Gender and Women's Studies

GWS 150: Contemporary Women's Issues

(formerly WS 114)

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: Undergraduate Open Seminar

(formerly WS 199)

CONF

ARR  

Ind. Study

May be repeated, 1 to 5 hours, independent study. For independent study registration in this course, students should contact the departmental office. See other sections below.

GWS 199 1: Undergraduate Open Seminar

Topic: The World, according to gender

Chandra      

R

10-12:50

How has gender shaped the world as we know it? Is it possible that large global developments actively create and support the knowledge, social organization and practice of gender? This seminar course will analyze cross cultural encounters and processes of global change through the lens of gender and sexuality. Recognizing that gender is culturally produced, we will study how historically shaped notions of gender were determined in the context of world historical and cross cultural social change. We will then analyze the process by which 'global' cultural formations were themselves created and sustained by gender. The course will examine the processes of exploration, travel, slavery, colonialism and conversion to view the integral role played by cultural notions of gender. This will provide us with a fresh perspective on the effect of trans-national, global social change and with that to arrive at historically sensitive, critical understandings of the relationship between culture and power in the rapidly globalizing world that we all inhabit.

GWS 199 RW: Undergraduate Open Seminar

Topic: Fraternity Peer Rape Education and Prevention

Students must be members of fraternities and have permission of the instructor. To enroll contact Ross Wantland at wantland@uiuc.edu.(formerly WS 199)

Wantland

T

6-8 p.m.

Can fraternity men stop rape? This course seeks to answer this question by providing interested fraternity men with skills to become peer rape educators for their own chapters. In the fall semester, students go through an 8-week course that trains them to become peer rape educators. In the spring semester, students build on their existing facilitation skills, and develop, implement, and evaluate a series of presentations for their individual chapters. Students must be members of fraternities and have permission of the instructor.

GWS 199 U1: Undergraduate Open Seminar

Topic: Women in Film and Literature

This section of WS 199 is for students in Unit One, WIMSE, Weston Exploration, or by permission of Unit One director, h-schein@uiuc.edu. Parent Course III. Graded S/U. 1 Credit

TBA

R

4-5:50

GWS 245: Women & Gender Pre-Mod Europe

(formerly WS 202) Same as HIST 245, MDVL 245

McLaughlin

MWF

10-10:50

An introduction to some major issues in the history of women and gender from the fifth to the sixteenth century. Among the subjects to be discussed are the impact of class on gender roles, women's work and access to property, the relationship between the public and private spheres of life, women's roles in the conversion of Europe to Christianity and in The Reformation, and the connection between the misogynist tradition and pre-modern women's sense of self.

GWS 250: Introduction to GWS in the Humanities

Students must register for the lecture and one discussion section. This course fulfills the General Education Social Sciences requirement. Section U1 for Unit One, WIMSE, and Weston Exploration students through August 26 or by consent of the Unit One director. (formerly WS 111)

This course provides an introductory overview of the interests, concerns, and controversies of contemporary feminisms. Each week's lecture and discussion sessions will address one particular issue of importance to gender studies. Weekly topics include gender construction, the formation of sexualities, the concerns of race, and issues of family. Students will read articles that examine these topics in terms of their significance both in and out of the academy.

GWS 261: Gender in Transnational Perspective
Same as SOC 261. Prerequisites: SOC 260, WS 260, or consent of instructor. GEN ED: SS.

(formerly WS 221)

TBA

MW

12-1:20

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 280 E: Women Writers

TOPIC: Jane Austen and the Feminist Controversy

Same as ENGL 280 E. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement. (formerly WS 280)

Baron

MWF

1-1:50

This course will examine all six of Austen's completed novels and discuss how these pieces create a dynamic feminist construct that earlier readers have missed. We'll look at turbulent times Austen lived in, and explore whether the revolutionary rhetoric on the tongues of men included women through the works of reformers like Mary Wollstonecraft.

GWS 280 Q: Women Writers

TOPIC: Latina Writers  Women Writers

Same as ENGL 280 M. Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement.(formerly WS 280)

Castro

TR

12:30-1:45

This course offers an opportunity to engage writerly voices from within this diverse group of U.S. residents with ties to Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and other points south that we might nominate more broadly as "Latin America." As the above lines themselves attest, the problem of nomenclature, of classification, and the attendant questions of identification and solidarity are key issues, and they will be among our themes.

