Fall 2007 Course Guide
GWS 103: Black Women in the Diaspora
Same as AFRO 103 and AFST 103
Flynn CRN 46611 TR 1-2:20
This comparative introductory course explores the historical, social, economic, cultural and political realities of black women in the Diaspora with an emphasis on the U.S. Canada, Britain, Africa and the English speaking Caribbean. To provide a context in which to describe, analyze and synthesize the experiences of black women means drawing first on black feminist theorizing. The goal is to situate the relevant themes, such as identity, family, and work, discussed throughout the semester within a particular framework. Relying on an interdisciplinary methodology, which essentially means drawing on contemporary scholarship in women’s studies, history, sociology, and music, we will examine how macro structures such as: slavery, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and globalization shaped and continues to circumscribe the lives of black women across various geographic regions. Simultaneously, attention will be paid to the multiple strategies/efforts that black women employ both in the past and present to ensure the survival of “Self” and community. The objective of the course is to demonstrate how black feminist thought and black women have challenged and complicated traditional understandings of race and gender.
GWS 150: Contemporary Women’s Issues
Morey CRN 30423 TR 9-10:20
Explores the most recent debates and research related to contemporary issues that primarily affect women. Review issues related to sexual and domestic violence, gender socialization, feminization of poverty, women’s health, sexual harassment, work and family, politics, and media influences from a multi-discipline and multicultural perspective.
GWS 199 RW: Undergraduate Open Seminar
Topic: Fraternity Peer Rape Education and Prevention
Wantland RW CRN 33101 T 6-8:00 p.m.
Fraternity men receive a lot of blame for sexual violence on campus. Some fraternity men are choosing to do something about it. GWS 199RW is a two-semester, 4 credit-hour course that trains fraternity men to become resources for their own chapters, and gain leadership & public speaking skills, while actively working to improve the our campus community. To register or for more information, contact Ross at 333.3137 or at wantland@uiuc.edu
GWS 199 SC: Undergraduate Open Seminar
Topic: History of South Asia
Same as History 130 and Anth 130
Chandra SC CRN 47378 TR 2-3:20
How did gender become the central means by which to organize other social inequities in India and South Asia? What are the multiple possibilities that 'gender' as a unit of analysis brings to historical investigation, especially for the 'non-west'? Using a variety of sources, from memoirs, novels and films created by women, 'lower caste' people, gender/ sexual and religious minorities, this survey course focuses on the period of pre-colonial empires to the European conquest of the subcontinent, the rise of nationalism and the construction of modern nation states. Critiquing the growing violence of majoritarian religious and caste politics, the course teaches students to historicize the relationship between colonialism, internal and neo-imperialisms, and the very current role of 'tradition' in configuring the social, sexual and material history of South Asia. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for Hist&Philosoph Perspect, and Non-Western Cultures course. Also approved for Historical Perspectives in the GWS Major.
GWS 250: Gender Studies Humanities
Ngô Lect. AL1 CRN 35309 MW 2-2:50
Disc. AD 1 CRN 33300 R 1-1:50
Disc. AD 2 CRN 33384 R 9-9:50
Disc. AD 3 CRN 33490 R 10-10:50
Disc. AD 4 CRN 34879 F 11-11:50
Disc. AD 5 CRN 34915 F 10-10:50
Disc. AD 6 CRN 35231 R 3-3:50
Interdisciplinary introduction to women and gender. Analysis of representations of women (including race, class, and sexuality) in popular culture, painting, film, literature, music, history, religion. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for a UIUC Social Sciences course. Students must register for the lecture and one discussion section.
GWS 261: Gender Transnational Perspective
Same as SOC 261. Prerequisite: SOC 100, GWS 260, or consent of instructor. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for a UIUC Social Sciences course.
CRN 35694 TR 3:30 - 4:50
Examines how gender inequality is structured on a transnational level. Emphasis will be placed on the interactive relationship among various countries, and how globalization promotes racial, ethnic, sexual, and national hierarchies among women, in both newly and advanced industrialized countries.
GWS 270 Sexuality and Literature
Same as GER 270 and CWL 272. See GER 270.
Niekerk CRN 49508 MWF 9-9:50
Often we think of ‘sex’ and ‘sexuality’ as phenomena that have remained more or less the same over time and are the same all over the world. In this seminar we will consider the opposite and look at the historical contexts in which sexuality has been debated during the past three centuries, and we will investigate to what extent sexuality is perceived differently in diverse cultures. Our thinking about sexuality is, in other words, very much part of the culture in which we grow up.
