Gender and Women's Studies

GWS 150: Contemporary Women's Issues

10-11:20

Explores the most recent debates and research related to contemporary issues that primarily affect women. Review issues related to sexual and domestic violence, gender socialization, feminization of poverty, women's health, sexual harassment, work and family, politics, and media influences from a multi-discipline and multicultural perspective.

GWS 199: Undergraduate Open Seminar

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 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  

   Wantland

T

6-7:50

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: Representations of Women in the Media

This section of GWS 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

McWhorter

R

3-3:50

Not Available

GWS 225: Women in Prehistory

Same as ANTH 225. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for a UIUC Social Sciences course.

Soffer

MWF

11-11:50

This course introduces students to gender issues in archaeology and in what archaeologists produce: stories about the past. We begin by considering the multiple ways of "knowing" the past and evaluate the potential biases in each. We then examine the history of gender studies in archaeology and the roles that women have played in archaeology. Next we consider the variety of approaches to engendering the past. Armed with these theoretical and practical insights, we focus on how we can reliably identify the presence of women in the archaeological record and reconstruct both their lives and the roles that they played in a variety of prehistoric cultures around the world. This course will be run in a lecture/discussion format involving extensive student participation.

GWS 240: Sex & Gender in Antiquity

Same as CLCV 240 and CWL 262. Literature and the Arts, and Western Comparty Cult course.

Parca

MW

1-2:15

The manifestations of sex and gender in the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome will be considered individually and chronologically.  Ancient sources, contemporary scholarly interpretations of those primary materials, and theoretical models of the Greco-Roman sex and gender system will be among the topics dealt with in reading and discussion.  Literary texts and other sources will be employed.  Archaeology, art, and architecture provide a visual record of ancient lives and ways, while graffiti, inscriptions and papyri both constitute a source of direct insight into the thoughts, emotions and beliefs of antiquity and reveal much about the legal and social status of the people.

GWS 260: Gender Studies Social Sciences

Same as HDFS 260 and SOC 220. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for a UIUC Social Sciences course.

The impact of culture and society on gender roles, including socialization and identity formation, as expressed in life-styles, marriage and family alternatives, and patterns of education and employment. Section E1 is a first year discovery program course. Registration restricted to freshmen. Students should enroll in only one Discovery course. Students who enroll in more than one Discovery course may be dropped from the additional Discovery Courses. For course description, see the Discovery Program booklet.  

GWS 261: Gender in Transnational Perspective

Same as SOC 261

Prasad

MWF

4:30-5:20

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 262: Women's Lives

Same as ANTH 262. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for UIUC Social Sciences course.

Gottlieb

TR

10-11:20

This course explores these and related questions, investigating how women around the world experience their bodies through the life cycle. We'll 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. We do this by comparing women's experiences of their bodies in the contemporary U.S. with those of women elsewhere around the world. Through readings, films, guest speakers (including a practicing doula or midwife), and hands-on research and fieldwork exercises, the course introduces you to the gendered experience of the body as understood by cultural anthropology.

GWS 280G: Women Writers

Topic: Asian American Women Writers

Same as ENGL 280

Mendoza

MW

3-4:15

Literature has traditionally been the site where tensions among different ethnic and racial groups in the United States are resolved, exaggerated, or transfigured. The literary resolution of such tensions has led, on one hand, to the reaffirmation of U.S. political and cultural hegemonic structure and imagination, and on the other, to acts of resistance to political and cultural dominance. We will survey in this course the representations of Asian American women subjects in U.S. literature and culture since the nineteenth century. More specifically, we will explore the ways in which the cultural productions by Asian American women, cultural productions arising out of the contradictions of U.S. democracy, displace, in the words of Lisa Lowe, "the fiction of reconciliation," the ways in which the literatures of Asian American women disrupt the myth of national identity by revealing its gaps and fissures.  Asian American women's literature, in other words, often exposes the multiple ways in which the U.S. sustains its fictional image to itself and to the world of democratic exceptionalism.
Whether the Asian American woman subject becomes in literature the subject or object of violence, fear, or sexual desire, its representation has reflected and in fact influenced the emerging narrative of U.S. nationhood and identity. Moreover, the invisibility and indeed the erasure. Of certain histories, especially those of Asian American women, has revealed the processes of exclusion and inclusion in the making of U.S. democracy and national memory.  Thus we will study the ways in which the Asian American woman subject serves a cultural political function, not only for the ethnic or racial group it embodies or represents, but also for the larger body national politic it threatens, constitutes, and sustains.  

GWS 280S: Women Writers

Topic: American Women's Autobiography

Same as ENGL280

Deck

R

  2-3:15

Critics have suggested that in the United States autobiography, more than the novel or poetry, is the most democratic genre because anyone, regardless of age, level of education, gender, race or social class can and has published one. Readers in the United States , furthermore, gravitate towards the personal narratives of the famous, the infamous, and the "undistinguished" Americans from history or contemporary society. In this class we will survey the personal narratives of American women from a variety of historical periods, geographic regions, social classes, ethnic and racial groups. Our goal is to understand what distinguishes the personal narrative from the novel, and what is particularly "American" about the various women's personal narratives that we study.

