GAH 1039/2358
This introductory, interdisciplinary survey course locates women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. We travel through diverse discursive and physical terrain in order to map this discipline. For example, we will read popular and academic texts drawn from literature, film, history, psychology, sociology, and the natural sciences. We will analyze built and natural environments, focusing in particular on women’s relationships with the home, work, the city, mobility, nation, and the natural environment. Additionally, we will explore social institutions—such as U.S. media and education—to discover their gendered implications. The course focuses primarily on the United States but incorporates information and perspectives from non-Western cultures as well.
In particular, this course has three essential goals. Students should:
- Learn fundamental principles, generalizations, or theories (e.g. commonalities and differences, continuities and changes in women’s experiences, gender as a tool of analysis, and feminist analysis, methods, and theories)
- Learn to apply course material (e.g., to apply feminist analysis as an ideology for social change and an academic methodology)
- Learn to analyze and critically evaluate ideas (e.g., to use feminism to analyze and critically evaluate the world around us)
An important goal for this course is:
- Developing skill in expressing yourself orally and in writing (e.g., sharpening your critical verbal and written analysis skills, particularly in regard to your writing about feminist issues)