Fall 2008 Course Guide (Click Here for Archives)
GWS 103: Black Women in the Diaspora
Same as AFRO 103 and AFST 103
Flynn CRN 46611 TR 9-10:20 a.m.
This comparative introductory course explores the historical, social, economic, cultural and political realities of black women in the Diaspora with an emphasis on the U.S. Canada, Britain, Africa and the English speaking Caribbean. To provide a context in which to describe, analyze and synthesize the experiences of black women means drawing first on black feminist theorizing. The goal is to situate the relevant themes, such as identity, family, and work, discussed throughout the semester within a particular framework. Relying on an interdisciplinary methodology, which essentially means drawing on contemporary scholarship in women’s studies, history, sociology, and music, we will examine how macro structures such as: slavery, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and globalization shaped and continue to circumscribe the lives of black women across various geographic regions. Simultaneously, attention will be paid to the multiple strategies/efforts that black women employ both in the past and present to ensure the survival of “Self” and community. The objective of the course is to demonstrate how black feminist thought and black women have challenged and complicated traditional understandings of race and gender.
GWS 150: Contemporary Women’s Issues
Morey CRN 30423 TR 9-10:20 a.m.
Explores the most recent debates and research related to contemporary issues that primarily affect women. Review issues related to sexual and domestic violence, gender socialization, feminization of poverty, women’s health, sexual harassment, work and family, politics, and media influences from a multi-discipline and multicultural perspective.
GWS 199 RW: Undergraduate Open Seminar
Topic: Fraternity Peer Rape Education and Prevention
Wantland RW CRN 33101 T 6-7:50 p.m.
Fraternity men receive a lot of blame for sexual violence on campus. Some fraternity men are choosing to do something about it. GWS 199RW is a two-semester, 4 credit-hour course that trains fraternity men to become resources for their own chapters, and gain leadership & public speaking skills, while actively working to improve the our campus community. To register or for more information, contact Ross at 333.3137 or at wantland@uiuc.edu
GWS 250: Gender Studies Humanities
Students must register for the lecture and one discussion section.
P. Gill Lect. AL1 CRN 35309 MW 2-2:50 p.m.
Disc. AD 1 CRN 33300 R 1-1:50 p.m.
Disc. AD 2 CRN 33384 R 9-9:50 a.m.
Disc. AD 3 CRN 33490 R 10-10:50 a.m.
Disc. AD 4 CRN 34879 F 11-11:50 a.m.
Disc. AD 5 CRN 34915 F 10-10:50 a.m.
Disc. AD 6 CRN 35231 R 3-3:50 p.m.
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, contemplating not only theoretical matters but also the social and political functions of film, television, advertising, and art.
GWS 261: Gender Transnational Perspective
Same as SOC 261. See SOC 261.
Prerequisite: SOC 100, GWS 260, or consent of instructor.
L. Jennings CRN 35694 TR 9:30 - 10:50 a.m.
Examines how gender inequality is structured on a transnational level. Emphasis will be placed on the interactive relationship among various countries, and how globalization promotes racial, ethnic, sexual, and national hierarchies among women, in both newly and advanced industrialized countries.
GWS 270 Sexuality and Literature
Same as GER 270 and CWL 272. See CWL 272.
Niekerk CRN 49508 MWF 9-9:50 a.m.
Often we think of ‘sex’ and ‘sexuality’ as phenomena that have remained more or less the same over time and are the same all over the world. In this seminar we will consider the opposite and look at the historical contexts in which sexuality has been debated during the past three centuries, and we will investigate to what extent sexuality is perceived differently in diverse cultures. Our thinking about sexuality is, in other words, very much part of the culture in which we grow up.
In part one of the seminar, we will look at the history of sexuality in the Western tradition and in particular, although not exclusively, at the German and French literary and cultural traditions. Literature and film document the norms and values which regulate, or are supposed to regulate, sexual behavior. But they also reveal that theory and practice are often not the same. We will try to answer some of the following questions: To what extent is Western European ideas about sexuality at the roots of ideas about gender roles — about the ways men and women are supposed to behave in society? How are Western ideas about non-Western cultures influenced by negative stereotypes about the sexuality of those belonging to these other cultures? Is the Western discourse on sexuality exclusively focused on heterosexual forms of sexual behavior, or is there space for alternative forms? Reading will include: Goethe, the Marquis de Sade, Casanova, Kleist, Sacher-Masoch, Freud, Schnitzler, Thomas Mann, Kundera and Christa Wolf; films include Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. In part two of the seminar, we will shift our focus to the non-Western World and in particular to the colonial history of Indonesia. In this part of the seminar we will deal with the issue of to what extent non-Western texts constitute a critique of Western concepts of sexuality. Is the history of sexuality an integral part of colonial history? Is there an alternative construction of the history of sexuality possible that is different from that of the West? Readings include Steele, Multatuli, Kartini, and Toer; films include John Duigan / Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.
