 |
 |
All courses offer 4 credits unless otherwise noted (click on course name for full description). Please verify with home departments for any prerequisites/changes to all cross-listed courses. The official Smith College Catalog should be considered the definitive source for up-to-date information prior to registering for the course. Course offereings may change prior to Fall semester.
SWG 205 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States, 1945-2003
SWG 222 Gender, Law and Society
SWG 223 Sexual Harassment in History, Law, and Culture
SWG 230 Feminisms and the Fate of the Planet
SWG 315 Sexual Histories, Lesbian Stories
AAS 209 Feminism, Race and Resistance: History of Black Women in America
AAS 366 Seminar: Contemporary Topics in Afro-American Studies: Toni Morrison
AAS 366 Seminar: Contemporary Topics in Afro-American Studies: Black Feminist Theories
ARH 260 Art Historical Studies: Representing Queerness in 20th-Century American Art
CLT 234 The Adventure Novel: No Place for a Woman?
CLT 235 Fairy Tales and Gender
EAL 238 Literature from Taiwan
EAS 230 Women of Korea from the Three Kingdoms Period to the Present
ENG 279 American Women Poets
ENG 365 Seminar: Studies in 19th Century Literature: Topic: The Brontës
ESS 340 Women's Health: Current Topics
FRN 230 Readings in Modern Literature: Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean
HST 101 Introduction to Historical Inquiry: Topic: Geisha, Wise Mothers, and Working Women
HST 252 Women and Gender in Modern Europe, 1789-1918
SOC 323 Seminar: Gender and Social Change
SPN 250 Survey of Iberian Literature and Society I: Topic: Sex and the Medieval City
200-level coursework in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender usually requires SWG 150, Introduction to the Study of Women and Gender, as a prerequisite.
SWG 205 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in the United States, 1945-2003
Daniel Rivers
T Th 10:30-11:50 am
This course offers an overview of LGBT culture and history in the United States from 1945 to 2003. We will use a variety of historical and literary sources, including films and sound clips, to examine changes in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered lives and experiences during the last half of the twentieth century. The course will encourage the students to think about intersections of race, sexuality, and class, and how these categories have affected sexual minority communities. The course will also explore the legal and cultural impact sexual minority communities have had in the United States. Prerequisite SWG 150 or permission of the instructor.
SWG 222 Gender, Law and Society
Carrie Baker
M W F 10:00-10:50 am
This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the legal status of women and men in the United States historically and today, particularly focusing in the areas of employment,
education, reproduction, sexuality, the family, and violence. This course will examine U.S. constitutional and statutory laws affecting women’s legal rights and gender equality. Through a close reading of judicial opinions, we will consider how the law historically has officiated gender relations; how the law has responded to women’s gender-based claims for equality; and how inequalities based on class/race/sexuality inform (or not) feminist law reform. Readings and lectures will emphasize: 1) constitutional and statutory frameworks for equality; 2) fundamental rights and intimate life; and 3) legal remedies for inequality. Prerequisite: SWG 150 or permission of the instructor.
SWG 223 Sexual Harassment in History, Law, and Culture
Carrie Baker
M W 1:10-2:30 pm
This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of sexual harassment in the United States. We will examine the history and incidence of sexual harassment, the social movement opposing sexual harassment, and the development of law and public policy on the issue. We will study sexual harassment in a variety of contexts, including the workplace, primary and secondary schools, higher education, the military and prisons, housing, and on the street. Finally, we will consider the significance of gender, race, and sexuality for sexual harassment. Readings include first person accounts, feminist theory, legal cases, social science research, and primary and secondary sources. Enrollment limited to 20. Prerequisite SWG 150 or permission of the instructor.
SWG 230 Feminisms and the Fate of the Planet
Elisabeth Armstrong
M W F 11:00 am-12:10 pm
We begin this course by sifting the earth between our fingers as part of a community learning partnership with area farms in Holyoke, Hadley and other neighboring towns. Using women’s movements and feminisms across the globe as our lens, this course develops an understanding of current trends in globalization. This lens also allows us to map the history of transnational connections between people, ideas and movements from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Through films, memoirs, fiction, ethnography, witty diatribes and graphic novels, this course explores women’s activism on the land, as laborers, and in their lives. Students will develop research projects in consultation with area farms, link their local research with global agricultural movements, write papers and give one oral presentation. Prerequisite SWG 150 or permission of the instructor.
All 300-level courses in the Study of Women and Gender are seminars and are normally limited to 12 juniors or seniors; seminars have prerequisites and all require permission of the instructor to enroll.
