Women's Studies Courses Fall 2001
Women's Studies 111: Introduction to Women's Studies in the Humanities
Students must register for the lecture and one discussion section. Fulfills the General Education Social Sciences requirement.
(Lect.), M W, 11:00
Disc. A, Th, 2:00
Disc. B, Th, 1:00
Disc. C, Th, 12:00
Disc. D, F, 1:00
Disc. E, F, 12:00
This course examines the social construction of women and gender through representation, sexualities, identities, roles and relationships, covering both traditional constructions of women and alternatives presented by different groups of women. We will explore the "common differences" which define women - such as class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion.
Women's Studies 112: Introduction to Women's Studies in the Social Sciences
Same as HDFS 145, SOC 145. Fulfills the Gen. Ed. Social Sciences requirement.
Lect. Disc. A, M W, 9:00 - 10:20
Lect. Disc. B, Tu Th, 1:00 - 2:20
What is Women's Studies and what does it have to do with you? Or with the social sciences? This course introduces key ideas in Women's Studies, encourages students to find links between their own lives and issues raised by feminist scholars, and maps some of the terrain of feminist scholarship in the social sciences. Discussions, readings, and lectures will explore the interplay of gender with other social categories such as race, sexuality, and class, through materials which come from a variety of disciplines including sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, political science and history, as well as feminist theory.
Women's Studies 114: Contemporary Issues in Women's Studies
Staff, Tu Th, 10:00 - 11:30
Explores the most recent debates and research related to contemporary issues which 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.
Women's Studies 199: Undergraduate Open Seminar
May be repeated, 1 to 5 hours, independent study.
To arrange registration in this course, students should contact the department office.
CONF, ARR, Ind. Study
Women's Studies 201: Introduction to Feminist Theory
Staff, Tu Th, 1:00 - 2:20
Using a range of historical documents and contemporary essays, we will study various formulations of feminist theory in order to identify the philosophical and historical underpinnings that have structured the arguments for (as well as against) feminism.
Women's Studies 210: Introduction to Queer Studies
Same as SOC 210. Prerequisite: WS 111 or 112 or 201, or consent of the instructor.
Cole, Tu, 3:00 - 5:50
This course is an introduction to an innovative interdisciplinary field of inquiry called queer studies. Queer studies begins from the premise that sexuality is historically variable and conditioned by social and political orders. In this course, we will review the key concepts and debates guiding queer studies and evaluate how they facilitate our understandings of the social and cultural dimensions of sexuality. Our course will use historical, scientific, theoretical, and popular materials to address questions related to: the processes and practices involved in the normalization and naturalization of sex, the ways in which sex and sexuality shape self understandings; the production sexual deviance in relation to nationality, race, and gender; and innovations in practices related to sexual freedom.
Women's Studies 235: Women in Politics
Same as POL S 235. Fulfills the Gen. Ed. Social Sciences requirement.
See the Timetable for discussion sections and times.
Staff (Lect.), M W, 10:00
Introduction to the political status and roles of women. Topics include women's political socialization, voting behavior, and political participation; feminist and anti-feminist politics; and contemporary legislative and public policy issues, such as educational equity, equal rights legislation, and health care delivery for women.
Women's Studies 250: Black Women's Histories and Cultures
Topic: Black Feminist Thought
Same as AFRO AM 250.
Petty, M W, 3:30 - 4:45
This course will examine the origins and development of black feminist/womanist thought in the United States. We will examine the social positions and writings of enslaved black women, post-Emancipation and late nineteenth-century black women, and twentieth-century black women to determine the extent to which they worked within and against the boundaries of race and gender to develop an ideology unique to their group. We will use Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall, as our primary text. This will be supplemented by slave narratives, excerpts from autobiographies, some fiction and some poetry. Time permitting, we will view excerpts from films and videos by black women filmmakers. Students will be required to write at least two medium-length essays and a final exam.
Women's Studies 262: Cultural Images of Women
Same as ANTH 262. Prerequisites: one introductory course in cultural anthropology, history, or one of the other social sciences (sociology, political science, economics), or another women's studies course; or consent of instructor. Fulfills the Gen. Ed. Social Sciences requirement.
Gottlieb, Tu Th, 10:00 - 11:20
Do women everywhere wish to be slender? Is menstruation everywhere viewed as a curse or handicap? Is childbirth seen universally as an illness to be medicated? Is motherhood by definition a heterosexual experience? Do menopausal women everywhere suffer from "hot flashes"? This course will explore these and related questions, investigating how women around the world experience their bodies. Throughout the semester we will inquire how not only social roles but also images, uses and meanings of the bodies that all women inhabit are shaped in deep, though often invisible, ways by culture. To help us examine opposing perspectives on difficult issues, we will also have student teams stage a few in-class debates on controversial topics: the biological basis for gender differences in behavior/the (un)reasonableness of female "circumcision" rituals/the (un)reasonableness of efforts to eliminate Indian suttee. Through a variety of readings, films, and inquiries on these topics, the course will introduce you to critical approaches to gender and society offered by cultural anthropology. Course requirements: students will do a variety of writing for the class, including the following: Several in-class quizzes plus one take-home essay; one-page reactions to films shown in class; short essays on in-class debates; short reaction piece to a relevant campus lecture or event; short piece based on personal fieldwork (24 hours without looking in a mirror). Reading requirements will include a course packet as well as the following books: Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body; Thomas Buckley and Alma Gottlieb (eds.), Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation; Colleen Ballerino Cohen, Richard Wilk, and Beverly Stoeltje, eds., Beauty Queens on the Global Stage; Robbie Davis-Floyd and Carolyn Sargent, eds., Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge; Karen Houppert, The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation; Ellen Lewin, Lesbian Mothers.
Women's Studies 272: Women, Men and Gender in American Society to 1877
Same as HIST 272.
Pleck, M W F, 10:00
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 political changes that followed 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.
Women's Studies 280 C: Women Writers
Topic: Multiethnic Women's Literature of the U.S., 1980-2000
Same as ENG 280. Prerequisite: Completion of the Comp. I requirement. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours as topic varies.