GWS 272 Women and Politics
Same as PS 272. See PS 272.
S. Frost Lect. AL1 CRN 43093 TR 9-9:50 a.m.
Disc. AD 1 CRN 43098 F 9-9:50 a.m.
Disc. AD 2 CRN 43099 F 10-10:50 a.m.
Disc. AD 3 CRN 43100 F 11-11:50 a.m.
Examines the political status and roles of women. Topics include women's political behavior; feminist and anti-feminist politics; and contemporary legislative and public policy issues, such as educational equity, equal rights legislation, and health care delivery for women.
GWS 280M: Women Writers
Topic: U. S. Women Writers
Same as ENGL 280. See ENGL 280.
D. Bauer M CRN 39530 TR 9:30 -10:45 a.m.
The survey of American Women’s writing will consider on the following themes: Women and Identity, Sexuality, and Work. Our primary focus will be twentieth and twenty-first century women’s writing, starting in the 1920s and moving, decade by decade, into the present. This class will take a historical and cultural approach to US Women’s Writing, as well as illuminating various literary methodologies. The reading list will include canonical and no canonical readings from various genes, poetry, memoir, novel and drama in order to demonstrate both formal and thematic concerns in representative women’s texts.
Students will write 2 - 3 page response papers every week. For their final research project, they will focus on one decade and collaborate on producing a portfolio of writing about the range of women’s writing for that decade. The final project – a seminar-length paper will ask for a multi-layered approach to the literary and social history for their time period. In order to make the final projects cohere as a group, I will encourage (as much as possible) students to undertake the research on different decades in order that the class as a whole, for a collective project, assemble their collection of essays in order to produce a class document chronicling women’s writing over the century.
GWS 280Q: Women Writers
Topic: Asian American Women Writers
Same as ENGL 280. See ENGL 280.
S. Koshy Q CRN 51931 TR 12:30 -1:45 p.m.
GWS 280S: Women Writers
Topic: Latina Writers
Same as ENGL 280. See ENGL 280
N. Castro S CRN 39526 TR 2-3:15 p.m.
A March 2002 Current Population Survey performed by the Census Bureau (report issued June 2003) clocked the U.S. “Hispanic” (replaced by “Latino” in January 2003) population as 13.3% of the U.S. total, identifying it (just barely!) as the largest minority ethnic group in the nation. Demographic data also suggest that Latinos constitute the fastest growing and youngest population in the United States. These findings have prompted much reflection on the future “Hispanicity” of the United States, and the “Latino vote” is discussed routinely in election coverage. This course offers an opportunity to engage writerly voices from within the 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 theme. So, too, will be the “spaces” of Latinidad: Texas, California, the Southwest, the “Borderlands,” Chicago, Miami, New York, L.A., Albuquerque, and perhaps even Puerto Rico (even though the Census Bureau doesn’t include it in its “Latino” numbers). Important, too, will be the question of language (an issue already apparent in the abiding statistical category “Hispanic”), as we interpret the tongues our readings speak in. Questions of migration, exile, diaspora, imperialism, transnationality, and actual and conceptual borderlands will recur in our reading and thinking. Throughout, we will devote keen attention to how Latina writers foreground gender politics and sexuality in navigating various class, racial, national, and cultural allegiances. A certain amount of historical and theoretical contextualization will also inform our readings. Student responsibilities include careful, thorough reading and vigorous class participation, including group presentations; in-=class writing and online responses; two paper; a midterm, and a final.
GWS 281C: Women in the Lit Imagination
Topic: The Archetype of the Fallen Woman in British and American Fiction
Same as ENGL 281. See ENGL 281.
Baron C CRN 43574 MWF 10-10:50 a.m.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, America was seen as a new Eden—a land of endless social vistas and unlimited economic possibilities, open to any free white male British citizen who made the arduous transatlantic crossing safely and who settled successfully in the New World. Yet for unmarried women, the New World also became synonymous with the darker side of Eden—a place where the story of the fall was re-enacted countless times through the greed of artful madams and the unbridled desire of male entrepreneurs, looking to corrupt innocent young girls into a life of sin and prostitution.
