Summer 2013

This course will investigate the roles of women and men in society from an interdisciplinary point of view. We will analyze both the theoretical and practical aspects of gender attribution—how it shapes social roles within diverse cultures, and defines women and men's personal sense of identity. We will discuss the following questions: What are the actual differences between the sexes in the areas of biology, psychology, and moral development? What is the effect of gender on participation in the work force and politics, on language, and on artistic expression? We will also explore the changing patterns of relationships between the sexes and possibilities for the future. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.

Professor Bergland
2 Hour

This class will look at a variety of texts responding to transatlantic slavery, from Mary Prince's biographical narrative and Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin to contemporary writing to examine how (differences, commonalities?) white and black women writers have articulated slavery, and resistance against it. Required reading (primary texts): The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave; Uncle Tom's Cabin; Toni Morrison's A Mercy; Elisabeth Kuti's The Sugar Wife; Saidya Hartman's Lose Your Mother; and Yvette Christianse's Unconfessed. Dist: LIT; WCult: W. 

Professor Broeck
10A hour

In this course, we will examine how recent European films redefine and challenge contemporary national political discourses through a sophisticated intersection of issues of gender, class, and cultural identity. Most films included in the course have a female protagonist rebelling against the social and cultural constructs that deny her the possibility of engaging in flexible cultural and identitarian options. These are female characters that push and bend the rigid formulation of gender that cultural identity usually imposes on the sexes. Other films explore the gender and sexual options normally excluded or ignored in the official cultural discourse of different national traditions; another set of films focuses on strategies such as multilingualism and hybridization as a means to intersect gender with this reconfiguration of European identity as a much more diverse and complex political, cultural, and identitarian paradigm. The films of this course are recent examples of Maghrebi-French, Turkish-German, Asian-British, and Spanish immigration cinema. The course will also emphasize the different ways in which film production and film reception transcend national borders. Dist.: INT or SOC; WCult: CI.

Professor Rodriguez
Mondays 3-6 PM

In this course, we will examine how recent European films redefine and challenge contemporary national political discourses through a sophisticated intersection of issues of gender, class, and cultural identity. Most films included in the course have a female protagonist rebelling against the social and cultural constructs that deny her the possibility of engaging in flexible cultural and identitarian options. These are female characters that push and bend the rigid formulation of gender that cultural identity usually imposes on the sexes. Other films explore the gender and sexual options normally excluded or ignored in the official cultural discourse of different national traditions; another set of films focuses on strategies such as multilingualism and hybridization as a means to intersect gender with this reconfiguration of European identity as a much more diverse and complex political, cultural, and identitarian paradigm. The films of this course are recent examples of Maghrebi-French, Turkish-German, Asian-British, and Spanish immigration cinema. The course will also emphasize the different ways in which film production and film reception transcend national borders. Dist.: INT or SOC; WCult: CI.

Professor Rodriguez
Wednesdays 3-6 PM

After a brief historical introduction to Freud’s time and environment, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, we will discuss how Freud’s own writings, his biography and his biographers have shaped the perception of psychoanalysis as a specifically Jewish theory and practice. Through a close reading of Freud’s seminal texts on gender, sexuality, language and religion, we will trace the connections between psychoanalysis, Jewishness and gender that have impacted theoretical discussions until today, i.e., on hysteria or on anti-Semitism. We will close the class with historical, theoretical readings that explore and critique Freudian psychoanalysis on issues of anti-Semitism, politics, gender and sexuality (among others Karen Horney, Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse) and discuss the most recent debates on the status of Freud in the US. Taught in English. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.

Professor Fuechtner
10A Hour