GWS 285: U.S. Gender History to 1877

Same as HIST 285. (formerly WS 272)

Hoganson

MWF

9    

Starting in the colonial period and continuing on through Reconstruction, this course will introduce students to the study of U.S. women's and gender history. We will investigate how beliefs about women's proper roles and capabilities changed over time, and we will pay close attention to real women's lives, which often were at odds with prevailing ideologies. Throughout the semester we will question how women's experiences particularly, in the realms of work, family, community, and political activism-varied according to race, ethnicity, class, and region. As part of this endeavor, we will pay some attention to the history of men and masculinity. Beyond conveying a sense of what happened, this course aims to develop students' analytical skills and understanding of the craft of history through primary and secondary readings, lectures, class discussions, and papers.

GWS 340: Gender, Relationships and Society
Same as HDFS 340, SOC 322. Prerequisite: SOC 100 or HDFS 105; or 6 hours of anthropology, geography, political science, or sociology.(formerly WS 302)

Oswald          

MW

11:30 - 12:50

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.

GWS 380: Black Women Histories & Cultures

Same as Afro 380 (formerly WS 250

  McDuffie  

MW

12-1:20

What is black feminism? Is there only one type of black feminism? Or are there a variety of black feminist discourses across space, time, and regions (e.g. North America, the Caribbean, Africa, etc.)? How did enslavement, migration, industrialization, urbanization, wage labor, colonialism, and decolonization transform the lives, identities, and consciousness of women of African descent? How has modernity shaped the social construction of feminity and masculinity within black communities? Why is feminism often disparaged within black communities? Can men of African descent be feminists? To what extent have black feminist and black nationalist discourses found common ground? What role did the Left play in helping to birth African American feminist consciousness? How have gender, race, class, age sexuality, and culture defined black women's place in social movements? What are the differences between black feminist and white feminist discourses and Eurocentric gender ideologies? What are the similarities between black and Third World feminisms? How have black feminists come to understand lesbianism, heterosexism, motherhood, and the relationships between each other and with men of African descent? How have women of African descent strategized to protect and empower themselves (and their communities? From inter ( and intra) racial violence, exploitation, homophobia, and negative depictions in the media and popular culture? Where is black feminism heading as we move into the new millennium? These are just a few of the many questions that this class will seek to answer. Over the course of this semester, we will trace the development of black feminist consciousness, the socio-economic status of women of African descent, changing gender relations within communities of African descent, black women roles in social movements, and representations of black women in popular culture and in scholarship over time from the 16th century to the present-day. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach and a global perspective, we will use scholarly texts and articles, novels, memoir, film, and music to critically understand black women's history and the development of black feminism.

GWS 390: 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. For independent study registration in this course, students should contact the department office.(formerly WS 290)

CONF

TBA

10-11:20

GWS 390 A: Popular Culture

Same as COMM 320

Mastronardi

TR

12-1:20

Our goal this semester will be to add texture to this "empty concept" from a media studies perspective. Students will learn that although popular culture is ubiquitous, this does not mean it is transparent and easy to understand. We will approach our topic thematically and theoretically-in the sense that we will investigate relevant issues that confront us, such as identity, the body, and history. More specifically, we will study a range of popular culture texts and issues, including American Girl dolls, casinos and gambling, public toilet signage, reality television, Internet games, high school proms, football fans, and tourism and studying abroad. Whenever possible we explore how our own experiences and everyday lives are articulated through popular culture forms. Over the course of the semester, students will gain an understanding of the impressive breadth and depth of popular culture, and the way it infuses and shapes our lives.

GWS 390 LC: Constructing Deviance through Gendered Racialization

Meets with LLS 390, AAS 490.

Cacho

MW

2-3:50

Examines how Asian Americans, Latinas/os, African Americans, and Native Americans have been differentially racialized and gendered through law, work and culture. This comparative approach emphasizes that racial groups are narrated through discourses of gender deviance in relation to one another. This serves to privatize social problems as merely symptoms of dysfunctional families or pathological neighborhoods while encouraging the intensification of surveillance, incarceration, exploitation, and gendered stratification. As an interdisciplinary course, we will read scholarship from legal studies, media studies, sociology, and cultural studies.

