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All courses offer 4 credits unless otherwise noted (click on course name for full description). Please check 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.
SWG 150 Introduction to the Study of Women and Gender
SWG 200 Introduction to Queer Studies
SWG 214 Migration, Gender and Transculturation
SWG 222 Gender, Law and Society
SWG 260 The Cultural Work of Memoir
SWG 319 Reading Woolf Reading Proust
SWG 323 Seminar: Sex, Trade, and Trafficking
AAS 212 Culture and Class in Afro-American Family
CLS 233 Gender and Sexuality in Greco-Roman Culture
CLT 230 “Unnatural” Women: Mothers Who Kill Their Children
CLT 268 Latina and Latin American Women Writers
CLT 272 Women Writing: 20th and 21st Century Fiction
EAS 280 Modern Girls and Marxist Boys: Consumerism, Colonialism, and Gender in East Asia
FYS 125 Midwifery in Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective
FYS 149 An Even Playing Field? Women, Sport and Equity
GOV 205 Colloquium: Law, Family and State
GOV 269 Politics of Gender and Sexuality
GOV 311 Seminar in Urban Politics: Politics of Urban Social Movements
HST 238 Gender and the British Empire
HST 253 Women in Contemporary Europe
HST 278 Women in the United States since 1865
HST 355 Topics in Social History: Topic: Debates in the History of Gender and Sexuality
HST 383 Research in U.S. Women’s History: The Sophia Smith Collection (19th and 20th Centuries)
IDP 208 Women's Medical Issues
ITL 344 Italian Women Writers: Women in Italian Society Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
MUS 100 Colloquium: Music and Gender in the World
MUS 220 Topics in World Music: Women in Sub-Saharan African Music
PSY 266 Psychology of Women and Gender
PSY 374 Psychology of Political Activism
REL 110 Women Mystics’ Theology of Love
REL 277 South Asian Masculinities
SOC 213 Ethnic Minorities in America
SOC 229 Sex and Gender in American Society
SOC 314 Seminar in Latina/o Identity: Topic: Latina/o Racial Identities in the United States
SPN 332 The Middle Ages Today: Queer Iberia
SWG 150 Introduction to the Study of Women and Gender
MWF 11:00-12:10
Seelye Hall 106
Elisabeth Armstrong, Carrie Baker, Ambreen Hai, Susan Van Dyne
An introduction to the interdisciplinary field of the study of women and gender through a critical examination of feminist histories, issues and practices. Focus on the U.S. with some attention to the global context. Primarily for first and second year students. Lecture and discussion, students will be assigned to sections.
Further work 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 200 Introduction to Queer Studies
Daniel Rivers
T Th 1:10-2:20
Seelye Hall 301
This course will offer an introduction to the central historical and contemporary issues, concerns, and debates in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) studies. Using the course readings, film screenings, and class discussions, we will challenge ourselves to complicate our understandings of seemingly natural ideas such as sex/gender, man/woman or homosexual/heterosexual, as we experience them in our own daily lives and perceive them in the world around us. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we will explore the history, critical theory, cultural production, and politics of queer life in the United States, as well as queer identities in a transnational diasporic context. We will pay particular attention to how ideas of gender and sexuality intersect with social understandings of race, class, and citizenship. Prerequisite SWG 150 or permission of the instructor.
SWG 214 Migration, Gender and Transculturation
Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez
M W 9:00-10:20 am
Hatfield Hall 202
This course will provide students with an understanding of transnational encounters and intercultural communication by focusing on the contemporary German, Spanish and Mexican society and women’s migration in this context. Issues of power in terms of defining and representing culture(s) in relation to gender, ‘race’, ethnicity, class, work and sexuality will play a central role. In particular we will work with examples of ethnographic research and visual material (videos). On the basis of this material we will explore the moments of mobility and transformation by looking at the local cultural articulation of identity, space and culture. By doing this we will focus on the moments of migrancy, diaspora and shifting boundaries and borders. This will contribute to a comparative approach to understanding transnational processes and their local articulations. At all times an emphasis will be placed on relating theoretical material to ‘lived’ culture and visual culture.
SWG 222 Gender, Law and Society
Carrie Baker
T Th 10:30-11:50
Bass Hall 203
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 260 The Cultural Work of Memoir
Susan Van Dyne
M W 2:40-4:00
Seelye Hall 101
This course will explore how queer subjectivity intersects with gender, ethnicity, race, and class. How do individuals from groups marked as socially subordinate or non-normative use life-writing to claim a right to write? The course uses life-writing narratives, published in the U.S. over roughly the last 30 years, to explore the relationships between politicized identities, communities, and social movements. Students also practice writing memoirs. Prerequisites: SWG 150, and a literature course.