GWS 287: African-American Women

Same as AFRO 287 and HIST 287. US Minority Culture(s) course.

        Millward  

MW

9-10:20

Examines the history of African American women, beginning with the West African background during the transatlantic slave trading era, emphasizing the experiences of black women in the United States during slavery and their political, civic, community and reform activities from slavery to the present, analyzed within the context of racism, sexism, and economic deprivation. African women in the diaspora, and the impact of feminism/womanism, Afrocentrism, and multicultural diversity on the African American woman are considered.

GWS 342: Women in the Labor Market

Same as ECON 342. Prerequisite ECON 102 or equivalent

GWS 356: Women in Film and TV

Same as COMM 356. Students must register for one lab and one lecture section  

GWS 360: Women and the Visual Arts

Same as ARTH 360

GWS 361: Women in East Asia

Same as EALC 351

Interdisciplinary inquiry into the cultural and social patterns that have shaped women's lives in China , Japan , and Korea .

GWS 370: Introduction to Queer Studies

Same as SOC 320. Prerequisite: GWS 250 or GWS 350, or consent of instructor.

GWS 390 RGI: Individual Study

Topic: Race, Gender and Information Technology

Prerequisite: One course in Gender and Women's Studies or consent of instructor.  

Special topics not treated in regularly scheduled classes. May be repeated to a maximum of 6 hours. Students may register in more than one section per term.

This course examines how gender and race affect, and are affected by, information technologies. Race and gender representations will be studied in different settings as they intersect with information use and technology practices. The course is framed by two broad, interrelated concepts -- the expression of identity (individual and group) in cyberspace and the "digital divide." The course readings are drawn from several disciplines and an eclectic array of in-class and out-of-class projects and exercises will be assigned .

GWS 390 RR: Singing Her Story: Women of Blues, Gospel and Jazz, CRN 39939

Meets with AFRO 398RR

Singing Her Story explores the lives and roles of women in the vernacular musical genres of blues, gospel, and jazz. Concepts and ideals of black feminist theory will set the course for the class, and musical examples will be an essential resource as we critically engage and respond to questions regarding these women, their relationship to each other, to their communities, and to society-at-large.

GWS 418A: Social Issues Theatre

Same as THEA 418

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 453E: Commodifying Difference

Same as LLS 435, AFRO 435, AAS 435, and COMM 432

An interdisciplinary examination of how racial, ethnic and gender difference is negotiated through media and popular culture, and how racial, ethnic and gendered communities use cultural forms to express identity and difference. Among the theoretical questions explored are the politics of representation, ethnic/racial authenticity, cultural commodification and transnational popular culture. Some of the cultural forms examined are cultural festivals/parades, ethnic/race-based beauty pageants, cinematic and televisual texts and musical forms, such as Hip-Hop and Salsa

GWS 475: Women and Society in Scandinavian Literature

Same as CWL 475 and SCAN 475.

Lingqvist

MW

3-4:15

The Nordic countries often are idealized as champions of equality between men and women in modern society. Statistically, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland rank highest globally in the ''gender empowerment index'' that measures the number of women in parliament, government, professional or technical jobs and their average earnings compared to men (UN Human Development Report, 2000). Symbolically, the current president of Finland was a single mother when elected, and the heir to the Swedish throne is a Yale-educated woman. Leaders attribute women's comparatively high stature in Nordic society to the social welfare societies these countries instituted starting in the 1930s, but even Viking sagas from the 1300s attest to women holding positions of power. At the same time, Nordic women writers have continued to critique the very social systems the rest of the world have come to praise, raising the bar for future generations. In this course, we will examine how women in Nordic societies have negotiated their positions in relation to history, tradition, and political and social structures from Viking times to the present, with a focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. We will do this primarily through reading literature by and about women from these countries in the context of their social, political, and cultural histories, as well as selected sociological texts. Readings include selected novels, plays, poetry, and short critical texts. All majors welcome; GWS students warmly invited.

GWS 480A: Gender Roles & International Development

Prerequisite: One course in Women's Studies or one course in international, social, economic, or political development, or consent of instructor.

Interdisciplinary seminar examining theoretical and empirical research on gender and the transformation of social and economic structures. Students will develop a comparative perspective on issues of women and public policy by contrasting and comparing such policies in North and South America , Eastern and Western Europe , Asia , and Africa social, economic, or political development, or consent of instructor.

GWS 490A: Topic: 'Lifting As We Climb': The History of Black Women's Activism from 19 th Century to Present.

Prerequisite: GWS 250 or GWS 260, and two courses in women's studies at the 200-300 levels; junior standing; or consent of instructor.

