Spring 2010

In this seminar we will analyze key texts on sex and sexuality by authors such as De Sade, Freud, Kinsey, Beauvoir, Foucault and Butler. The seminar will focus on the question how categorizations of sex in scientific and socio-cultural terms connect to historical notions of femininity, masculinity, homosexuality and sexual pathology. This seminar will not provide a total account of sexuality, but will analyze select historical moments, which are influential to the different ways we think about the sexes today. We will connect these readings with contemporary historical studies and theory on the relationship between sex, sexuality, and gender.

Professor Fuechtner
2 hour

This course explores the theoretical underpinnings of some of the most highly contested issues in society today. We will look at a spectrum of positions on such issues as: questions of difference and equality; women’s health and reproductive rights; identity and identity politics; morality-pornography-violence; eco-feminism-environmentalism; children, family, and human rights; and the representation/performance of femininity/masculinity. Special emphasis will be placed on the connection between theory and practice. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. 

Professor Martín
11 hour

This course examines women’s movements in Latin America. Women in Latin America are perhaps the most highly mobilized population in the world. Throughout the region women have organized around myriad issues, including the right to vote, human rights, poverty, legal rights, anticommunism, the workplace, race, ethnicity and war. Women’s efforts to challenge fiercely repressive regimes, deeply entrenched norms of machismo and extreme poverty defy conventional stereotypes about women and provide us with inspiring examples of how to sustain hope during difficult times. The seminar will introduce students to recent scholarship on women’s movements in Latin America in the 20th century and seek to understand the emergence, evolution and outcomes of women’s movements in particular countries and cross-nationally. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW.

Professor Baldez
2A

An introduction to the radical American social change movements of the 1960’s and 70’s, we will examine the specific historical conditions that allowed each of these movements to develop, the interconnections and contradictions among them, and why they ultimately lost political power. Along with historical analysis, we will examine primary source materials, manifestos, autobiographies, and media coverage from the period, as well as relevant films, music, and fiction. Open to all students. Dist: SOC.

Professor Bronski
2A hour

This course will address various aspects of Feminism, Islam and Space. This course will seek to answer various questions about space, gender and Islam such as: What constitutes a Muslim Space and the “Muslim World”? Who decides and defines these spaces? How are these spaces gendered and influenced by Islam or Islamic practices? How do such gendering of spaces differ by place? Additionally we will explore the readings of several Islamic feminist scholars that address several gender related topics such as women’s rights, gender roles, honor and Sharia (Islamic law). Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.

Professor Fluri
10A hour

In this course we will examine gender and the geopolitical in South Asia. This will include exploring national and transnational conceptions of gender, which are intersected by other social categories, and how gender relations are implicated and impacted by the geopolitical in this region. We will also analyze the ways in which various forms and functions of masculinity and femininity are constructed, controlled, and contested in different situational, social, economic, and political contexts. Open to all students. Dist (pending approval): SOC; WCult: NW.

Professor Fluri
2A hour

In this course, we will develop an understanding of masculinity as a construct which varies in time and space, and is constantly (re)shaped by such factors as race, class, and sexuality. The contexts of the colonial encounter and its postcolonial aftermath will set the stage for our examination of the ways in which social, political, economic, and cultural factors foster the production of specific masculinities. Texts include Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Lafferiere’s How to Make Love to a Negro, and additional writings by Irish, Indian, and Australian authors. Our study will be organized around the questions of the production of hegemonic and subaltern masculinities, the representation of the colonial and postcolonial male body, the militarization of masculinity, and the relation between masculinity and nationalism. Theoretical material on masculinities will frame our readings. Dist: LIT.

Professor Coly
2A hour

This course examines how four different media––theater, dance, writing, and documentary film making––work to facilitate voice with the goal of turning the invisible walls that separate us into bridges across differences. We will study how these arts facilitate voice through reading, discussion, journaling, reflection papers, and guest speakers, including writers, theater artists, and documentary film makers who work with incarcerated people, recovering addicts, and refugees. Students will produce a collective performance about having a voice, and each student will create a short documentary giving voice to a person behind invisible walls in the community. Dist: ART; WCult: CI

Professor Hernandez and Professor Schweitzer
3A hour

Professor Kamal Abu-Deeb

3A Hour

Professor Coffey
12 hour

Professor Garrod
10 hour

Professor Boose

2A hour

Professor Marcellisi
12 hour

Professor Yee

11 Hour

Professor Baldez

10A Hour

Professor Spitta

10A hour

Professor Ohnuma
12 hour

Professor Somoff

10 Hour

Professor Herman
2A hour

Professor Lively
2A hour