In 1791, Susanna Rowson published Charlotte Temple, the first transatlantic novel that deals with this festering social issue. Extremely popular on both sides of the Atlantic, the novel tells the story of the iconic fallen woman and her woeful tale of sexual intrigue and betrayal. For the next hundred and fifty years, American and British audiences, riveted by this moralistic narrative, encouraged writers to engage in a highly nuanced literary dialogue on the subject of the archetypal fallen woman, producing some of the best known literature of the 19th and 20th centuries.
In this course, we’ll trace the novel as a vehicle for the social theory of British and American gender politics through the tale of the archetypal fallen woman. We’ll begin with an examination of the theme of the ruined woman as a bi-cultural warning to any young girl who strays from the straight and narrow heteronormative sexual imperatives set in place by rigid 19th and 20th century British and American patriarchal mores. As we move through the canon of literature focusing on this gendered narrative, we’ll examine the evolution of the fallen woman through its multiple iterations in England and the US and see how Anglo societies collectively viewed the sexually compromised female from the late Georgian period through the early modernist period as a marginalized other who must be punished through banishment or death to avoid polluting the rarified air of untarnished women. As we unfurl the interlocking social discourse of these transatlantic novels, we’ll explore how the body and the mind of the archetypal fallen woman is presented through the cultural dictates of each national identity, each literary period and the gender and sexual orientation of the authors. Ultimately we’ll see whether class differences, racial differences or the enfranchisement of women, liberated females from this stigma or whether women today are still marginalized by sexually unsanctioned behaviors.
Requirements include: an oral report, two 6-8 page papers and a final exam. Texts include: Charlotte Temple, Sense and Sensibility, The Scarlet Letter, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, The Awakening, Howards End and Passing.
GWS 281X: Women in the Lit Imagination
Topic: Icons of Marriage and Maternity in the British Feminist Novel
Same as ENGL 281. See ENGL 281.
Baron X CRN 43573 MWF 12-12:50 p.m.
In 1796 Jane Austen finished her initial draft of Pride and Prejudice entitled First Impressions. Two hundred years later, author Helen Fielding published Bridget Jones’s Diary, a post feminist version of Austens’s classic novel about a young woman who refuses to be forced into marrying the wrong man despite the prospect of future penury. But for much of British history, women of all classes were expected to maintain the social hierarchy through marriage and to fulfill their personal destiny through pregnancy and motherhood no matter how they felt about their bodies, their husbands or their married lives. In this course, we’ll explore the evolution of women’s marital choices, sexual practices and economic rights in the UK over a two hundred year period from Austen to Fielding, viewing the changes that came along the way.
We’ll begin during the Regency period by examining the nuances of 18th century marriages, zeroing in on how women regarded courtship and how the advent of the novel and the rise of the mercantile class began to restructure the rules about marriage and property in England. Then we’ll see why in spite of their many accomplishments and a powerful female figurehead to lead the nation, Victorian women were barred from owning property, barred from voting, and forced into submissive marriages that could leave them either vulnerable and depressed or curiously satisfied with their constrained lives. Moving into the late 19th century, we’ll take a look at how working class women dealt with the changes that technology had on their vocations, marital choices and sexual practices including premarital relations. Next we’ll zoom into the pre and post WWI and WWII periods to see how women fared in the UK after war had permanently altered the gender lines and their figures with the normalization of reconfiguring undergarments and modern make-up lines. We’ll end the semester on a lighter note with Bridget Jones’s Diary, focusing on the liberated late 20th century woman as she struggles to find just the right guy, battles bad hair days, unwanted cellulite, poor career choices and non-committal boyfriends. Course requirements include 2 moderate length papers (6-8 pages) and a final (8-10 page) paper.
GWS 340: Gender, Relationships and Society
Same as HDFS 340, and SOC 322. See HDFS 340.
Oswald, R. A CRN 38499 TR 11:00 – 12:20 p.m.
Explores the production of gender through social interaction within families and other specific interpersonal and institutional relationships that change over time. Gender is also linked to race, class, ability, and sexuality.
GWS 350: Introduction to Feminist Theory
Students must sign up for the lecture (CRN 30424) and one discussion section.
Dorr, K. Lect. 1 CRN 30424 TR 9-9:50 a.m.
AD 1 CRN 51289 F 10-10:50 a.m.
AD 2 CRN 51290 F 12-12:50 a.m.
This course offers an introductory, interdisciplinary survey of feminist theory by examining debates within contemporary feminisms concerning what counts as “theory” and what counts as “feminism.” Using both national and transnational frames, we will explore the social and geographic contexts in which feminists have theorized how gender is lived in constant interaction with one’s race, class, sexuality and national status; on the body, in the home, within the nation state, and across national boundaries. Our investigation will be guided by attention to key concepts and themes, including identity, experience, social location, spatial location, politics, and knowledge production.
