropology, and interdisciplinary queer, feminist, ethnic, and American Studies, shed light on how gender, racialization, and sexuality are configured and reconfigured in relationship to US empire? This seminar will be reading-intensive.

WGSS 692J/392J – Feminisms and Environmental Justice
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Kiran Asher

WGSS 693W/493W (also ANTHRO 693W) - Worlds of Migration
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Svati Shah

This seminar takes an expansive view of migration, beginning with readings from archaeology, physical anthropology and antiquity, all of which show that humans have always traveled great distances, for resources, because of climate disturbances, and for reasons that are yet to be understood. Indeed, migration has been a consistent feature and “producer” of human existence. Taking human migration as the norm rather than the exception, we will examine when, how and why “nativism” and reactionary discourses of ethnic and racialized citizenship began imagining a different view of migration to the one we find in the records of human history. Readings on contemporary migration will focus on India, South Africa, Greece, Australia and the US, all of which have had intense debates on questions of nation, sexuality, race and labor in recent years. Theoretically, we will rely on critiques of migration that emphasize temporality, political economy and postcoloniality, especially with respect to understanding borders and how they are surveilled and enforced. Our readings and discussions will expand the terrain of what counts as “migration”, why certain forms of human movement across great distances are not thought of as “migration” at all, and why legal and policy debates around the world tend to focus on cross-border migration, often at the expense of equally important discussions of domestic, “circular” and seasonal migrations that people everywhere undertake as a means of survival.

WGSS 791B – Feminist Theory
Tuesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
~~Fumi Okiji~~ Angie Willey

ART-HIS 697R/397R – Women in Architecture
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Margaret Vickery

ECON 797GS - Gender, Sexuality, Work and Pay: Empirical Perspectives
Tuesday 9:00-11:30 a.m.
Lee Badgettt

See department for description.

EDUC 621B – Race, Class and Gender in Higher Education
Wednesday 400-6:30 p.m.
Benita Barnes

The goal of this course is to explore the multiple sociocultural factors that influence the success of students and ask fundamental questions about the relationship between higher education and society. Why do some students learn more and "get further ahead" than others? Why do some students get more involved in co-curricular activities than others? What factors shape how institutions are run and organized, who attends four-year vs. two-year institutions, and what curricular materials are taught?

EDUC 624 – Contemporary & Historical Constructions of Social Justice Education
Tuesday 1:00-3:30 p.m.
Ximena Zuniga

Theoretical issues related to manifestations of oppression with focus on social constructions of race, gender and sexuality, and disability.

EDUC 752 – Gender Issues in International Education
UWW Class
Jacqui Mosselson

Impact of national economic and social development on women’s roles and status especially in Third World countries. Analysis of educational strategies for promoting equal participation of women in this process.

POLISCI 795E – Activism, Participation and Protest
Tuesday 5:30-8:00 p.m.
Sonia Alvarez

This course examines the multiple, often competing, ways in which scholars have theorized how diverse kinds of collective actors both shape and are (re)shaped by politics. Drawing on select case studies, principally from Latin America, Europe, and the U.S., and varied theoretical approaches from a range of disciplines - including not only several subfields in Political Science, but also Sociology, Anthropology, Feminist Studies, Geography, African Diaspora Studies, History, Cultural Studies, and more- we will explore the following questions, centered on Activism, Participation, and Protest (APP, for our purposes): What does political activism look like? How do we know it when we see it? What does activism entail? (e.g. demonstrating, protesting, signing petitions, canvassing, doing graffiti, engaging in civil disobedience, drafting policy briefs, living alternatively, running for office, crashing windows) How/when/why does one form/modality of APP shift to another? (e.g. protest to participation) Where does APP happen? In the streets, in civil society, in participatory institutions, on the internet, elsewhere, all of the above? What forms of collective action/activism constitute what 20th century social science called "social movements"? Are other concepts available to characterize today's activism? What frameworks might we need to develop to better apprehend contemporary forms of APP? What modalities of APP are most effective, why, and to what ends? When and how does collective action shift scales, from local, to national, to global and (sometimes) back again? How and why do contemporary protests/mobilizations emerge? What is the role of the larger political, organizational, discursive environment in that emergence? How and why do they decline, "fail," or end? Do they have "afterlives"? If so, what are their effects? How do we assess APP success? APP failure? How does the policing/militarization and criminalization of protest affect mobilizational outcomes? How do shifting concepts and discourses regarding diverse forms of collective action reflect changing theoretical and political agendas in different disciplinary arenas and on national, regional and transnational scales?

SUMMER/FALL 2020 UWW (ONLINE) COURSES

WGSS Majors and Minors must focus their papers or projects on WGSS topics to count courses listed as "component." 100-level courses only count toward the minor. All other courses listed 200-level and above may count towards the minor. Registration

WGSS 187 – Gender, Sexuality and Culture
Adina Giannelli
Summer Sessions 1 and 2 (Session 2 cancelled)

WGSS 292S – The Cultural Politics of Pandemics
Kirsten Leng
Summer Session 2

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has shed light—often harsh light—upon the realities of life in 2020. It has exposed the implications of the decades-long rollback of social and economic welfare programs; the vulnerability of globally-interconnected economic systems premised on free markets and entrepreneurship; the gendered and raced division of productive and reproductive labour; and the perennial racist and xenophobic impulses that seek to scapegoat a crisis. COVID-19 has also raised questions about the nature of community and compassion, the importance of interpersonal relationships, the meaning of freedom in public health emergencies, and the ethics of collective responsibility, particularly for the most vulnerable among us. In The Cultural Politics of Pandemics, we will explore all of these issues, using COVID-19 as a launching point but broadening out to consider pandemics of the past. Materials will include theoretical and historical texts regarding health and pandemics, contemporary journalistic coverage, and cultural works including novellas, graphic novels, and films.

WGSS 295M - Making Monsters: Gender, Race and Monstrosity From Mary Shelley to the Walking Dead
Laura Ciolkowski
Summer Session 2

From Frankenstein's monster to the Walking Dead the figure of the monster has always been a powerful presence, threatening social order, unsettling racial divisions and sexual norms, inciting fear and desire, and complicating our understanding of Nature and the Human. In this course we will grapple with the representation of monstrosity in literature, art, and classic and contemporary film. Approaching the figure of the monster through the interdisciplinary and intersectional lens of social justice feminism, gender and sexuality studies, and critical race theory, we will ask how monstrosity is represented and defined at various moments in history, what sociocultural and political purposes are served, and how the transgressive figure of the monster helps us to discipline, organize, and also reimagine fundamental aspects of ourselves and the world around us. How do monsters help us to classify, regulate, and also refigure what (and who) gets to count as Human? What do monsters reveal for us about our complicated investments in cultural norms, our nuanced relationships to racialized and sexualized “difference,” and the desire to reinvent our universe and ourselves otherwise? Course materials may include: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Katherine Dunn, Geek Love; Octavia Butler, Fledgling; William Shakespeare, The Tempest; Angela Carter, Black Venus; the art of Kara Walker and Romare Bearden; and film and video, including Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us; episodes from The Walking Dead and Black Mirror; Monsters, Inc.; and Nosferatu.

WGSS 395G – Gender, Sexuality, Race and the Law: Critical Interventions
Adina Giannelli
Summer Session 1

Drawing on U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence, gender and sexuality studies, sociological literature, policy papers, documentary, and international law, we will examine the ways in which gender, sexuality, and race are constructed, contested, and regulated within legal, legislative, and juridical frameworks, across systems, spaces, and temporalities. Throughout this course, we will consider what the law is, what it does, how it operates to uphold systems of power and oppression and how it can be deployed in the service of intervention. More relevant issues and problems within civil rights will be considered including: constitutional, family, and criminal law; the legal construction of race, gender, and sexuality; feminist approaches to the law of gender, sexuality, and race; the role of privacy, morality, and "rights" in the regulation of sexuality and the family; reproductive rights; adoption, bioethics, family formation, immigration, reproductive technologies, and violence; and finally, the relationship between legal intervention, critical race & feminist theory, activism, and praxis.