In part one of the seminar, we will look at the history of sexuality in the Western tradition and in particular, although not exclusively, at the German and French literary and cultural traditions. Literature and film document the norms and values which regulate, or are supposed to regulate, sexual behavior. But they also reveal that theory and practice are often not the same. We will try to answer some of the following questions: To what extent are Western European ideas about sexuality at the roots of ideas about gender roles — about the ways men and women are supposed to behave in society? How are Western ideas about non-Western cultures influenced by negative stereotypes about the sexuality of those belonging to these other cultures? Is the Western discourse on sexuality exclusively focused on heterosexual forms of sexual behavior, or is there space for alternative forms? Reading will include: Goethe, the Marquis de Sade, Casanova, Kleist, Sacher-Masoch, Freud, Schnitzler, Thomas Mann, Kundera and Christa Wolf; films include Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. In part two of the seminar, we will shift our focus to the non-Western World, and in particular to the colonial history of Indonesia. In this part of the seminar we will deal with the issue of to what extent non-Western texts constitute a critique of Western concepts of sexuality. Is the history of sexuality an integral part of colonial history? Is there an alternative construction of the history of sexuality possible that is different from that of the West? Readings include Steele, Multatuli, Kartini, and Toer; films include John Duigan / Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.
GWS 280F: Women Writers
Topic: Black American Autobiography
Same as ENGL 280
Deck F CRN 39530 MW 2-3:15
Critics have suggested that in the United States autobiography, more than the novel or poetry, is the most democratic genre because anyone, regardless of age, level of education, gender, race or social class can and has published one. Readers in the United States, furthermore, gravitate towards the personal narratives of the famous, the infamous, and the “undistinguished” Americans from history or contemporary society. In this class we will survey the personal narratives of American women from a variety of historical periods, geographic regions, social classes, ethnic and racial groups. Our goal is to understand what distinguishes the personal narrative from the novel, and what is particularly “American” about the various women’s personal narratives that we study. In addition to the required texts, we will read critical essays on autobiography. Students will write weekly response papers, two essays, and take two exams: a mid-term and a final.
GWS 280S: Women Writers
Topic: South African American Women Novelists
Same as ENGL 280
Castro S CRN 39526 TR 2-3:15
African American novelists such as Alice Walker and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison count among the most well-known U.S. authors writing today. This course offers an opportunity to place such writers in the context of a broader tradition: nearly a century-and-a-half’s worth of African-American women’s fiction. Writer Audre Lorde reflected that when she was a child, “telling stories and not getting whipped for telling untrue was the most marvelous thing [she] could think of.” Throughout the semester, we will ponder, What have African American women writers chosen “telling untrue” to do? We will expand on the question novelist Pauline Hopkins posed at the turn into the twentieth century—“Of what use is fiction to the colored race at the present crisis in its history?”—to consider these novelists’ contributions, formal and thematic, to American literature. Our readings span from the early efflorescence of African-American fiction in the troubled 1850s, through the “woman’s era” of the 1890s, the Harlem Renaissance, the intervening Depression and WWII years, and the late 20th century “new” renaissance in African-American women’s writing. Throughout, we will focus on the historical specificity of our texts while seeking to trace the conversations that may emerge between them. In addition to vigorous reading and class participation (which includes group-led discussions and online responses), student responsibilities will include three papers, a midterm, and a final.
GWS 281: Women in the Lit Imagination
Topic: Icons of Marriage and Maternity in the British Feminist Novel
Same as ENG 281
Baron CRN 43573 MWF 12-12:50
In 1796 Jane Austen finished her initial draft of Pride and Prejudice entitled First Impressions. Two hundred years later, author Helen Fielding published Bridget Jones’s Diary, a postfeminist version of Austens’s classic novel about a young woman who refuses to be forced into marrying the wrong man despite the prospect of future penury. But for much of British history, women of all classes were expected to maintain the social hierarchy through marriage and to fulfill their personal destiny through pregnancy and motherhood no matter how they felt about their bodies, their husbands or their married lives. In this course, we’ll explore the evolution of women’s marital choices, sexual practices and economic rights in the UK over a two hundred year period from Austen to Fielding, viewing the changes that came along the way.
We’ll begin during the Regency period by examining the nuances of 18th century marriages, zeroing in on how women regarded courtship and how the advent of the novel and the rise of the mercantile class began to restructure the rules about marriage and property in England. Then we’ll see why in spite of their many accomplishments and a powerful female figurehead to lead the nation, Victorian women were barred from owning property, barred from voting, and forced into submissive marriages that could leave them either vulnerable and depressed or curiously satisfied with their constrained lives. Moving into the late 19th century, we’ll take a look at how working class women dealt with the changes that technology had on their vocations, marital choices and sexual practices including premarital relations. Next we’ll zoom into the pre and post WWI and WWII periods to see how women fared in the UK after war had permanently altered the gender lines and their figures with the normalization of reconfiguring undergarments and modern make-up lines. We’ll end the semester on a lighter note with Bridget Jones’s Diary, focusing on the liberated late 20th century woman as she struggles to find just the right guy, battles bad hair days, unwanted cellulite, poor career choices and non-committal boyfriends. Course requirements include 2 moderate length papers (6-8 pages) and a final (8-10 page) paper.
