Course Offerings

Fall 2012 Courses

SWG 205 LGBT History and Politics

Gary Lehring
T/Th 1:10–2:30 p.m.
This course will provide an overview of the birth and growth of the 20th century movement for GLBT visibility, community and equality in the United States through and including the contemporary 21st-century status of LGBT rights. Topics to be addressed include public opinion; state ballot initiatives; GLBT candidates, elections and interest groups; federal and state legislation; and state and federal court decisions affecting GLBT citizens. Public policy areas to be included are Defense of Marriage Act, Federal Marriage Amendment, Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Employment Non-Discrimination Act, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and US Federal AIDS policy. Prerequisite SWG 150 or permission of the instructor. 4 credits.

SWG 222 Gender, Law and Policy

Carrie Baker
M/W/F 9–10:20 a.m.
This course explores the legal status of women in the United States historically and today, focusing in the areas of employment, education, sexuality, reproduction, the family and violence. We will study constitutional and statutory law as well as public policy. Some of the topics we will cover are sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, as well as pregnancy discrimination. We will study feminist activism to reform the law and will examine how inequalities based on gender, race, class and sexuality shape the law. We will also discuss and debate contemporary policy and future directions. 4 credits.

Reproductive Justice

Pending CAP Approval Carrie Baker M/W 1:10-2:30pm This course will explore reproductive justice in the U.S. and the influence of U.S. policy globally, addressing issues of law, policy, theory and activism. Topics include historic and contemporary state control over women’s reproduction, social movements to expand women’s control over their reproductive lives, access to reproductive care, reproductive technologies, reproductive coercion and violence, religious fundamentalism’s increasing influence over reproduction, and the discourses around women’s bodies and pregnancy. A central framework for analysis is how gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability and nationality shape women’s ability to control their reproduction. Colloquium, 4 credits.

SWG 230 Feminisms and the Fate of the Planet

Elisabeth Armstrong
M/W/F 11 a.m.–12:10 p.m.
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. 4 credits.

Spring 2013 Courses

SWG 100 Issues in Queer Studies

Gary Lehring This course introduces students to issues raised by and in the emerging interdisciplinary field of queer studies. Through a series of lectures by Smith faculty members and invited guests, students will learn about subject areas, methodological issues and resources in queer studies. May not be repeated for credit. Offered for 2 credits, graded S/U only.

SWG 150 Introduction to the Study of Women and Gender

TBA 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. 4 credits. Further work in the Study of Women and Gender usually requires SWG 150 as a prerequisite.

SWG 201 Queer Black Studies, An Introduction

Kevin Quashie How does queer studies, which questions the naturalization of identity, relate to black cultural studies, where identity is both subject to criticism and the foundation of a politic? What role has the black body played in the construction of gender and sexuality? How does the performativity of racial blackness (from blackface minstrelsy to hip hop) relate to ideas from queer theory? How do we understand the particular ways that homophobia has seemed to manifest in black communities? This course will highlight these four questions through theoretical, historical and sociological texts (as well as film, music and literature). 4 credits. Prerequisites: SWG 150, or SWG 100 or AAS 111, or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 40.

SWG 270 Colloquium: Documenting Lesbian Lives

Kelly Anderson
Grounding our work in the current scholarship in lesbian history, this course will explore lesbian communities, cultures, and activism. While becoming familiar with the existing narratives about lesbian lives, students will be introduced to the method of oral history as a key documentation strategy in the production of lesbian history. Our texts will include secondary literature on late 20th century lesbian culture and politics, oral history theory and methodology, and primary sources from the Sophia Smith Collection (SSC). Students will conduct, transcribe, edit, and interpret their own interviews for their final project. The course objectives are: an understanding of modern lesbian movements and cultures from a historical perspective, basic skills in and knowledge of oral history methods, and the rich experience of being historians by creating new records of lesbian lives. 4 credits. Prerequisites: SWG 150 or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 20.

SWG 312 Queer Resistances: Identities, Communities, and Social movements

Nancy Whittier How do we know what it means to identify as lesbian, gay, queer, bisexual, or transgender? Why do these terms mean different things to different people and in different contexts?
How does claiming or refusing to claim a sexual identity affect community formation or social change? This seminar will explore constructions of queer collective identities, communities, and social protest. We will pay explicit attention to how queer identities, communities, and movements are racialized, shaped by class, gendered, and contextual. Drawing on historical, theoretical, narrative, and ethnographic sources, we will examine multiple sites of queer resistance including local communities, academic institutions, media, the state, social movement organizations, and the Internet. We will examine the consequences of various theories of gender, sexuality, and resistance for how we interpret the shapes that queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identity, community, and social movements take. 4 credits. Prerequisites: SWG 150, one additional course in the major and permission of the instructor.