ANTHRO 106 – Culture Through Film
Justin Helepololei
Summer Session 1
Component

Exploration of different societies and cultures, and of the field of cultural anthropology through the medium of film. Ethnographic and documentary films; focus on gender roles, ethnicity, race, class, religion, politics, and social change. (Gen.Ed. SB, DG)

ANTHRO 258 – Food and Culture
Dana Conzo
Summer Session 2
Component

COMM 284 – Possible Futures: SciFi Cinema
Kevin Anderson
Summer Session 1
Component

There are multiple growing concerns regarding issues of climate, class, race, gender identity, and the nature of democracy in our contemporary world. Science fiction has proven to be a thought-provoking genre to help raise awareness to many of these social and environmental issues. This course takes a global perspective on such pressing issues by examining science fiction films from around the world. As such, the course uses science fiction films as primary texts, accompanied by weekly readings. Students will engage in a critical analysis of the assigned films and readings in order to better appreciate what we can begin to anticipate regarding our future. (Gen. Ed. SB, DG)

COMM 287 -Advertising as Social Communication
Sut Jhally
Summer Session 2
Component

This course looks at how the industries of media and public relations have been used as instruments of social control and propaganda by economic and political elites. Examined will be the following: the historical roots of the public relations industry in government propaganda efforts; the contemporary influence of the public relations industry on public debate of social issues; the role of public relations in distorting discussion of the military/industrial complex; the effects of structuring media systems around the needs of advertisers; the role of media and public relations in how the public understands both domestic and international issues (such as war).

COMM 288 – Gender, Sex and Representation
Sut Jhally
Summer Session 1

COMM 336 – Consumer Culture
Emily West
Summer Session 2
Component

The mass media are frequently criticized for their role in creating or perpetuating materialism and a consumer culture. This course will consider different theoretical and disciplinary approaches to understanding our consumer culture and the mass media's place in it. Topics will include the influence of advertisers on a media environment that promotes consumption; the experience of shopping; the exercise of taste through consumption; the relationship between consumerism, citizenship, and patriotism; consumer rights; and the meaning of consumption for economically disadvantaged groups.

EDUC 210 – Social Diversity in Education
Warren Blumenfeld
Summer Session 1
Component

Focus on issues of social identity, social and cultural diversity, and societal manifestations of oppression. Draws on interdisciplinary perspectives of social identity development, social learning theory, and sociological analyses of power and privilege within broad social contexts. (Gen.Ed. I, DU)

ENGLISH 132 – Gender, Sexuality, Literature and Culture
Summer Session 1 - Leslie Leonard
Summer Session 2 – Hazel Gedikli

FRENCHST – Love and Sex in French Culture
Patrick Mensah
Summer Session 1
Component

Course taught in English. This course offers a broad historical overview of the ways in which love and erotic behavior in French culture have been represented and understood in the arts, especially in Literature and, more recently, in film, from the middle ages to the twentieth century. (Gen. Ed. AL)

HISTORY 160 – Social Change in the 1960s
Julia Sandy-Bailey
Summer Session 2
Component

Few periods in United States history experienced as much change and turmoil as the "Long Sixties" (1954-1975), when powerful social movements overhauled American gender norms, restructured the Democratic and Republican parties, and abolished the South's racist "Jim Crow" regime. This course examines the movements that defined this era. We will explore the civil rights and Black Power movements; the student New Left and the antiwar movement; the women's and gay liberation movements; struggles for Asian American, Chicano/a, Native American, and Puerto Rican freedom; as well as the rise of conservatism. Throughout the semester, we will assess Sixties social movements' ideals, strategies, and achievements, and their ongoing influence upon U.S. politics, society, and culture. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

HISTORY 264 – History of Health Care and Medicine in the U.S.
Emily Hamilton
Summer Session 2
Component

HISTORY 265 – US and LGBT and Queer History
Shay Olmstead
Summer Session 1

This course explores how queer individuals and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities have influenced the social, cultural, economic, and political landscape in United States history. With a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the course covers topics such as the criminalization of same-sex acts, cross-dressing, industrialization and urbanization, feminism, the construction of the homo/heterosexual binary, transsexuality and the "lavender scare" during the Cold War, the homophile, gay liberation, and gay rights movements, HIV/AIDS, and (im)migration. We will often look to examples from the present to better explore change over time and the modes and influences that shape both current and past understandings of gender and sexual difference. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

POLISCI 395F – Women and Politics
Sarah Tanzi
Summer Session 2

PUBHLTH 340 – LGBTQ Health
Kelsey Jordan
Summer Session 2

This course is about the unique health needs and health disparities within the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) communities, and among the individuals who make up each of these communities. We will learn about gender identity and sexual orientation development in kids and young adults, sexual health, global perspectives, strategies for improving the healthcare experience of LGBT people (e.g., patient-centered and compassionate care), barriers to accessing health care, and many other relevant topics. This is an important course for public health students, because it teaches more than just the facts, but also skills for creating a compassionate and inclusive environment for vulnerable populations. (Gen. Ed. SB, DU)

PUBHLTH 370 – Public Health Through the Ages: A History of Public Health Practice in the United Stages
Kelsey Jordan
Summer Session 1
Component

This course will provide emerging public health professionals with an overview of the historical evolution of the field of public health, from Hippocrates to war and industrialization; from the sanitary movement, quarantine, and the development of public health boards; to the ethical concerns linked to the management and control of disease and promotion of health. In the second half of the semester, we will use the example of maternal and reproductive health to illustrate some of the underlying tensions in current public health research and programming. Enhancing student’s understanding of the history of public health will provide essential perspectives on current public health events and concerns to both inform and strengthen approaches to improving overall health.

PUBHLTH 389 – Health Inequities
Torin Moore
Summer Session 2
Component

SOCIOL 106 – Race, Gender, Class and Ethnicity
Juyeon Park
Summer Session 1

Introduction to Sociology. Analysis of the consequences of membership in racial, gender, class and ethnic groups on social, economic and political life. (Gen. Ed. SB, DU)

SOCIOL 222 – The Family
Whitney Russell
Summer Session 1
component

SOCIOL 224 – Social Class and Inequality
Skylar Davidson
Summer Session 2
Component

SOCIOL 244 – Conformity and Deviance
Jennifer Abrams
Summer Session 2
Component

SOCIOL 397AM – Asylums, Madness and Mental Illness in American Culture
Janice Irvine
Summer Session 1
Component

This course uses the rise and fall of the asylum movement to examine shifting ideas about "mental illness" and its treatment, from the mid-19th century to the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1970s. Born of a utopian spirit dedicated to healing minds broken by the modern world, insane asylums devolved into "theaters of madness" where "lunatics" were stigmatized and warehoused. Race, gender, class, and sexuality shaped how mental illness has been conceptualized and treated over a pivotal century in American culture. Using sociological research and popular culture - such as films, novels, and television - we examine the asylum as a type of social control, and mid-20th century criticisms of asylums as "total institutions."

UWW 397SV – Sexual Violence
Lisa Fontes
Session 2

This course explores sexual violence in the United States from psychological, sociological, public health, feminist, legal, historical, and criminal justice perspectives. It addresses the sexual victimization of teenagers and adults of all genders in a variety of social contexts, using an anti-oppression framework. The course also focuses on ways to make sexual violence prevention and intervention services better suited to culturally diverse people.

FALL 2020 UWW (ONLINE) COURSES

WGSS 290C – History of Sexuality and Race in the U.S.
Kirsten Leng

ANTHRO 258 – Food and Culture
Dana Conzo
component

See Spire for description.