Doherty Mohr, M W F, 10:00
This course will focus on contemporary works by American women writers whose stories have roots around the world, including Mexico, China, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Our discussions will focus on issues related to racial, national, and gender identities as we compare the different perspectives on "America" that each author presents. We will also explore the role of literature as a bridge between past and present in stories that span generations. Because this course covers a period still in the process of definition, our task includes building a framework for comparing these diverse contributions to American literature. Requirements will include contributions to class discussion, response papers, two critical essays, a midterm and final exam. Texts may include: Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents; Esmeralda Santiago, When I was Puerto Rican; Fae Myenne Ng, Bone; Bharati Mukhergee, Jasmine; Octavia Butler, Kindred; Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today; Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera; Barbara Kingsolver, Another America/Otra América; Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place; Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak!
Women's Studies 280 D: Women Writers
Topic: The Evolution of Marriage, Sexuality and Economics in British Fiction
Same as ENG 280 D. Prerequisite: Completion of the Comp. I requirement. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours as topic varies.
Baron, M W F, 11:00
For much of British history, women of all classes were expected to maintain the social hierarchy through marriage, and to fulfill their destiny through pregnancy and motherhood. This course will explore the evolution of women's marital choices, sexual practices and economic rights in England over a two hundred and fifty year period. We'll begin by examining the nuances of 18th-century marriages, how women regarded courtship and how the advent of the novel and the rise of the upper middle class began to change the rules about marriage 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 and early 20th centuries, we'll take a look at how women from varying social classes dealt with the changes that technology had on their vocations, marital choices and sexual practices, and how the culture at large regarded these women. We'll end the semester on a lighter note, focusing on the liberated late 20th century woman as she struggles to find just the right man, battles bad hair days, unwanted cellulite, poor career choices and non-committal boyfriends. Course requirements include 2-3 moderate length papers (7-8 pages), several responses and a final exam. Richardson, short selections from Pamela; Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre; Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights; Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles; Forster, Howards End; and Fielding, Bridget Jones' Diary. Films and essays will supplement course readings.
Women's Studies 290: Individual Study
Prerequisite: One course in Women's Studies; consent of instructor. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. Students may register in this course more than once in the same term. See below for sections.
Women's Studies 290 &C: Eroticism East and West
For Chancellor's Scholars. Others may enroll with the consent of the instructor and the Director of the Campus Honors Program. Meets with C LIT 295 &A.
Blake, Th, 1:00 - 2:20
In the course of the semester we will be exploring some of the most enduring myths of eroticism including the Tristan and Isolde legend in the medieval versions and in Wagner's opera. We will also attempt to come to terms with Eastern versions of erotic passion in the Tale of Gengi from feudal Japan and the Hindu Kalika Purana. We will then turn to more contemporary renditions of the themes. Some of the questions we will be asking are: is there a necessary link between the erotic and the forbidden? Do cross-cultural studies reveal any universal elements in erotic experience? What does the portrayal of passion tell us about a society's value system? Art and literature speak to us of the unspeakable in the erotic experience which is often inseparable from the religious notions of taboo and sacrifice. Thus eroticism brings into play the very basis of the sacred and is traditionally linked to the mysteries considered fundamental to each culture. Do thinkers closer to us shed light on the phenomenon? According to Freud love is a "short psychosis." While twentieth-century French philosopher Georges Bataille defines eroticism as "assenting to life up to the point of death." This course will be conducted as a seminar. Each work will be presented by a member of the group. The oral presentation is to be considered as the point of departure for general discussion. Oral mark including class participation to count 25 percent. There will be one in-class exam (there may be quizzes) to count 25 percent. There will be one original paper (10-15 pages) to count 50 percent.
Women's Studies 302: Sex Roles
Same as HDFS 302, SOC 302. Prerequisite: SOC 100 or HDFS 105; or 6 hours of anthropology, geography, political science, or sociology.
Oswald, M W, 11:30 - 1:00
This course examines the social construction of gender within personal relationships, and links interpersonal constructions to both social institutions and individual development. Also, looks at the intersection between gender and other identities and social positions.
Women's Studies 335: Women's Health
Same as CHLTH 309. Prerequisite: CHLTH 100 or equivalent; or consent of instructor.
Gallagher, M W, 10:00 - 11:15
This course examines the cultures of women in relationship to their health. Study will be devoted to selected health care issues, developmental and physiological changes in the life cycle, health problems that affect women, and the maintenance of health.
CANCELLED Women's Studies 342: Body, Culture and Society CANCELLED
Same as KINES 342. Prerequisite: KINES 140; KINES 249 or equivalent; or consent of instructor.
Cole, M, 3:00 - 5:50
This course examines the historical and political significance of claims which link the social categories of deviance and bodies. Our focus will be on how truths of bodies are encoded and enacted; the ways in which such truths incite multiple desires; and how such truths and desires are embedded in modern power. This includes examining how visualizations of embodied deviance are implicated in historically specific makings of the self, imagined community, and political conflicts. Our discussions this semester will be organized around the following questions. How have deviant, criminal, and monstrous bodies been imagined? How are bodies made to bear the marks of difference? How have particular bodies been transformed into signs of characterological poverty, threat, moral panic, risk, suspicion, controversy, desire? How are knowledges of embodied deviance and danger related to inscriptions of self and self-inscriptions? What are the implications of various conceptualizations of bodies (healthy, reproductive, immunological, etc) and how do those conceptualizations differ across race, class, gender, age, sexuality? How do particular conceptualizations and technologies sustain particular forms of surveillance and regulation? What possibilities and potentials have been created through particular visualizations of bodies? Our readings will be drawn from a variety of sources which include social and political theory, history, sociology, English, law, medicine, popular, and activist publications which survey and examine the contingencies, relations, and performances of bodies, especially those bodies implicated in historically conditioned fears and contestations (reproductive bodies, AIDS body, hard/fit body, violent bodies, the addicted body, prosthetic bodies, gender subverting bodies, posthuman).
Women's Studies 358: Social Issues Theatre
Same as THEAT 358. May be repeated in separate semesters to a maximum of 6 hours or 3 units. Graduate students will be required to develop additional projects to be approved and assessed by the instructor.
Staff, M W F, 3:00 - 4:50
Research, writing, and production of original plays that address selected health and social issues on the UIUC campus in cooperation with the Counseling and Health Center. The course will emphasize training in acting and in the methods of peer education and discussion facilitation.
Women's Studies 396: Seminar in Women's Studies
Prerequisite: WS 111 or 112, and two additional courses in Women's Studies at the 200-300 level; junior standing or consent of instructor. May be repeated once as content varies. For independent study registration in this course, students should contact the department office. See below for sections.
WS 396 B: American Hitchcock: Gender, Culture, Power
Meets with COMM 490 S and SP COMM.