SWG 323 Sex, Trade, and Trafficking

Carrie Baker 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. 4 credits. Prerequisites: SWG 150, one additional course in the major, and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.

SWG 360 The Cultural Work of Memoir

Susan Van Dyne This course takes the foundational premise of SWG that culture constructs subjects and asks how do queer or non-normative subjectivities come into existence? By studying a selection of literary memoirs by women and men in the last half century in the U.S., we will explore the relationships between queer subjectivities, politicized identities, communities, historical moments, and social movements. The course depends on a second more radical premise that we do not have a life until we narrate it. How does life-writing as an expressive act create livable lives? Students will produce analytical essays and a substantial memoir portfolio. Through the process of reflecting, re-imagining, and revising, we explore multiple writing strategies to turn our lives into art. 4 credits. Prerequisites: SWG 150 and at least one other course in the major. Permission of the instructor and writing sample required.

Cross-Listed Courses: Summer 2012

GES 302 Costa Rica at a Crossroads: Examination of Globalization and Sustainability Amy Rhodes and Gary Lehring Costa Rica is held as a model of sustainability and eco-friendly development, with legislation and regulation integral to its success. Yet, globalization is stressing the delicate balance between development and environmental sustainability. This course examines how Costa Ricas biodiversity, climate, history and politics relate to its changing economies, resource use, conservation practices, and environmental protection. Site visits include San Jose, Monteverde cloud forest, the Guancaste coast, and coastal rain and mangrove forests. Students will complete a course with a 6-8 week internship in Costa Rica. Student selection based on application and interview. Enrollment limited to 10 rising juniors and seniors. Offered Summer 2012

Cross-Listed Courses: Fall 2012

AAS 244 Black Activist Autobiography
Riche Barnes T/Th 1:00-2:30pm From the publication of "slave narratives" in the 18th century to the present, African Americans have used first-person narratives to tell their personal story and to testify about the structures of social, political, and economic inequality faced by black people. These autobiographical accounts provide rich portraits of individual experience at a specific time and place as well as insights into the larger socio-historical context in which the authors lived. This course will focus on the autobiographies of activist women. In addition to analyzing texts and their contexts, we will reflect on and document how our own life history is shaped by race. Writers and subjects will include: Sojourner Truth, Zora Neale Hurston, Angela Davis, Harriet Jacobs, and Audre Lorde among others.

AAS 249/ENG 248 Black Women Writers
Daphne Lamothe W/F 1:10-2:30PM Same as ENG 348. 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 Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Nella Larsen, Zora Hurston, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange and Alice Walker.

AAS 289 Women, Race and Resistance
Paula Giddings TBA 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. Enrollment limited to 25.

ENG 276 Contemporary British Women Writers
Robert Hosmer M/W 1:10-2:30PM Consideration of a number of contemporary women writers, mostly British, some well-established, some not, who represent a variety of concerns and techniques. Emphasis on the pleasures of the text and significant ideas¿political, spiritual, human, and esthetic. Efforts directed at appreciation of individuality and diversity as well as contributions to the development of fiction. Authors likely to include Anita Brookner, Angela Carter, Isabel Colegate, Eva Figes, Penelope Fitzgerald, Molly Keane, Penelope Lively, Edna O'Brien, Barbara Pym, Jean Rhys, Muriel Spark, and Jeanette Winterson; some supplementary critical reading.

FYS 114 Turning Points
Susan Van Dyne TBA 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. Counts toward the Study of Women and Gender major.

FYS Curry: Gender, Race, Sexuality and Empire Pending CAP approval Elisabeth Armstrong As one early currency in the global trade of food, the spices in curry have sustained empires and built hybrid cultures. The circulation of food and food cultures has shaped normative gender and sexual relations and influenced how we racialize work. In South Asia, environmental questions about how to cultivate foods sustainably and how to distribute food equitably are vital components of the food security movement. In this course we will study histories of curry in Empire, watch comedy sketches, read novels and investigate social movements around agriculture and food allocation in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora.

FYS 175 Love Stories Ambreen Hai TBA Could a Jane Austen heroine ever marry a servant? What notions about class or decorum dictate what seem to be choices of the heart? How are individual desires shaped or produced by social, historical and cultural forces, by dominant assumptions about race, class, gender, or sexuality? How do dominant love stories both reflect these assumptions, and actively create or legislate the boundaries of what may be desired? How may non-dominant (queer or interracial) love stories contest those boundaries, creating alternative narratives and possibilities? This course explores how notions of love, romance, marriage or sexual desire are structured by specific cultural and historical formations. We will closely analyze literature and film from a range of locations: British, American and postcolonial. We will also read some theoretical essays to provide conceptual tools for our analyses. Enrollment limited to 16 first-year students. This course can count towards the major in English, CLT or SWG.