COMP-LIT 231 – Comedy
Juan Carlos Pons
Component

COMP-LIT 339 - International Crime, Mystery and Detective Fiction
Jaquelyn Southern
component

Through suspenseful narratives, crime fiction develops the meanings and envisions the social locations of crime and punishment, good and evil, and order and disorder. In this course, we will explore this genre?s thematics, protagonists, and rhetorics of place as ways of problematizing social identity (class, gender, race, ethnicity, indigeneity, sexuality), morality, and the limits of transgression. We will compare the narratives, tropes, and characteristic figures of related genres such as the early social survey and muckraking journalism (such as Henry Mayhew and Jacob Riis). We will also ask how the genre has traveled and been reimagined and reinterpreted in popular culture as radio, film, television, plays, visual culture, and licensed products. We will read selected classic and contemporary crime fiction authors from around the world, including novels, novellas, and short stories. (Gen. Ed. AL, DG)

EDUC 210 - Social Diversity in Education
Warren Blumenfeld
component

EDUC 752 – Gender Issues in International Education
UWW Class
Jacqui Mosselson

ENGLISH 132 – Gender, Sexuality, Literature and Culture
Sean Gordon

HISTORY 154 - Social Change in the 1960s
Julia Sandy-Bailey
component

HISTORY 264 - History of Health Care in the U.S.
Emily Hamilton
component

PUBHLTH 372 – Maternal and Child Health in the Developing World
Kelsey Jordan

SOCIOL 397GF – Gender, Crime and Families
Sarah Becker

Families are a major social institution that operate as a cornerstone of human experiences. They also deeply impact broader social structures due to their central position as an arbiter between individuals and an array of other institutions such as communities, schools, and the criminal justice system. In this course, we examine the interrelationship between gender, crime, and families. Doing so provides an opportunity for nuanced engagement with existing social science research on gender and crime and how that relationship impacts and is shaped by family/families.

Five Colleges

Amherst

SWAG 208/BLST 345/ENG 276/FAMS 379 – Black Feminist Literary Traditions
Tuesday, Thursday 11:50-1:10 p.m.
Aneeka Henderson

Through a close reading of texts by African American authors, we will critically examine the characterization of female protagonists, with a specific focus on how writers negotiate literary forms alongside race, gender, sexuality, and class in their work. Coupled with our explication of poems, short stories, novels, and literary criticism, we will explore the stakes of adaptation in visual culture. Students will analyze the film and television adaptations of twentieth-century fiction. Authors will include Toni Morrison, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Walker, and Gloria Naylor. Expectations include three writing projects, a group presentation, and various in-class assignments.

SWAG 235/BLST 236 – Black Sexualities
Tuesday, Thursday 3:50-5:10 p.m.
Khary Polk

From the modern era to the contemporary moment, the intersection of race, gender, and class has been especially salient for people of African descent—for men as well as for women. How might the category of sexuality act as an additional optic through which to view and reframe contemporary and historical debates concerning the construction of black identity? In what ways have traditional understandings of masculinity and femininity contributed to an understanding of African American life and culture as invariably heterosexual? How have black lesbian, gay, and transgendered persons effected political change through their theoretical articulations of identity, difference, and power? In this interdisciplinary course, we will address these questions through an examination of the complex roles gender and sexuality play in the lives of people of African descent. Remaining attentive to the ways black people have claimed social and sexual agency in spite of systemic modes of inequality, we will engage with critical race theory, black feminist thought, queer-of-color critique, literature, art, film, “new media” and erotica, as well as scholarship from anthropology, sociology, and history.

SWAG 249/THDA 240 – Contemporary Fashion in a Historical Perspective
Tuesday, Thursday 3:40-5:10 p.m.
Suzanne Dougan

Using a seminar format, this course will ask students to choose a topic and explore the relationship between culture and clothing in historical context, addressing issues of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality and their connection to the aesthetics of self-expression. In addition, students will develop their own contemporary fashion ideas and participate in labs, conducted by Emily Hoem, professional cutter draper for the Theater and Dance Department, who will teach the necessary technical skills needed to fabricate a garment. This course will be conducted in a hybrid format, with both in-person and on-line components as needed, supported by appropriate technology. Options for online-only participation will be available for those students unable to participate in person.

SWAG 256 – Performance of Identity in the College Classroom
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:20 a.m.
Riley Caldwell-O’Keefe

~~See department for a description.~~

SWAG 263 – Trans Theories of Race
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Stephen Dillon

The slogan "black trans lives matter" has circulated widely in the last half-decade to describe the historical erasure and violence experienced by transgender people of color. What historical intersections between gender and race gave rise to this slogan? How can we think of race as inseparable for trans politics and transgender studies? This course examines the history of the political, economic, and epistemological connections between race and transgender politics. Focusing on the United States, we will examine how normative conceptions of gender and sexuality emerged out of histories of settler-colonization, enslavement, racial science, and racist law. With a firm historical grounding, we will then explore contemporary issues such as immigrant detention, labor politics, bathroom bills, media representation, transgender rights and resistance, hormones, and much more. Students are expected to have some familiarity with theories and histories of race, gender, and sexuality. Students should also be prepared to engage a variety of written texts ranging from poetry, historical documents, and memoir to dense, difficult theoretical essays.

SWAG 310/ARHA 385/EUST 385 – Witches, Vampires and Other Monsters
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Natasha Staller

This course will explore the construction of the monstrous, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate the varied forms of monstrous creatures, their putative powers, and the explanations given for their existence—as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they share. Among the artists to be considered are Valdés Leal, Velázquez, Goya, Munch, Ensor, Redon, Nolde, Picasso, Dalí, Kiki Smith, and Cindy Sherman.

SWAG 329/BLST 377/ENGL 368 – Bad Black Women
Monday, Wednesday 2:00-3:20 p.m.
Aneeka Henderson

History has long valorized passive, obedient, and long-suffering African American women alongside assertive male protagonists and savants. This course provides an alternative narrative to this representation by exploring the ways in which African American female characters, writers, and artists have challenged ideals of stoicism and submission. Using an interdisciplinary focus, we will critically examine transgression across time and space in diverse twentieth- and early twenty-first century literary, sonic, and visual texts. Expectations include three writing projects, a group presentation, and various in-class assignments.

SWAG 342/FREN 342 – Women of Ill Repute: Prostitutes in Nineteenth Century French Literature
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:10-11:00 a.m.
Laurie Katsaros

Prostitutes play a central role in nineteenth-century French fiction, especially of the realistic and naturalistic kind. Both widely available and largely visible in nineteenth-century France, prostitutes inspired many negative stereotypes. But, as the very product of the culture that marginalized her, the prostitute offered an ideal vehicle for writers to criticize the hypocrisy of bourgeois mores. The socially stratified world of prostitutes, ranging from low-ranking sex workers to high-class courtesans, presents a fascinating microcosm of French society as a whole. We will read selections from Honoré de Balzac, Splendeur et misère des courtisanes; Victor Hugo, Les Misérables; and Gustave Flaubert, L’éducation sentimentale; as well as Boule-de-Suif and other stories by Guy de Maupassant; La fille Elisa by Edmond de Goncourt; Nana by Emile Zola; Marthe by Joris-Karl Huysmans; La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils; and extracts from Du côté de chez Swann by Marcel Proust. Additional readings will be drawn from the fields of history (Alain Corbin, Michelle Perrot) and critical theory (Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva). We will also discuss visual representations of prostitutes in nineteenth-century French art (Gavarni, Daumier, C. Guys, Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec). Conducted in French.

SWAG 365/ENGL 372 – Reading the Romance
Tuesday 1:00-3:45 p.m.
Krupa Shandilya

Do people the world over love in the same way, or does romance mean different things in different cultures? What happens when love violates social norms? Is the “romance” genre an escape from real-world conflicts or a resolution of them? This course analyzes romantic narratives from across the world through the lens of feminist theories of sexuality, marriage, and romance. We will read heterosexual romances such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, alongside queer fiction such as Sarah Waters’ Fingersmiths and Radclyffe Hall’s Well of Loneliness. We will also pay attention to the Western romantic-comedy film, the telenovela and the Bollywood spectacular.

SWAG 372/AMST 370 – Indigenous Feminisms
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:20 a.m.
Jennifer Hamilton

This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Indigenous feminisms, and explores how questions of sex, gender, and sexuality have been articulated in relation to concerns such as sovereignty, colonization, and imperialism. We will explore how Indigenous feminists engage with or challenge other modes of feminist thought and activism. We will focus on how Indigenous ways of knowing and being can challenge how we conduct research and produce knowledge. While we will concentrate on work produced within the context of Native North America, we will also be attentive to transnational dimensions of Indigenous feminist histories, political movements, and world-building. Specific topics include movements to recognize missing and murdered Indigenous women; Indigenous feminist science and technology studies; and, Indigenous futurisms.