GWS 409 A: Women's Health

Same as CHLH 409 (formerly WS 335)

Searing

TR

2-3:15

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 418 G1: Social Issues Theatre

Same as THEAT 418. May be repeated in separate semesters to a maximum of 6 hours or 2 units. Repeat or graduate students will be required to develop additional projects to be approved and assessed by instructor.(formerly WS 358)

Disc. G1 (Morrissette)

Disc. G1 (Morrissette)

MW

F

3-4:50

3-4:50

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 & Race in Contemporary Architecture

Same as ARCH 424. Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.(formerly WS 324)

Anthony

MW

9:30-10:50 

Analyzes how the built environment reflects social attitudes towards gender and race. Identifies the work of women and people of color in architecture and related disciplines as consumers, critics, and creators of the environment. Provides links with valuable professional networks in Chicago and elsewhere.

GWS 432: Gender and Language

Same as LING 432, and SPCM 432 (formerly WS 332)

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: Individual Study

Interdisciplinary seminar on special topics in women's studies. May be repeated one time if topics vary. Prerequisite: GWS 250 or 260, and two courses in women's studies at the 200-300 levels; junior standing; or consent of instructor.

Independent Study

GWS 490 2G/2U: Seminar in Women's Studies
Topic: American Narratives of Passing

Meets with ENGL 461. Prerequisite: GWS 250 or 260, and two additional courses in Women's Studies at the 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 section. (formerly WS 396)

Somerville

MWF

12

Passing involves moving across lines of race, gender, sexual orientation, and/or class and thus raises profound questions about identity, representation, and knowledge. We will study a range of texts that have portrayed or enacted various kinds of passing in the United States, including fiction, autobiography, and film. Our guiding questions throughout the course will include: To what extent does passing reinforce or unhinge seemingly natural categories of race, gender, or sexual orientation? What are the connections or disjunctions between closeting and crossing the color line? How might literary texts themselves pass? How do different historical and political contexts shape passing narratives and their reception? To what extent does passing across one axis of difference unsettle other categories of identity? Required texts will include: literary works (such as Charles Chesnutt's The House Behind the Cedars, Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues, John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me, James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, and Nella Larsen's Passing); films (such as Imitation of Life, Illusions, Gentleman's Agreement, and Boys Don't Cry); and recent critical and theoretical inquiries into identity, performativity, and passing (from fields such as queer studies, feminist theory, and African American Studies). Requirements include active participation, two essays, and one class presentation.

GWS 490 A: Seminar in Women's Studies

Topic: Girls and Popular Culture
Meets with COMM 291 T and LLS 296.(formerly WS 396)

Projansky

MW

10-11:20

In this course, we will examine the relationship between girls and popular culture from a variety of perspectives. We will ask questions such as: How have girls been represented historically in popular culture? Why are girls so prominent in popular culture in the late 20th century and early 21st century? How do girls use, produce, and interact with popular culture? In the process of exploring these questions, we will also work to define both "girls" and "popular culture." To do this, we will ask questions such as: When does girlhood begin? When does it end? How do popular culture texts define "girl"? How do girls define the meaning of "girl" for themselves? And, what "counts" as popular culture? Is it just film, television, radio, mass magazines, and the internet? Does it also include zines, playground culture, shopping mall spaces, sports, and street corners? The course will emphasize discussion over lecture and written papers over exams, and it will draw on scholarly writing, personal experience, and critical viewing/listening/reading of popular culture. Students will be encouraged to bring their own interests into the classroom, shaping the direction of our discussion, as well as the examples of popular culture that we view/listen to/read throughout the semester.

GWS 490: Seminar in Women's Studies

Topic: Sexual Anarchy? The Crisis of Gender at the Turn of the American Century

Undergraduates Only

Cate

W

3-6

This course will explore the ways in which gender and sexuality intersected with other controversial issues in the U.S. between the end of Reconstruction and the entry into WWI. We will look at pop-cultural artifacts as well as political and academic discussions from the time, examining them in light of historical resources. We will locate trends and changes in the definition of gender and sexuality as they shifted to accommodate a range of public perspectives and concerns at a time of great sexual, racial and economic conflict.

GWS 508: Feminism, Gender and Sexuality

Same as ANTH 508 (formerly WS 463)

Gottlieb

 T

2-4:50

What is feminist anthropology, how does it relate to broader feminist theory, and how does it relate to anthropology? Can feminism and cultural relativity engage in a productive dialogue? What is feminist ethnography, and is/can/should it be written "differently"? In this graduate seminar we will take a roughly chronological look at how a range of authors, from founding mothers to contemporary scholars, have reshaped the subdiscipline of cultural anthropology by reminding us that we are all gendered. We explore a range of theoretical perspectives, from political economy to postcolonial to literary. Although we mostly focus on writings by anthropologists, we will also look at relations between feminist anthropology and some other related disciplines.