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 319 Reading Woolf Reading Proust
Marilyn Schuster
T Th 3:00-4:50
Seelye Hall 202
Virginia Woolf was an early, avid reader of Proust. In 1925 she wrote "The thing about Proust is his combination of the utmost sensibility with the utmost tenacity. He searches out these butterfly shades to the last grain. He is as tough as catgut & as evanescent as a butterfly's bloom." In this seminar we will read selected works by these two major figures and discuss the worlds they inhabited and the worlds they create in their fiction. We will pay special attention to gender and sexuality in their novels, turning to later readers such as Monique Wittig and Eve Sedgwick to frame our discussion. Prerequisites: SWG 150, one additional course in the major or a literature course and permission of the instructor.
SWG 323 Seminar: Sex, Trade, and Trafficking
Carrie Baker
T 1:00-2:50
Hatfield Hall 204
This seminar will examine domestic and international trade and trafficking of women and girls, including sex trafficking, bride trafficking, trafficking of women for domestic and other labor, child prostitution, sex work, and pornography. We will explore societal conditions that shape this market, including economics, globalization, war, and technology. We will examine the social movements growing up around the trafficking of women, particularly divisions among activists working on the issue, and study recent laws and funding initiatives to address trafficking of women and girls. Throughout the seminar, we will apply an intersectional analysis in order to understand the significance of gender, race and class to women’s experiences, public discourse, advocacy, and public policy initiatives around sex trade and trafficking. Prerequisites: SWG 150, one additional course in the major or a literature course and permission of the instructor.
AAS 212 Culture and Class in Afro-American Family
Riché Barnes
T Th 10:30-11:50 am
“Middle Class Buppies, Welfare Moms, and Somewhere in Between: Will the “real” Black family please stand up?” This course will problematize the notion of “the Afro-American Family” beginning with an understanding that Afro-American families have always struggled for existence, survival, and meaning. Utilizing ethnography, film, narrative, and forms of popular culture we will discuss contemporary images of black families as they are affected across race, class, gender and sexuality in the U.S. The aim of this course is to broaden the student’s knowledge of the internal dynamics and diversity of African American family life and to foster a greater understanding of the internal strengths as well as the vulnerabilities of the many varieties of African American families.
AAS 348 Black Women Writers
Daphne Lamothe
M W 1:10-2:30
How does gender matter in a black context? That is the question we will ask and attempt to answer through an examination of works by such authors as Phillis Wheatley, Pauline Hopkins, Nella Larsen, Zora Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones and Audre Lorde. Prerequisite: one college-level literature course or permission of the instructor.
AMS 120 Scribbling Women
Sherry Marker
M W 1:10-2:30
With the help of the Sophia Smith Collection and the Smith College Archives, this writing intensive course looks at a number of 19th and 20th century American women writers. All wrestled with specific issues that confronted them as women; each wrote about important issues in American society. Enrollment limited to 15. Priority given to first year students.
BIO 110 Introductory Colloquia: Life Sciences for the 21st Century:
Topic: The Biology and Policy of Breast Cancer
Robert Dorit
T Th 10:30-11:50
This colloquium examines the genetic and environmental causes of cancer, focusing on the molecular biology and epidemiology of this suite of diseases. We will pay particular attention to the health and policy implications of recent discoveries concerning the genetic causes of predisposition to breast cancer. Enrollment limited to 16.
CLS 233 Gender and Sexuality in Greco-Roman Culture
Nancy Shumate
T Th 10:30-11:50
The construction of gender, sexuality and erotic experience is one of the major sites of difference between Greco-Roman culture and our own. What constituted a proper man and a proper woman in these ancient societies? Which sexual practices and objects of desire were socially sanctioned and which considered deviant? What ancient modes of thinking about these issues have persisted into the modern world? Attention to the status of women; the role of social class; the ways in which genre and convention shaped representation; the relationship between representation and reality.