This class will examine the history of twentieth century African American women's activism in a variety of protest organizations--the Women's Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention, National Association of Colored Women, Universal Negro Improvement Association, Communist Party, USA , Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Black Panther Party, National Black Feminist Organization, and Combahee River Collective. We are concerned with how African American female activists have been critical to building, sustaining, and leading black freedom movements. We will analyze how these women formulated black feminist, black internationalist, transnational feminist, and diasporic frameworks to understand the global nature of racism, economic inequalities, and sexism. We will discuss how gender, race, class, sexuality, age, and culture have structured black social protest organizations and positioned black women and men within them. In addition, we will focus on how US-based black women's activists have grappled with black nationalist discourses, which historically have often defined the struggle for black liberation in terms of black manhood redemption. We will use the latest scholarship, memoir, and film and we will invite veteran activists to explore these issues. If you're interested in the history of black female activists or if you consider yourself an activist, this course is for you.

GWS 490AMU: Topic: Readings in Feminist Pedagogy

Prerequisite: Permission of instructor   Alston/Mayo

This course will examine various strategies of feminist pedagogy and combine readings with practical applications and experience in feminist pedagogical projects.

GWS 490B: Topic: Violence Against Women

Meets with PSYC 496 L. Prerequisite: GWS 250 or GWS 260, and two courses in women's studies at the 200-300 levels; junior standing; or consent of instructor.

GWS 490 3U/3G: Love, Lust, and Language: Women in the Eighteenth Century

Meets with COMP 471

This course discusses five pairs of English, French, and German novels and plays (in translation) from the eighteenth century. Each pair consists of one text by a male author and a response to this text by a woman writer. We will, for example, read Montesquieu's canonical Persian Letters and Françoise de Graffigny's response, her recently rediscovered Letters from a Peruvian Woman. We will look at the variety of ways in which the women authors enter into dialogue with men's texts in order to participate in the eighteenth-century debate about gender roles, representations o f race and class conflict. Additional readings include relevant essays from postcolonial criticism, feminism and cultural studies. We will analyze the ways in which identity is constructed, negotiated, and rewritten in the course of the eighteenth century. Some of the questions which we will be asking ourselves throughout the semester are: Do male and female authors use different strategies to present issues of gender, class and race? How are biology and science used to justify constructions of identity? Do eighteenth-century ideas still inform our way of thinking in the twenty-first century? Can contemporary debates/theory on similar issues help us understand the eighteenth century?

GWS 490 KS3: Global Feminisms

Undergraduates only.  

Silva M 4-7

What does it mean to be female and feminist in an increasingly globalized world? What do these terms mean culturally, socially and economically outside 'post-industrialized' nations? These are some of the questions that this class engages with as we try to understand how feminism translates from the theoretical to the everyday for women around the globe. Through art, poetry, film, short stories, and testimonials, we look at how women articulate their experiences and 'speak back'. We engage with ways that women give voice to feminisms that are contextual and critical to how we are beginning to, and should, understand what it means to be both female and feminist in contemporary global culture.

GWS 490 SF: Special Topics

Topic: Representing Sex, Power, and Politics

Frost TR 1-2:20

Debates about sexuality have shaped the self-conception, the self-representation, and the agendas of contemporary feminist theory and practice. Different conceptions of the relationship between sex and power have generated conflicting representations of the nature of women's oppression and the kinds of feminist politics necessary to fight it. This course examines how different representations of the relationship between sex, power, and subjectivity have shaped feminism. While we will situate our exploration of this issue against the backdrop of the bitter disagreements about the social and political significance of sexuality in the early years of the second wave of feminism in the United States , the bulk of our analysis will be theoretically oriented. We will draw on the theoretical frameworks provided by Freud, Deleuze, Bataille, and Foucault in order to explore how to think about and represent the relationship between power, desire, prohibition, subjectivity and political agency in the context of racial and class differences, in situations of rape and sexual slavery, and in the lives of those who are queer or who are prostitutes.

GWS 498: Senior Seminar

Prerequisite: Senior standing and enrollment as a major in Women, Gender and Sexualities, or consent of instructor.

Projansky M 1-3:50

Considers the relationship between theory and research in Women's Studies. Reviews and examines the key issues of feminist scholarship. Provides students with the methodological knowledge and opportunity to carry out a research project.

GWS 501: Problems in Comparative Women's History

Topic: Gender and Colonialism

Same as HIST 503  

Allman W 1-2:50  

Examines major works in global women's history from about 1700 to 1950. Introduces students to major themes in women's history as well as major historiographical debates.  

GWS 550: Feminist Theories Humanities

Prerequisite: At least one humanities course or consent of instructor.

Treichler T 4-6:50

Interdisciplinary graduate-level course in feminist theory, with an emphasis on the humanities. Explores current debates in feminist theory as they pertain to humanities disciplines.  

GWS 560: Feminist Media Studies

Same as COMM 560  

Treichler R 3-5:50  

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 in the field. Viewings will emphasize some lesser-known historical texts central to theoretical debates in the field. Viewings and readings are focused on "popular" film and television.

GWS 570: Feminist Research Social Science

Same as SOC 520. Prerequisite: Undergraduate statistics; at least one graduate-level social science course or consent of instructor. A graduate-level course in social science research methods is strongly recommended.

