WGS course options for 2011-12
Courses 2011-2012
Fall
WGS 111 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
Irene Lopez
Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (WGS 111) will introduce students to the interdisciplinary fields of women's and gender studies, out of which some of the most innovative and challenging developments in recent scholarship are arising. It will provide students with critical frameworks for thinking about the social construction of gender at the personal and institutional levels. Emphasis will be placed on diverse women's significant contributions to knowledge and culture; to other areas of gender studies, including men's studies, family studies, and the study of sexuality; and to the intersections of various forms of oppression both within and outside of the U.S. The course will include both scholarly as well as personal texts, visual as well as written text. This course is offered every semester.
WGS 330 Feminist Theory
Mary Suydam
Spring
WGS 111
Staff
WGS 242 Transnational Feminisms
Clara Roman-Odio MWF 1:10
Mary Suydam
WGS 331: New Course title and Description
H. Abbie Erler
Gender, Power, Knowledge: Research Practices
This class will examine feminist critiques of dominant methodologies and theories of knowledge creation in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. It will focus on the following questions: How do we know something? Who gets to decide what counts as k knowledge? Who is the knower? In answering these questions this class will explore how power is exercised in the production of knowledge, how the norms of objectivity and universalism perpetuate dominance and exclusion, why women and other minority groups are often seen as lacking epistemic authority, and what it means to have knowledge produced from a feminist standpoint. Participants in the class will learn a variety of methods and use these methods in a group research project. In addition, we will discuss various ethical issues that feminist researchers often encounter and what responsibilities feminist researchers have to the broader political community.
Cross Listed Courses
Fall
AFDS 410 Between Womanist and Feminist Theory
Kohlman
ANTH 350 Human Sexuality and Culture
Suggs
CLA 130 Classical Mythology
Staff
ENGL 103.07 All About Eve
Mankof
ENGL 372 Gilded Age
Smith
ENGL 391 Caribbean Woman Writers
Staff
ENGL 103.16 Piracy: From Captains to Copyrights
Orihuela
HIST 208 Women in American History
Coulibaly
PSYC 327 Cross-Cultural Psychology
Lopez
RLST 103 First Year Seminar; Women and Religion
Dean-Otting
RLST 328 Women and Christianity
Suydam
Spring
ARHS 375 Women in Renaissance and Baroque Art
VanAusdall
ECON 378 Economics of Women and Work
Krynski
ENGL 104.04 Dirt and Disorder
Fernando
ENLG 254 Literary Women: Studies in Nineteenth-Century British Literature
Mankoff
ENGL 288 Introduction to African American Literature
Mason
ENGL 313 Land, Body, Place in Film and Literature
McAdams
ENGL 378 Race in the 19C Literary Imagination
Mason
ENGL 382 Jazz Age
Smith
ENGL 386 Toni Morrison
Schoenfeld
PSYCH 346 Psychology of Women
Murnen
SOCY 231 Issues of Gender and Power
Kohlman
Core Courses
Look for the * symbol, which indicates the course serves the diversity requirement in the Women's and Gender Studies major.
The Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (WMNS 111) is a wide-ranging interdisciplinary course designed to help students develop a critical framework for thinking about questions relating to gender. Through a focus on a series of cultural artifacts, ranging from poems and films to legal cases and psychiatric disorders, students will examine the historical development of gendered public and private spheres, the relation of biological sex to sociological gender, the difference between sex roles and sexual stereo-types. They will attempt to understand how racism, heterosexism, and homophobia intersect with the cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity, and consider ways to promote more egalitarian gender relations.
The women's and gender studies Senior Seminar (WMNS 481) examines a topic central to feminist thought. It includes current feminist texts and incorporates multidisciplinary analyses of race, class, and sexuality, in addition to gender. The course culminates in a public presentation by seminar members.
Three units are required for the program. Of these, 1 unit will consist of either Feminist Theory (WMNS 330) or Feminist Methodologies (WMNS 331) (offered in alternating years) and a capstone senior seminar.
The remaining 2 units will consist of four courses listed by women's and gender studies or departmental courses (listed in the Course of Study) approved by the program's Advisory Board. No more than 1 unit in a single department may count toward the requirements for the program and at least two divisions of the college must be represented among the 2 elective units.
For a statement of evaluative criteria for work produced in the Women's and Gender Studies Program, click here [doc].
Research by both faculty and students involving human subjects must be approved by the Advisory Board. Click here for forms [doc].