GWS 285: U.S. Gender History to 1877
Same as HIST 285.
Pleck CRN 34328 MWF 9-9:50
This course aims to introduce students to changing ideals and life experiences of American women from the period just prior to the arrival of European explorers to the Civil War. The readings draw on primary sources and historian's interpretations to emphasize the work, family, and political activities of American women, within the context of larger changes in colonial America and the United States. These larger changes include colonialism and European settlement, the role of Enlightenment ideas, the growth of an industrial economy, the expansion of slavery, and the rise of nineteenth century reform movements. Students will learn to think critically about historical arguments and the use of evidence.
GWS 340: Gender, Relationships and Society
Same as HDFS 340, and SOC 332. Prerequisite: SOC 100 or HDFS 105; or 6 hours of anthropology, geography, political science, or sociology.
Oswald, R. CRN 38499 MW 11:30 – 12:50
Explores the production of gender through social interaction within families and other specific interpersonal and institutional relationships that change over time. Gender is also linked to race, class, ability, and sexuality.
GWS 350: Introduction to Feminist Theory
Priority given to Gender & Women’s Studies Majors until May 3rd. Contact GWS for approval @ 333-2990.
Frost CRN 30424 TR 10-11:20
In this course, we shall examine two broad questions: How do we justify the political claims we make? and What is feminist politics? At first glance, these may seem to be fairly abstract questions. However, we can break them down into simpler, more direct ones that explore different dimensions of the relationship between our identities and our political visions and strategies. For example, the first question breaks down into the following: Do our gender, race, class, or sexual identities affect our perception of politics? Do they affect our credibility when we make political claims? Is that effect positive or negative? How should we take that effect into account? The second breaks down into these: In a liberal democracy, where does power lie? How does power work or affect our lives? What is the best way to challenge injustice?
All these questions are answered in a variety of ways by the feminist theorists we read for this class. Some of the feminist theorists are influenced by the traditions of liberalism, others by historical materialism (or Marxism), and yet others by post-structuralism. As you’ll see, they address similar topics but they do not generally agree with one another’s analyses of how our identities are shaped by politics and how politics shapes our identities. In this class, we will explore both how they answer the questions above and why they answer them in the way that they do. By the end of the semester, you will have a good grasp of some of the leading debates in feminist theory. Hopefully, you will also have a sense of your own answers to these questions.
In the first section of the course, we will examine different scientific and theoretical arguments about the political forces that make us into gendered and racialized people. The other three sections explore how different traditions of thinking in feminist theory respond to the historical and scientific insights of the first section. The response we get from each tradition shapes how they answer the questions that frame the course.
GWS 365: Seminar in Women’s Studies
Topic: Gender, Science and Technology - for undergrads only
Vostral CRN 50351 MW 10-11:20
This course examines how gender shapes scientific practice and technological development, and how science and technology shape notions of gender and sexuality. In this course, the idea of scientific? truth? will be evaluated to see how it changes at different times and different places concerning gender. In addition, ideas about technological progress, and what it means in terms of gender, will be studied. The course will start by looking at the current fields of science and engineering, and how women and men see themselves as practicing scientists, and how gender disparities affect the production of science and technology. Next, we will analyze how social elements influence the ways that scientific facts are derived, and how notions of gender become fixed into data collection. Finally, the course concludes with a look at the built environment, and how technologies of everyday life influence gender identity.
GWS 380: Black Women History & Cultures
Same as AFRO 380 Prerequisite: AFRO 100 or GWS 250 or GWS 260 or consent of instructor.
McDuffie CRN 41936 MW 2:30-3:50
How and why have the lives of women of African descent changed over time? How did enslavement, migration, industrialization, urbanization, wage labor, colonialism, and decolonization transform the lives and subjectivities of women of African descent? How and why have black women in North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Africa seized the time and sought to liberate themselves and their communities? How have black female writers, artists, and intellectuals attempted to develop a black feminist/womanist aesthetic? How has modernity shaped the social construction of black women’s identities as well as notions of femininity and masculinity within black communities? How have women of African descent contested the meaning of “black”? What are the differences between black feminist and white feminist discourses? Why and how have women of African descent been critical to maintaining families and in building community institutions? How have black women come to understand lesbianism, heterosexism, and motherhood? Where are black women heading as we move into the new millennium?