Gill & Press, Tu, 2:00 - 4:50
In this course we will look at a number of the films Hitchcock directed after he arrived in Hollywood in 1939. Hitchcock's films explore the dark underside, the violent impulses of what he sees as the bourgeois ordinariness of American life. All his protagonists suffer from moral failings, telling weaknesses which are revealed through bizarre, serendipitous circumstances. His films are populated by what have come to be known as the Hitchcockian Blondes: women notable for their cool self-possession, a sexual poise and social confidence that attract and unsettle the male protagonists. Hitchcock's vision is a fearful one, and he shares and induces that fear in his audience. A master technician, Hitchcock adopts Expressionist techniques of tight cutting and tight framing, distorted angles, and bravura manipulations of light and shadows to enhance the sense of a departure from or lapse in the normal world. His films at times mimic the vision, both cinematic and psychological, of the director, frankly revealing the voyeuristic properties, the demand/need for control, and the attempt to (con)form characters, usually female, to one's fantasy. In this course we investigate the uncomfortable visual complicity forged between narrative and spectator, the gendered power relations and the consequences of their reversals, and the dark, sly exposure of the subterranean malevolence of everyday American culture in Hitchcock's films. Course requirements: Extracurricular weekly viewing of one or two films; weekly response papers that summarize the critical essays assigned for the week and analyze the assigned film in terms of those essays.
Women's Studies 396 C1: Topics in Film Studies
Topic: Feminism and Film
Same as English 373.
Curry, M, 1:00 - 2:50
This course on feminist approaches to film and other mass media will begin by examining the representation of gender differences in classical Hollywood cinema. While we will address to some extent how also newer industrialized media (television, now the Internet) structure female images, the balance of the course (approximately half of it) will focus on films and videotapes produced over the last 30 years by various women, to evaluate their efforts to create alternative modes of representation. Throughout, the course will emphasize the relevance of theory to creative practices and the relation of feminist media criticism and production to on-going struggles in the movements to achieve full civil rights and social /interpersonal equality for all women. It will devote special attention to issues of "spectator pleasure" in media consumption, particularly to determining how the works studied address or ignore women of diverse class, race, age and sexual identities as audience members. Extensive readings and active class participation required, midterm, several short and one 10-15 pp. term paper. Prerequisite: one film, communication studies or women's studies course or consent of instructor. Required books: John Berger, et. al. Ways of Seeing (1972); Sue Thornham, ed. Feminist Film Theory : A Reader ( New York University Press, 1999); Judith Mayne, Cinema and Spectatorship (Routledge, 1993); and a course packet with additional articles.
Women's Studies 396 D: Gender Stratification
Same as SOC 303.
Poster, Th, 2:00 - 4:50
This course will examine the social construction of gender in contemporary society. The primary focus will be on gender inequality, and its dynamics of race, class, sexuality, and nation. The course will be divided in the several sections. The first will introduce the orienting theories within the sociology of gender. The second section will examine how social relations are gendered at three different levels: within individuals, within organizations, and within global relations. The final section will examine strategies for challenging gender inequality, and visions of alternative gender arrangements. Course assignments include class presentations on the readings and a group research project.
Women's Studies 401: Feminist Scholarship in the Humanities: Theory and Method
Prerequisite: At least one graduate-level humanities course or consent of instructor.
Treichler, ARR
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.
Of Interest in Other Departments...
African Studies 467: Kinship/Culture/Power/Africa: Classics and Critiques
Same as ANTH 467.
Gottlieb, Tu, 2:30-5:30
Kinship theory in anthropology was in good part developed with reference to Africa. In recent years, it has come under major assault. To what extent is kinship theory still relevant to our discipline? If it still commands interest, to what extent can African societies still contribute to the development of new kinship models beyond the already known and worn ones? Reciprocally, what can kinship theory--classic and contemporary --tell us about African societies? This course explores these issues by first looking at lineage theory and related writings on descent, which were the building blocks of classic (mostly British) models of kinship. We then go on to look at a variety of critiques of that body of literature, as well as recent and contemporary approaches (mostly American) that have endeavored to provide alternative frameworks of analysis. Here we will focus especially on ideological and cultural foundations of kinship systems; on the relevance of history and political economy into the realm of kinship; and on feminist approaches to kinship systems. Specific topics to be covered include: the corporate descent group as an anthropological/African institution; bridewealth and affinal exchanges; polygyny; divorce and widow(er)hood; patriliny, matriliny, and double descent; residence forms; ancestor worship; and witchcraft. Case studies will include both societies well known in the anthropological literature (e.g. Nuer, Asante), and those that are not so famous but nevertheless intriguing; they range over all parts of Africa south of the Sahara.
Agricultural & Consumer Economics 370: Family Economics
Same as ECON 346. Prerequisite: ECON 102 or ACE 100; a course in statistics; senior standing.
Beller, Tu Th, 1:00 - 2:20
This course examines the economic well-being of American families and considers the role of gender differentials in the labor market and the home.
Animal Sciences/Biology 231 &A/&1: Biology of Reproduction
For Chancellor's Scholars. Others may enroll with the consent of the instructor and the Director of the Campus Honors Program.
Kesler, M W F, 10:00
This course is a study of the basic principles of reproduction of domestic and non-domestic animals as well as humans, including biotechnological methods of reproductive control, genetic and embryo manipulation, and cloning. Some of the greatest recent advances in natural sciences have occurred within reproductive biology. This course will not only focus on the basic principles of reproduction, but also on the legal, biosocial, and ethical aspects of these revolutionary advances. The laboratories will meet outside of lecture time at an arranged time and may be modified for the students enrolled in the class. The Honors section students will have their own lectures which will meet on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00 a.m. In addition, research projects, including the effects of anabolic steroids on behavior and development, micromanipulation of embryos, and pregnancy detection, will be conducted by teams of Honors students. Honors students will also participate in group discussions on contemporary issue topics such as Propecia and pseudohermaphrodites, RU486 and contragestation, the control of wild animal populations, and more. This course will be taught using a problem-solving format to stimulate higher-level thought.
Communications 490 T: Special Topics in Communications Studies
Topic: Transnational Multicultural Studies
For enrollment in this course, students should contact the Dept. of Communications.