Kenney T 1:30-3:20

Interdisciplinary feminist theory and research course with emphasis on the social sciences. Examines theoretical, methodological, and empirical research on sex, gender, and women in the social sciences.

GWS 590: Topics in GWS

Topic: Queer Theories.

Meets with English 581, sect T. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and previous course work in women's or gender studies, or consent of instructor.

Somerville T 3-4:50

Description not available

GWS 590 CM4: Topics in GWS

Topic: Sexualities and Education

Meets with EPS 490 CM1. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor May be repeated.

Mayo R 4-5:50  

Seminar in educational policy studies; sections offered in the following fields: (a) history of education; (b) philosophy of education; (c) comparative education; (d) social foundations of education; (e) philosophy of educational research; and (f) historical methods in education.

GWS 590 G: Topics in GWS

Topic: Misogynist Texts and Female Readers

Same as MDVL 570. Prerequisite: FR 531 or consent of instructor

Fresco W 3-4:50

The discourse of misogyny runs throughout medieval literature in a vein that cuts across a broad spectrum of genres: satire, didactic literature, courtly romance and lyric, fabliaux, beast fable, farce. Often this discourse is explicitly addressed to women or to an audience of which women form an important part. If, as Howard Bloch suggests, the question of reading and interpretation is a "key issue with respect to the study of misogyny," what strategies may women readers use to broack texts within this tradition? We will look to those suggested by medieval women themselves (Marie de France, Christine de Pizan,…). We will also draw on contemporary approaches and readings (Fetterley, Schor, Moi, Sedgwick,…). Texts are in translation.

AAS 490: Advanced Topics in Asian American

Topic: Asian American Political Culture

Rana TR 5-6:20

What is a social movement? How have Asian Americans fought for social justice and social change?  This class explores various components that make up the lively struggles of Asian American political culture. From the Asian American student movement to anti-imperialist, anti-war and anti-racist movements, we will look at how different groups have forged political communities through their organizing. In particular the work of queer, women's, youth, and workers' organizations in developing strategies and interventions will guide this class toward understanding the vital role of community studies.

AFRO 398 DT: Black Masculinity and Basketball

Thomas

The goal of this course is to understand the relationship between basketball and black masculinity in terms that go beyond performance statistics and competitive outcomes and deal with issues of power and power relations in society.

AFRO 398 RR: Singing her Story: Women of Blues, Gospel and Jazz

Reed

Singing Her Story explores the lives and roles of women in the vernacular musical genres of blues, gospel, and jazz. Concepts and ideals of black feminist theory will set the course for the class, and musical examples will be an essential resource as we critically engage and respond to questions regarding these women, their relationship to each other, to their communities, and to society-at-large.

AFRO 398 TT: Black Women and Families

Hamer

This course focuses on the history of African Americans during the mid 20th century, from World War II until the early 1960's. We will consider the social, cultural, and political aspects of African American life to understand how racial and gender identity was shared during this period. Our goalsare to understand African American history through interdisciplinary study and to develop a more critical appreciation for the dramatic changes, which mark the 1960's. We will examine Black migration and changes in urban life and work; we will consider how African Americans saw themselves in relationship to the African Diaspora; we will explore developments in Black cultural practice(film, literature, theatre, and music); and we will examine the segregation and the burgeoning civil rights movement.

ANTH 362: Body, Personhood, and Culture

Bellows TR 12-1:20

The body's contents and meanings appear self-evident to us, familiar as we are with the compelling claims and authority of Western scientific discourses. Our own notions of the body and what constitutes the person are not, however, self-evident to other people in the world working with a very different "science" and cosmology than that we are familiar with. In this course, we will look in detail at our own concepts of the body and person both historically and today in contrast primarily to those of the Hindu Balinese in Indonesia as well as ethnographic examples from South and Southeast Asia. Our main task over the course of the semester will be to investigate what exactly constitutes the "body" and the "person" in these different cultural contexts — how is gender determined?; what are the body's contents and characteristics?; how are reproduction and sexuality understood?; and what is the relationship, if any, between the body and the universe?. Topics we will discuss in the exploration of these broad questions include: rules around eating and hygiene; medicine and healing practice; beauty, movement, and art; sexuality and representations of sexuality (including literature, art, and pornography), and cosmology. In addition to completion of assigned readings, and attendance of lectures, and discussion, students will be asked to undertake ethnographic fieldwork projects and written assignments.

ANTH 515S: The Archaeology of Gender, Sex, and Age
Requirements: Graduate status, familiarity with methods and theory in prehistoric archaeology.