GWS 560: Feminist Media Studies
(formerly WS 460) Same as COMM 560. Prerequisite: Graduate Standing or consent of instructor.

Treichler

Cancelled

Addresses major areas of theoretical debate or interest in the broad topic of "Feminist Media Studies: and looks in depth at a number of theoretical issues which define it. Develops an understanding of historical, psychoanalytic, interpretive, and social scientific approaches to the study of film and television texts, their reception, and their production. Readings are extensive and directed toward illustrating the range of theoretical and empirical approaches applied to addressing questions of central interest to theoretical debates in the field. Viewings and readings are focused on "popular" film and television.

AAS 397: Asian Families in America

Same as SOCW 397

Balgopal

TR

10-11:20

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.

ACE 476: Family Economics

Prerequisite: ECON 102 or ACE 100; a course in statistics; senior standing.

Beller

TR

1- 2:20

Economic welfare of American families, application of economic theory to the behavior of individuals with respect to time allocation between the home and the market; family forms; human gender differences in income; income inequality; and poverty. Role of public policy is considered.

AFRO 421: Race and Ethnic Issues in Families

Same as EPS 421, HDFS 424, and SOC 421.

Graduate-level sociological examination of how gender, race, ethnicity, cultural diversity and class function in the development of diverse American families, which are important foundations of education. Primary attention will be given to African American and Hispanic families. Secondary attention will be given to Asian American, Native American and other racial and ethnic family groups.

ANTH 209 1: Food, Culture and Society

Same as SOC 269

Manalansan (Lect. 1)

TR

1-2:20

Food is part of our daily life. More importantly, food goes beyond providing nutrition and biological sustenance. Food establishes relationships, meanings and practices that revolve around family, kinship, religion, gender, class, ethnic, national and other collective identities. It marks routine, important life events and special holidays. Food influences how we see ourselves against others. It is a medium for creating intimacy and for discriminating against people. The course introduces students to the anthropological and sociological study of food in order to better understand how food practices, culinary cultures and dietary rules are embedded in our individual and collective memories, desires, and struggles. Some of the themes to be explored in this class include: cookbooks and cooking shows; diet and gender; ethnic foods; haute cuisine and class inequalities; religion and food taboos; cannibalism, fast-foods and nationalism; McDonaldization and globalization; and world hunger. Selected required texts: Carol Counihan and Penny van Esterik (eds.), Food and Culture; and Sutton, David, Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory.

ANTH 268: Images of the Other

See Class Schedule for discussion times. Prerequisite: A previous course in history and/or one of the social sciences would be helpful.

Gottlieb

 MW

10-10:50

Do all peoples view neighboring or distant populations as radically different "Others," or can humans create mutual images based on a notion of shared humanity? Course compares and analyzes the range of images of ethnic, "racial", gender, class and bodily differences that have been enacted historically and cross-culturally in both Western and non-Western populations.

ANTH 362: Body, Personhood, and Culture

Kelsky

 TR

9-10:20

Examines basic cultural assumptions about the human body and what it means to be a "person" in Western and non-Western societies. Addresses key themes in cultural anthropology and social sciences concerning the relationship of the individual and society and of nature and culture.

CHLH 199 B: Campus Acquaintance Rape Education
Undergraduate Open Seminar

Wantland

MW

3-4:30

Why is it difficult to speak out against rape? Is anyone actually in support of rape? If the majority of perpetrators are men, why is it still seen as a "woman's problem"? 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. Students acquire facilitation skills which allow them to work as peer educators with the C.A.R.E. program. For more information, contact Ross Wantland at 333-3137.

CHLH 206: Human Sexuality

See the Timetable for lecture and discussion times.

Staff

Emphasizes the behavioral aspects of human sexuality. Topics include: birth control; prenatal care, pregnancy and childbirth; sex roles; premarital sex; lifestyles; marriage and divorce.

CHLH 314: Introduction to Aging

Same as HDFS 314, LEIS 314, PSYC 314 and REHB 314

Armstrong

MW

10-11:15

This course provides a comprehensive introduction of 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 in later life. The focus is on aging in the contemporary US 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 student. It fulfills a requirement for the campus Minor in Gerontology.