Valdivia, Th, 10:00 -12:50
This course uses a broad framework of analysis to develop a transnational multicultural studies that can be applied to the study of communications and culture. We will be heavily drawing from feminist, post-colonial, and multicultural scholars as well as combining these with relevant components from international communications research. Students will be strongly encouraged to develop an independent research project with publication potential while also working with other students in the class in presentations. Among the texts to be included will be Stam and Shohat's Unthinking Eurocentrism, Shohat's Talking Visions, Grewal's Home and Harem, Ong's Flexible Citizenship, Pratt's Imperial Eyes, Delgado and Muñoz's Everynight Life, and Fusco's English is Broken Here. (Don't worry; we won't read all of these in their entirety but will sample from these and others.)
Community Health 199 B: Campus Acquaintance Rape Education (C.A.R.E)
Murphy, M W, 3:00 - 4:30
This class explores the realities of sexual assault and its societal foundations. Students acquire facilitation skills which allow them to work as peer educators with the C.A.R.E. program.
Community Health 240 B2: C.A.R.E. Practicum
May be repeated once for credit. Offered for S/U grade only. Prerequisites: Completion of CHLTH 199 B and junior standing or consent of instructor. For permission to enroll, call Debbie Murphy at 333-3137.
Murphy, Th, 5:00 - 8:00
This practicum class involves facilitating workshops with the Campus Acquaintance Rape Education (C.A.R.E) program throughout the semester. Students meet twice a month as a group for in-services and training.
Comparative Literature 379: Mashrek and Maghreb Literature of French Expression
Same as French 334.
Accad, W, 1:00 - 2:50
The course will be a survey of the historical development of modern Francophone North African and Middle Eastern literatures. Serious consideration will be given to the problems of colonialism, independence, post-independence, the Algerian revolution, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the Palestinian problem. Reflections of these questions will be studied in the writings of Aba, Chraibi, Dib, Djebar, Faraoun, Haik, Mammeri, Memmi, and Yacine, Boudjedra, Fanon, etc. A portion of the course will be devoted to the role of women. Problems of the Arab woman based on anthropological and sociological sources will be presented. They will then be compared to the ones expressed in the works of the writers already mentioned, plus the ones by women writers: Bittari, Djebar, Chédid, Adnan, Khoury-Ghata, Amrouche-Taos, Tuéni, and Accad. Comparisons will be made between the works by women and those by men writers, as well as between Eastern and Western models. Attention to the style, the structural devices and the narrative techniques will be paid. We will set a theoretical framework by reading critical approaches of Third World texts.
East Asian Languages and Cultures 295 A1: Topics in Asian Religions
Topic: Gender in Japanese Religions
Same as REL ST 295 A1. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or consent of instructor.
Staff, W, 3:00 - 5:50
What's been the connection between religion and gender in Japan? This course addresses the question through examining a series of issues. For example, what have been the roles of gender in Shinto belief and practice? What have been the influences of Buddhist belief and practice on the positions of men and women in social life? What kinds of representations of such influence can be gathered from literary works written by women, and how might we interpret them? Why have so many of the founders of new religions been women? How do we interpret religious practices such as those performed on behalf of dead children and fetuses? What has been the relationship between religion and sexuality? These are some of the questions we will consider in our study of the dynamics of gender in the Japanese religious context, examining primary and secondary sources to interpret relevant textual/scriptural representations of gender and contemporary studies of the problems.
East Asian Languages and Cultures 298 A/450 A: Colloquium in EALC
Topic: Priests, Prostitutes, Performers: Drama in Premodern Japan
Prerequisite: Junior standing.
Goodman, MW, 2:30-4:50
Women and gender issues are central to any discussion of Japanese theater. The first recorded performance in Japan was of a goddess performing a striptease; and a woman founded Kabuki at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Despite their importance (or because of it), however, women's roles in Japanese theater were almost always played by male actors in the prewar period, raising interesting questions about the relationship between sex and gender. We will take up the issue of the reappearance of actresses in the early twentieth century during the spring 2001 semester, when we consider Japanese modern theater.
Educational Policy Studies 304: Social Foundations of Education
Feinberg, Tu, 10:00 - 11:50
This course analyzes normative and conceptual aspects of the interrelationship of school and society, and of reciprocal influences between schools and major social trends and forces. It will certainly include gender equality, democracy, access, and equity issues but from an Americanist perspective.
Educational Policy Studies 307: Aesthetics, Mass Communications and the Media
Alston, Th, 10:00 - 11:50
In this course we examine the various relationships between "the media" and education. These relationships include representations of children/youth, teachers, and schooling in news and fictional media products. We also look at the increasing interpolation of digital and interactive media into the classroom setting, as well as in the production (and sponsorship) of schooling. We examine seriously issues of race, class, and gender in the ownership, production, and consumption of these media, and seek to understand the production of meaning and educational aims under the conditions of these changing relations.
Educational Psychology 360: Introduction to Counseling and Psychotherapy
Same as PSYCH 367. Prerequisite: PSYCH 238 or equivalent.
Espelage, Tu Th, 2:30 - 3:50
This course covers the basic theoretical assumptions of psychotherapy models, including psychodynamic, behaviorism, cognitive-behavioral, feminist, etc. In addition, lectures focus on how each approach assesses its efficacy and verifies its tenets, the process of therapy in each model (i.e., stages of therapy), and how these models relate to individual differences (e.g., sex, race, sexual orientation). We will give attention to multicultural counseling and feminist theories.
English 247 &G: The British Novel
James Scholar/Discovery Section. Enrollment restricted to James Scholars and freshmen. For more information, contact the English Dept.
Saville, M W, 3:00 - 4:15
By the early nineteenth century, the novel was becoming one of the most popular literary forms in Britain. Taking up our study in 1818 with the publication of Jane Austen's Persuasion, we will examine the genre through a range of periods, closing in 1989 with Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. Our aim will be threefold: first, we will study the British novel as an aesthetic form and develop a working vocabulary for discussing issues such as narrative voice, plot structure, and modes of characterization. Second, we will consider the novel as a cultural artifact and focus on the human agencies, cultural processes and social structures by which it was shaped and which it, in turn, helped to influence or even invent. For instance, beginning with the question of how the novel became implicated in the construction of a "national literature," we might consider the idea of the author as a national hero, and the role of woman both in the definition of "Englishness" or "the British," and in the building of empire. We will consider how it is that women become such prominent authors, subjects, and readers of the novel in the nineteenth century and how novel-writing influenced subsequent developments in the perception of British "manliness." Third, we will consider the novel as a commodity produced by and participating in a particular market economy, and take into account the pressures imposed on aesthetic form by the economic decisions of publishers and authors. Texts: Jane Austen, Persuasion; Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre; Charles Dickens, David Copperfield; George Eliot, Adam Bede; Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge; Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse; Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day.