GWS 356: Sex & Gender in Popular Media
Same as COMM 356. See COMM 356. Students must register for one lab and one lecture section.
I. Glennon A CRN 47811 TR 2-3:20 p.m.
B CRN 47813 T 3:30-4:50 p.m.
The course examines the notion that the mass media influence our development as gendered individuals, looking at those who argue for and against this notion. We consider different forms of feminist theory applied to the study of mass media, the history and scholarly criticisms of the media and their portrayal of women, and feminist attempts to create alternatives to mainstream media images. Throughout the course we consider representation of minorities in the dominant media and examine newly created alternative representations.
GWS 370: Introduction to Queer Studies
Prerequisite: GWS 250 or GWS 260 or GWS 350, or consent of instructor.
C. Cole CRN 42909 T 3-5:50 p.m.
Interdisciplinary introduction to the field of queer studies. Traces the history of sexuality and sexual identities, reviews key concepts and debates guiding queer studies, and evaluates how they facilitate understandings of the social and cultural dimensions of sexuality.
GWS 375: Scandinavian Sexualities
Same as CWL 375 AND SCAN 375. See SCAN 375
Prerequisites include one course in literature, art, film or GWS, or consent from the instructor.
X CRN 51677 MWF 12-12:50 p.m.
This course investigates myth and reality of "Scandinavian Sexualities" from the early nineteenth century to today. Starting with Romanticism's understanding of feminine nature, the course moves on to topics of morality debates, independence movements, prostitution, sexual liberation, homosexuality, and social gender equality in a Scandinavian context. Source material includes literature, non-fiction, film, and gender theory. The class is collaborative and involves project work.
GWS 383: History of Black Women’s Activism
Same as AFRO 383 and HIST 383. See AFRO 383
E. McDuffie EM CRN 51828 TR 11-12:20 p.m.
Examination of the history of twentieth century black women's activism specifically concerned with how African American female activists have been critical to building, sustaining and leading black freedom movements.
GWS 395MN: Intermediate Topics GWS
Topic: Bodies and Technologies in Popular Culture
M. Nguyen MN CRN 51986 TR 3:00-4:20 p.m.
This course will explore technologies' interpenetration with cultural production and the popular imaginary. In particular we will focus on how the concepts and categories of gender, race, sexuality, and nation are embodied in technologies and in visions of technologies, and conversely, how technologies and their visions shape our notions of gender, race, sexuality, and nation. At the human/machine interface, a series of transformations are imagined whether feared or welcomed or both for different purposes and to different effects. Some of the questions we will address include those changes in concepts of the "whole" body made possible by prosthetics and plastic surgeries; the material grounds for the production of technologies, including the contemporary global assembly-line; fantasies of the transcendent, technologized body and its failures in science fiction and film; notions of telepresence and mediated intimacy as new forms of technology claim to bring us "closer" to each other (e.g., MySpace); transformations of cultural work (and who counts as a cultural producer) made possible by new technologies of sampling, mash-ups, and digital video; histories of moral panics about youth and their uses of technologies; and how artists and cultural producers are reproducing or rearticulating notions about the human and the post-human, the mind and the body, in this technological imaginary. As such this course will give students the opportunity to critically assess the relations of gender, race, sexuality, and nation produced in the entanglement of technologies with domesticity, games, films, fiction, medicine, work, leisure, geopolitics, and the body.
GWS 417: Leading Post-Perform Dialog
Same as THEA 417 – See THEA 417. Instructor Approval Required.
M. Best LTD CRN 47939 TR 4-5:50 p.m.
Study of the history, processes, and methods of leading discussions with social issues theatre audiences. Emphasis on the skills and techniques of facilitators/peer educators; artistic considerations; function and application of the dramaturg; and practical experience through facilitation of social issues theatre dialog.
GWS 418: Devising Social Issues Theatre
Same as THEAT 418. See THEA 418. Instructor Approval Required.
L. Fay A3 CRN 35470 W 3-5:50 p.m.
L. Fay A4 CRN 35720 W 3-5:50 p.m.
Research, writing, and production of original plays addressing selected health and social issues on the UIUC campus in cooperation with the Counseling and Health Center. Course emphasizes training in acting and in methods of peer education and discussion facilitation.
GWS 424: Gender and Race in Contemporary Architecture
Same as ARCH 424. See ARCH 424 - Prerequisite: Junior standing or consent of instructor.