SWAG 380/HIST 380/AMST 380 – Women of Color and the Emergence of U.S. Third World Feminist Left
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:20 a.m.
Lili Kim

This research seminar investigates the active role taken by Asian American women and other women of color in the emergence of the U.S. Third World Feminist Left during the 1960s and 1970s. This movement saw ending imperialism and colonialism as a necessary part of their fight against racism, sexism, and capitalism in the United States and beyond and drew inspiration from Third World feminism and decolonization activities. Third World feminism posits that women's activisms in the Third World do not originate from the ideologies of the First World and specifically centers Third World women's radicalism in their local/national contexts and struggles. Organizations such as the Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA) in New York City, which grew out of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), brought together Black, Puerto Rican, and Asian American women in the socialist fight to end imperialism, sexism, capitalism, and racism. The images of revolutionary Third World women engaged in anti-colonial struggles in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, especially during the Vietnam War era, inspired U.S.-based feminists of color and helped them embrace leftist Third World solidarity politics. Students will utilize the rich archival sources found in the Sophia Smith Collection (TWWA records, Miriam Ching Yoon Louie papers, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum papers) as well as the Triple Jeopardy newspapers found in the Marshall I. Bloom papers at the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections to produce a 12-15-page research paper and will publicly present their collective work

SWAG 400/POSC 407 – Contemporary Debates: Gender, Exile and Belonging
Wednesday 2:00-4:45 p.m.
Krupa Shandilya

In the context of the current immigration crisis worldwide, the current iteration of this
seminar will explore the way concepts of home, belonging, exile and citizenship are gendered. Who belongs to a nation? What impact do race, religion, gender, sexuality, and class have on how nations mark citizenship? Topics include cultural conservatism, Islamophobia, and anti-immigrant sentiments that mold the discourses of citizenship and belonging. The seminar will place South Asia in a comparative context, drawing on case studies from other nations (including Hong Kong, Vietnam, Nigeria and Haiti) of the global south. Texts include Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah, Edward Said’s Reflections on Exile, Mohsin Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer among others

SWAG 436/HIST 436 – Race, Gender, Sexuality in the Military
Tuesday 1:00-3:45 p.m.
Jen Manion

This course introduces students to critical theories of difference in thinking and writing about the past. We will read major works that chart the history of the very concepts of race, gender, and sexuality. We will explore how these ideas were both advanced and contested by various groups over the years by reading primary sources such as newspaper articles, personal letters, court records, and organizational papers. Movements for women’s rights, racial justice, and LGBTQ liberation have dramatically shaped these debates and their implications. In particular, feminist theory, critical race theory, and queer theory provide powerful arguments about how we formulate research questions, what constitutes a legitimate archive, and why writing history matters. Students will learn to identify and work with an archive to craft a major research paper in some aspect of U.S. history while engaging the relevant historic arguments about race, gender, and/or sexuality.

Hampshire

CSI 256 - Beyond the Bomb: Rethinking Population and the Environment in an Era of Climate Change
Monday 1:00-3:50 p.m.
Anne Hendrixson
Component

Population bomb ideology and imagery deeply influence environmentalism. In this class, we will draw from feminist scholars, critical race theorists, and social justice advocates to challenge both the idea of "overpopulation" and the concepts, like eugenics, that underpin commonly held understandings of the "environment." From the 1948 environmental bestseller, Our Plundered Planet, to today's "family planning for the planet" campaign, we will critically analyze calls for population reduction in order to maintain wild spaces, feed the planet, support biodiversity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and control violent conflict. We will learn from reproductive, environmental and climate justice approaches that address environmental issues while fighting for social justice and human rights. Throughout the class, we will rethink the relationship between people and the environment, particularly in relation to climate change.

CSI 262 – Global Migrations: Bodies, Borders, Documents
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Margaret Cerullo
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Millions of people are living outside the borders of their home countries as expatriates, migrant workers or transnational managers of the global economic order, as refugees, displaced persons fleeing violence and persecution, and as people without papers. Bodies are thus a key part of the package of the multiple transborder flows of globalization, and they are produced, differentiated and understood through discourses of citizenship, national security, and universal human rights that are frequently at odds. The course will investigate critical questions about the relations of power at issue in technologies of citizenship, surveillance, exclusion and resistance in an effort to understand the condition of being out of place in a globalized yet still strongly territorial world of nation-states.

CSI 357 – Black and Asian American Solidarities
Thursday 1:00-4:00 p.m.
Lili Kim

In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic that laid bare the inequalities of our society and the recent murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans, alliances between communities of color have never been so critically important. This course examines the history of Black and Asian American feminist solidarities and activisms in their fight against racism, sexism, capitalism, and imperialism. The course will begin with the history of Anti-Asian violence in the United States that dates back to1850s when the Chinese people arrived on the West Coast during the Gold Rush, and focus on the height of Asian American and Black feminist activism in the long 1960s. The emergence of the U.S. Third World Feminist Left during the 1960s and 1970s saw ending imperialism and colonialism as a necessary part of their fight and drew inspiration from Third World feminism and decolonization activities. The images of revolutionary Third World women engaged in anti-colonial struggles in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, especially during the Vietnam War era, inspired U.S.-based feminists of color and helped them embrace leftist Third World solidarity politics. Organizations such as the Third World Women's Alliance (TWWA) in New York city, which grew out of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), brought together Black, Puerto Rican, and Asian American women in the socialist fight to end imperialism, sexism, capitalism, and racism. Utilizing the rich archival sources found in the Sophia Smith Collection (TWWA records, Miriam Ching Yoon Louie papers, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum papers) as well as the Triple Jeopardy newspapers found in the Marshall I. Bloom papers at the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, students will have an opportunity to work together to produce a substantial research project.

CSI 271 – Creating Families
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Marlene Fried/Pamela Stone

This course investigates the roles of law, culture and technology in creating and re-defining families. We focus on the ways in which systems of reproduction reinforce and/or challenge inequalities of class, race and gender. We examine the issues of entitlement to parenthood, domestic and international adoption, surrogacy, birthing and parenting for people in prison, and the uses, consequences and ethics of new reproductive technologies designed to help people give birth to biologically-related children. Questions to be addressed include: What is family? How does a person's status affect their relation to reproductive alternatives? What is the relationship between state reproductive policies and actual practices, legal, contested, and clandestine, that develop around these policies? How are notions of family and parenting enacted and transformed in an arena that is transnational, interracial, intercultural, and cross-class?

HACU 242 - Sample! Remix! Mash!: The Cultural Logic of Appropriation
Tuesday, Thursday 10:30-11:50 a.m.
Suzanne Loza
Component

This seminar delves into the dynamics, debates, and desires that drive pop fandom. In this class, we ask: What is fan culture? Does it build community? Are fans different from other consumers? What are the ethics and politics of fandom? What are the aesthetic, social, and legal ramifications of fan-produced forms such as mash-ups, remixes, youtube videos, and fanfic/slash that borrow, customize, and reinterpret pop commodities? How do such textual appropriations call into question the boundaries between high and low, production and consumption, intellectual property and fair use? Do fan-produced forms challenge or reinforce Romantic notions of authorship and authenticity? Particular attention will be paid to: the queering of heterosexist pop texts; the racialized and sexualized construction of masculinity and femininity; the politics of sampling, remixing, and mashing; and the role of the Internet, blogs, and social networking technologies in fan culture.

HACU 271 – Planet on Fire: Reimagining The Future of the World
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:50 p.m.
Jennifer Bajorek
Component

The desire to save our planet from imminent destruction is shared by growing numbers of people all over the world. Yet debates about climate change, environmental disaster, mass extinction, and possible solutions to them continue to be framed by discourses that have their roots in capitalist, imperialist, and patriarchal worldviews. This course examines critical and creative approaches to sustainability and extinction that challenge us to go beyond these frames. Through readings in philosophy, literature, art, environmental humanities, and social science, we will look at histories, thought systems, and imagined worlds that teach us to understand the past, present, and future of the planet differently and that offer radical new possibilities for imagining what Anna Tsing calls "the promise of cohabitation," or life on earth. Topics to include ecofeminism, queer ecologies, and global indigeneity; climate apartheid, resource wars, and the climate refugee; regenerative agriculture, food justice, and sustainability in prisons.