English 256 X & E: Survey of American Literature, II
Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement and English 100/101.
Thompson (Section X), M W F, 12:00
(Section E) M W F, 1:00
Through a thematic discussion of novels centered on "portraits of ladies," we will interrogate the current critical debates surrounding the definition and assessment of Realism, Naturalism, Modernism and Postmodernism, as well as the validity of the idea of literary movements in general. At issue will be constructions of national identity, gender, class and race as they relate to a particular, contrived, literary moment. By setting the individual texts in dialogue with one another along these lines, we will seek to establish a comparative basis for the historical and textual analysis of literary movements. We will perform close readings of the texts with regard to manifestations of ideology through narrative representations of/as violence; theories of aesthetic form; the textual status of history; and the idea of an "authentic" mode of American being. Also under consideration will be shifts in the conception of individual subjectivity and masculinity in terms of the representation of sexuality as an encounter with death. Students will be required to write 3 papers (5-7 pages), as well as take a mid-term and a final examination. Attendance is mandatory, as is class participation. Texts: Henry James, Daisy Miller; Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets; Frances E. W. Harper, Iola Leroy; Gertrude Stein, Three Lives; William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying; Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God; Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita; Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49; Toni Morrison, Sula.
English 296 N: Honors Seminar, I
Topic: Jews and Gender in Early English Literature
English Honors Seminar. Eligible English majors in the Honors Program have priority for enrollment. Provision has been made, however, for a limited number of non-majors who may also enroll. If you would like to enroll and you are not an honors English major you must contact Lisa Lampert at lampert@staff.uiuc.edu about enrollment before the course begins in order to assure your place in the class when the semester starts.
Lampert, Th, 10 - 11:50
There has been a lot of recent debate about the terms "race" and "anti-Semitism" and whether we can even use these terms when we discuss texts from the medieval and early modern periods. If the terms are anachronistic, do they still have usefulness for us when we read early texts? If so, what is that usefulness and how can we weigh it against the demands of historical accuracy? What are the intellectual and ethical demands placed on post-Holocaust readers of these texts? How do issues of gender and sexuality impact questions of "race" in early texts? With these questions in mind, we will examine a series of medieval and early texts that bring together representations of religious and racial difference. We'll begin with selections from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, looking not only at the notoriously anti-Semitic Prioress's Tale, but at the ways questions of religious and gender difference shape large portions of the Tales as a whole. We'll also look at some other texts contemporary to the Tales, including some Miracles of the Virgin, of which the Prioress's Tale is one, and some selections from the Corpus Christi drama, including representations of the Crucifixion and of the Virgin Mary. We'll then turn to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Marlowe's Jew of Malta and the lesser-known Unfortunate Traveller by Thomas Nashe to examine sixteenth-century visions of the Jew and their relation to the presence of actual Jews in Elizabethan England. We'll end the course with a seventeenth-century play by Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam, The Fair Queen of Jewry, the first original play by a woman to be published in England. These primary texts will be supplemented by excerpts from secondary texts that put issues of gender, race, and anti-Semitism into historical and theoretical perspective, among them selections from Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark; Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners; James Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews; R. Hsia, The Myth of Ritual Murder; writings by Luther, and discussions of the 1594 execution of Roderigo Lopez, Elizabeth I's "Jewish" physician.
English 297 &M: Honors Seminar, II
Topic: The Romantic Jane Austen
Any student with a 3.25 average may sign up for an Honors English seminar, although preference goes to majors in the Honors English Program and then to other English majors. To enroll in the English Honors Program, students should sign up for an Honors English seminar in Room 294 of the English Building.
Wood, Tu, 9:00 - 10:50
Jane Austen belongs to our own age - the movie industry has seen to that - but did she belong to her own? Writing in a time of revolution and war, and when literary fashion inclined to the darker passions, Austen's comedic novels are often misread as relics of an imagined eighteenth-century decorum, or a harbinger of Victorian primness. In addition to a close, formal study of the novels, this course will re-create both an aesthetic context for Austen - the literature of sensibility, the gothic, and the picturesque - and the great historical dramas of her age - the Napoleonic Wars and British colonialism - themes she treats obliquely but can never ignore.
English 300 X: Writing about Literature
Topic: Border-Crossing in Twentieth-Century American Women's Fiction
Prerequisite: Completion of campus Composition I General Education requirement; one year of college literature or consent of instructor.
Doherty Mohr, M W F, 12:00
In this course, we will analyze racial, national, and regional border-crossing in twentieth-century American women's fiction. As we read fiction by African-American, Chicana, Native-American and Anglo-American women writers, we will examine the construction of physical and ideological borders in the U.S. over the course of the twentieth century. As we study the impact of borders and border-crossing from historical and literary perspectives, we will address imperialism and immigration in the early twentieth century, passing during the Harlem Renaissance, and representations of "the borderlands" in contemporary fiction. With contemporary critical essays providing a guideline for reading across borders, we will find new ways to talk about differences when writing about literature. The comparative approach of the course requires engaged reading and active discussions as we build a critical framework that encompasses diverse perspectives. Coursework will include weekly responses to reading assignments, three critical essays, and a final exam. In-class writing exercises and opportunities for revision will further develop critical and literary writing skills. Texts: Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark; The Collected Stories of María Cristina Mena; Zitkala-Sa, American Indian Stories, Nella Larsen, Quicksand and Passing; Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony; Gloría Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera; Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek; Gloria Naylor, Mama Day. Films and critical essays will supplement these readings.