CLT 230 “Unnatural” Women: Mothers Who Kill Their Children
Thalia Pandiri
M W 2:40-4:00
Some cultures give the murdering mother a central place in myth and literature while others treat the subject as taboo. How is such a woman depicted -- as monster, lunatic, victim, savior? What do the motives attributed to her reveal about a society's assumptions and values? What difference does it make if the author is a woman? Authors to be studied include Euripides, Seneca, Ovid, Anouilh, Papadiamandis, Atwood, Walker, Morrison. Prerequisite: at least one college-level course in literature.
CLT 268 Latina and Latin American Women Writers
Nancy Sternbach
M W F 1:10-2:30
This course examines the last twenty years of Latina writing in this country while tracing the Latin American roots of many of the writers. Constructions of ethnic identity, gender, Latinidad, “race,” class, sexuality, and political consciousness are analyzed in light of the writers’ coming to feminism. Texts by Esmeralda Santiago, Gloria Anzaldúa, Sandra Cisneros, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Denise Chávez, Demetria Martínez, and many others are included in readings that range from poetry and fiction to essay and theatre. Knowledge of Spanish is not required, but will be useful. First-year students must have the permission of the instructor.
CLT 272 Women Writing: 20th and 21st Century Fiction
Marilyn Schuster
M W F 11:00-12:10
A study of the pleasures and politics of fiction by women from English-speaking and French-speaking cultures. How do women writers engage, subvert, and/or resist dominant meanings of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity and create new narrative spaces? Who speaks for whom? How does the reader participate in making meaning(s)? How do different theoretical perspectives (feminist, lesbian, queer, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, postmodern) change the way we read? Writers such as Woolf, Colette, Condé, Larsen, Morrison, Duras, Rule, Kingston, Shields and Atwood. Not open to first-year students.
EAS 280 Modern Girls and Marxist Boys: Consumerism, Colonialism, and Gender in East Asia
Jina Kim
T 1:00-4:00
This course seeks to explore discourses of modern “femininity” and modern “masculinity” through the study of the two most iconic figures to emerge in the early 20th century: Modern Girls and Marxist Boys. We will use these figures as a way to enrich our understanding of gendered politics, consumer culture, colonial modernity, and international relations. Also of concern is the important historical relationship between Modernity and Marxism in Korea and whether or not these two ideologies were reconcilable just as Modern Girls and Marxist Boys were often brought together as scandalous but typically romantic bedfellows. Students will be introduced to interdisciplinary studies and will learn to critically read and use historical, sociological, fictional, and visual texts.
ENG 292 Crafting the Memoir
Ann Boutelle
T 1:00-2:50
In this workshop, we will explore, through reading and through writing, the presentation of self in the memoir. A major focus will be on the interweaving of voice, structure, style, and content. As we read the work of ourselves and of others, we will be searching for strategies, devices, rhythms, patterns, and approaches that we might adapt in future writings. The reading list will consist of writings by twentieth-century women. Admission by permission of the instructor.
FRN 360 Topics in Nineteenth/Twentieth Century Literature: Images of the ‘Other’: Female Domestic Servants in French Fiction
Martine Gantrel
T Th 10:30-11:50
In this course, we will read works by major French authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which a female domestic servant is the main character. What happens to a novel or a play when the domestic servant is given first place? Which concerns or anxieties does the servant character embody or convey to the reader? To what extent have such works changed the way women are represented in literature and redefined the relationship of literature to politics, society, and the self? Authors such as Lamartine, George Sand, the Goncourts, Flaubert, Zola, and Genet. Course conducted in French.
FYS 125 Midwifery in Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective
Erika Laquer
M W 9:00-10:20
While most births worldwide are still attended by midwives, and almost all births before 1900 occurred at home in the presence of friends and midwives, the midwife in the U.S. today is a rare attendant. This course will examine the history of midwives and midwifery in the European and American traditions, with particular attention to the manuals written by midwives to instruct other women about birth and women’s health. Alternately feared and revered, the midwife has often served as a bellwether to how a society values its women and children. The course will also examine the varieties of birth experiences possible from cross-cultural perspectives. Because the Pioneer Valley is an area with particularly active groups of professional and direct-entry (lay) midwives, there will be opportunities to meet and discuss these issues with current practitioners.