These are just a few of the many questions that this class will seek to answer. We will trace the development of black feminist/womanist consciousness, the socio-economic status of women of African descent, changing gender relations within communities of African descent, black women’s roles in social and religious movements, and representations of black women in popular culture from the 16th century to the present-day. The course will utilize an interdisciplinary, diasporic, black feminist approach to appreciate critically these topics. We will read exciting works by Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Buchi Emecheta, and Patricia Hill Collins and use film and music to critically understand black women’s history and their critical roles in black cultural life.
GWS 390: Topic: Bodies and Technologies in Popular Culture
Nguyen MN CRN 29233 TR 1-2:20
This course will explore technologies' interpenetration with cultural production and the popular imaginary. In particular we will focus on how the concepts and categories of gender, race, sexuality, and nation are embodied in technologies and in visions of technologies, and conversely, how technologies and their visions shape our notions of gender, race, sexuality, and nation. At the human/machine interface, a series of transformations are imagined – whether feared or welcomed or both— for different purposes and to different effects. Some of the questions we will address include those changes in concepts of the "whole" body made possible by prosthetics and plastic surgeries; the material grounds for the production of technologies, including the contemporary global assembly-line; fantasies of the transcendent, technologized body and its failures in science fiction and film; notions of telepresence and mediated intimacy as new forms of technology claim to bring us "closer" to each other (e.g., MySpace); transformations of cultural work (and who counts as a cultural producer) made possible by new technologies of sampling, mash-ups, and digital video; histories of moral panics about youth and their uses of technologies; and how artists and cultural producers are reproducing or rearticulating notions about the human and the post-human, the mind and the body, in this technological imaginary. As such this course will give students the opportunity to critically assess the relations of gender, race, sexuality, and nation produced in the entanglement of technologies with domesticity, games, films, fiction, medicine, work, leisure, geopolitics, and the body.
GWS 390: Topic: Feminist Television Studies
There are no official prerequisites, but students will be most comfortable in the class if they have had at least one course in film/media studies or in gender and women's studies (and even more comfortable if they have had at least one course in both areas).
Projansky SP CRN 29224 M 1-3:50
This junior-level seminar surveys feminist theories and histories of television, focusing particular attention on questions of gender, race, and sexuality primarily in relation to U.S. television. We will address issues such as representation, image, and stereotype; industry structure and production practices; audiences and spectatorship; nation, nationalism, transnationalism, and globalization; and intersections among television and other aspects of popular culture, including mass magazines, radio, film, and the internet. We will look at a variety of types of television, including (but not limited to) sitcoms, dramas, reality TV, game shows, talk shows, sports, children's television, and any other forms of interest to the students in the class. The course will run as a seminar, with very little lecture, lots of discussion, in-class viewing, and a substantial amount of writing (rather than exams).
GWS 390: Topic: Civic Engagement Internship
Vostral SV CRN 49366 M 3-4:50
This course creates partnerships with community non-profit organizations, and offers students a structured way to engage agencies, constituents and members of the greater Champaign-Urbana community while practicing leadership skills and earning credit within an academic setting. This course combines 80 hours of experiential learning with classroom work that critically engages processes of community building. The civic engagement internship is a unique venue to match students’ skills and abilities with community organizations to complete tasks and projects that may not otherwise be addressed by under-funded and understaffed organizations in the community. Non-profit organizations gain highly motivated and skilled individuals to support their missions while students learn problem solving and leadership skills through hands-on learning. Gender and Women’s Studies approaches insist upon engaging issues such as race, class and age, and seek for both men and women to become more empowered, in all manner of ways, so that many forms of engagement have the potential to improve women’s lives, and therefore community life, as a whole.
GWS 390: Citizenship Comparatively
Meets with LLS296 and AAS299
Cacho LC CRN 41523 MW 3:30-4:50
GWS 392: Chicanas and Latinas: Self and Society
Meets with LLS 392 and SOC 392 - Prerequisite: Any 100, 200, or 300-level LLS, GWS, or SOC course.
Dowling CRN 50123 MW 11-12:20
Explores the experiences of Chicanas and Latinas through the lens of contemporary sociological research. Topics to be discussed include: community formation and activism, Chicana/Latina feminisms, sexuality, religion, health, family, immigration, education, work, media, and artistic expression. Readings emphasize the link between the structural inequalities of society, and the day-to-day lived experiences of Chicana/Latinas. Same as GWS 392 and SOC 392.
GWS 403: Women in Muslim Societies
Same as ANTH 403, GLBL 403, HIST 434, and RLST 403.
Hoffman Disc. G4 CRN 42898 TR 2-3:20
Hoffman Disc. U3 CRN 38388 TR 2-3:20
This course examines the culture of women in relationship to their health using a bio/psycho/social model as the foundation for lecture and discussion on select health issues particular to women. The course focuses on the interaction of women with the US health care system, but includes the experience of women in other nations regarding access to health care and US foreign health policy. Students without a health background will be provided with additional reading at the beginning of the semester to explain terminology used during lecture.