SWG 315 Sexual Histories, Lesbian Stories
Marilyn Schuster
T Th 3:00-4:50 pm
In this seminar we will focus on two moments in twentieth-century gay and lesbian history: the 1920s and the 1950s. The 1920s saw the publication and trial of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness in England, the Harlem Renaissance in the U.S. and an active cultural life in Paris in which American expatriates played an important role. We will look at historical studies and texts by early sexologists of this period along with fiction, blues lyrics, memoirs and other narratives by sexually transgressive women. The post World War II homophile movement in the U.S. in the 1950s has been the focus of groundbreaking historical studies. In addition to historical narratives we will study the Daughters of Bilitis and The Ladder, pulp fiction, butch/femme histories, novels and short stories. Throughout the seminar we will ask: What contradictions and continuities mark the expression and social control of female sexualities that were considered transgressive at different moments and in different cultural contexts? Whose stories get told? How are they read? How can the multiple narratives of control, resistance and cultural expression be useful to us in the twenty-first century? Prerequisites: SWG 150, one additional course in the major and permission of the instructor.
FYS 114 Turning Points
Marilyn Schuster
T Th 10:30-11:50 am
How have women (and some men) in the Americas understood defining moments in life? We will read fictional and autobiographical narratives and view films and documentaries that seek to understand different kinds of turning points: coming of age, coming out, coming to freedom, coming to consciousness. We will consider turning points in history (migrations, internment, war) as well as personal turning points (falling in love, leaving home, resisting oppression) and ask how history and memory, the political and the personal define each other. We will ask how these stories can help us understand and tell stories about turning points in our times and lives? Enrollment limited to 16 first-year students. (WI)
AAS 209 Feminism, Race and Resistance: History of Black Women in America
Paula Giddings
M 7:00-9:30 pm
This interdisciplinary course will explore the historical and theoretical perspectives of African American women from the time of slavery to the post-civil rights era. A central concern of the course will be the examination of how Black women shaped, and were shaped by the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality in American culture. Not open to first-year students.
AAS 366 Seminar: Contemporary Topics in Afro-American Studies
Section 01: Toni Morrison
Kevin Quashie
T 3:00-4:50 pm
This seminar will focus on Toni Morrison’s literary production. In reading her novels, essays, lectures, and interviews, we will pay particular attention to three things: her interest in the epic anxieties of American identitities; her interest in form, language, and theory; and her study of love.
AAS 366 Seminar: Contemporary Topics in Afro-American Studies
Section 02: Black Feminist Theories
Riché Barnes
T Th 1:00-2:30
This course will examine historical, critical and theoretical perspectives on the development of Black feminist theory/praxis. The course will draw from the 19th century to the present, but will focus on the contemporary Black feminist intellectual tradition that achieved notoriety in the 1970s and initiated a global debate on “western” and global feminisms. Central to our exploration will be the analysis of the intersectional relationship between theory and practice and between race, gender and class. We will conclude the course with the exploration of various expressions of contemporary Black feminist thought around the globe as a way of broadening our knowledge of feminist theory.
ARH 260 Art Historical Studies: Representing Queerness in 20th-Century American Art
Jonathan D. Katz
M Th 7:30-8:50 pm
This course interrogates the import of sexual difference in American art from the turn of the last century up to the present. Long before (homo)sexuality could be spoken openly, it was represented, sometimes in ways legible only to those who knew what to look for, but also, to a striking degree, quite openly. Images of sexual difference could be social realist (George Bellows), abstract (Marsden Hartley), symbolist (Georgia O'Keefe), assemblage (Robert Rauschenberg), Pop (Andy Warhol), minimal (Agnes Martin), and would include major figures in photography, film, installation, and performance. Enrollment limited to 18.
CLT 234 The Adventure Novel: No Place for a Woman?
Margaret Bruzelius
M W 2:40-4:00 pm
This course explores the link between landscape, plot and gender: how is the adventure landscape organized? Who lives where within it? What boundaries mark safe and unsafe places? Beginning with essays on cartography by Denis Wood, we’ll read three classic 19th-century boys’ books (Scott, Stevenson, Verne), then adventure fictions with female protagonists by E.M. Forster, Ursula Le Guin, Peter Dickinson, Phillip Pullman and others, to explore the ways in which this genre has embraced and resisted female heroes. Open to first-year students by permission.
CLT 235 Fairy Tales and Gender
Betsey Harries
T Th 1:00-2:50 pm
A study of the literary fairy tale in Europe from the 1690s to the 1990s, with emphasis on the ways women have written, rewritten, and transformed them. Some attention to oral story-telling and to related stories in other cultures. Writers will include Aulnoy, Perrault, le Prince de Beaumont, the Grimms, Andersen, Christina Rossetti, Angela Carter, Sexton, Broumas. Prerequisite: at least one college-level course in literature. Not open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 25.
EAS 230 Women of Korea from the Three Kingdoms Period to the Present
TBA
This course examines Korean history from the perspective of women. Basing our study on the proposition that gender roles and identities are socially constructed, we will consider how concepts relating to gender have been continuously reconstituted over time. We will see how women’s identities arise from a continual negotiation by women and men with larger processes of political, social, and cultural changes, such as the formation of centralized bureaucratic systems, propagation of Confucian social values, introduction of modern Western ideas, colonization by Japan, war, urbanization, industrialization, and democratization. Enrollment limited to 18.