CINE 193: Undergraduate Seminar

Topic: Women Directors in the Black Diaspora

Gateward

MW

1-2:50

[First Year Discovery Program Course] This lecture/discussion course provides a comparative study of the themes and styles in films by Black women directors from around the world. We will look closely at a variety of works - shorts, documentaries, experimental films, and features - to examine the treatment of a number of issues: identity formation, concepts of community, the post-colonial condition, coming of age, racism, and sexism. The films will be studied within the contexts of their respective national cinemas using approaches concerned with both aesthetics and cultural production. The films analyzed will be from Angola, Brazil, Cuba, England, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Nigeria, Somalia, Tanzania, Canada, and the United States.

CINE 495: Advanced Cinema Studies Top

Topic: Gender, Race and Television

Prerequisite: Two Cinema Studies courses, or consent of instructor.

Projansky

 MW

1-2:50

Intensive study of critical and historical issues in cinema and related screen media; topics vary and typically include national and ethnic cinemas, directors, genres, historical movements, and thematic studies. May be repeated in the same or separate semesters as topics vary to a maximum of 6 undergraduate hours or 8 graduate hours.

CWL 395: Manning the Barriers? Representing Masculinities through Arabic Fiction and Film

Marilyn Booth

 MW

2-3:20

The rise of nationalisms across the globe has implicated and shaped historically diverse and shifting gender formations. How, then, have twentieth-century fiction and film in Arab societies portrayed formations of masculinity? What expressive strategies have Arab authors deployed to highlight and/or occlude gendered identities? If, in Arab nations as elsewhere, the emergence of nationalisms was inseparable from struggles over gender identities, is recent transcultural theorizing on masculinities useful for this inquiry? In a time of collective stress and defeat such as the twentieth-century Arab world has experienced—a major theme in modern Arab cultural production—gender identities may become more salient and interact more sharply with other markers of social identity, such as faith-based outlooks. How does imaginative writing from the Arab world uphold and/or undermine this thesis?

How do these texts respond to and work around premodern writings on masculinity and sexuality in Arabo-Islamic societies? If gay-identified communities in the Arab world are still subject to state-sanctified (and non-state) repression, often violently so, how can aesthetic culture articulate gay identities? In some of the films we will see, how does the camera work to objectify men's bodies for an implied male gaze even though the ostensible subject is always heterosexual love? And does queer theory as elaborated through the recent histories of other cultures help us think through the material worlds and represented identities that form the subject of this course?

We will ask these questions through readings of novels by Arab men and women, arabophone and francophone, in English translation, and through viewing feature films and documentaries from Lebanon , Palestine/Israel, Egypt , and Algeria . Supplementary reading will include theorizations of masculinity formulated in Euro/American and Mediterranean contexts, and readings from recent and controversial debates on gay identity in Arab societies.

EALC 575: Problems in Japanese Society

Kelsky

R

1-3

This course provides an overview of contemporary Japan. In the first part of the course we will sketch the contours of mainstream society, exploring the traditional family structure and its continuing impact on contemporary families, and branch out from there to consider the organization of households, communities, educational institutions and men's and women's workplaces. In the second half of the course, we complicate this picture by addressing people and groups outside the mainstream, looking at the gay community, ethnic minorities and migrant workers, and "alternative" groups devoted to anti-nuclear activism, environmentalism, and other causes. Throughout this course, we will focus on questions of Japanese nationalism and constructions of national and racial identity in a rapidly globalizing world, and consider changes Japan is confronting in the face of ongoing economic downturn, gender transformations, and a rapidly aging society.

ENGL 300 F: Writing about Literature

Topic: Queer Reading, Queer Writing

Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement; one year of college literature or consent of instructor. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for an Advanced Composition course.

Somerville

MWF

2

This course provides an opportunity to learn to read, analyze, and write about literary texts through the lens of queer theory, a set of specific critical strategies that have emerged as an important field in literary studies over the last two decades. While "queer" approaches usually foreground questions of sexuality and desire (as well as race, class, and gender), they are not necessarily tied to the sexual orientation of either readers or writers. Thus our reading will include novels, short stories, and poetry by a range authors (queer, straight, and otherwise) and historical periods. Alongside these primary texts, we will consider key writings in queer theory and the history of sexuality. Requirements will include active participation in class discussion, a number of short response papers, one short essay, and a longer research paper.