HACU 274 – Cuba: Nation, Race, and Revolution
Monday, Wednesday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Michelle Hardesty
component

This interdisciplinary course critically engages a range of frameworks (geopolitical, historical, sociological, literary, cultural) to study the complex and contested reality of Cuba. The course will begin by critiquing and decentering the stereotypical images of Cuba that circulate in U.S. popular and official culture. The first part of the course will focus on revolutions that have defined the nation in the context of colonialism and neocolonialism: the impact of the Haitian Revolution on colonial Cuba; the forging of cubanidad in the late-19th century revolutions for independence from Spain; and the victory of the 1959 Cuban Revolution that defied U.S. neocolonial power. From there, we will examine how intersecting constructions of race, gender, and sexuality have defined the Cuban after the 1959 revolution, during the Special Period, and more recently. We will also explore how Cuba should be understood in relation to the U.S. government, to the international Left, and to its diaspora. This course is open to all, though it is best suited to students beyond their first semester of study. The class will be conducted in English, with many readings available in Spanish and English. Additionally, for students wishing to apply for the Hampshire in Havana spring semester program, this course will offer critical foundational knowledge and application support. (Concurrent enrollment in a Spanish language class is strongly recommended for non-fluent speakers considering the Hampshire in Havana program.) (keywords: Latin American studies, history, cultural studies, literature, Cuba Exchange).

Mt. Holyoke

Mount Holyoke moved to a “flex/immersive” seminar/discussion style from 8/24/20-10/15/20 - this list is for the first mini-semester. See their website for more information or talk to someone in our Five College Exchange Office about taking courses. No information was available about their second mini-semester as of 10/16/20.

GNDST 204CR/LATST 204CR – Latinx/Indigeneties
Raquel Madrigal

An evolving field, Latina/o Studies has begun to critically and comparatively question the terms of Indigeneity in relation to Native communities in the U.S. land mass. This course seeks to understand the emergence of critical Latinx/Indigenous perspectives as they relate to Latinas/os/xes in the United States, and their uneven connections to various transnational forms of Indigeneity rooted in ancestral land-based ties in the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America. We will examine current discussions of Chicanidad, migrant Indigeneity, colonialisms, empire, and Indigenous sovereignty.

GNDST 204CW/ASIAN 215/FMT 230CW - Androgyny and Gender Negotiation in Contemporary Chinese Women's Theater
Ying Wang

Yue Opera, an all-female art that flourished in Shanghai in 1923, resulted from China's social changes and the women's movement. Combining traditional with modern forms and Chinese with Western cultures, Yue Opera today attracts loyal and enthusiastic audiences despite pop arts crazes. We will focus on how audiences, particularly women, are fascinated by gender renegotiations as well as by the all-female cast. The class will read and watch classics of this theater, including Romance of the Western Bower, Peony Pavilion, and Butterfly Lovers. Students will also learn the basics of traditional Chinese opera.

GNDST 204RP/LATST 250RP/CST 249RP - Race, Racism, and Power
Justin Crumbaugh

This course analyzes the concepts of race and racism from an interdisciplinary perspective, with focus on Latinas/os/x in the United States. It explores the sociocultural, political, economic, and historical forces that interact with each other in the production of racial categories and racial "difference." In particular, we focus on racial ideologies, racial formation theory, and processes of racialization, as well as the relationship between race and ethnicity. The course examines racial inequality from a historical perspective and investigates how racial categories evolve and form across contexts. The analysis that develops will ultimately allow us to think rigorously about social inequality, resistance and liberation.

GNDST 206WA/AFCNA 241WA/HST 296WA – West African Women in Their Own Words
Elisa Prosperetti

This course challenges students to consider how and why, following Ralph-Michel Trouillot, certain voices get "silenced" in the historical record. We study how women have both shaped history and been subject to its forces, though often in unexpected ways. This course is unique because we learn about women in 18th, 19th and 20th century West Africa through their own words. Students will encounter more than a dozen real and fictional African women: mighty queens, snide co-wives, shrewd traders, ingenious slaves, brilliant writers, and fierce activists. Engaging with their stories in multiple formats; students will study graphic novels, fiction, and memoir, in addition to academic works.

GNDST 210SL/RELIG 207/CST 249L – Women and Gender in Islam
Amina Steinfels

This course will examine a range of ways in which Islam has constructed women--and women have constructed Islam. We will study concepts of gender as they are reflected in classical Islamic texts, as well as different aspects of the social, economic, political, and ritual lives of women in various Islamic societies.

GNDST 212BW/CST 249BW - Black Women and the Politics of Survival
Riche Barnes

Contemporary Black women in Africa and the Diaspora are concerned with the sea of economic and political troubles facing their communities, and grappling with how to affirm their own identities while transforming societal notions of gender and family. In this course, we will explore the "intersectionality" of race, gender, sexuality, class, transnational identity; reproductive health; homophobia and heteronormativity, along with the effects of racism, unequal forms of economic development, and globalization on Black communities. The overall aim of this course is to link contemporary Black women's theory and practice to a history and tradition of survival and resistance.

GNDST 221QF - Feminist and Queer Theory
Christian Gundermann

We will read a number of key feminist texts that theorize sexual difference, and challenge the oppression of women. We will then address queer theory, an offshoot and expansion of feminist theory, and study how it is both embedded in, and redefines, the feminist paradigms. This redefinition occurs roughly at the same time (1980s/90s) when race emerges as one of feminism's prominent blind spots. The postcolonial critique of feminism is a fourth vector we will examine, as well as anti-racist and postcolonial intersections with queerness. We will also study trans-theory and its challenge to the queer paradigm.

GNDST 241HP/ANTHR 216HP - Feminist Health Politics
Jacquelyne Luce

Health is about bodies, selves and politics. We will explore a series of health topics from feminist perspectives. How do gender, sexuality, class, disability, and age influence the ways in which one perceives and experiences health and the access one has to health information and health care? Are heteronormativity, cissexism, or one's place of living related to one's health status or one's health risk? By paying close attention to the relationships between community-based narratives, activities of health networks and organizations and theory, we will develop a solid understanding of the historical, political and cultural specificities of health issues, practices, services and movements.

GNDST 333AE - Race, Gender and Sexual Aesthetics in the Global Era
Sarah Stefana Smith

Reading across a spectrum of disciplinary focuses (e.g. philosophies of aesthetics, post-structural feminisms, Black cultural studies, and queer of color critique) this course asks the question what is the nature of aesthetics when it negotiates modes of difference? This course explores the history and debates on aesthetics as it relates to race, gender, and sexuality with particular emphasis on Black diaspora theory and cultural production. Drawing on sensation, exhibitions, active discussion, observation, and experimentation, emphasis will be placed on developing a fine-tuned approach to aesthetic inquiry and appreciation.

GNDST 333AN/ENGL 366/CST 349AN - Love, Sex, and Death in the Anthropocene, or Living Through the Age of Climate Disaster
Katherine Singer

The "Anthropocene" has been defined as the era when humans exert change on the earth's climate, but this term has become a dynamo for theories, political discussions, and art about man's anthropocentric relation to the nonhuman world. This course will read theories of the Anthropocene alongside artistic contemplations of the shifting, ethical relations among humans, animals, and other beings of the world. How are we to live, die, and reproduce ourselves in a time when we have egregiously affected the earth? How does the critique of anthropocentrism shift our understanding of sex, gender, race, and the nonhuman? Finally, how does art speak within political conversations of climate change?

GNDST 333DH/ENGL 373DH - Desperate Housewives in 19th- through early 20th-century American Literature
Leah Glasser

This course will explore visual and literary images of nineteenth through early 20th-century marriage and motherhood. Discussion of Virginia's Woolf's 'A Room of One's Own' and Barbara Welter's essay 'The Cult of True Womanhood' will serve as the springboard for our focus on representations of women in the home. We will incorporate a visit to the art museum, and will analyze film adaptations of some of the texts we read. The course will focus primarily on American literature, film, and art, with the exception of Ibsen's A Doll's House; selected written texts will include works by writers such as Hawthorne, James, Stowe, Gilman, Freeman, Chopin, Hurston, and Wharton.