Note: a one-day field trip to Chicago is required for this course
K. Anthony B CRN 41035 TR 11:30-12:50 p.m.
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to an aspect of architecture that has all too often been overlooked: the role of women and people of color (i.e., African Americans, Latino/Latina Americans, Asian Americans, Native
Americans, and others). As in many other fields, the work of white males has historically dominated architecture. Furthermore, due to the persistence of the "star system," valuable contributions of women architects and architects of color, for the most part, have not been recognized. To a certain extent, this pattern can also be seen in the related environmental design professions of landscape architecture and urban design. This course calls attention to the work of both women architects and architects of color as consumers, critics, and creators of the environment--as clients and users, writers and researchers, design practitioners, educators, and students. Through your participation in this course, you will supplement the body of knowledge and educational perspectives traditionally conveyed across the architectural curriculum. You will gain an understanding of key issues in this rapidly emerging, dynamic field. And no matter what your career goals, you will become a more sensitive employee and/or employer. You will meet leading practitioners. Guest speakers include women architects/designers and architects of color from the Midwest who broaden the
perspectives of this course by sharing their personal and professional experiences. A class field trip to Chicago provides you the opportunity to visit the offices of award-winning underrepresented architects and see their work.
GWS 432: Gender and Language
Same as LING 432, and SPCM 432. See SPCM 432.
J. Kosovski MMU CRN 41095 MWF 11-11:50 a.m.
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 470: Trans Bodies & Politics
Prerequisite: One course in Gender and Women's Studies at the 200- or 300-level, or consent of instructor.
F. Ngô FMG CRN 51269 (Grad) M 4-6:50 p.m.
F. Ngô FNU CRN 51268 (Undergrad) M 4-6:50 p.m.
This course is designed to introduce students to issues and politics related to transgender and transsexual identities. Students will examine and critically evaluate contemporary debates about transgender, inter-sexuality and other trans-bodies that contest normative male/female binaries and traditional categorizations of sexuality. Because so much of the field of trans studies has focused on white bodies, this course is particularly interested in introducing questions about sex and gender construction as they intersect with narratives of race and nation. Areas of inquiry will include gender theory, transnational identities, gendered and racial performances, legal and medical discourses, the Prison Industrial Complex, and resistance.
GWS 490FN: Seminar in Women’s Studies
Topic: Transnational Sexualities
May be repeated one time if topic varies. Prerequisite: GWS 250 or GWS 260, and two courses in Gender and Women’s Studies at the 200 – 300 levels; junior standing or consent of instructor.
Meets with AAS 490
F. Ngô FN CRN 47820 (Grad) T 3-5:50 p.m.
FNU CRN 47844 (Undergrad) T 3-5:50 p.m.
How are sexualities viewed differently as people and ideas cross national borders? How can our understandings of nations and races affect the way that sexuality is seen at home and abroad? How can the rhetoric of sexuality be
used to justify and make sense of war? This course is designed to investigate the ways in which sexual identities change as national contexts change, as borders are crossed, and as definitions of race and gender shift. The course interrogates how national identities, modernities, and colonial narratives are built on ideas of racialized sexualities, and, as such, is particularly interested in the study of the queer diaspora. Areas of inquiry will include imperialism, immigration, war, tourism and globalization.
SC: Seminar in Women’s Studies
Topic: Post Colonial Queer
May be repeated one time if topic varies. Prerequisite: GWS 250 or GWS 260, and two courses in Gender and Women’s Studies at the 200 – 300 levels; junior standing or consent of instructor.
S. Chandra SCG CRN: 29158 W 4-6:50 p.m.
SCU CRN: 29160 W 4-6:50 p.m.
Amongst the greatest convictions of European colonial regimes around the world was that sexuality indicated important information about the cultures of specific societies. Bringing newly established binaries between hetero and homosexual to fabrications between western and non-western, reproductive and non-reproductive, colonialism made possible a lasting partnership between race and sexuality on a transnational level. Ironically, anti-colonial movements rarely sought to reject these convictions, hence extending the mutually reinforcing relationship between race, sexuality and imperialism. Indeed, the modern nation state - the most visible outgrowth of the history of colonial racism - compulsorily enshrines heterosexuality at the heart of its existence.
What is the relationship between heteronormativity, nationalism and imperialism, and why does it continue to produce its own un-named beneficiaries and minorities on a global scale? In other words, how do racialisation/s and sexuality inform one another in a wider world of continuing imperial interactions? Is ‘same’ sex desire always and already opposed to imperialism? Can sexual minorities reject the everyday imperialisms that govern them? Using an array of primary sources from 200 years in colonial and postcolonial history, also novels and films, this course will provide students with the opportunity to confront debates on colonialism, institutions of knowledge production, gender, sexual difference, nationalism, imperialism and marriage. The course requires a final 20 page paper based on original research.
