Special Topics Courses, Spring 2012
Click here to see descriptions of our Fall 2011 special topics courses
WMS 210-01, Women and International Politics
WMS 300-01, Women in Latin American History
WMS 350-01, 04, Global Women
WMS 350-02, 03, Anthropology in/of Latin America: Gender, Race and Social Justice
WMS 391-01, Women & Gender in African History
• WMS 210-01, Topics in Women’s Studies. Women & International Politics/ Prof. K. McHenry
Why are there so few women in politics? We will be examining the role women and gender play in international formal and informal politics. We will use a global perspective to analyze the multiple waves of the women's movement, and how political institutions shape women’s lives. Specifically, we will try to understand international politics through a gendered lens. Therefore, this course will critically examine the way masculinity/femininity shapes international institutions, law, and conflict. We will explore the way socially constructed gender roles shape women's political activism and participation in world politics. We will analyze the way women's issues are treated in international institutions, and look at feminist theories of international relations. Lastly, we will highlight women's accomplishments, roles, and status in international politics.
Web Enhanced Course; WMS Major/Minor Concentration: Politics, Justice, Policy
• WMS 300-01, Topics in Women's Studies. Women in Latin American History/ Prof. C. Mehrtens
Cross-listed with HST 389.
Women in Latin American History examines historical processes embedded in the modern representations of gender in different parts of Latin America. Students critically inquire into the literature (specially biographies) and history of the region. The course is arranged chronologically: it revisits Latin American history from European contact, colonial rule, independence, to integration in the world economy in the nineteenth century. It explores the development of industry and agriculture in the twentieth-century to globalization. The course focuses on how categories of gender, race, and nation permeated the twentieth-century political discourses of identity and the interpretation of the lives of Latin American women from different historical periods (e.g., La Malinche, Soror Juana Angelica, Carolina Maria de Jesus, and Evita Peron among others).
WMS Major/Minor Concentration: Cross-Cultural Inquiry; Arts and Letters.
• WMS 350-01, 04, Readings in Sociological & Anthropological Literature: Global Women/ Prof. I.F. Rodrigues
Cross-listed with ANT/SOC 350-01, 04.
• WMS 350-02, 03, Readings in Sociological & Anthropological Literature: Anthropology in/of Latin America:
Gender, Race and Social Justice/ Prof. L.M. Knauer
Cross-listed with ANT/SOC 350-02, 06.
This class has two key objectives: to look at the intersection of gender, race and class in Latin America -- and to look at how those social realities have been reflected in anthropological writing about and in Latin America, through the reading of several classic and contemporary texts. We will focus on the lived experiences of women, not only as victims of colonialism, racism and machismo but also as protagonists in movements of resistance and active agents for social change. Our readings will include paradigmatic testimonios or oral histories such as I, Rigoberta Menchú and Let Me Speak: Testimonio of Domitilia, A Woman of the Bolivian Mines, contemporary ethnographies such as Donna Goldstein's Laughter Out of Place, about women in a Rio de Janeiro shantytown, and work-in-progress by the instructor, who has just returned from a year's stay in Guatemala, working with Maya women in rural communities. In parallel with our reading of the texts, we will engage in a critical discussion of ethnographic methods, and the relationship between the researcher and the community, or, in the case of the oral histories, between the subject and the compiler or editor.
Prerequisite: SOC/ANT 111 or WMS 101. WMS Major/ Minor Concentration: Cross-Cultural Inquiry; Gender Studies
• WMS 391-01, Topics in African History: Women & Gender in African History/ Prof. B. Teboh
Cross-listed with HST/AAS 391-01.
Special Topics Courses, Fall 2011
WMS 200-01, Princesses, Harlots, Saints: Women in French Literature
WMS 210-01, Women in Science
WMS 210-02, Women's Health and the Environment
WMS 300-01, Women's Bodies and the History of Medicine
WMS 300-02, History of Brazil
WMS 347-01, Women Writers: Gender, Space, and Memory in Contemporary Women's Writing
• WMS 200-01, Topics in Women’s Studies: Princesses, Harlots, Saints: Women in French Literature/ Prof. S. O'Hara
Cross-listed with FRN 203-01 and ENL 200-10.