Soffer MW 4-5:50

The past ten years have seen an explosion of concern with sex, gender, sexuality, and to a lesser degree age in the past. This new graduate course will explore some of the many dimensions of this trend as it impacts on archaeological methods, theories, practices, and interpretations. The class will be run as a seminar divided into topical themes. In familiarizing ourselves with the breadth of issues implicated by a critical and informed interest in prehistoric sex and gender processes we will have to range broadly over issues of social, feminist and queer theories and concepts of sex, gender, epistemology, research methodologies, archaeological interpretation, and the daily practice of archaeology as it is undertaken by gendered individuals. Each topical theme, where possible, will be illustrated with a pertinent case study. In addition to covering a broad and diverse body of literature pertaining to our subject matter, during the semester we will critically focus on:

1) how our understanding of the past is affected and improved when we take the dynamics of gender, sex, and age into account,
2) what is required to accomplish this convincingly.

ARTH 535: Art and Home: Domesticity and its Discontents in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Visual Culture

Graduate Seminar in Early Modern Art. Graduate students from disciplines other than Art History are welcome in the seminar.

In the Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century images of domestic life flourished in prints and paintings by artists including Vermeer, Jan Steen, and Rembrandt. In a period of growing mercantile wealth, of emergent distinctions between of public and private, of rapid urbanization, and of increased class mobility "home" was an elastic concept inviting constant remaking and interrogation through representation. In such representations the home could function as an idealized microcosm of the state, as a site for the production and consumption of goods, and a space in which family, class, and sexual roles were defined and contested. The past several years have seen an outpouring of scholarship on the imagery of domesticity in Dutch art, as well as new studies of how art was used and displayed in Dutch households. This seminar will consider the topic of art of the home and in the home as it engages political, social, economic, and gendered meanings. We will also enter into the methodological debates engendered by recent scholarship in this area.

CHLH 206: Human Sexuality

See Course Schedule for lecture/discussion times/dates/instructors.  

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 240B2: Health Promotion Practivum: Campus Aquaintance Rape Education (CARE)  

Wantland Arr

Practicum for students who have completed CHLTH 199B. Emphasis is placed on facilitation skill building and sexual violence education and prevention. Students meet twice a month as a group for in-services and trainings.

CHLH 314: Introduction to Aging

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

Armstrong MW 10-11:15

A comprehensive introduction to the human experience of aging. Examines ways in which the personal, social and cultural levels of life interact to shape the experience of aging and later life. 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. Open to any undergraduate students, it fulfills a requirement for the Minor in Gerontology.

CHLH 404: Gerontology

Same as HDFS 404  

Armstrong W 2-4:20  

Introduces gerontology as the multidisciplinary study of human aging and examines its theories, research and applications. Considers the contributions of women as participants in the aging process, as scholars and theory builders, as practitioners in aging-related professions. Examines aging and later life in the contemporary US and incorporates global and cross- cultural perspectives. Open to interested seniors or grad students. Projects based in the student's major field are encouraged.

CWL 471: Mad Love and Crimes of Passion: The Cinema of Francois Truffaut

Same as FR443 and CINE 495

  Blake MW 3-4:20

"Are Women magic?" asks a character in one of Truffaut's films and the viewer who is familiar with this cinema recognizes that this is the question of each of the creations of the favorite director of the French New Wave. Freud demonstrated the visual quality of childhood memories which adults tend to repress. Other analysts have found that children express themselves better through drawings than language. Some therapists use toys and games to draw out their young patients. Narrative film is both child-like picture making activity and a form of play, as in Freud's theory of the poet and daydreaming. Truffaut's cinema is autobiographical and obsessive, continuously searching for the enigmatic power of sexuality, while humorously attempting to resist its power.

EALC: Gender and Globalization in East Asia  

Kelsky R 10:30-12:20  

This graduate seminar discusses the gender politics of globalization in East Asia , focusing on recent transformations in normative gender identities, family structures, workplace practices, media productions and representations, feminist and queer activism, and queer communities in China , Japan , and Korea . It explores transformations in national identity and nationalism under conditions of transnational capitalism and neoliberalism, and the emergence of alternative gender identities within the context of national and transnational negotiations of tradition, modernity and cultural identity.

ENLG 281E: Women in the Lit Imagination

Topic: You've Come a Long Way Baby: Dating, Sex and Motherhood in the Age of Bridget Jones

Baron MWF 1

In 1996 the best seller Bridget Jones's Diary was published. Here author Helen Fielding relates her amusing tale of the ditzy thirty-something Bridget Jones, as she battles bad hair days and badly behaved boyfriends through her exploits and sexploits in late 20 th century London. As we read the diary entries, we see just how difficult it is for Bridget to balance hardcore feminism with the ever pressing demands of Cosmo culture such as searching for the perfect outfit, the perfect leg wax and the perfect husband. Yet Fielding often takes us beneath the comic dimensions of the novel to explore the limitations that women must face in a post modern universe as we enter the workforce in greater numbers and still hope for a union with just the right guy, a house in the suburbs and the obligatory 2.5 children to grace us with the joys of motherhood.