GWS 498 SENIOR SEMINAR
Prerequisite: Senior standing and enrollment as a major in Gender and Women’s Studies, or consent of instructor. Advanced Composition course.
C. Mayo CRN 51254 M 1-3:50 p.m.
This is the "capstone" course for GWS majors (and minors). The course has two goals: (1) to explore various gender and women's studies research methods and (2) to provide students with an opportunity to design and carry out a substantial research project of their own.
GWS 550: Feminist Theories Humanities
Prerequisite: At least one graduate-level humanities course or consent of instructor.
S. Frost CRN 30426 R 1-3:50 p.m.
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 590EM: Topics in GWS
Topic: The History of 20th Century Black Women’s Activism
Meets with Hist 572 - (Section B – CRN 43102)
E. McDuffie EM CRN 42016 W 1-3:50 p.m.
This is a readings class in the history of twentieth century African American women’s activism and their involvement in social movements. We are concerned with appreciating their critical roles in building, sustaining, and leading all-Black organizations such as the Women’s Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention, National Association of Colored Women, Universal Negro Improvement Association, Black Panther Party, National Black Feminist Organization, and Combahee River Collective as well as interracial organizations like the Communist Party, USA and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. This class will be grounded in social movement and Black feminist theory. We will analyze how Black women activists formulated Black feminist, transnational, diasporic frameworks to understand the global nature of racism, economic inequalities, sexism, and in some cases homophobia. We will examine how gender, race, class, sexuality, femininity, masculinity, age, and culture have structured social movements and positioned black women and men within them. In addition, we will focus on how black women’s activists have grappled with black nationalist discourses, which have often narrowly defined the struggle for black liberation in masculinist terms. We will also examine the transformative effects of activism on Black women’s subjectivities. Interdisciplinary in approach, we will use the latest scholarship from the fields of History, Women’s Studies, Sociology, and Political Science as well as memoir and fiction to explore these issues. Students will be required to write an interpretative essay as their final project. If successful, this class should be very useful for students interested in researching and teaching in the fields of Black Women’s Studies, African American History, and African Diaspora Studies.
GWS 590JD: Topics in GWS
Topic: Performance Studies
Meets with ANTH 515, Section JD
J. Desmond JD CRN 51270 T 2-4:50 p.m.
Drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, literary theory, film studies, dance and theater studies, and Marxist, feminist, and post structural modes of analysis, this course will provide a framework for thinking about the ways in which cultural meanings are constructed, negotiated, and contested through embodied performative acts of representation. This seminar will introduce students to a wide variety of writings in this area and provide them an opportunity to reflect on the current issues and methodologies animating this emerging field through the production of their own research project.
As an emergent area of specialization, “performance studies” focuses on the cultural analysis of live events, and can include the activities of daily life, community practices, sports, theater ,music, rituals, festivals, religious practices, dance, performance art, political rallies, the conduct of war, and even extend to practices like cooking, shopping ,tourism, medical protocols, torture, labor, the imposition of colonial modes of the use of space, and modes of self-presentation including movement style and vocalization.
An emphasis on the body and enactment will ground our discussions. Specific attention will be paid to the historical and community specificity of semiotic production and reception in these arenas, and the ways that these elements resonate with intersecting categories of social differentiation including those of gender, racial or ethnic identity, national identity, sexuality, age, social class, and perceptions of bodily ability/disability. In addition to a final research paper, students will conduct observation exercises and attend live events outside of class, and be responsible for leading some discussions. Readings will be augmented with film and video clips.
Authors may include Lipsitz, Roman, Butler, Stoeltje, Goffman, Schechner, Phelan, Munoz, Johnson, de Loria, Lott, Foucault, Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, Slymovics, among others. This course will be of particular interest to students with interests in gender and women’s studies, anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, communication studies, the arts, and social history.
GWS 590KD: Topics in GWS
Topic: Race and Gender as Political Geographies
Meets w/LLS 596
K. Dorr KD CRN 45837 W 3-5:50 p.m.
This course offers a survey of various theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of race and gender as fluid, yet salient categories of social difference. By staging a dialogue between the fields of critical race studies, feminist and queer theory, and cultural geography, we will develop over the course of the semester a framework for thinking through race and gender as “political geographies”—sites of territorialized power that are produced, contested, and restructured across spatial scales. The goal of our collaboration will be to cultivate an interdisciplinary critical apparatus through which we can a) examine the multiple social meanings, practices and structures through which race and gender are constituted across space and over time; and b) make sense of how the categories of race and gender function interactively with other systems of meaning to create and maintain social structures, as well as to challenge and transform them.