English 355 E: Major Authors
Topic: Emerson and Dickinson
Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
Hove, M W F, 1:00
We will study the texts, historical contexts, and present-day relevance of Emerson's writings (including Nature, both series of his Essays, his anti-slavery writings, his addresses, his poetry, and his neglected later works Representative Men and The Conduct of Life) and a large sampling of Dickinson's poetry and correspondence. Classroom discussions are intended to generate and explore as many interesting interpretive possibilities as possible and will consist of a lot of instructor-student give-and-take. Some likely themes we will explore include the following. Emerson: the sexual energies of oratorical, compositional style; approaches to personal and social reform; challenges to traditional moral values like charity, duty, consistency, self-sacrifice, generosity, loyalty, piety; the quest for sources of ethical confidence in God, Nature, Reason, or the Self; the influence of moods on views of life and judgments of experience; anticipations of the Nietzschean will to power and its role in epistemology and ethics; ideas on the practical uses of abstract thought; the resistance to systematic thinking; the attempt to define a new, American form of culture; affinities with the European romantics; mysticism. Dickinson: unorthodox treatments of Christian notions of God, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection; attitudes toward love and death; the psychodynamics of interpersonal relationships like friendship, heterosexual and homosexual romantic love, and parental and filial love; residues of politics in apparently apolitical poems; the transformation of the everyday into the extraordinary; gender politics of the literary marketplace and poetic voices; foreshadowings of naturalism in morality and theology; scientific challenges to traditional morality and religion; the domestic sphere's intersection with the public sphere; experiences of delight, rapture, and transcendence through sensory impressions of both pleasure and pain; poetic reimaginings of experiences like hope, despair, suffering, victory, defeat, renunciation, betrayal, remorse, fear, joy; the philosophical significance of poetic style. Texts: Emerson, Essays and Poems, ed. Joel Porte, Harold Bloom, and Paul Kane (Library of America College Editions); Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Little, Brown).
English 355 S: Major Authors
Topic: Gaskell and Eliot
Prerequisite: One year of college literature or consent of instructor.
Goodlad, Tu Th, 2:00 - 3:15
Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot were the premier female social novelists of the Victorian age. Gaskell's novels tackle industrial-era turbulence from the vantage point of domestic drama. Eliot wrote under a male pseudonym, distinguished herself from "silly" women writers, and crafted a realist form that was the envy of Henry James. In this course we consider major works by both authors: Gaskell's Mary Barton, Ruth, North and South and Cranford; and Eliot's Adam Bede, Felix Holt and Middlemarch. Our approach will be eclectic: historical and biographical as well as critical; with much attention to gender and sexual dynamics, industrial relations, the rise of the professions, contemporary political debates, and the impact of evolutionary science.
English 414 T: Jews and Gender in Medieval and Early Modern England
This course is intended primarily for English Dept. graduate students, but there is a very limited number of slots available for non-English grads. If you are having trouble getting into the course and would like to put your name on a waiting list, please contact Sharon Decker at 244-1464.
Lampert, Th, 3:00 - 5:50
In this course we will examine the interrelationships between representations of gender and religious difference, specifically Jewish difference, in English texts from the medieval and early modern periods. Until very recently, discussions of race and gender in literary studies have been dominated by a modern focus. We will explore these issues in medieval and early modern contexts. Can we even use terms like "race" and "antisemitism" when we deal with pre-Enlightenment texts? One of our primary goals will be to generate our own historically informed theoretical understandings of the shifting and complex relationships between antisemitism and misogyny in early English texts, with a focus on how representations of gender and Jewishness serve to shape normative models of "the Christian." Why, for example, does Chaucer assign his antisemitic Canterbury Tale to the Prioress, one of three female pilgrims, and how does the tale's impact resonate throughout the rest of the Tales to build a notion or notions of what it means to be Christian? How do the conversions of Abigail in Marlowe's Jew of Malta and Jessica in Merchant of Venice figure into sixteenth-century questions of Christian identity? Secondary readings for the course will range from Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler to Toni Morrison and Daniel Goldhagen. Primary texts: Paul, selections from Romans, 1 Cor., 2 Cor. and Galatians; Augustine, City of God, Book XVIII; Bernard of Clairvaux, selections from Sermons on the Song of Songs; Abelard, Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian; Chaucer, selections from The Canterbury Tales; The Croxton Play of the Sacrament; Jocelyn of Brakelond, Chronicles of Bury St. Edmunds; Luther, "On the Jews and their Lies," and "Two Letters to His Wife"; Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice; Marlowe, The Jew of Malta; Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller; Cary, The Tragedie of Mariam, Queen of Jewry. Secondary readings will be drawn from texts such as Boyarin, A Radical Jew; Butler, Bodies that Matter; Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners; Kristeva, Powers of Horror; Morrison, Playing in the Dark; Niremberg, Communities of Violence; Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews.
English 420 G: Seminar in Sixteenth-Century Literature
Topic: The Body in the Renaissance: Gender and Genre; Health, and Deviance
Prerequisite: A college course devoted entirely to an aspect of Renaissance studies or consent of instructor.
Neely, M, 3:00 - 4:50
We will explore medical and literary texts which construct the early modern body: medical texts by Jorden, Burton, Ferrand, and Crooke and literary texts in the genres of epic, lyric, and drama. Some works we may explore are Spenser's Fairie Queene, Book II, Mary Wroth's Urania, love sonnets by Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney, religious lyrics by John Donne and Aemelia Lanyer, and a couple of plays such as Gammer Gurton's Needle, Twelfth Night, The Changeling. We will look at the recent explosion of scholarship on the early modern body in the wake of Foucault, Thomas Laqueur, and Gail Paster. Topics include the humoral body, the erotic body, the body in parts and bodies' pathologies, pleasures, and disciplines. The seminar will ask: What does it mean to historicize the body? What sort of dynamic interactions between cultural texts can be postulated and analyzed? At what sites and in what ways does the body acquire gender, sexuality, class, race? How are these attributes connected to health and deviance? Assignments will include brief weekly responses, an informal class presentation, a book review, and a 14-16 page final paper. Texts: Readings packet; other texts to be announced.
English 483 G: Topics in Writing Pedagogy and Program Design
Topic: Rhetorics/Bodies
Same as C & I 466.