GNDST 333FM/CST 349FM/LATST 350FM – Latina Feminism(s)
Raquel Madrigal

What is Latina Feminism? How does it differ from and/or intersect with "other" feminisms? In this seminar, we will explore the relationship between Latina feminist theory, knowledge production, and social change in the United States. This interdisciplinary course explores Latina feminism in relation to methodology and epistemology through a historical lens. This will help us to better understand how Latina feminist approaches can inform our research questions, allow us to analyze women's experiences and women's history, and challenge patriarchy and gender inequality. We will explore topics related to knowledge production, philosophies of the "self," positionality, inequality, the body, reproductive justice, representation, and community. Our approach in this class will employ an intersectional approach to feminist theory that understands the interconnectedness between multiple forms of oppression, including race, class, sexuality, and ability. Our goal is to develop a robust understanding of how Latina feminist methodologies and epistemologies can be tools for social change.

GNDST 333FP/FREN 341FS - Women and Writing in French-Speaking Africa
Samba Gadjigo

This course explores writings by women in French-speaking Africa from its early beginnings in the late 1970s to the present. Special attention will be given to social, political, gender, and aesthetic issues.

GNDST 333PG/ANTHR 316PG - Who's Involved?: Participatory Governance, Emerging Technologies and Feminism
Jacquelyne Luce

Deep brain stimulation, genome sequencing, regenerative medicine...Exploring practices of ‘participatory governance' of emerging technologies, we will examine the formal and informal involvement of citizens, patients, health professionals, scientists and policy makers. What initiatives exist at local, national and transnational levels to foster science literacy? How do lived experiences of nationality, ability, class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality become visible and/or disappear within constructed frameworks of participatory governance? How can feminist ethnographic research and feminist theory contribute to a larger project of democratizing knowledge production and governance?

GNDST 333QF - Monogamy: Queer Feminism and Critical Relationality
Angie Willey

Grounded in queer, feminist, and decolonial concerns with social belonging, this class considers "monogamy" from a range of inter/disciplinary perspectives. From histories of marriage to sciences of mating to politics of polyamory, we will explore monogamy's meanings. Students will become familiar with debates about monogamy, a variety of critical approaches to reading and engaging them, and fields of resistance to a variety of "monogamy stories" within and beyond the academy. We will draw on critical engagements with the nuclear family and queer historicizations of sexuality, foregrounding the racial, national, and settler colonial formations that produce monogamy as we know it.

CST 249DD - Diversity, Inclusion, and Daily Democracy in US History
Mary Renda
component

How have Americans -- and those contending with America -- envisioned and reached for more just and inclusive communities? What historical circumstances have opened opportunities for more robust democratic forms to emerge in the face of oppression? We will consider structural barriers to meaningful inclusion, involving racism, wealth, poverty, property, citizenship, gender, sexuality, disability, and dissent, as well as efforts to overcome them through concerted action and cultural struggle in the arts and public humanities. What public stories shape our connections with one another? What can we learn about the possibilities for sustaining democracy through daily life and culture?

POLIT 233 – Introduction to Feminist Theory
Anna Daily

This course explores the overlapping dualities of the feminine and the masculine, the private and the public, the home and the world. We examine different forms of power over the body; the ways gender and sexual identities reinforce or challenge the established order; and the cultural determinants of 'women's emancipation.' We emphasize the politics of feminism, dealing with themes that include culture, democracy, and the particularly political role of theory and on theoretical attempts to grasp the complex ties and tensions between sex, gender, and power.

AFCNA 341TM/ENGL 350 – Toni Morrison
Carol Bailey

This course will examine the work and the centralized black world of the last American Nobel laureate in literature, Toni Morrison. Morrison is the author of eleven novels and multiple other works, including nonfiction and criticism. In a career that has spanned over forty years and has informed countless artists and writers, Morrison's expansive cultural reach can hardly be measured accurately. In this course we will endeavor to critically analyze the arc and the import of many of Morrison's writings. Readings include: The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Jazz, Playing in the Dark, Paradise, and A Mercy.

ENG 378 – Another World is Possible: Writing Utopias
Andrea Lawlor
component

How and why do narrative artists envision whole new worlds? What is the role of fantasy in social change? In this course we will investigate contemporary utopian fictions and their historical antecedents as models for our own utopian writing. We will encounter novels and films from various lineages, including Afrofuturist, anarchist, critical utopian, ecotopian, and feminist. Authors we may read include Sir Thomas More, Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel R. Delany, Ernest Callenbach, Octavia E. Butler, Walidah Imarisha, Roxane Gay, Ta Neheisi Coates, and Margaret Kiljoy. Interdisciplinary research and collaboration will make up a substantial portion of the work of the course.

Smith

SWG 200 – The Queer 90s
Jennifer DeClue

In this course we will immerse ourselves in the 1990s, looking specifically at the emergences and points of contention that made the ‘90s a queer, radical, deeply contested decade. The Queer 90s examines the moment in lesbian and gay studies when the recuperation of the term “queer” emerged. By engaging with the readings and films assigned in this course students will gain an understanding of the AIDS crisis and the rage that mobilized ACT UP. Students will learn what the Culture Wars, Welfare Reform, and the conservative attacks against the National Endowment for the Arts have to do with one another. In order to grasp the charged feeling, the urgency, the upheaval of this era we will read foundational queer theoretical texts and analyze a selection of films from the movement known as New Queer Cinema.

SWG 211 – Girls in the System: Gender, Youth and Justice
Adina Giannelli

This interdisciplinary course will consider the issue of gender, race, sexuality, and class in the juvenile justice system. Drawing on gender and sexuality studies, criminal justice, and sociological literature, social critiques, policy papers, case law, documentary film, personal narratives, and fiction, we will critically examine the history of the juvenile justice system; what it means to be in “the system”; the role of “justice” in the juvenile system; and review some of the major issues faced by the youth who are subject to this system. In addition, we will consider the role of youth action and resistance against the system.

SWG 227 – Feminist and Queer Disability Studies
Jina Boyong Kim

In the essay “A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer,” writer-activist Audre Lorde forges pioneering connections between the work of social justice and the environmental, gendered, and healthcare inequities that circumscribe black and brown lives. Following Lorde’s intervention, this course examines contemporary feminist/queer expressive culture, writing, and theory that centrally engages the category of dis/ability. It will familiarize students with feminist and queer scholarship that resists the medical pathologization of embodied difference; foreground dis/ability’s intersections with questions of race, class, and nation; and ask what political and social liberation might look like when able-bodiedness is no longer privileged.

SWG 241 – White supremacy in the Age of Trump
Tuesday, Thursday 3:15-4:30 p.m.
Loretta Ross

This course will analyze the history, prevalence, and current manifestations of the white supremacist movement by examining ideological components, tactics and strategies, and its relationship to mainstream politics. We will also research and discuss the relationship between white supremacy and white privilege, and explore how to build a human rights movement to counter the white supremacist movement in the U.S. Students will develop analytical writing and research skills, while engaging in multiple cultural perspectives. The overall goal is to develop the capacity to understand the range of possible responses to white supremacy, both its legal and extralegal forms.

SWG 267 – Queer Ecologies: Considering the Nature of Sexualized Identities
Evangeline Heiliger

What is learned by reading Queer Ecologies alongside Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood? What does Over the Hedge have to do with environmental racism (Hamilton)? In short, these texts ask us to consider what it means to have a racialized and sexualized identity shaped by relationships with environments. We will ask: How is nature gendered and sexualized? Why? How are analytics of power mobilized around, or in opposition to, nature? We will investigate the discursive and practical connections made between marginalized peoples and nature, and chart the knowledge gained by queering our conceptions of nature and the natural.