ENGL 300 P: Writing about Literature

Topic: African American Women Novelists: The Right to Fiction

Castro

TR

11-12:15

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 this 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 1890's, the Harlem Renaissance, the intervening Depression and WW11 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.

ENGL 300 Q1: Writing about Literature

Topic: Oxford Aesthetics: Gerard Manley Hopkins and Oscar Wilde

Saville

TR

12:30-1:45

Oxford in the 1860's and early 1870's was idealized as a haven for young men to pursue an idyllic contemplative life in the company of intimate friends. It was during this period of intense male homosociality that Walter Pater began to formulate his highly influential aesthetic theories. Two of the most talented and inventive students were Gerard Manley Hopkins and Oscar Wilde. Hopkins (1844-1889), after graduating from Oxford, became a Jesuit recluse whose rhythmic innovations in a small corpus of finely crafted poems baffled his contemporaries. He only gained recognition after the poshumous publication of his poems in 1918, but since then, has been acclaimed as a vibrant revitalizing influence on both British and American poetry. Wilde (1854-1900) became a flamboyant socialite, wit, and ruthless slayer of Victorian sacred cows whose work ranges from subversive comic theater, to children's fairy tales, toelegiac autobiography. In 1895, he became the focus of sexual scandal that crystallized shifting perspectives of male sexuality in the West at the turn of the century. While Hopkins and Wilds might seem to be literary chalk and cheese, their experiments in literary from make their respective brands of aesthetics inviting material for exercises in writing about literature.

ENGL 300 Q2: Writing About Literature

Topic: Gendered Interventions in Literature: Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot

Nazar

TR

12:30-1:45

Jane Austen stands for many things she should not: prim mistress of the drawing room of English literature, romance novelist, and cash cow for the period film industry. In this course, which will be both reading and writing intensive, we will attempt to rescue Austen from her fans while examining the probing wit and genius for characterization that created the enormous readership for her novels in the first place. We will study Austen's larger novelistic craft-as a fashioner of sentimental crises, and commentator on a society she both lovingly details and despises-while not neglecting the micro-issues of Austen's irresistible style, as a supreme artist of the English sentence, the Mozart of the paragraph. Assessment will include short response papers, a long essay, and a mid-term and final exam.

ENGL 300 S1: Writing About Literature

Topic: Shakespeare

Newcomb

 TR

2-3:15

In early modern England, the doctrine of "service"-familial, romantic, sexual, financial, military, religious, racial-justified social, gender, and racial hierarchies as mutually beneficial social bonds. This course examines these various social meanings of service in five plays by Shakespeare and one by Elizabeth Cary, assuming that as literature both records and exploits social contradictions, dramatizations of service can license acts of critique, resistance, even rebellion. We'll try out specific critical models for contextualizing the plays' social visions, including feminist, historicist, materialist, and postcolonial criticism; and we'll tap the histories of performance and adaptation that contest or transform those visions. This experimentation will encourage you to make stronger choices in your own critical positions and in your final written. Previous experience with Shakespeare is not assumed, but students must be committed to genuine discussion, interpretation, and paper revision. Several very focused short papers, each revised, and a longer, researched final paper; group activities including peer response; cumulative final.

ENGL 397: Honors Seminar II

Topic: Reimagining Renaissance Literature and History

Prerequisite: A 3.25 grade-point average or consent of the chair of the English Honors Committee. Preference to students in the English Honors program and to English concentrators.

Neely

 M

11-12:50

In this seminar we will look at a variety of literature written in the Renaissance including sonnets and other lyric poetry, selections from epics like Spencer's Fairie Queene and Mary Wroth's Urania, plays such as Shakespeare's Othello and Elizabeth Cary's The Tragedy of Mariam and fiction and nonfiction prose works including utopias (what could be) and conduct literature (shat should be) and autobiography (of a renaissance transvestite). We will explore why this period is called the Renaissance and whether and how it is important to later literature and to us now. In particular we look at how that earlier period (from around 1570-1650) represents ideas of race, class, gender and sexual identity in ways that help clarify our debates today.

ENGL 455: Major Authors

Topic: Morrison

Deck

TR

2-3:15

A detailed description may be posted on English Department web page once it's available-http::www.english.uiuc.edu/coursecatalog

ENGL 461: Topics in Literature

Topic: Women in Medieval Europe

Prerequistie: One year of college literature, or consent of instructor.