In this class, we will explore why this type of comic confessional novel has recently gained the immense popularity it has, and why so many other female writers have borrowed this genre from Fielding to pen knock-offs of the Bridget series. We'll learn about the beauty myth of the late 20 th century, the mythos of the perfect woman and why women still feel that they must achieve both economic and romantic success to be socially acceptable. Through our fictional and non-fictional readings, we'll also cruise the dating scene in contemporary England and America and discover how hard it is for single women to navigate through the rough waters of love and sex in order to find fulfillment in marriage and motherhood. And finally, we'll discover why motherhood and marriage are still so highly venerated in Western culture in spite of the ever rising divorce rate, and why for women, success in the boardroom is so often equated with failure at home and in the bedroom.

ENGL 300X: Writing About Literature Topic: Women, Writing and Revolution

Wilcox MWF 11-12:15

How do the rights and responsibilities of citizenship apply to persons who do not bear arms, own property, or vote? Are changes in the status of women best achieved by slowly reshaping convention or by imagining radical new possibilities? What forums permit the most politically significant circulation of women's ideas, and what constitutes "political significance"? Under what circumstances does gender transcend class, race, and nationality? In the late eighteenth century, the American and French Revolutions moved British and American women to write, in unusually direct and open-ended ways, about the relationships between gender, authority, and civic responsibility. The resulting controversies still reverberate in current feminist theory and practice. In this course, we will examine the full spectrum of women's writing about women in the late eighteenth century. We will consider how women writers adapted the available tools of literary expression to shape new conceptions of gender.

ENGL 419 2U/2G: & 5U/5G: Shakespeare, II

We will read 6-7 plays written in the second half of Shakespeare's career (problem comedies, tragedies, and romances), exploring them as aesthetic objects, as cultural and historical documents, and as scripts for performance. We will read critical essays and period documents, see some video clips and enjoy in-class performances in order to explore how Shakespeare represents love, sexuality, marriage, gender and class relations, nation, and racial and ethnic others. There will be short writing and presentation assignments, quizzes, a longer paper, a midterm and final and a performance.

ENGL 428 1U/1G: English Drama 1660-1800

  Markley TR 11-12:15  

This course will cover some of the major works in British drama written between 1660 and 1777. We will pay particular attention to the social, cultural, political, and economic contexts of theatrical performance, and we will discuss the major issues that find on their way onto the London stage: sexual morality, the role of women in a patrilineal society, and the problems of empire, trade, and colonialism. Because the Restoration period (1660-1700) featured the popular and critical success of a number of women dramatists — Aphra Behn, Susan Centlivre, Mary Pix, and Catherine Trotter — we will devote a good deal of attention to the ways in which these playwrights appropriated the conventions of the seemingly antifeminist genres of wit comedy. In addition to these women dramatists, we will read and discuss plays by George Etherege, John Dryden, William Wycherley, Thomas Otway, Thomas Shadwell, William Congreve, John Gay, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

ENGL 455 4U/4G: Major Authors

Topic: Willa Cather

  Mohr MWF 1  

In this course, we will read the major works of Willa Cather, including her well-known novels, O Pioneers! and My Antonia, as well as less familiar but equally important works, such as The Song of the Lark and the Pulitzer Prize-winning One of Ours. Although Cather's works are associated with the Great Plains , her fictional settings include urban and provincial locales from the southwestern to the northeastern United States . With this in mind, we will consider the intertwining influences of regionalism and cosmopolitanism on her work. We will also explore the significance of different aspects of identity — regional, national, racial, and sexual — to her characterization of settlers and wayfarers of all stripes — immigrants and migrants, farmers and artists, professors and soldiers, in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Requirements include active participation in group discussions, response papers, two critical essays, a midterm, and a final exam.

ENGL 461 4U/4G: Topics in Literature

Topic: Regionalism and Cosmopolitanism in American Women's Literature of the Early Twentieth Centruy  

Mohr MWF 11

A sense of place. A place called home. A home in the world. Through the turn into the twentieth century, authors of regionalist literature have represented the margins of America as places of refuge in a rapidly changing society. However remote these stories may seem, however, the "sense of place" that regionalism offers derives in part from its connections with urban (foreign) elements. As we trace the development of regionalism and cosmopolitanism in this fiction, we will consider such issues as literary influence, mentorship, categorization, and canonization.

Some questions we will consider include: How do we define "local color" or regionalist literature? What does it mean to be "a citizen of the world" in this period? How does each of these works engage with cosmopolitanism? How do these works imagine the possibility of mixing across classes, races, regions, and nations? How do they test or confirm our notion of rural and urban realms as nostalgic and progressive, respectively?

By focusing on women's fiction for most of the term, we will consider the ways in which these writers utilize regionalism and cosmopolitanism to explore issues central to women during this period, especially the desire to shape a creative identity beyond the domestic realm.

ENGL 473: BEU/BEG: Special Topics in Film Studies

Topic: Sexuality and Cinema  

Somerville T Lab 10-11:50 R Lec 10-11:50

At the same time that cinema was emerging as a powerful visual technology and cultural industry in the U.S. and Europe , new understandings of sexuality were also beginning to transform notions of desire and identity in unprecedented ways. This course explores how sexuality and cinema have been intertwined from the late nineteenth century to the present, not only through the erotics of the on-screen image, but also through the politics of sexuality in the production and reception of films. Through theoretical and historical readings, we will consider a range of topics, including theories of spectatorship, psychoanalytic models of desire and fantasy, censorship, intersectional approaches to race and sexuality, the emergence of lesbian and gay identities, the politics of pornography, and queer approaches to cinema, among others. Weekly screenings will include films from a range of historical periods, genres, and production contexts, primarily (but not exclusively) in the U.S.