Hawhee, M, 3:00 - 4:50
Est enim actio quasi sermo corporis. "For by action the body talks" (Cicero, De Oratore III.lix.22). This course will consider the ways in which rhetoric and bodies produce, inhabit, and collide with each other by examining work loosely called "body studies" alongside conceptions of rhetoric. Readings for the course will consist of a) primary rhetorical texts ranging from Aristotle to Kenneth Burke to Judith Butler, and b) secondary and more recent scholarly work that might fall under the rubric of body studies, both within and outside of rhetorical studies (if such a distinction can be made). Additional projects will encourage a focus on the body and rhetoric as sites of interdisciplinary study. Students in the course will be asked to engage these texts by constantly interrogating what rhetoric and bodies might be and what they are doing in these texts. How are studies of corporeality relevant for rhetoric? To what extent do common conceptions of rhetoric rely on a mind/body split? What would a history of rhetoric written through the body look like? What does a consideration of physical "bodies" do to notions of subjectivity/agency/identity? In short, how does the materiality of the body make a difference for rhetoric? Possible texts: Rhetorical Bodies, ed. Jack Selzer and Sharon Crowley (excerpts); Plato, "The Sophist"; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (excerpts); Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice; Roy Porter, "History of the Body"; Caroline Bynum, "Why All the Fuss about the Body? A Medievalist's Perspective"; Chris Shilling, The Body and Social Theory; Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies; Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter; Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, "How to Make Yourself a Body without Organs" in A Thousand Plateaus; Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, The Use of Pleasure, "Open up a Few Corpes" (from Birth of a Clinic); selections from Zone books, Incorporations and Fragments for a History of the Human Body; selections from Constructions of the Classical Body, ed. James I. Porter; Maud Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self Presentation in Ancient Rome; Donna Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto"; selections from Deviant Bodies, ed. Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla; Page duBois, Torture and Truth; Steven Shaviro, The Cinematic Body; Ann Balsamo, Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women; selections from The Male Body, Laurence Goldstein, ed.
German 199: Undergraduate Seminar
Topic: History of Sexuality (Before and After Freud)
Lectures and readings in English; no knowledge of German required.
Nikerk, M W F, 1:00
This is a general education seminar for all undergraduate students, not just German majors or minors! Often we think of "sex" and "sexuality" as phenomena, which have remained more or less the same over the ages. In this seminar we will try to prove the opposite and look at the historical contexts in which "sex" and "sexuality" were debated during the past three centuries. Freud claimed that Western societies repressed sexuality, but is this really true? Or is it more correct that Western societies were driven by a drive to study and debate sexual behavior in all its forms. We will look at some theoretical texts (Freud's writings on culture, Foucault's History of Sexuality), read a number novels and novellas (by Goethe, the Marquis de Sade, Kleist, Sacher-Masoch, Schnitzler, Kafka, Thomas Mann, Christa Wolf, Kundera and Toer), and look at some films (a.o. Visconti's Obsession, Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Beillat's Romance). Format: presentations, group work and discussions. Requirement: 3 papers and a final exam.
History 298 BB: Undergraduate Research and Writing Seminar
Topic: Diaries and Daily Life in Early Modern Europe: Working with Ego Documents
Prerequisite: Junior standing; 14 hours in history; or, with consent of instructor, 14 hours in the social sciences and/or humanities.
Koslofsky, Th, 1:00 - 2:50
Based on the memoirs of Glückel of Hameln (1646-1724), a successful Jewish merchant and mother of fourteen children, and the autobiography of Johann Dietz (1665-1738), a Pietist Lutheran, mercenary, and barber-surgeon to the Royal Court in Berlin, this research seminar will explore daily life and personal writing ("ego documents") in early modern Europe. Glückel and Johann were extraordinary people who, lucky enough to reach old age, wrote detailed accounts of the people and places which had filled their busy lives. Both were pious and worldly, always aware of both God's unforeseeable will and their own advantage. Both traveled widely: Glückel's business took her across northern Germany (and her husband across much of central Europe); Johann served as a barber-surgeon in two campaigns against the Turks and in two Dutch whaling expeditions which took him from his birthplace of Halle to Hungary, Greenland and Norway. Natural storytellers, Glückel and Johann noted and retold incidents which they found edifying, entertaining, or unusual. Their descriptions of courtship and family life, sickness and healing, and trade and business are rich sources on everyday life in early modern Europe. Their accounts deal extensively with the religious identities of the authors, including their encounters with adherents of other religions. Both works are available in English translation. After mastering the basics of early modern daily life and personal writing, students will write research papers on other early modern autobiographies, personal writings and biographies (such as Alan Macfarlane, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin; Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms; Natalie Zemon Davis, Women on the Margins and Steven Ozment's Three Behaim Boys: Growing Up in Early Modern Germany) in comparison with the accounts of Glückel and Johann.
History 298 MM: Undergraduate Research and Writing Seminar
Topic: Empire in the Victorian Imagination
Prerequisite: Junior standing; 14 hours in history; or, with consent of instructor, 14 hours in the social sciences and/or humanities.
Burton, Tu, 10:00 - 11:50
This course allow students to explore the various forms through which Victorians imagined the nineteenth century British empire: history, literature, visual representations, travel writing, anthropology and autobiography, among others. The "Victorians" who imagined the empire were not just "native" Britons but included the subjects of the Queen's empire as well, and their attempts to return the gaze of the colonial state and its officials will be detailed as well. Questions of national, religious, racial, regional, sexual and gender identity were central to these imaginaries and will be treated as sites of analytical investigation in the course. Some knowledge of imperial history is desired, but not required.
History 341: Modern Britain, the Victorian Era, 1815-1900
Prerequisite: One year of college history.
Burton, Tu Th, 1:00 - 2:20
This course combines a discussion of the social and political developments of the Victorian era with an examination of Britain's role as a global imperial power over the course of the long nineteenth century. The constitutional reforms of 1832, 1867 and 1884 are just a few among the high political events shaped by officials who had one eye on metropolitan concerns and the other on colonial economic interests. More specifically, we will be tracking the ways in which imperial expansion, Irish nationalism and the rhetoric of the civilizing mission all helped to shape the terms of parliamentary debate, as well as to re-confirm the white male character of democracy in Britain. English women's attempts to participate in political reform, to vote and to run as members of parliament and to participate in Britain's imperial reform projects will be dealt with throughout, as will the presence of colonial people in the metropole itself in this period. Special attention will also be paid to the impact of empire on the daily life, cultural attitudes and consumption practices of Britons in this, Britain's so-called "imperial" century.
History 357: History of American Families
Same as HDFS 357.
Prerequisite: One year of college history.
Pleck, M W F, 2:00
This course will provide an overview of family life in the United States, beginning before the forming of the U.S. in colonial history and extending up to the present. Topics emphasized will be the history of childhood and adolescence, dating and courtship, sex and reproduction, husband-wife relations, female-headed households, and aging. The course will also examine major transformation in family structure and authority patterns, and consequences of those transformations. Among the assignments will be an analysis of family photos and a possible research paper on history of the student's family.
Human Development and Family Studies 214: Introduction to Aging
Same as CHLTH, LEIST, PSYCH, REHAB 214. Prerequisite: HDFS 105 or 3 hours of social science.