ENG 279 American Women Poets
Susan Van Dyne
M W F 1:10-2:30 pm
A selection of poets from the last 50 years, including Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Sharon Olds, Cathy Song, Louise Glück, Rita Dove and Diane Gilliam Fisher. An exploration of each poet's chosen themes and distinctive voice, with attention to the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the poet's materials and in the creative process. Not open to first-year students. Prerequisite: at least one college course in literature.
ENG 365 Seminar: Studies in 19th Century Literature: Topic: The Brontës
Cornelia Pearsall
T 1:00-2:50 pm
A study of the lives and works of the remarkable Brontë sisters and their shadowy brother, exploring the literary, cultural and familial circumstances which aided and impeded the development of their art. Novels, poetry and paintings by Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë and Branwell Brontë.
ESS 340 Women's Health: Current Topics
Barbara Brehm-Curtis
T 1:00-2:50 pm
A seminar focusing on current research papers in women’s health. An exploration of the scientific method used to test research questions about health, and consideration of the implications of research data for health care decisions. Prerequisites: 140 or a strong biological sciences background, and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 14. WI.
FRN 230 Readings in Modern Literature: Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean
Dawn Fulton
T Th 10:30-11:50 am
An introduction to works by contemporary women writers from francophone Africa and the Caribbean. Topics to be studied include colonialism, exile, motherhood, and intersections between class and gender. Our study of these works and of the French language will be informed by attention to the historical, political, and cultural circumstances of writing as a woman in a former French colony. Texts will include works by Mariama Bâ, Maryse Condé, Gisèle Pineau, and Myriam Warner-Vieyra. Course conducted in French.
GOV 204 Urban Politics
Martha Ackelsberg
M W 9:00-10:20 am
The growth and development of political communities in metropolitan areas in the United States, with specific reference to the experiences of women, black and white. Focus on the social structuring of space; the ways patterns of urban development reflect prevailing societal views on relations of race, sex, and class; intergovernmental relations; and the efforts of people -- through governmental action or popular movements -- to affect the nature and structure of the communities in which they live.
HST 101 Introduction to Historical Inquiry: Topic: Geisha, Wise Mothers, and Working Women
Marnie Anderson
M W 9:00-10:20
Images of Japanese women that are prevalent in the West, and to some extent Japan. Focus will be on three key figures considered to be definitive representations of Japanese women: the geisha, the good wife/wise mother, and the working woman. Popular treatments including novels such as Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha, primary sources including an autobiography written by a geisha, and scholarly articles. Sorting through these images, distinguishing prescription versus reality. Enrollment of 15 limited to first-years and sophomores. WI
HST 252 Women and Gender in Modern Europe, 1789-1918
Darcy Buerkle
T Th 3:00-4:15 pm
A survey of European women's experience and constructions of gender from the French Revolution through World War I, focusing on Western Europe. Gendered relationships to work, family, politics, society, religion, and the body, as well as shifting conceptions of femininity and masculinity, as revealed in novels, films, treatises, letters, paintings, plays, and various secondary sources.
POR 381 Seminar in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies: Topic: Multiple Lenses of Marginality: New Brazilian Filmmaking by Women
Marguerite Itamar Harrison
M W 2:40-4:00 pm
This course will examine the pioneering legacy of key figures in the Brazilian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Susana Amaral, Helena Solberg, Ana Carolina, and Tizuka Yamasaki. These directors’ early works addressed issues of gender and social class biases by subtly shifting the focus of their films to marginalized or peripheral subjects. Works by contemporary filmmakers, such as Carla Camurati, Lúcia Murat, Tata Amaral, and Laís Bodanzky, will also be discussed, particularly the ways in which they incorporate polemical topics in the realm of politics, social consciousness, and/or gender issues. Course conducted in Portuguese.
SOC 323 Seminar: Gender and Social Change
Nancy Whittier
T 3:00-4:50 pm
Theory and research on the construction of and change in gender categories in the United States, with particular attention to social movements that seek to change gender definitions and stratification, including both feminist and anti-feminist movements. Theoretical frameworks are drawn from feminist theory and social movement theory. Readings examine historical shifts in gender relations and norms, changing definitions of gender in contemporary everyday life, and politicized struggles over gender definitions. Themes throughout the course include the social construction of both femininity and masculinity, the intersection of race, class, and sexual orientation with gender, and the growth of a politics of identity. Case studies include feminist, lesbian and gay, right-wing, self help, anti-abortion, and pro-choice movements.
SPN 250 Survey of Iberian Literature and Society I: Topic: Sex and the Medieval City
Ibtissam Bouachrine
T Th 3:00-4:50 pm
This course examines the medieval understanding of sex and the female body within an urban context. We will read medieval medical treatises on women’s sexual health by physicians such as Ibu Sina. We will also address women’s role as physicians in the medieval Iberian Peninsula. Texts include The Book of the Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sina, Milagros de Nuestra Señora by Gonzalo de Berceo, El Collar de la paloma by Ibn Hazm, Medical Aphorisms by Maimonides, and La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas. Enrollment limited to 19. Conducted in Spanish.