Winter 2015

Reviewing publications on "manhood" or "manliness," one is struck by the fact how often changes in the understanding of the concepts are perceived as "crises of masculinity" rather than as symptoms of historical change. This course will elaborate on how notions of men, manhood, manliness, and masculinity have changed in response to economic, demographic, social, cultural, and territorial changes. We will discuss aspects such as the formation of manhood in America, constructions of the racialized male body, the functions of male femininity and female masculinity in the reconsideration of gender, and follow the debate on male violence in hip-­‐hop culture. Designed as a First Year Seminar, however, we will not only focus on "what masculinity is," but simultaneously scrutinize the strategies of scholarship in the development of masculinity studies. Dist: LIT; WCult: CI.

Professor Milich
3B Hour

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 Yessayan
10 Hour

This course will examine pre-twentieth century texts and historical events that set important precedents for the development of contemporary feminist theories and practices. We will survey some of the writings that consolidate legitimated patriarchal/misogynist ideologies in Western worlds (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, the fathers of the Church, the philosophers of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, Rousseau). We will analyze different ways in which women historically have articulated strategies of contestation and/or resistance to systems of power based on gender differentiation. Readings may include works by French medieval thinker Christine de Pizan; sixteenth-century Spanish cross-dresser Catalina de Erauso; seventeenth-century Mexican intellectual and nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz; Mary Wollstonecraft; Maria Stewart, the first African-American political woman writer; the nineteenth-century American suffragists; and anarchist leader Emma Goldman. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.

Professor Munoz
3B Hour

This course will examine the ways in which "deviant" sexual and gender behavior and identities, and the political movements that emerge from them, have been conceptualized in U.S. culture. We will cover basic LGBT cultural and political history and the interplay between sexuality, gender, race, class, ethnicity, and economics. Classes will be a mix of lecture and discussion. Students will be expected to work with primary documents (including novels and film), recent work in queer theory and historical analysis. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.

Professor Lim
2 Hour

This course examines the roles of women and men in Western Europe from late Antiquity to the Reformation period. Emphasis will be placed on the intellectual and social strictures that had a long-term effect on the concept and role of gender in European society. Topics included are biological and mythological foundations of gender concepts; attitudes toward the body and sex in pre-Christian and Christian culture; sin and ecclesiastical legislation on sex and marriage; family life and education; the individual and kinship; heresy and charismatic religious movements; and the impact of social-economic development on gender in professional life. We will discuss the textual and visual sources for our inquiry, as well as the changing contemporary views on gender roles in pre-industrial Europe. Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Professor Simons
12 Hour

This course examines the history of men and women from the period of colonial settlement to the achievement of woman's suffrage. We will explore the construction of gender particularly as it relates to social, political, economic, and cultural power. Topics will include: the role of gender in political thought and practice, the intersection of gender with categories of class and race; gender in the debate over slavery and the Civil War; and the rise and evolution of the woman's rights movement. Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors.

Professor Butler
12 Hour

The family is an important social institution, a complex set of roles and rules that are organized to preserve and promote important functions in our society. The roles give rise to positions such as parent, child, spouse, stepfather, and so on. The rules offer us guidance about how to act in these roles and are regulated by social norms, public opinion, law, and religion. The important functions include public ones, like raising children, and caring for the elderly, and private functions, such as providing love, intimacy, and companionship to family members. In this course, we will learn about the family as both a social institution and as a set of private relationships. One theme underlying our learning is that the form, function, and definition of the family vary across historical and cultural contexts. Another key theme is that social class and gender intersect with family well-being. We explore contemporary debates and issues affecting the family, with an emphasis on utilizing research evidence to inform public policy. Dist: SOC; WCult: W.

Professor Walton
2 Hour

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 Travis
11 Hour

Violence is widely recognized as a problem in modern society, with policies to combat violence, or employ it, dominating political discussion. Yet the meaning of violence is seldom analyzed. Using an ethnographic lens, this course explores violence as a socially and culturally mediated phenomenon. We will trace how anthropologists have conceptualized diverse forms of violence, from state terror and gang conflict to gender inequality and everyday suffering. Case studies are drawn from Mozambique, Jamaica, and Chicago. Recommended: Anthropology 3. Dist: SOC.

Professor Kivland
12 Hour

Women writers have transformed the field of journalism, from newspapers and magazines to television and the Internet. This course will examine the historic influence of women journalists, from Nellie Bly's turn-of-the-century undercover exposés to today's newspaper reporters, magazine writers and bloggers. How has the growing number of women journalists shaped the coverage of war, human rights, poverty, the environment, abortion, sexual assault, global feminism and LGBT issues? How do women deal with "objectivity" in covering these issues? We will also look at new styles in literary journalism pioneered by women. This course will involve critical reading, engaged discussion, original reporting and several feature-length articles. Students will be expected to produce a publishable, magazine-length article at term's end.

Professor Jetter
12 Hour

There is a large body of work on women's political resistance to oppressions based on gender, sex, class, race, and economic disparity. Much of this work focuses on women's literature (especially novels, poetry, and plays) and political organizing. This course will examine how women, through the medium of popular music, have articulated clear political commentary and analysis that has reached large audiences, and has become foundational, to American popular culture. Beginning with artists at the advent of the popularization of African-American blues in the early 20th century, and moving through the genres of regional folk (especially Appalachian traditions), jazz, torch singing, contemporary folk, early rock, girl groups, disco, and more contemporary songs, the course will cover the lives, careers, and political thought of a wide range of writers and performers such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Libby Holman, Lee Morse, the Boswell Sisters, Billie Holiday, Marian Anderson, Peggy Lee, Mahalia Jackson, Rosalie Sorrels, Lotte Lenya, Joan Baez, Nina Simone, Tammy Wynette, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Gloria Gaynor, Ani DiFranco, and Amy Winehouse. The course will be structured around the music as well as biographical, historical, cultural, and critical readings that will place each of these women in their artistic and political contexts. Dist: ART; WCult: CI.

Professor Bronski
2A Hour

This course will survey the AIDS epidemic in the United States from 1981 to the present. We will examine the history and social impact of the epidemic by exploring its immediate and long lasting effects on issues such as health care, anti-discrimination law, immigration, education strategies, government drug policies, welfare services, as well as LGBT culture. We will also be examining its effects on popular thinking on sex, gender, and sexual culture through mainstream and independent film and media. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. 

Professor Bronski
10A Hour

This course examines how issues of race and sexuality are elemental to radical formulations of queer theory. We will begin with a deep study of U.S. feminist and queer of color critiques to understand how social formations are embroiled in nationalist, colonial as well as free market ideals and practices. Our focus on the quotidian and staged experiences of those who identify or are identified as an outsider, misfit, or the Other is an invitation to intensively analyze and perform what it means to be at once queer and gendered, queer of color, and queer and wild. From accents and affects to styling and production, we will read a range of manifestos, performances, literature, and art that conform to and yet also deviate from what is normal or acceptable in mainstream, U.S-American society. The key words in the title, "Of Color, Wildness and Fabulosity," are suggestive of alternative queer practices in the U.S. and around the world that engage, exceed or even explode dominant categories of race, gender and sexuality. It explores, in other words, queer theory and praxis using diasporic perception or minority perspectives. Dist: INT or ART; WCult: NW.

Professor Lim
Mondays 3-6 PM

This seminar plots the transformation of kinship relations and gender identities under the influence of the centralizing policies of modern states. Students will investigate the origins and development of modern kinship and gender categories in non-Western societies, with an emphasis on the Middle East.

Professor Samin
11 Hour