SWG 288/FRN 288 – Immigration and Sexuality in France and Europe
Mehammed Mack

This course analyzes the politics of sexuality in immigration debates in France and Europe, from the 1920s to the present. Students examine both cultural productions and social science texts: memoirs, psychoanalytical literature, activist statements, sociological studies, films, fashion, performance art, music videos, and dance forms. France has historically been the leading European host country for immigrants, a multiplicity of origins reflected in its current demographic make-up. Topics include: the hyper-sexualization of black, brown, and Muslim bodies, France as a Mediterranean culture, immigrant loneliness in Europe, intermarriage and demographic change, the veil and niqab, as well as sexual nationalism and homo-nationalism.

SWG 321- Marxist Feminism
Elisabeth Brownell Armstrong

Marxist feminism as a theory and a politics imagines alternate, liberatory futures and critiques present social orders. Beginning with a simple insight: capitalism relies on the class politics of unpaid, reproductive “women’s work,” Marxist feminists in the 19th century sought to imagine new social connections, sexualities, and desire to overthrow patriarchy, slavery, feudalism and colonialism. Today, queer of color & decolonial feminist theory, alongside abolition, environmental, and reproduction justice movements rejuvenate this tradition of Marxist feminism. This seminar will focus on theoretical writings from around the world to better understand radical social movements from the past and the present.

SWG 360 – Memoir Writing
Tuesday 1:40-4:30 p.m.
Cornelia Pearsall

How does one write a life, especially if it’s one’s own? This writing workshop addresses the profound complexities, challenges, and pleasures of the genre of the memoir, through intensive reading, discussion, and both analytical and creative writing. Our readings will be drawn from a range of mostly contemporary memoirists with intersectional identity locations—and dislocations—drawing from a range of voices, experiences, and representations, pursuing what the class comes to identify as our own most urgent aesthetic and ethical questions. Our attention will be to craft, both in the memoirs we read and those we write.

AFR 249 – Black Women Writers
Wednesday, Friday 1:10-2:35 p.m.
TBD

How does gender matter in a black context? That is the question we will ask and attempt to answer through an examination of works by such authors as Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Nella Larsen, Zora Hurston, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange and Alice Walker.

AFR 360/ENG 323 – Toni Morrison
Tuesday 1:20-4:00 p.m.
Daphne Lamothe

This seminar focuses on Toni Morrison’s literary production. In reading her novels, essays, lectures and interviews, we pay particular attention to three things: her interest in the epic anxieties of American identities; her interest in form, language, and theory; and her study of love.

ARH 278 – Race and Gender in the History of Photography
Kathleen Pierce

This course introduces the history of photography, emphasizing the ways photographs represent, mediate, construct, and communicate histories of race, gender, sex, sexuality, intimacy, and desire. We will study a variety of photographic images, from the dageurreotype to digital media, from ne arts photography to vernacular images. We will consider objects that have forged connections among loved ones, substantiated memories, or served as evidence, considering critical questions about photography’s relationship to identity, affect, knowledge production, and power. The course focuses on race and gender, and also attends closely to photography’s relationship to identity broadly speaking, including class, ability, and religion.

EAL 242 – Modern Japanese Literature
Kimberly Kono
component

A survey of Japanese literature from the late 19th century to the present. Over the last century and a half, Japan has undergone tremendous change: rapid industrialization, imperial and colonial expansion, occupation following its defeat in the Pacific War, and emergence as a global economic power. The literature of modern Japan reflects the complex aesthetic, cultural and political effects of such changes. Through our discussions of these texts, we also address theoretical questions about such concepts as identity, gender, race, sexuality, nation, class, colonialism, modernism and translation. All readings are in English translation.

ENG 275 – Witches, Witchcraft and Witch Hunts
Andrea Stephanie

This course has two central ambitions. First, it introduces themes of magic and witchcraft in (mostly) American literature and film. We work together to figure out how the figure of the witch functions in stories, novels and movies, what witches and witchcraft mean or how they participate in the texts’ ways of making meaning. At the same time, we try to figure out how witches and witchcraft function as loci or displacements of social anxiety—about power, science, gender, class, race and politics. Since the identification of witches and the fear of witchcraft often lead to witch panics, we finally examine the historical and cultural phenomenon of the witch hunt, including both the persecution of persons literally marked as witches and the analogous persecution of persons (Communists, sexual outsiders, etc.) figuratively “hunted” as witches have been. Open to students at all levels, regardless of major.

ESS 240 – Exercise and Sport for Social Change
Monday, Wednesday 10:50-12:05 p.m.
Erica Tibbetts
component

This class is designed for students who wish to understand more about the role sport and exercise can play in relation to social justice and civil rights movements, the way that current inequities influence who is able to participate in various types of sport/exercise, and methods for addressing these inequalities and injustices. Students will have the chance to learn about social justice and social change as they relate to the following topics: athlete activism, coaching, administration, participation, fairness, and non-profit community based and governmental level interventions.

FMS 248 – Women in American Cinema: Representation, Spectatorship, Authorship
Alexandra Linden Miller Keller

A survey of women in American films from the silent period to the present, examining: 1) how women are represented on film, and how those images relate to actual contemporaneous American society, culture, and politics; 2) how theoretical formulations, expectations, and realities of female spectatorship relate to genre, the star and studio systems (and other production and distribution modes), dominant and alternative codes of narration, and developments in digital and new media modes; and 3) how women as stars, writers, producers, and directors shape and respond to, work within and against, dominant considerations of how women look (in every sense).

FRN 230 – Banlieue Lit
Mehammad Mack
component

In this course, students study fiction, memoir, slam poetry and hip-hop authored by residents of France’s multi-ethnic suburbs and housing projects, also known as the "banlieues" and "cités". We examine the question of whether "banlieue" authors can escape various pressures: to become native informants; to write realistic rather than fantastical novels; to leave the “ghetto”; to denounce the sometimes difficult traditions, religions, neighborhoods and family members that have challenged but also molded them. Often seen as spaces of regression and decay, the "banlieues" nevertheless produce vibrant cultural expressions that beg the question: Is the "banlieue" a mere suburb of French cultural life, or more like one of its centers?

FRN 230 - French Calligraphies: Contemporary Chinese Women's Writing
Dawn Fulton

France is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in Western Europe. This course looks at how Francophone women writers and artists of Chinese origin critique and celebrate French culture in their work. Focusing on contemporary fiction, film, and graphic art, we consider the role of canonical French literature during the Cultural Revolution, portrayals of Sinophone cultures in France, and the relationship between language and stereotype. Through the lens of gendered and multigenerational immigration narratives, we also study such topics as translation, food, sexuality, and exile.

FRN 288/SWAG 288 – Immigration and Sexuality in France and Europe
Monday 4:50-5:40 p.m.
Mehammad Mack

This course functions as a French discussion course offered in conjunction with SWG 288. Students attend all sessions of SWG 288 and meet one additional hour per week to discuss the assigned texts, which they will read in the original French. Papers and assignments must also be written in French. Prerequisites: One course at or above FRN 250. French heritage speakers should contact the instructor.

GOV 233 – Problems in Political Development
Bozena Welbourne
component

This course explores the practical meaning of the term “development” and its impact on a range of global topics from the problems of poverty and income inequality to the spread of democracy, environmental degradation, urbanization and gender empowerment. We examine existing theories of economic development and consider how state governments, international donors and NGOs interact to craft development policy.

HST 258 – Modern Africa
Monday, Wednesday 9:20-10:35 p.m.
Jeffrey Ahlman
component

This course provides an introductory survey of African history under colonial rule and beyond. In doing so, the course offers students a framework for understanding the political, social and economic history of modern Africa by foregrounding the strategies African peoples employed as they made sense of and confronted their changing historical landscapes. Key subjects include the construction of the colonial state, African experiences with colonial rule, the dilemmas of decolonization and life in an independent Africa.

HST 263 – Women and Gender in Latin America
Diana Sierra Becerra

This course will use gender as an analytical lens to understand key themes and periods of Latin American history, from the pre-Columbian era to present-day neoliberalism. Drawing from a variety of methodological approaches, the course will illuminate how gender has shaped social relationships, institutions, identities, and discourses in the region. It will prioritize the role of women and how their individual and collective actions have impacted Latin America. Special attention will be paid to the racial and class differences among women, and their social movement participation.