GWS 417: Leading Post-Perform Dialog
Same as THEA 417 - Prerequisite: Junior standing or above or consent of instructor.
Best CRN 47939 TR 4-5:50
Study of the history, processes, and methods of leading discussions with social issues theatre audiences. Emphasis on the skills and techniques of facilitators/peer educators; artistic considerations; function and application of the dramaturg; and practical experience through facilitation of social issues theatre dialog.
GWS 418: Devising Social Issues Theatre
Same as THEAT 418. May be repeated in separate semesters to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours or 8 graduate hours. Repeat and graduate students will be required to develop additional projects to be approved and assessed by instructor.
Fay Disc. A3 CRN 35470 W 3-5:50
Fay Disc. A4 CRN 35720 W 3-5:50
Research, writing, and production of original plays addressing selected health and social issues on the UIUC campus in cooperation with the Counseling and Health Center. Course emphasizes training in acting and in methods of peer education and discussion facilitation.
GWS 424: Gender and Race in Contemporary Architecture
Same as ARCH 424
Anthony CRN 41035 TR 11:30-12:50
Out of all licensed architects in the American Institute of Architects (AIA), why are only 11% women, 3% Latino/a, 2% Asian, and less than 1% African American? In 2006, what accounts for such staggeringly low figures? Why has architecture lagged so far behind its counterparts of law and medicine, where sizeable advances already have been made? When so-called “minorities” are rapidly becoming majorities in so many American cities, what are the consequences when the diversity of the population is not reflected in the diversity of the architectural profession? And how can this be changed? How can the new generation of architects better respond to diversity and begin to change the culture of the profession? How can you, personally, make a difference?
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to an aspect of architecture that has all too often been overlooked: the role of women and people of color (i.e., African Americans, Latino/Latina Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and others). As in many other fields, the work of white males has historically dominated architecture. Furthermore, due to the persistence of the "star system," valuable contributions of women architects and architects of color, for the most part, have not been recognized. To a certain extent, this pattern can also be seen in the related environmental design professions of landscape architecture and urban design. This course calls attention to the work of both women architects and architects of color as consumers, critics, and creators of the environment--as clients and users, writers and researchers, design practitioners, educators, and students.
GWS 432: Gender and Language
Same as LING 432, and SPCM 432
Mastronardi MMG CRN 41096 TR 9:30-10:50
Mastronardi MMU CRN 41095 TR 9:30-10:50
Study of actual and perceived differences and similarities in the use of language by women and by men’; emphasizes the social contexts of speech.
GWS 490: Seminar in Women’s Studies
Topic: Black Girl’s Studie
Meets with AFRO 498 and EPS 590
Brown RNB CRN 29204 T 1-3:50
This course is designed to introduce students to Black Girls’ Studies. Black feminist theory and practice have always remembered and valued the experiences of Black girls. In this course, we will address the social, political, and cultural construction of African American girlhood in the United States and well as the lived experiences of Black girls.
In this course you will have the opportunity to work with African American girls in the community. In this way, we will extend our learning beyond the university boundaries to learn what it means to identify as an African American girl growing up in Urbana-Champaign, IL. This unique opportunity will give urgency to the significance of Black Girls' Studies as a sub-field of academic inquiry as well as provide you with the opportunity to make a positive difference in your own life.
GWS 490: Seminar in Women’s Studies
Topic: Gender, Race & Nation
Meets October 15th through December 7th
Dorr KD3 CRN50460 MTW 4:30 - 5:50
KD4 CRN50461 MTW 4:30 - 5:50
This seminar offers a comparative, interdisciplinary survey of theory, film and fiction concerned with nation-building and state formation processes in the 19th and 20th century Americas. Course readings and class discussion will be guided by specific attention to how socially constructed categories of difference—particularly gender, race and sexuality—shape how claims of national belonging are materially and ideologically structured. Employing a feminist, anti-racist theoretical framework, we will grapple with the following questions: How might we theorize the relationship between structures of white supremacy and patriarchy and the (re)production of the imperial and/or postcolonial nation? How are the boundaries of the modern nation-state shaped, transformed, and contested by competing raced and gendered claims of nationalist, transnationalist, and diasporic claims of belonging? If, as many pundits argue, we are currently experiencing a “decline of the nation-state,” then what ghosts of nationalism continue to haunt the raced and gendered structures, states, and citizens of late capitalist globalization?