ENGL 520: Words and Bodies on the English Public Stage, 1576-1642

Newcomb MR 1-2:50  

Early modern scholars now see the early modern stage and pulpit as complementary, not just adversarial, sites of cultural change during the English Reformation, as newly controversial performances of sacraments are mirrored uneasily in the newly commercialized performance of plays. This course adds audiences and textuality to the mix, proposing that as plays gain double lives in both live performance and print publication, they ask audiences to move anew between ritual and written text, between body and word. If the Reformation is credited with the growth of some popular literacies (aural and textual) and the suppression of visual literacies, how different are those literacies newly demanded and inculcated by the stage? How did audiences understand stage performance as, like the sacraments, converting the textual to the embodied? We will focus on the language of body and word as it shapes audience understanding of three dramatic practices emerging from 1576 to 1642: adaptation of plays from prose sources, performance from script, and print publication of plays. The larger agenda is to query the new historicist account of divided spectacular regimes, secular and devotional, imposed from above, and instead to link stage and pulpit in a transformation of literate repertoires that cuts across hierarchies of status and gender. We will read chronologically, sampling plays written for the commercial stage, prose sources and period documents about the range of performance experiences, and varied critical and theoretical readings. Short writings and presentations through the semester, leading progressively into a seminar paper reflecting some (not necessarily all) of the course concerns.

ENGL 524 R: Seminar in 17 th C Literature

Topic: Early Modern Women Writers

Gray R 1-2:50  

One of the most important developments in seventeenth-century studies during the last two decades has been the rediscovery, republication, and detailed analysis of writing by women. This class will introduce this body of work and some of the criticism it has generated, working within a loose theoretical frame that investigates women's relation to changing ideas of the public from 1600-1680. Our main aims will be to investigate the transformations in literary authority and political community that effect and are effected by women writers, and to analyze the connections between sexual politics and public politics in the literature of this period. The kinds of questions we'll ask include: How useful are the terms public and private for the early modern period (or at all)? How central is gender identity (or fluidity) to ideas of publicity/the public? What kinds of normative or non-normative relations between men and women determine women's public presence in seventeenth-century print and manuscript culture? To what extent does public political change depend on or shape women's changing roles? We'll read short selections from Jürgen Habermas, and a handful of his critics, but spend most of the semester on primary texts, coupling more canonical writers like John Milton and Andrew Marvell with female authors as diverse as Mary Sidney, Anna Trapnel, and Margaret Cavendish.

ENGL: 527T: Seminar in 18 th C Literature

Topic: Gender, Sexuality, and the Novel from Defoe to Austen  

Markley T 3-4:50

This seminar will concentrate on some major eighteenth-century novels that have been particularly influential in the subsequent development of the genre. We will pay particular attention to key critical and theoretical issues that have emerged in feminist and materialist criticism since the 1980s: the problem of male writers, notably Defoe and Richardson, writing from the point of women; the novel's resistance to and complicity with eighteenth-century ideologies of gender; the ideological construction of the female body; and the relationship between "subliterary" genres — pornography and romance — and the so-called "great tradition" of the novel. Critics we will read include Ian Watt, Michael McKeon, Nancy Armstrong, Lennard Davis, Terry Castle, Paula Backscheider, and Ros Ballaster. Because this seminar is intended to be valuable to students with a wide range of interests in gender issues, women's writing, and the history and theory of the novel, no specialized knowledge of eighteenth-century literature is required, but students are encouraged to begin reading the longer texts, particularly, Clarissa, before the beginning of the semester

EPS 421: Racial and Ethnic Families

Same as AFRO, HDFS 421, SOC 421

Barnett T 10-11:50

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.

FR 570: "Misogynist Texts and Female Readers"

Seminar in Old French Literature

Fresco W 3-4:50

The discourse of misogyny runs throughout medieval literature in a vein that cuts across a broad spectrum of genres: satire, didactic literature, courtly romance and lyric, fabliaux, beast fable, farce.

Often this discourse is addressed to women or to an audience of which women form an important part. If, as Howard Bloch suggests, the question of reading and interpretation is a "key issue with respect to the study of misogyny," what strategies may women readers use to broach texts within this tradition? We will look to those suggested by medieval women themselves (Marie de France, Christine de Pizan, ...). We will also draw on contemporary approaches and readings (Fetterley, Schor, Moi, Sedgwick, ...). Texts are in translation.

HDFS 220: Comparative Family Organizations

ANTH 210  

Kubose T (See On-Line Class Schedule for various times)  

Cross-cultural examination of family in relation to its environment, the family as an environment, and the familystructure as it changes over time: evaluates findings in anthropology, sociology, and psychology; examines current issues in American family life.

