Fall 2012

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 A'Ness: 10 Hour

Professor Aguado: 12 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 Bronski
2A Hour

This course will trace the involvement of U.S. women in radical political movements from the mid-nineteenth century to the present including: Abolitionism; Anti-lynching; Socialist Trade Unionism; the Ku Klux Klan; the Communist Party; the National Welfare Rights Organization; the Civil Rights Movement; the New Left; the New Right; the direct-action wing of the anti-abortion movement; Earth First; and the neo-Nazi American Front. It will also examine the relationship between feminist ideologies and non-gender-specific radical political ideologies centered on race, class, and other social identifiers.

Open to sophomores, juniors and seniors. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. 

Professor Orleck
12 Hour

Sex (biological differences between men and women) and gender (social constructions of those differences) are not straightforward or natural, and it naturally follows that gender inequalities and gender oppression are also not straightforward and natural. Therefore, we will pay close attention to the issue of power - in terms of control and distribution of resources and the enforcement of gender roles and sexuality. We will also look at how Western gender ideals have been imposed on people in other parts of the world. We will talk about concepts, perceptions, images, stories, encounters, games, connections and disconnections. Finally, we will explore questions of practice and resistance. (TOPICAL) Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: CI. 

Professor Igoe
2A Hour

Japanese literature is unique for the dominant position women writers occupy in its classical canon – a canon interrupted and co-opted by male-dominated cultures from the 13th century until late 19th century, when literary production by women reemerged as a significant modern cultural phenomenon. This course is a survey that draws on contemporary feminist criticism and gender theory to analyze the social, political, and economic forces that have shaped the history of female authorship in Japan. Dist: LIT; WCult: NW. [Note: all works are in English translation]

Professor Washburn
11 Hour

In her well known passage from A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf stated that "we think back through our mothers if we are women"; twenty years later, Gertrude Stein would obliquely refer to herself as "the mother of us all." These two women occupy a central place in European and American modernism, their work having influenced successive generations of writers. Using a series of thematic and theoretical frameworks, we will explore the intersections between the two, asking how they staged their resistances to traditional/patriarchal literary and cultural structures. Possible frameworks are gender and genre; queer texts and contexts; war, nation, and gender; class, ethnicity, and authority; iconization. Texts by Woolf might include Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and Between the Acts; texts by Stein might include Ida, Three Lives, Everybody's Autobiography, and Mrs. Reynolds. We will also be reading a selection of critical and/or feminist theory. Dist: LIT; WCult: W.

Professor Will
2 Hour

Literary memoir with a creative writing element. Examining works by Jeanette Winterson, Jackie Kay, Kathy Dobie, Diana Athill, Kapka Kassabova as well as extracts from Alice Sebold and others, to discuss how life experience may influence fiction. Wider topics include truth in memoir and fiction and the examined life as inspiration. Coursework includes a journal element, to be developed into a piece of creative writing.  Dist: LIT; WCult: W, pending faculty approval.

Professor Strachan
10A Hour

Students analyze and identify a diversity of cultural experiences in relation to subject positions such as race, class, culture, and gender through the study of theatre and performance. The course reviews and assesses the strategies used by playwrights and theater-makers to describe their perspectives of U.S. American life as racialized or gendered subjects. We consider the politics of representation as it relates to the positions of race and gender. Open to all classes. Dist: ART; WCult: CI.

Professor Mayorga
10A Hour

Our social structure is full of unseen, unspoken, and unheard dynamics. These hidden and irresponsible social behaviors have always contributed to the building of visible and invisible social walls. Behind these walls, a growing invisible population has found a way into visibility into society through addiction, violence, and crime. This course offers students the unique opportunity to collaborate with a group of people from behind those social walls from two different perspectives: theoretical and practical. For one class each week, students will study the root cause of social isolations and invisibility mainly pertaining to incarceration and addiction, in an active learning classroom. For the other half, students will travel to Sullivan County House of Corrections, in Unity, NH, and participate in an interdisciplinary arts program there. Its goal is the creation and performance of an original production that will facilitate the inmates' voices. The final project for the course will combine research on themes related to incarceration, rehabilitation, transition, facilitation, and critical analysis and self-reflection on the effectiveness of community-based learning and performance in rehabilitation.  Dist: ART; WCult: CI.

Professor Hernandez
2A Hour

The seminar in Women’s and Gender Studies is designed as a culminating experience for Women’s and Gender Studies students and preparation for future work such as independent research, honors thesis, graduate studies and advanced scholarship. Enrollment is restricted to WGST majors and minors. Declared WGST majors and minors in the class of 2013 will be automatically granted permission to enroll.  Otherwise, to request permission to enroll, please contact the WGST office.

Professor Fluri
3A Hour

Professor Patyk
10 Hour