Armstrong, M W, 10:30 - 11:45
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the human experience of aging and examines ways in which the personal, social and cultural levels of life interact to shape the experience of aging and later life. The focus is on aging in the contemporary U.S. but we look at the meaning and circumstances of aging in other times and places to provide comparative perspective. The course is open to any interested undergraduate students. It fulfills a requirement for the campus Minor in Gerontology.
Human Development and Family Studies 315: Critical Transitions in Families
Prerequisite: Six hours of HDFS courses or consent of instructor.
Staff (Lect.), Tu Th, 9:00 - 10:20
Discussion A1+, Tu, 12:00
Discussion B1+, Tu, 1:00
One major objective of this course is to explore the life changes and transitions experienced by families during the course of normal development. A phenomenological approach will be utilized to understand and appreciate the impact of specific critical transitions by describing the actual experiences of individual family members. We will then move beyond an individual perspective to ascertain how critical transitions affect dyadic relationships as well as the family system as a whole. We will pay particular attention to issues of cultural diversity, gender, and the contribution of socioeconomic factors to family development. Our quest will be guided by theoretical models of family development and resilience to stress.
Human Resource Education 452: Diversity in Education and Training
Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
Cordova-Wentling, Th, 9-11:50
The purpose of this course is to assist educators, as well as trainers and managers in business and industry, to effectively identify and understand diversity in school and work settings. Course activities will focus on understanding the nature of diverse populations, their unique learning needs, and potential collaborative efforts between educators and work place personnel. Course topics include multicultural, gender-fair, cultural diversity issues such as race, ethnicity, religion, language, and gender.
Philosophy 201: Philosophy in Literature
Wagner, M W F, 9:00 - 9:50
Two (and-a-half) old stories. Our first story concerns a man for whom all seems to be going well until life is inexplicably unhinged. Trying to get to the bottom of things, and to restore order, he discovers more than he bargained for, although not necessarily what he set out to learn. We'll read these versions and variants of the story: Sophocles, King Oedipus; anon., The Book of Job (ed. by Stephen Mitchell); Leo Tolstoy, "The Death of Ivan Ilych;" Franz Kafka, The Trial and "The Judgement;" J.M. Coetzee, The Life and Times of Michael K.; Haim Lapid, Breznitz. We may also look at a few movies, e.g., a version of The Trial or the recent The Croupier. The second story describes a party. We're introduced to the various guests; who, as they keep drinking, strike out for the past and the future. Thoughts turn, as they say, "philosophical;" often a gate-crasher upends things. Versions: Plato, Symposium; James Joyce, "The Dead;" Virginia Woolf, The Years (final episode); Adrienne Rich, selected poems including "A Long Conversation" from Midnight Salvage; also other poems by Rich, Denise Levertov and Jorie Graham. (All three poets are living Americans.) Kafka's The Castle combines elements of the first story with (among other things) a dose of Homer's Odyssey (which is also a party-crasher plot, as well as a story of trying to restore sense and order to a life that had been running so well). We'll end with this book. We don't have time for the Odyssey, and it's not presupposed, although knowing it will certainly enrich your reading. If time and energy permit, we may watch a couple of movies inspired by the Odyssey, e.g., The Matrix or Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? My own interpretations are eclectic but tend to be influenced by Hegel (oppositions and exclusions); Brecht (secular mechanisms, particularly political ones, where others might see supra-natural or metaphysical causes); and the "American" school of close attention to wording and imagery. Feminist reading is a constant; we'll study gender themes also in such heavily "masculine" works as Kafka and Job. The class includes much discussion, during which students are expected to (and always do) find new ideas. Course requirements will depend on class size and composition, but you can expect to write a substantial paper plus some short pieces.
Philosophy 280 R: Current Controversies
Topic: The Second Wave in North American Philosophical Feminism
Abramson, Tu Th, 2:30 - 3:50
The phrase, "the second wave of feminism," refers to a movement in North American politics, usually dated to the early 1970s and the push for the Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S. But it is not just feminist politics that has a history, and comes in waves. Philosophical thought about feminism has also had a second wave, dating roughly to the same time as the second wave of feminism in politics. It's now been thirty years since the beginning of the second wave of philosophical feminism, and in every decade, there has been a distinct set of questions concerning feminism on which philosophers have tended to focus. This course is an investigation of the history of philosophical feminism of the second wave. Our concern will be not only to discuss the truth of, and the mistakes in, the work of feminists philosophers over the last three decades, but to understand how the very questions philosophers have asked about feminism have evolved over the last thirty years. The course is divided by decade, and in each of the three sections of the course our readings will be drawn largely from a particular collection of articles published in that decade. We will occasionally pause to set our philosophical readings in a larger social and political context by discussing the philosophical texts in light of some more explicitly political texts and a film - both exemplary of certain feminist political concerns predominant in that decade of North American Feminism.
Sociology 243: Social Perspectives on the Family
Counts toward the campus General Education requirement in Social and Behavioral Science.
Ezawa, M W, 1:00 - 2:20
In this course, we will use a sociological perspective to examine family roles, family relationships, family norms, and family ideals. This course starts by asking: What is the family? We will examine varying definitions of the family, its changing structures, and functions using historical and cross-cultural sources. We will consider the specific social conditions under which the modern American family was constructed. We will then analyze the extent to which the idealized family has or has not, been realized, focusing on changing gender roles and gender relationships within the family; on race and class differences among families; and on the reciprocal interactions of the family with other social institutions.
Sociology 482 WP: Recent Developments in Sociology
Topic: Gender and Globalization
May be repeated as topics vary.
Poster, F, 9:30 -12:20
This course will examine how gender inequality is structured on an international level. First, it will examine commonalities and differences in women's oppression world-wide, and the historical factors which have shaped them. Second, it will look at contemporary patterns of globalization which are shifting the dynamics of gender inequality, such as the international migration of women, the over-seas movements of transnational corporations, and the administration of international state policies. Emphasis will be placed on the interactive relationship between various countries, and how globalization promotes racial, ethnic, and national hierarchies among women in all parts of the world. The last section of the course will then look at women's resistance and international feminist movements.
Spanish 244: Hispanic Women's Words in English
Discovery section; for freshmen only. Readings and lectures will be in English; no knowledge of Spanish necessary.
Tolliver, Tu Th, 9:00 - 10:15
Study of the representations of women's experiences in modern female-authored literary texts of the Spanish-speaking world, including works from Spanish America, Spain, and the U.S.