FYS 179 Rebellious Women
Kelly Anderson TBA This writing-intensive First Year Seminar will introduce students to the rebellious women who have changed the American social and political landscape through reform, mobilization, cultural interventions, and outright rebellion. Using Estelle Freedman's No Turning Back on the history of feminisms as our primary text, we will chronicle the history of feminist ideas and movements, interweaving historical change with contemporary debate. This course will use a variety of sources as our "texts" in addition to Freedman and will rely heavily on primary sources from the Sophia Smith Collection. The intention of this seminar is threefold: 1) to provide an overview of feminist ideas and action throughout American history, 2) to introduce students to primary documents and research methods, and 3) to encourage reflection and discussion on current women's issues. Enrollment limited to 16 first-year students.

GOV 205 Colloquium: Strange Bedfellows: State Power and Regulation of the Family
Alice Hearst M/W 1:10-2:30PM 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.

HST 252 Women and Gender in Modern Europe, 1789-1918
Darcy Buerkle T/Th 1:00-2:20PM A survey of European women's experiences 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.

HST 278 Women in the United States since 1865 Jennifer Gugliemo W/F 2:40-4:00PM Survey of women’s and gender history with focus on race, class, and sexuality. Informed by feminist methodologies to consider how the study of women¿s lives changes our understanding of history, knowledge, culture, and the politics of resistance. Topics include emancipation from slavery, race and racism, labor, colonialism, imperialism, im/migration, nationalism, popular culture, citizenship, education, religion, war, consumerism, civil rights and the modern freedom movement, feminism, queer cultures, and globalizing capitalism.

HST 383 Research in U.S. Women’s History: The Sophia Smith Collection: American Women in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Jennifer Gugliemo T 3:00-4:50PM An advanced research and writing workshop in U.S. women's history. Students develop historical research methods as they work with archival materials from the Sophia Smith Collection (letters, diaries, oral histories, newspaper articles, government documents, photographs, etc.) as well as historical scholarship, to research, analyze and write a 25-30 page research paper on a topic of their own choosing.

IDP 320 Global Learning Seminar: Women’s Health in India Leslie Jaffe T 7:00-9:00PM The purpose of this seminar is to study women's health and cultural issues within India, with a focus on Tibetan refugees, and then apply the knowledge experientially. During J-term, the students will travel to India and deliver workshops on reproductive health topics to young Tibetan women living at the Central University of Tibetan Studies in Sarnath where they will be further educated in Tibetan medicine. The seminar will be by permission of the instructor with interested students required to write an essay explaining their interest and how the seminar furthers their educational goals. Enrollment limited to 5 students.

PRS 319 South Asians in Britain and America
Ambreen Hai Th 1:00-2:50PM This seminar will compare the cultural implications of two recent waves of migration of South Asian peoples: post-World War Two migrations of skilled/unskilled labor to Britain; and the still ongoing, post-1965 migrations to North America. We will focus on cultural production (literature, film, music) that records, reflects on, and seeks to intervene in the cultural processes of such profound shifts. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, we will investigate the causes and consequences of migration and diaspora in their historical, political and economic contexts, emphasizing questions of gender, globalization, community, identity, religious fundamentalism and assimilation. Writers include Rushdie, Naipaul, Kureishi, Jhumpa Lahiri, Monica Ali, among others. Open to students interested in the South Asia Concentration, literature, film, history, anthropology, AMS and SWG, and others. Enrollment limited to 12 juniors and seniors and by permission of the instructor.

SOC 214 Sociology of Hispanic Caribbean Communities in the United States
Ginetta Candelario W/F 2:40-4:00PM, Th 7:30-9:50 This service learning course surveys social science research, literary texts and film media on Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican communities in the United States. Historic and contemporary causes and contexts of (im)migration, settlement patterns, labor market experiences, demographic profiles, identity formations, and cultural expressions will be considered. Special attention will be paid to both inter- and intra-group diversity, particularly along the lines of race, gender, sexuality and class. Students are required to dedicate four (4) hours per week to a local community based organization. Enrollment limited to 20.

SOC 229 Sex and Gender in American Society Nancy Whittier T/Th 9:00-10:20AM 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. Enrollment limited to 35.