AAS 397: Asian Families in America
Same as SOCW 397
Balgopal CRN 33282 TR 4-5:20 p.m.
Offers a comparative analysis of Asian families as they cope and adapt to American society. Examines: 1) how families from four major Asian-American groups (Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Korean) function in American society; 2) how these families compare to families in their country of origin; and 3) how these families are similar to or different from the "typical American" family. Includes visits to Asian cultural institutions and with Asian families.
AFRO 342: Black Men and Masculinities
Same as SOC325 – Prerequisite: Introductory social science course.
Hamer CRN 49218 MW 9-10:20 a.m.
The sociological study of African American men in the contemporary U.S. Specifically, black manhood and masculinities and the experiences of this demographic group as it relates to the economy, state, policy, and institutions such as family, criminal justice system, and education.
AFRO 398KP: African American Women in Theatre
Prerequisite: Junior status and one of the following: AFRO 224, or HIST 275 or HIST 276, or
ENGL 259 or ENGL 260.
K. Perkins KP CRN 51971 MW 1-2:50 p.m.
AFRO 398RJ: African American Families in Film
Prerequisite: Junior status and one of the following: AFRO 224, or HIST 275 or HIST 276, or
ENGL 259 or ENGL 260.
R. Jarrett RJ CRN 51825 F 9-11:50 a.m.
AFRO 598: African American Women in Theatre
Prerequisite: Graduate standing, AFRO 500 or equivalent, or consent of instructor.
K. Perkins KP CRN 51972 MW 1-2:50 p.m.
CHLH 199 B: Campus Acquaintance Rape Education
Undergraduate Open Seminar (Most seats reserved for freshman-junior status through April 27.)
Wantland CRN 31590 MW 3-4:20 p.m.
Why is it difficult to speak out against rape? If the majority of perpetrators are men, why is it still seen as a "woman's problem"? Is rape inevitable? This class explores the realities of sexual assault and its societal foundations. Students will have an opportunity to discuss and critically analyze the effects of culture, oppression, and socialization on sexual violence. Additionally, students acquire facilitation skills which allow them to work as peer educators with the CARE program. There are no prerequisites for this course. Men, LGBTQ students, students of color, and students with disabilities are encouraged to apply. If you have further questions, please e-mail Ross at wantland@uiuc.edu. For more information, contact Ross Wantland at 333-3137 or wantland@uiuc.edu.
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CHLH 206: Human Sexuality
See online course catalog for individual sections
CHLH 340 B2: Preventing Sexual Assault Through Education
Perquisite: CHLH 199B or GWS 199RW.
Wantland CRN 31603 Arranged
What are the skills necessary to create and sustain sexual violence prevention programs? Can a sexual assault workshop create social change? What is the role of emotions, disclosure, and theory in doing anti-rape education? Community Health 340B2 is a course for students who have already completed a peer rape educator training course (CHLH 199B or GWS 199RW), and it explores some of the critical issues around being an anti-rape educator/preventionist. Students explore issues such as, "Can we end rape?" or "Embracing conflict in Class". Additionally, students also create and facilitate new workshops on sexual violence prevention to various groups. Each student must complete 50 hours of sexual violence prevention work (class included), and complete one group project. This course is pass/fail. For more information, contact Ross at wantland@uiuc.edu.
ENGL 300P1: Masculinity and the Discourses of Enlightenment
Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement; one year of college literature or consent of instructor.
A. Pollack P1 CRN 33987 TR 11-12:15 p.m.
ENGL 300P2: Gender and Power in Seventeenth Century Drama
Prerequisite: Completion of the Composition I requirement; one year of college literature or consent of instructor.
W. Kay P2 CRN 33989 TR 11-12:15 p.m.
EPS 421: Racial and Ethnic Families
Same as AFRO 421, HDFS 424, and SOC 421. Prerequisite SOC 100, a 200- level SOC course, or consent of instructor.
Barnett CRN 42601 T 10-11:50 a.m.
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 425: Critical Family Transitions
Prerequisite: HDFS 120
Hardesty AL1 CRN 32422 TR 9-10:50 a.m.
Life-span development approach to the study of normative changes and non-normative events and their impact on marriage and family relationships; attention to variations in the socio-economic contexts of family transitions, and to methods for reducing the negative effects of such transitions.
HIST 200A: Gender and Crime in the Early Modern World
Prerequisite: A 100-level course in history or consent of instructor.