FYS 149 An Even Playing Field? Women, Sport and Equity
Christine Shelton
M W 9:00-10:20 am
This first-year seminar offers a survey of women’s past and present involvement with sport and physical activity. What are the issues and debates surrounding gender in sport? How has the interpretation of Title IX supported and hindered full access to participation and leadership in sport for girls and women? This course is intended to help develop and foster critical thinking skills, to learn and understand the historical and social context underlying the current state of women’s participation in sport. Field trips to local sporting events and venues will be part of this seminar. Enrollment limited to 16. 4 credits
GOV 205 Colloquium: Law, Family and State
Alice Hearst
W F 1:10-2:30
Explores the status of the family in American political life, and its role as a mediating structure between the individual and the state. Emphasis will be placed on the role of the courts in articulating the rights of the family and its members. Limited enrollment. Suggested preparation GOV 202 or WST 225.
GOV 269 Politics of Gender and Sexuality
Gary Lehring
M W 1:10-2:30
An examination of gender and sexuality as subjects of theoretical investigation, historically constructed in ways that have made possible various forms of regulation and scrutiny today. We will focus on the way in which traditional views of gender and sexuality still resonate with us in the modern world, helping to shape legislation and public opinion, creating substantial barriers to cultural and political change.
GOV 311 Seminar in Urban Politics: Politics of Urban Social Movements
Martha Ackelsberg
T 1:00-2:50
This course will examine a variety of movements, both historical and contemporary, that have been centered in cities, in an effort to understand their special characteristics, and the relationship between urban spaces and political action.
HST 238 Gender and the British Empire
Jennifer Hall-Witt
T Th 1:00-2:20
Traditionally, historians have portrayed the British Empire as largely the province of male explorers, merchants, missionaries, soldiers and bureaucrats. This course treats such men as gendered subjects, investigating intersections between the empire and masculinity, while also surveying women’s colonial experiences. Slave societies and cross-cultural encounters through the lens of gender history. The gendered structure of racial ideologies and the imperial features of feminist concerns. From the mid-17th to the early 20th centuries, with a focus on the 19th century. Enrollment limited to 18.
HST 253 Women and Gender in Contemporary Europe
Darcy Buerkle
T Th 3:00-4:15
Women's experience and constructions of gender in the commonly recognized major events of the twentieth century. Introduction to major thinkers of the period through primary sources, documents and novels, as well as to the most significant categories in the growing secondary literature in twentieth-century European history of women and gender.
HST 278 Women in the United States since 1865
Jennifer Guglielmo
W F 1:10-2:30
Survey of women's and gender history with focus on race, class, and sexuality. Draws on feminist methodologies to consider how study of women's lives changes our understanding of history, knowledge, culture, and the politics of resistance. Topics include labor, racial formation, empire, im/migration, popular culture, citizenship, education, religion, science, war, consumerism, feminism, queer cultures, and globalizing capitalism. How have women have contested and contributed to systems of inequality? Emphasis on class discussion and analysis of original documents, with short lectures. Students who have taken HST 178 cannot take this class for credit.
HST 355 Topics in Social History:
Topic: Debates in the History of Gender and Sexuality
Darcy Buerkle
W 7:30-9:00 PM
This course examines the trajectory of research on the history of sexuality and gender in the modern period, with a primary focus on modern Europe. Topics include historical debates about gender and fascism, the establishment of the welfare state, feminism and war and gendered cultural production. In addition to developing a strong sense of recent historical research on gender, this course will consider how notions about gender in history inform contemporary theory and politics. Sources include original documents, recent historical monographs, autobiography and film.
HST 383 Research in U.S. Women’s History:
The Sophia Smith Collection (19th and 20th Centuries)
Jennifer Guglielmo
Th 1:00-2:50
A research and writing workshop in U.S. women's history. Provides the opportunity to work with archival materials from the Sophia Smith Collection (letters, diaries, oral histories, newspaper articles, government documents, etc.) and historical scholarship, to research, analyze and write a paper of the student's own choosing.
IDP 208 Women's Medical Issues
Leslie Jaffe
T Th 10:30-11:50
A study of topics and issues relating to women's health, including menstrual cycle, contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, abortion, menopause, depression, eating disorders, nutrition and cardiovascular disease. While the course focus will primarily be on the physiological aspects of these topics, some social, ethical and political implications will be considered including the issues of violence, the media's representation of women and gender bias in health care.
ITL 344 Italian Women Writers: Women in Italian Society Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Giovanna Bellesia
T Th 10:30-11:50
This course provides an in-depth look at the changing role of women in Italian society. Authors studied include Sibilla Aleramo, Elsa Morante, Natalia Ginzburg, and Dacia Maraini. A portion of the course is dedicated to the new multicultural and multiethnic Italian reality with a selection of texts written during the last ten to fifteen years by contemporary women immigrants. Limited enrollment, permission of the instructor required. Conducted in Italian.