Need Description

ENGL 462 English: Topics in Modern Fiction

Topic: Sex Expression and American Fiction 1880-1940

Bauer

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.

ENGL 543: Seminar Mod British Lit

Topic: Sex, Gender, and Colonialism in Modernist Fiction

Esty

W    

3:30-5:20

In this seminar, we will concentrate our analysis on Anglophone women writers for the so-called peripheries of the British empire, many of whom migrated to London in order to pursue a literary career and all of whom have meditated on the relation between geographical marginality and other (real or metaphorical) brands of outsiderness. Ranging from late-Victorian to contemporary fiction, the readings strike a variety of relationships to high modernist narrative technique and reveal a shifting set of intersections (or disconnections) between sex, gender and colonialism.

EPS 500: Black Women in the Academy

Barnett

T

1-2:50

HDFS 225: Close Relationships

Prerequisite: Sophomore standing.

TBA

WF

9-10:20

Initiation, development, and dissolution of committed relationships with same- or opposite within familial, cultural, and societal contexts.

HDFS 425: Critical Family Transitions

Please see Class Schedule

Hardesty

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.

KIN 249: Sport and Modern Society

Same as SOC 249. Contact the Department of Kinesiology for more information. See Class Schedule for discussion sections.

Cole

MW

10-10:50

This course focuses on concepts of power, ideology and hegemony in sporting practice. Intersections between gender, race and social class receive considerable attention, as each has a direct relationship to sporting practice. The complexity and contradictions of these intersections are closely examined.

LEIS 242: Nature and American Culture

Same as HIST 282, LA 242, and NRES 242

Stewart

TR

9-10:15 a.m.

colonial American, romantic, and science-based conservation and characterized, as well as revisionist themes aligned with gender, cultural pluralism, and societal meanings of parks and protected areas. Implications of diversity in cultural meanings toward nature are developed and provide the basis for assessing tenets of contemporary environmental policy and supporting concepts associated with community-based conservation.

LIR 566: International Human Resource Management

Prerequisite: Graduate standing.

Lawler

R

2-4:50

Deals with human resource management practices in global companies. Primary emphasis on the selection, training, assessment, and compensation of employees in international (expatriate) assignments. Relevant material would include cross-national differences in culture as these relate to work, roles of women and also family life, the issues confronting women international assignments, gender-based employment discrimination in international assignments, and marital and family issues related to expatriation and repatriation.

PSYC 496 LF: Psych Seminar

Topic: Sexual Harassment in Organizations

Fitzgerald

TR

1-2:15

Special topics in the field of psychology.

SPAN 490 N2: Women, Gender and Sexuality in 20th Century Spanish American and Caribbean Literature

Goldman

TR

1:30-2:45

Do gender and sexuality in 20th century Spanish American and Caribbean literature constitute a mechanism of resistance and change, or do these works simply produce subjects which--although compelling and dramatic in their apparent revolutionary instability--ultimately reinforce the status quo that they appear to challenge? The purpose of this course is to examine issues of gender in contemporary prose fiction, theater and films. Drawing upon recent theories of gender and sexuality, we will analyze how salient representations of gender contribute to, shape, and contest the articulation of Spanish American cultural identities. Class will be taught in Spanish and is generally open to undergraduates who have completed Span227 or equivalent (students should contact Amy Swanson in Spanish if they have general questions about eligibility and/or how to register for the course). For additional information, see http://www.sip.uiuc.edu/degoldma/256.html.

SPAN 590: Sexuality, Gender and Form in Mexican Culture

Romero

R

3-5

The course will analyze the relationship between sexuality, gender and form in the construction of Mexican identity and nationality. The whole course is focused 100% on gender and feminist issues, from colonial times to contemporary Chicano culture.

SOC 273: Social Perspectives on the Family

Prerequisite SOC 100

Kenney

MW

1:30-2:50

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.

SOC 477: Sociology of Law

Prerequisite: SOC 100 or six hours of Anthropology, Social Geography, Political Science, or Sociology.

Marshall

TR

1:30-2:50

This course examines law and legal institutions in their social context. The course begins with theoretical approaches to the role of law in society, including critical race and feminist theories. The course will then review the law and society literature on criminal and civil law processes and the role of law in everyday life. Examining the operation of the legal system, we will pay close attention to its actors and institutions, particularly the legal profession and legal educations. Finally, the course will consider the relationship between law and social change.