GWS 490: Violence Against Women
Topic: Advanced Topics in Sexual Harassment Theory and Research
Meets with Psych 496 LF3 & LF4 (Will meet at GWS 911 S. Sixth Street)
Fitzgerald LF3 CRN 33110 T 1-3:30
LF4 CRN 33107 T 1-3:30
GWS 501: Prob in Comp Women’s History
Topic: History of Reproduction and Sexuality
Same as HIST 503
Reagan CRN 34267 M 3-4:50
The history and theory of reproduction has been an important area of feminist scholarship. Early feminist theorists and women’s movements identified the female capacity for reproduction as a crucial arena for defining power, for struggles over equality, and as sites for state intervention. Through the topic of reproduction, broadly defined, this course will introduce students to important themes in women’s history, the history of sexuality, and the history of medicine as well as to a range of historical theories, methods and sources. Topics likely to be covered include feminist theories of reproduction, history of childbirth, midwifery and obstetrics, birth control, eugenics, adoption, maternal and infant health, sterilization, reproductive justice, and reproductive technologies. Attention will be paid throughout the course of power relations and the ways in which gender, class, and race have shaped the history of reproduction and sexuality in policy and practice.
GWS 550: Feminist Theories Humanities
Prerequisite: At least one graduate-level humanities course or consent of instructor.
Chandra CRN 30426 W 1:30-4:20
Interdisciplinary graduate-level course in feminist theory, with an emphasis on the humanities. Explores current debates in feminist theory as they pertain to humanities disciplines.
GWS 590: Topics in GWS
Topic: Consuming Racialized Beauty
Meets with COMM 590 and LLS 596
Molina IM CRN 39345 W 5-6:50 p.m.
The seminar engages the critical studies literature on race, gender and the media to think through the politics of beauty. Special theoretical emphasis will be given to how scholars across various disciplines (art history, cinema studies, cultural studies, literary studies, media studies) think through the ways beauty and the gendered and raced body are defined, disciplined and consumed by publics. Throughout the semester the politics of beauty and representation will be analyzed by engaging in a comparative analysis of specific ethnic groups, among them African American, Asian American, Latinas/os and South Asians. Weekly class discussions will focus around specific case studies and media examples. For more information, please contact the instructor imolina@uiuc.edu.
GWS 590: Topics in GWS
Topic: The Making of the Modern African Diaspora
Meets with Hist 502 and AFRO 597
McDuffie EM CRN 42016 T 3-6:00 p.m.
AAS 199: Undergraduate Open Seminar
Topic: Race, Gender, and Sexuality
Ngô CRN 42852 MW 10-11:20
This course is designed to introduce students to some of the issues that emerge at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, dis/ability, and nation. The course will taught through comparative perspectives in terms of both race and nation; so, students will be introduced to issues of gender and sexuality across many racialized and nationalized groups including African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and indigenous peoples. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the intersectional and comparative frameworks and methodologies, debates in these fields, and to the critical language that surrounds those debates. The course will draw from a wide range of sources including music, plays, film, anthropological texts, fiction, and poetry. The course provides both an historical and contemporary context for thinking through topics including of representation, war, globalization, labor, imperialism, nation building, and racialization.
In composing this course, I am less interested in imparting the ‘right’ point of view than in encouraging students to think critically about issues of race, gender, sexuality, and nation, drawing your own thoughtful conclusions. In this spirit, the course is designed to give students the chance to interact not only with the lecturer, but with each other as well. A great deal of classroom time will be given over to discussion so that students can articulate their ideas, rather than passively listening to lectures all the time. Each student brings a range of experiences that add to their understanding of the material presented in class.
Ideally, the classroom serves as a forum to exchange and debate ideas from a wide range of perspectives. When more people participate fully, the section is both more engaging and enjoyable. Please come prepared to articulate your ideas, and bring the day’s required reading to class with you.
This course counts towards elective credits for the Asian American Studies Minor and the Gender and Women’s Studies major and minor.
AAS 397: Asian Families in America
Same as SOCW 397
Balgopal CRN 33282 TR 4-5:20
Offers a comparative analysis of Asian families as they cope and adapt to American society. Examines: 1) how families from four major Asian-American groups (Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Korean) function in American society; 2) how these families compare to families in their country of origin; and 3) how these families are similar to or different from the "typical American" family. Includes visits to Asian cultural institutions and with Asian families.
AFRO 342: Black Men in U.S. Society
Same as SOC325 – Prerequisite: Introductory social science course.
Hamer CRN 49218 MW 9-10:20
The sociological study of African American men in the contemporary United States. Specifically, the experiences of this demographic group as it relates to the economy, state, policy, and institutions such as family, criminal justice system, and education.