HST 265 – Race, Gender and United States Citizenship, 1776-1861
Elizabeth Pryor

Analysis of the historical realities, social movements, cultural expression and political debates that shaped U.S. citizenship from the Declaration of Independence to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. From the hope of liberty and equality to the exclusion of marginalized groups that made whiteness, maleness and native birth synonymous with Americanness, . Hhow African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants and women harnessed the Declaration of Independence and its ideology to define themselves as citizens of the United States.

HST 267 – United States Since 1877
Paula Tarankow
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Survey of the major economic, political and social changes of this period, primarily through the lens of race, class and gender, to understand the role of ordinary people in shaping defining events, including industrial capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, mass immigration and migration, urbanization, the rise of mass culture, nationalism, war, feminism, labor radicalism, civil rights and other liberatory movements for social justice.

HST 286 – Historiographic Debates in the History of Gender and Sexuality
Darcy Buerkle

This course considers methodologies and debates in modern historical writing about gender and sexuality, with a primary focus on European history. Students develop an understanding of significant, contemporary historiographic trends and research topics in the history of women and gender.

HST 383 – Domestic Workers Organizing
Jennifer Guglieilmo
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This is an advanced research seminar in which students work closely with archival materials from the Sophia Smith Collection and other archives. This is an advanced research seminar in which students work closely with archival materials from the Sophia Smith Collection and other archives to explore histories of resistance, collective action and grassroots organizing among domestic workers in the United States, from the mid-18th century to the present. Domestic work has historically been done by women of color and been among the lowest paid, most vulnerable and exploited forms of labor. Your research will assist the National Domestic Workers Alliance, as they incorporate history into their political education curriculum and use history as an organizing tool in their current campaigns. Recommended: previous course in U.S. women’s history and/or relevant coursework in HST, SWG, AFR, SOC, LAS, etc.

LAS 201 – Caribbean Feminisms
Ginetta Candelario

This course will introduce students to the history and sociology of feminisms in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Course materials will include primary documents, secondary sources and historical fiction in English. However, students who are able to read Spanish will have the option of engaging with texts in that language.

MES 213 – Sex and Power in the Middle East
Susanna Ferguson

This course invites students to explore how sexuality has been central to power and resistance in the Middle East. When and how have empires, colonial powers, and nation states tried to regulate intimacy, sex, love, and reproduction? How have sexual practices shaped social life, and how have perceptions of these practices changed over time? The course introduces theoretical tools for the history of sexuality and explores how contests over sexuality, reproduction, and the body shaped empires, colonial states, and nationalist projects. Finally, we examine contemporary debates about sexuality as a basis for political mobilization in the Middle East today.

PSY 345 – Feminist Perspective on Psychological Science
Benita Sibia Jackson

In this advanced methods course, we study feminist empirical approaches to psychological research. The first part considers several key feminist empiricist philosophies of science, including positivist, experiential and discursive approaches. The second part focuses on conceptualizations of gender beyond difference-based approaches and their operationalization in recent empirical articles. The capstone will be an application of feminist perspectives on psychological science to two group projects-quantitative and qualitative, respectively-in the domain of health and well-being.

REL 227 – Women and Gender in Jewish History
TBD

An exploration of Jewish women’s changing social roles, religious stances and cultural expressions in a variety of historical settings from ancient to modern times. How did Jewish women negotiate religious tradition, gender and cultural norms to fashion lives for themselves as individuals and as family and community members in diverse societies? Readings from a wide range of historical, religious, theoretical and literary works in order to address examples drawn from Biblical and rabbinic Judaism, medieval Islamic and Christian lands, modern Europe, America and the Middle East. Students' final projects involve archival work in the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History.

SOC 213 – Race and National Identity in the United States
Vanessa Adel
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~~The sociology and history of a multiracial and ethnically stratified society. Comparative examinations of several U.S. racialized and ethnic groups~~

SOC 224 – Family and Society
William Cory Albertson
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This course examines social structures and meanings that shape contemporary family life. Students look at the ways that race, class and gender shape the ways that family is organized and experienced. Topics include the social construction of family, family care networks, parenthood, family policy, globalization and work.

SOC 229 – Sex and Gender in American Society
William Cory Albertson

An examination of the ways in which the social system creates, maintains and reproduces gender dichotomies with specific attention to the significance of gender in interaction, culture and a number of institutional contexts, including work, politics, families and sexuality.

SOC 236 – Beyond Borders: The New Global Political Economy
Tuesday, Thursday 1:20-2:35 p.m.
Payal Banerjee
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This course introduces students to the basic concepts and theories in global political economy. It covers the history of economic restructuring, global division of labor, development, North-South state relations, and modes of resistance from a transnational and feminist perspective. Issues central to migration, borders and security, health, and the environment are central to the course.

SOC 327 – Global Migration in the 21st Century
Payal Banerjee
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This seminar provides an in-depth engagement with global migration. It covers such areas as theories of migration, the significance of global political economy and state policies across the world in shaping migration patterns and immigrant identities. Questions about imperialism, post-colonial conditions, nation-building/national borders, citizenship, and the gendered racialization of immigration intersect as critical contexts for our discussions.

SOC 333 – Social Justice, the Environment and the Corporation
Leslie King
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Over the last century, the reach of corporations has gradually extended into all facets of our lives, yet most of us rarely stop to think about the corporation as a social entity. This course focuses on the social, economic and legal foundations that both shape its power and provide a dominant logic for its actions. We examine the implications of corporate power and processes for communities, workers and the environment. We also focus on the ways that governments and various social groups have sought to change corporate assumptions and behaviors concerning their social and environmental responsibilities.

SPN 230 – Creative Writing By and With Spanish Women Writers
Reyes Lazaro

This is a hinge course between beginning-intermediate and advanced-intermediate courses. Students read and practice creative writing (essays and pieces of fiction) with the aid of fictional and biographical pieces written by Spanish women from the 12th century to our day. Its goal is to develop introspective writing, students’ competence and self-confidence in the analysis of short and longer fiction in Spanish, knowledge of the history of women’s writing in Spain, and acquisition of linguistic and cultural literacy in Spanish through playful fiction writing. Fulfills the writing requirement for the major.

SPN 255 – Muslim Women in Film
Ibtissam Bouachrine

Focusing on films by and about Muslim women from Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, this transdisciplinary course will explore one question: What do Muslim women want? Students will watch and study critically films in Farsi, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, and different Arabic dialects. Class discussion and assignments will be primarily in Spanish.

WLT 205 – Contemporary African Literature and Film
Katwiwa Mule
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A study of the major writers and diverse literary traditions of modern Africa with emphasis on the historical, political and cultural contexts of the emergence of writing, reception and consumption. We pay particular attention to several questions: in what contexts did modern African literature emerge? Is the term “African literature” a useful category? How do African writers challenge Western representations of Africa? How do they articulate the crisis of independence and postcoloniality? How do women writers reshape our understanding of gender and the politics of resistance? Writers include Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nadine Gordimer, Njabulo Ndebele and Ama Ata Aidoo. We also watch and critique films such as Blood Diamond,District 9, Tsotsi and The Constant Gardener.

WLT 270 – Health and Illness: Literary Explorations
Sabina Knight

From medieval Chinese tales to memoirs about SARS and COVID-19, this cross-cultural literary inquiry explores how conceptions of selfhood and belonging inform ideas about well-being, disease, intervention and healing. How do languages, social norms and economic contexts shape experiences of health and illness? From depression and plague to aging, disability and death, how do sufferers and their caregivers adapt in the face of infirmity or trauma? Our study will also consider how stories and other genres can help develop resilience, compassion and hope.

WLT 276 - #Metoo: Sex, Gender and Power Across Cultures
Tuesday, Thursday 1:20-2:35 p.m.
Sabina Knight

When it comes to sex and gender, how do power dynamics promote or thwart freedom, belonging and love? As #MeToo and other movements challenge cultures of oppression, how do such struggles relate to the ecological, capitalist, and humanitarian crises that threaten life as we know it? Learning from feminisms and post-colonial theories, this course questions persistent structural binaries: mind/body, human/animal, man/woman, culture/nature. Drawing on art, literature, philosophy and journalism, we examine how social constructions of gender, class, race, and disability coalesce with material bodies, spaces, and conditions to form habits of subjectivity and patterns of life.