MUS 100 Colloquium: Music and Gender in the World
Margaret Sarkissian
T Th 10:30-11:50
This course explores the ways in which music functions in society to reflect or construct gender relations and the degrees to which a society’s gender ideology and resulting behaviors affect its musical thought and practice. Using non-western case studies as points of departure, particular emphasis will be placed upon the ways scholars write about gendered musical lives.
MUS 220 Topics in World Music: Women in Sub-Saharan African Music
Olobode Omojola
M W 1:10-2:30
This course will focus on the role of women within Sub-Saharan African musical traditions. Relying on gender-specific ensembles as well as those involving male and female participants, we will examine how the musical activities of women as well as the organization and structure of performances reflect, reinforce, or challenge African perspectives of gender and structures of power as defined in selected African societies. The course will cover both indigenous and modern musical idioms from different parts of Africa, including the Baganda of Uganda, the Akan of Ghana and the Yoruba of Nigeria. In addition, the emergence of strong female voices like those of Miriam Makeba (South Africa), Stella Chiweshe (Zimbabwe) and Oumou Sangare (Mali) in the twentieth century will provide the basis for examining how female musicians have addressed gender-related issues in their music and attempted to break gender boundaries within their respective societies. No previous musical experience is necessary; there are no prerequisites for this course.
PSY 266 Psychology of Women and Gender
Lauren Duncan
T Th 10:30-11:50
An exploration of the psychological effects of gender on females and males. We will examine the development of gender roles and stereotypes, and the impact of differences in power within the family, workplace, and politics on women’s lives and mental health. This course will emphasize how psychologists have conceptualized and studied women and gender, paying attention to empirical examinations of current controversies (e.g., biological versus cultural bases of gender differences).
PSY 374 Psychology of Political Activism
Lauren Duncan
T 1:00-2:50
Political psychology is concerned with the psychological processes underlaying political phenomena. This seminar focuses on people’s motivations to participate in political activism, especially activism around social issues. Readings include theoretical and empirical work from psychology, sociology, and political science. We will consider accounts of some large-scale social movements in the U.S. (e.g., Civil Rights Movement, Women’s Movement, White Supremacy Movements.)
REL 110 Thematic Studies in Religion: Women Mystics’ Theology of Love
Elizabeth Carr
M W 9:00-10:20
This course studies the mystical writings of Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch, Julian of Norwich, and Teresa of Avila, and their relevance to contemporary spirituality. Focus on their life journeys in terms of love, creativity, healing, and spiritual leadership. Occasional films and music.
REL 277 South Asian Masculinities
Andy Rotman
M W 1:10-2:30
This course considers the role of religion in the construction of male identities in South Asia, and how these identities function in the South Asian public sphere. Topics to be considered will include: the postcolonial feminization of Parsi elites; Krishna devotion and transgender performance; the cinematic phenomenon of the “Angry Young Man”; hijras and the construction of gender; wrestling and the cultivation of masculinity; and Lord Ram and the rise of militant Hindu nationalism.
SOC 213 Ethnic Minorities in America
Ginetta Candelario
M W 1:10-2:30
The sociology of a multiracial and ethnically diverse society. Comparative examinations of several American groups and subcultures.
SOC 229 Sex and Gender in American Society
Nancy Whittier
T Th 9:00-10:20
An examination of the ways in which the social system creates, maintains, and reproduces gender dichotomies with specific attention to the significance of gender in interaction, culture, and a number of institutional contexts, including work, politics, families and sexuality.
SPN 332 The Middle Ages Today: Queer Iberia
Ibtissam Bouachrine
M W 2:40-4:00
This course examines the medieval and early-modern Iberian understanding and expressions of sexuality within the context of modern critical theory. Special attention will be given to the complex and ambiguous representations of same-sex desire, and the manner in which such representations are shaped by the discourses about nation, disease, and race (limpieza de sangre). Texts include Ibn Hazm’s Tawq al-hamÿma, Juan Ruiz’s Libro de buen amor, selections from al-Himyÿri’s al-Rawad al mi’tÿr, Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina, Francesc Eiximenis’s Lo Llibre de les dones, as well as poems by Yehuda Halevi, Wallÿda, al-Mu’tamid, and Abraham Ibn Ezra. Course conducted in Spanish, all readings in Spanish translation. Enrollment limited to 12.