AFST 550: Special Topics
Topic: Women in Theatre from Africa
Perkins CRN 46759 MW 2-3:50
This course will utilize theatre to highlight the experiences of both urban and rural women throughout Africa. Using published and unpublished materials, audio and video sources of various productions and interviews, we will explore the themes and aesthetics of these works within their social and historical context. Through this course, you will gain an understanding of the diverse African cultures, and learn how theatre is used as a tool for effecting social change as well as a medium for eradicating stereotypes.
CHLH 199 B: Campus Acquaintance Rape Education
Undergraduate Open Seminar
Wantland CRN 31590 MW 3-4:20
Why is it difficult to speak out against rape? If the majority of perpetrators are men, why is it still seen as a "woman's problem"? Is rape inevitable? This class explores the realities of sexual assault and its societal foundations. Students will have an opportunity to discuss and critically analyze the effects of culture, oppression, and socialization on sexual violence. Additionally, students acquire facilitation skills which allow them to work as peer educators with the CARE program. There are no prerequisites for this course. Men, LGBTQ students, students of color, and students with disabilities are encouraged to apply. If you have further questions, please e-mail Ross at wantland@uiuc.edu. For more information, contact Ross Wantland at 333-3137 or wantland@uiuc.edu.
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CHLH 206: Human Sexuality
See Online course catalog for individual sections
CHLH 340 B2: Preventing Sexual Assault Through Education
Perquisite: CHLH 199B or GWS 199RW.
Wantland CRN 31603 TBA
What are the skills necessary to create and sustain sexual violence prevention programs? Can a sexual assault workshop create social change? What is the role of emotions, disclosure, and theory in doing anti-rape education? Community Health 340B2 is a course for students who have already completed a peer rape educator training course (CHLH 199B or GWS 199RW), and it explores some of the critical issues around being an anti-rape educator/preventionist. The course meets Wednesdays 6-9pm every other week during the spring semester. Students explore issues such as, "Can we end rape?" or "Embracing conflict in Class". Additionally, students also create and facilitate new workshops on sexual violence prevention to various groups. Each student must complete 50 hours of sexual violence prevention work (class included), and complete one group project. This course is pass/fail. For more information, contact Ross at wantland@uiuc.edu.
CINE 193: Undergraduate Seminar
Topic: Women Directors in the Black Diaspora
First Year Discovery Program Course. Registration restricted to freshmen.
Gateward FG CRN 40541 TR 3-4:50
COMM 320: Popular Culture
Davis SECT A CRN 40522 MW 12-1:20
Mastronardi SECT AL1 CRN 49089 TR 11-11:50
See discussion sections online
This course examines the critical literature on mass media entertainment; reviews significant contemporary issues and develops perspectives for understanding popular culture. Students will investigate how the processes of everyday life, as well as their own history and experiences, are articulated through popular cultural forms the course is both sensitive to issues of difference such as gender, race and ethnicity, class, and sexuality, and attuned to the global circulation of popular culture.
ENGL 274 P Literature and Society Castro. TUTH 11-12:15
Topic: Sex, Race and Reproduction: Literature and Genetics
Castro P CRN 49456 TR 11-12:15
From our vantage point in the age of the Human Genome Project, this course seeks to examine the uses and abuses of hereditarian thinking in U.S. literature, from the dawn of evolutionary thinking, through the birth of modern genetics, to our current fascination with DNA scripts. We will seek to trace how theories of human biology and reproduction have informed U.S. writers’ engagement with questions of racial, class, and national identities as well as how questions of biological “inheritance” become the means by which larger issues are debated. For instance, we will consider how figurations of heredity reflect on the relevance of personal and national histories to any present generation and the bearing those histories are thought to heave on future generations--if they are to be “passed on” at all. We will ponder the implications of embodying or somatisizing history through notions of genetics and reproduction. We will ask how writers treat sexuality when it is linked to and/or de-coupled from reproduction. Essential to the course will be an interest in the to and fro between theories of human genetics and literary discourse. That is, we will not merely examine various literary texts for how the “reflect’ hereditarian thought but will also investigate how the literary arena creates a space for testing, interrogating, and even shaping genetic logic. One goal will be to consider what our present age of genetic miracles may share with the intense interest in heredity that attended the birth of modern genetics, especially as manifested in the eugenics movement. This course serves as an introduction to American cultural thought that has sprung up around ideas of human heredity, right up until our present day. We will ask how narrative literature, itself a site of cultural transmission, intervenes in and acts on these debates.
Literary readings (chosen from works by Mark Twain, Henry James, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Jessie Fauset, Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood), selections of key essays on evolution and heredity (Darwin, Galton), and recent articles on reproductive and hereditarian issues. Students will also be asked o refer to the online Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement.
Responsibilities: vigorous class participation and thorough preparation of the reading, a group presentation, email responses, two papers, a midterm, and a final.