HDFS 422: US Latina and Latino Families

Same as LLS 422. Prerequisite: junior standing  

TBA MW 3-4:20  

Course explores a variety of topics and provides a basic overview of issues relevant to the understanding of Latina/Latino families and children in the United States . The class examines recent demographic changes in the U.S. population and its implications for the socialization and education of Latina/Latino children and their families. Course content looks at such areas as who are Latina/Latino families; how are those families different from others; what are the similarities and differences within Latinas/Latinos; how does acculturation and language fit into our understanding of these families; and what are the implications for the education success of current and future Latina/Latino children.

HDFS 424: Racial and Ethnic Families

Same as AFRO 421, EPS 421, and SOC 421 Prerequisite: 200-level SOC course, or consent of instructor.

Barnett T 10-11:50

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.

HDFS 426: Family Conflict Management

Prerequisite: HDFS 220  

Kramer TR 11-12:20  

Examines processes of conflict management in family and community disputes; emphasizes negotiation and mediation as modes of dispute settlement.

LIS 390RGI: Race, Gender, and Information Technology

Prerequisite: Sophomore, junior or senior standing.  

Searing TR Noon  

This course examines how gender and race affect, and are affected by, information technologies. Race and gender representations will be studied in different settings as they intersect with information use and technology practices. The course is framed by two broad, interrelated concepts -- the expression of identity (individual and group) in cyberspace and the "digital divide." The course readings are drawn from several disciplines and an eclectic array of in-class and out-of-class projects and exercises will be assigned.

LLS 422: US Latino/Latina Families

TBA MW 3-4:20

Course explores a variety of topics and provides a basic overview of issues relevant to the understanding of Latina/Latino families and children in the United States . The class examines recent demographic changes in the U.S. population and its implications for the socialization and education of Latina/Latino children and their families. Course content looks at such areas as who are Latina/Latino families; how are those families different from others; what are the similarities and differences within Latinas/Latinos; how does acculturation and language fit into our understanding of these families; and what are the implications for the education success of current and future Latina/Latino children.

MCB 199 DSI: Discovery in Reproductive Biology

Sherwood MWF 2

This popular course is taught by several renowned professors with diverse interests in the area of reproductive biology.  In the past, students have found the exposure to several professors a highly desirable feature of the course. 

Students in several areas of study will find this an interesting and informative course that covers the basics in reproductive biology but also discusses cutting-edge research areas. 

__ Topics
-Reproduction in Male                                                       
-Reproduction in Female                                                    
-Pregnancy and Parturition                                                               
-Sex Determination and Development of the Gonads and Tract                                                                 
-The Brain and Reproduction                                           
-How Hormones Work       
-Assisted Reproductive Technologies including Cloning
-Reproductive Technologies--Ethical Issues                 
-Intervention in Women-Endometriosis and Uterine Fibroids
-Intervention in Women- Breast Cancer
-Intervention in Women- Post Menopausal
-Hormone Replacement Therapy
-Intervention in Men-Anabolic Steroids                         
-Intervention in Men-Prostate Hyperplasia & Cancer
-Intervention in Domestic Animals
-Endocrine Disrupters
-Regulation of Species in the Wild                                  
-Human Contraception
-Human Population Issues
-Contraception/Population Ethical Issues

SOC 373: Social Stratification

Downs MW 3-4:20

his course examines social stratification in the United States . The course is divided into four main sections: theories of social stratification, the working class, the middle class and the uppper class. Gender and racial stratificaiton will also be examined within each social class. Topics include inequities in power, prestige, income, privilege, and lifestyles in the United States and other countries; class and status as determinants of group interests, ideologies, and interaction; and effects of social change and mobility.

SOC 423: Gender Stratification

 Integrates sociological and feminist theories of stratification by first critiquing mainstream literature and discussing the inadequacies of subsequent approaches, then comparing and contrastir perspectives on the links between work, family, and the state. Students will identify potential sources within specific social institutions.

SPAN 456N: Women, Gender and Sexuality in 20 th Century Spanish American and Caribbean Literature.

Goldman TR 1-2:15

Do gender and sexuality in 20 th 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 531N: Gendered Voices in Spanish American Literature

Goldman TR 3-4:15

This course will examine salient articulations of gender in contemporary Spanish American & Caribbean literature from the perspective of Gender and Sexuality Studies. As with most literary traditions, gender has always been a significant issue in Spanish American writing: from the feminized characterization of the landscape by early European explorers to the complex representations of transgendered subjectivity in contemporary novels, gender has constituted a mechanism of both empowerment and counter-hegemonic criticism. Through the careful assessment of gender in contemporary narratives, drama and films, we will analyze how and to what extent the articulation of gendered subjectivity within these works problematizes, subverts or lays claim to a legitimacy (and, by extension, an authority) that is presumably not found within traditional models of normativity.

SPCM 396: Gender and Media

Press MW 2-3:20

This course looks historically at the way gender has been represented in popular media.