SOC 323 Seminar: Gender and Social Change Nancy Whittier T 1:00-2:50PM 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 230 Topics in Latin American and Peninsular Literature
Topic: A Transatlantic Search for Identity
Estela Harretche T/Th 10:30-11:50AM A quest for the self and its relation to otherness through a one-poem per class approach. Readings in Modern and Contemporary works by poets from both sides of the ocean, complemented by the study of related music and visual art. We will examine the consequences of political exile as a journey to the unknown (Jimenez, Cernuda, Cortazar, Neruda, Alberti), as well as the voluntary exile of the artist in search of a new aesthetic identity (Dario, Lorca, Vallejo). Special attention will be given to the problems of subjectivity, gender and sexuality in the works of four women poets: Agustini, Storni, Parra and Pizarnik. Students will have the option of composing an original poem to supplement their final grade. Prerequisite: SPN 200 or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 19.

SPN 250 Survey of Iberian Literature and Society
Topic: Sex and the Medieval City
Ibtissam Bouachrine T/Th 1:00-2:50PM This course examines the medieval understanding of sex and the woman's body within an urban context. We will read medieval texts on love, medicine and women's sexuality by Iberian and North African scholars. We will investigate the ways in which medieval Iberian medical traditions have viewed women's bodies and defined their health and illness. We will also address women's role as practitioners of medicine, and how such a role was affected by the gradual emergence of "modern" medical institutions such as the hospital and the medical profession. Prerequisite: SPN 220 or equivalent. Enrollment limited to 19.

SPN 332 The Middle Ages Today Ibtissam Bouachrine T/Th 3:00PM-4:50PM Queer Iberia and North Africa. This course examines the medieval and early-modern Iberian and North African understanding of sexuality in light of modern critical theory. Special attention will be given to the Arabic and Castilian representations of same-sex desire. Readings will include texts by Ibn Hazm, Juan Ruiz, al-Tifashi, al-Nafwazi, Wallada, Ibn Sahl of Seville, Ibn Quzman, and Fernando de Rojas. All readings in Spanish translation. Taught in Spanish. Enrollment limited to 14.

THE 313 Masters and Movements in Drama: Rehearsing the Impossible: Pearl Cleage and black women playwrights interrupting the Master Narrative
Andrea Hairston TTh10:30-11:50AM, W7:00-9:30PM In their plays from the 1990's to the present, Pearl Cleage and other black women playwrights such as Lynn Nottage and Suzan Lori Parks declares themselves feminists and go about reinventing the narrative of America. What does a black woman feminist artist face then and now? How do these writers respond to the legacy of minstrel storytelling, the civil rights era, and the second wave of feminism? Building on the legacy of Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne Kennedy, and Ntozake Shange, how do these playwrights negotiate overdetermined representations and conjure the story world they imagine?

Cross-Listed Courses: Spring 2013

AAS 360 Seminar: Toni Morrison
Kevin Quashie

ANT 271 Globalization and Transnationalism in Africa
Caroline Melly

CLT 229 The Renaissance Gender Debate
Ann Jones

CLT/EAL 239 Contemporary Chinese Women’s Fiction
Sabina Knight

ENG 246 South Asian English Literatures Ambreen Hai

EAS 200 The Difficult Female
Jina Kim

FLS 250 Queer Cinema/Queer Media
Lokeilani Kaimana

HST 223 Topics in Japanese History: Gendering Modern Japanese History
Marnie Anderson

HST 253 Women and Gender in Contemporary Europe
Darcy Buerkle

HST 318 Immigrant Workers and the Politics of Race, Nation and Resistance
Jennifer Gugliemo

HST 355 Topics in Social History: Debates in the History of Gender and Sexuality
Darcy Buerkle

JUD 251 Women and Gender in Israeli Society Michal Frenkel

IDP 208 Women's Medical Issues Leslie Jaffe

SOC 213 Race and National Identity in the United States
Ginetta Candelario

SOC 232 World Population Leslie King

SOC Sociology of Sexuality: Institutions, Identities, and Cultures pending CAP approval
Nancy Whittier

SPN 230 Topics in Latin American and Peninsular Literature
Topic: Female Visions of Mexico.
Patricia Gonzalez

SPN 245 Topics in Latin American and Peninsular Studies
Topic: Muslim Women in Spain: 756 to the Present
Ibtissam Bouachrine

SPN 372 Topics in Latin American and Iberian Studies
Topic: Women, Environmental Justice and Social Action Michelle Joffroy

THE 319 Shamans, Shapeshifters, and the Magic If
Andrea Hairston