ENGL 455: Major Authors
Topic: Toni Morrison’s Trilogy
Prerequisite: One year of college literature, or consent of instructor.
Deck 2G CRN 40442 MW 3:30-4:45
Deck 2U CRN 32343 MW 3:30-4:45
In this course we will examine three of Toni Morrison’s novels that work as a trilogy: Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992) and Paradise (1997). She creates a trilogy based on the large history of African Americans beginning with Beloved (slavery), then Jazz (the Harlem Renaissance) and Paradise (an all black town settled after the Civil War in the Midwest). Each of the latter books also incorporates slavery as part of the history. Morrison does not use the same characters in each novel, but she does say in at least two interviews that in addition to depicting the large panoramic history of African Americans from slavery through about the 1970s in these three novels, her intention is to explore love in all three books. Beloved is about the love of a mother for her child, Jazz is about the love of a man for a woman, and Paradise is about loving God.
Love is both an obsession and a possession in each case such that one questions its function within the overall human condition. These particular novels are complex—both in the many issues they raise and in the narration. We will take our time to understand each one as a unit, and how they work as an intersecting trilogy. We will also read and discuss critical essays on each novel, and interviews of Toni Morrison.
ENGL 462: Topics in Modern Fiction
Topic: Sex Expression and Modern American Fiction
Bauer 1G CRN 40448 TR 11-12:15
Bauer 1U CRN 39524 TR 11-12:15
Starting with ideas about American courtship and ending with theories about repression, suppression and sexual consent, this course will define modern love and will debate what we have come to consider American Sex. Our discussions will focus on the nature of intimacy in a consumer culture, as well as ethnic, gendered, and racial challenges to the emerging sexual norms of modern America. Our collective purpose is to discover how “sex expression”—the emerging languages of sexuality and intimacy— replaced both sentimentality and sympathy and took hold in American culture.
This course will ask you to deliver several short oral reports, write bi-weekly response papers and a critical book review, and to research a final project focused on a literary and social history based on the authors we have studied. There will also be a series of in-class writings and assignments; as part of our regular class meetings, we will discuss your writing and peer reviews of it.
EPS 421: Racial and Ethnic Families
Same as AFRO 421, HDFS 424, and SOC 421. Prerequisite SOC 100, a 200- level SOC course, or consent of instructor.
Barnett G4 CRN 33720 T 10-11:50
Barnett UG2 CRN 33604 T 10-11:50
HCD 595: Seminar (Meets Aug. 22-Oct. 12 2006)
Topic: Gender & Sexuality
Oswald CRN 49075 T 2-4:50
This 8-week graduate seminar highlights key theoretical and methodological approaches to gender and sexuality within the multi-disciplinary field of family studies. Specifically, we will examine how gender and sexuality organize the accomplishment of (resistance to/subversion of) family life through both social structure and social performance, and their attendant historical, economic, and political contexts.
HDFS 425: Critical Family Transitions
Prerequisite: HDFS 120
Hardesty AL1 CRN 32422 TR 9-10:30
Life-span development approach to the study of normative changes and non-normative events and their impact on marriage and family relationships; attention to variations in the socio-economic contexts of family transitions, and to methods for reducing the negative effects of such transitions.
HIST 498 K: Research and Writing Seminar
Topic: The Body in Western Christianity
McLaughlin CRN 34338 R 3-4:50
Does the body have a history? And what, if anything, does that history have to do with religion? This course will explore changing ideas about physical pain and pleasure, eating and fasting, bodily emissions of various kinds, sexualities, reproduction, death and resurrection within Christian communities in Western Europe and America, from the beginning of the Common Era through the Middle Ages and into Modern Times.
HIST 535A: Problems in Middle Eastern History
Topic: Family, Gender and Law in The Middle East and North Africa
Cuno CRN 48979 M 1-2:50
“The family” is widely regarded as a crucial factor in “the structuring of economic, political, and social relations” in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), but this topic has only recently begun to attract the attention of historians of the region. From the beginning, modern social constructions of the family in MENA have been entangled with constructions (or reconstructions) of the nation and gender. Legal systems were reformed to bring them into conformity with European norms, literally resulting in the creation of “family law,” which has become an arena in which conflicts over the roles of woman and the family are fought. We will begin with big-picture comparative and foundational works, and work our way through a series of topics. Chronologically, we will range from issues in the pre-modern era to looking at the recent trend of reform in the personal status laws of several MENA countries
SOC 273: Social Perspectives on the Family
Prerequisite: SOC 100
CRN 47807 TR 2-3:20
Examines the societal forces shaping aspects of stable and changing family relations in the U. S. and other countries; focuses on social-structural factors affecting marriage, divorce, co-habitation, child-bearing, the division of work and authority, and other features of life.
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