D. Rabin A CRN 32494 TR 10-11:20 a.m.
What can the study of crime and punishment tell us about the past and about our present? This course will explore the range of behavior considered criminal in the early modern world (1450-1815) and set it beside a study of gender to examine the ways in which definitions of crime intersected, shaped, and were shaped by notions of femininity, masculinity, and gender. We will consider the importance of legal codes to early modern conceptions of order and lawfulness and study how different legal systems enforced the law. The class will also examine systems of punishment and how theories about punishment varied depending on religious belief and cultural values. Using a comparative approach we will study crime and gender in early modern Europe, the near east, and Asia. The readings will include primary sources as well as a range of scholarship on these questions. Assignments include response papers, a mid-term examination, and a research paper based on primary sources.
HIST 200H: Women & Gender in East Asia to 1945
Prerequisite: A 100-level course in history or consent of instructor.
J. Kim H CRN 45858 TR 1-2:20 p.m.
While the rise of women’s history and feminist theory in the 1960s and 1970s fostered more general reevaluations of social and cultural history in the West, such progressions have been comparatively modest in East Asian Studies. To introduce one of the larger challenges in current East Asian historiography, this course investigates the roles of Chinese, Japanese and Korean women within premodern societies, and aims to gauge the ways in which gender roles were influenced—or not—by modernization. These three countries share the tradition of Confucianism which, though varying in degree, largely affected the way women’s lives were shaped in the past. Historical studies of women and gender in East Asia will be analyzed in conjunction with theories of Western women’s history to encourage new methods of rethinking “patriarchy” within the East Asian context. By tracing the lives of women from various socio-cultural aspects and examining the multiple interactions between the state, local community, family and individual, women’s places in the family and in society, their relationships with one another and men, and the evolution of ideas about gender and sexuality throughout East Asia’s complicated past will be reexamined through concrete topics with historical specificity and as many primary sources as possible.
HIST 498 K: Research and Writing Seminar
Topic: Muscles, Missiles, and Kitchen Debates: Gender, Politics, and Culture During the Cold War.
E. Frazer CRN 34338 R 3-4:50 p.m.
Why did McCarthyism associate homosexuality with communism in the 1950s? In what ways was successful Western espionage linked to notions of masculine virility in the James Bond books and films? Why were kitchens the central point of debate between Nixon and Khrushchev at a 1959 summit?
This course will explore the notion of the "Cold War" as a period of global history, using gender analysis as a key tool for rethinking politics and culture in the twentieth century. Focusing primarily on readings on the Soviet Union, the United States, and Europe, students will explore themes such as masculinity and presidential power, shifts in family ideologies that accompanied the nuclear age, gendered language in war and diplomacy, and the role of rising affluence and consumerism in international politics.
HDFS 225: Close Relationships
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. Reserved for HDFS Majors till August 1st.
C. Shapiro A CRN 38776 TR 11-12:20 p.m.
Initiation, development, and dissolution of committed relationships with same- or opposite-sex partners within familial, cultural, and societal contexts.
HDFS 523: Ethnic Families
R. Jarrett A CRN 47365 R 9-11:50 a.m.
Historical, social, economic, contextual (neighborhood), and subcultural factors that influence the organization and dynamics of ethnic-racial family life in the United States: family and group immigration and migration histories, acculturation, identity development, family organization, gender roles, parent-child relations, family rituals, neighborhood influences on family life and child-adolescent development, and the relationship between social class and ethnicity-race. Particular emphasis is given to qualitative studies that detail the first-hand experiences of families.
HDFS 526: Intimate Partner Violence
J. Hardesty A CRN 51196 T 2-4:50 p.m.
Extent, nature, causes, and consequences of intimate partner violence in the United States. Examines the complexities of intimate partner violence, including individual, societal, and historical factors that contribute to violence, the implications of making distinctions in types of violence and perpetrators, and the relationship between institutional responses and individual decision-making. Also examines theoretical methodological and ethical issues related to violence research.
SOC 273: Social Perspectives on the Family
Prerequisite: SOC 100
R. Muhammad CRN 47807 TR 2-3:20 p.m.
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 496: Advanced Special Topics
Topic: Race, Class and Gender
Prerequisite: SOC 100 or six hours of anthropology, social geography, political science, or sociology.
A. Zerai AZ CRN 35930 TR 12:30-1:50 p.m.
SOCW 397: Asian Families in America
P. Balgopal A CRN 33281 TR 4-5:20 p.m.
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.
SPCM 397: Gender, Race & Work
T. Wright TWG CRN 35672 (Grad) TR 2-3:20 p.m.
TWU CRN 35670 (Undergrad) TR 2-3:20 p.m.