This course offers a survey of French literature from the Middle Ages to the present, focusing on the archetypal female characters of the princess or queen, the harlot, and the saintly woman. We will read, among other things, the medieval writer Christine de Pizan's proto-feminist Book of the City of Ladies; the tragic medieval love story of Tristan and Iseut; a fictional autobiography by the 17th-century writer Marie-Catherine Desjardins that features cross-dressing, improbable adventures, and a realistic love story; Emile Zola's classic 19th-century story of a prostitute, Nana; and Marcel Proust's famous Swann's Way. Taught in English.
WMS Concentration area: Arts & Letters. Discussion & lecture; Web-enhanced. Satisfies the College of Arts & Sciences Literature Distribution requirement (non-WMS majors).
• WMS 210-01, Topics in Women's Studies: Women in Science/ Prof. E. Lehr
Issues and experiences regarding women in science. This course takes four approaches to the topic: history of women as scientists; societal representations of women and gender roles, the relationship of such representations to scientific studies of women and gender, and how these effects impact women studying and working in science professions; feminist critiques of scientific methodology in the study of women; importance of and recommendations that will promote change in the way scientific knowledge about women is constructed and encourage women to enter science professions.
WMS Concentration area: Gender Studies. Lecture format; Web-enhanced. Satisfies the College of Arts & Sciences Social Science Distribution requirement (non-WMS majors).
• WMS 210-02, Topics in Women's Studies: Women's Health and the Environment/ Prof. K. McHenry
In this course we will investigate the complex relationship between our environment and women's health and bodies. We will be examining theoretical concepts such as environmental justice, environmental racism, cancer prevention, the precautionary principle, and ecological feminism. We will be focusing our attention on a few key women's health issues such as reproductive health, lung disease, and cancer. In addition we will be exploring various activist and political responses to environmental and women's health issues.
WMS Concentration area: Politics, Justice, Policy. Web-enhanced. Satisfies the College of Arts & Sciences Social Science Distribution Requirement (non-WMS majors).
• WMS 300-01, Topics in Women’s Studies: Women’s Bodies and the History of Medicine/ Prof. S. O’Hara
This course addresses the history of medicine in Western Europe, with a particular focus on how medical texts (almost overwhelmingly written by men) understood and depicted the female body and women’s health issues. Why did people think blood-letting was a good idea, from a medical standpoint? Did those interested in medicine really have to dig up bodies of executed criminals for dissection? When were the first dissections of women's bodies performed? Why did people explain women's health issues by, among other things, thinking that the uterus wandered around the body? We will also examine some of the key medical texts authored by 17th-century midwives such as the French royal midwife Louise Bourgeois (with readings from the professor's soon-to-be published translation), the Englishwoman Jane Sharp, and the German court midwife Justine Siegemund. No prior knowledge of the history of medicine is required.
WMS Concentration Area: Arts & Letters. Discussion & lecture; Web-enhanced.
• WMS 300-02, Topics in Women's Studies: History of Brazil/ Prof. C. Mehrtens
Cross-listed with HST 376.
This course examines historical processes embedded in the modern representations of gender, race, and urban space in contemporary Brazil. The course is arranged chronologically and it addresses processes linked to the formation of ethnic identities, social exclusion, and the experiences of ordinary women. Through the analysis of primary-source texts and images, this web-enhanced course incorporates active learning techniques and special events, such as guest lecturers and films. The course requires readings, lectures, different assignments, and both in-class and online work.
WMS Concentration Area: Arts and Letters or Cross-Cultural Inquiry.
• WMS 347-01, Topics in Women's Studies: Women Writers: Gender, Space, and Memory in Contemporary Women's Writing/ Prof. S. Evans
Cross-listed with ENL 347.
In this course we will examine the ways contemporary women writers from diverse cultural backgrounds investigate the production of and programs of human space and the ways women in particular are conditioned to respond to particular spaces. The novels we will read this semester offer a variety of spaces—both public and private—in which their characters live their lives, and we will consider how characters conceive of themselves in relation to the space(s) around them: are they in control of space or controlled by it? Do particular spaces require particular roles? In what way are characters squeezed by space? How do (or do?) characters create new spaces for themselves? We will pay particular attention to the ways these spaces are gendered. In this same way, we will consider how memory itself can become a kind of space for the characters we encounter. We will interrogate the way memory can serve as a space of escape, or a space of danger, or a space of solace for our characters, and look at the ways women writers utilize the space of memory to contest and challenge their place(s) in the world and their own lives. This course will ask you to think both theoretically about the ideas we encounter and to become ever more specific in the ways you examine the literature we encounter. You will read a lot, think a lot, discuss a lot and do a good bit of writing as well.
WMS Concentration Area: Arts and Letters.
