FALL 2013 COURSES
SWG 101 SWG Reads
Susan Van Dyne, director
The course offers a series of talks and discussions about the ways that SWG reads the world around us and the times we live in. This course is designed to introduce students to “intersectionality,” as a core concept and a distinctive methodology of the Study of Women and Gender. We’ll use a series of contemporary case studies drawn from current events, music, film, literature and history to develop a deeper awareness of how our individual experiences and social and historical forces intersect. The course meets Thursday evenings from 7:30-9:00 pm for 7 weeks beginning on October 12 and ending October 24. 1 credit, graded S/U only
SWG 222 Gender, Law, and Policy
Carrie Baker 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, and 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. Prerequisite SWG 150 or permission of the instructor. 4 credits.
SWG 220 Introduction to Queer Studies
Anna Ward
This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, including its historical formations and recent innovations. Particular attention will be paid to the roots of queer theory in feminist theories of subjectivity and desire, queer of color critique, and queer critiques of traditional domains of knowledge production. Prerequisite: SWG 150 or permission of the instructor. 4 credits.
SWG 300 Unruly Bodies
Anna Ward
This course explores issues of gender and sexuality within the field of embodiment studies. We will pay particular attention throughout the course to bodies marked as “unruly” in various ways: dysfunctional, disabled, diseased, excessive, grotesque, abject, etc. Students will acquire a solid grounding in feminist theories of embodiment, disability studies, and queer phenomenology. Prerequisite: SWG 150 and at least one additional course in SWG. 4 credits.
CROSS-LISTED COURSES FALL 2013
AAS 289 Feminism, Race and Resistance: History of Black Women in America
Paula Giddings This interdisciplinary colloquial 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.
ANT 340 Seminar: Topics in Anthropology The Body
Pinky Hota In recent years, "the body" has emerged as a vital site of social theory and anthropological analysis. Scholars have raised questions about how bodies are produced as socially meaningful, how bodies become sites for the inculcation of ethical and political identities, and how processes of embodiment break down the divide between the body as natural and the body as socially constituted. This course considers how the body is invoked, addressed and reshaped in processes of religious movements, political mobilizations, performances of gendered identity, biomedicine and economic markets. It reviews various approaches to the study of the body as an object, as a vehicle and as a "read" product of analysis and asks how these shed light upon issues of embodiment, agency and personhood.
CLT/EAL 239 Contemporary Chinese Women's Fiction
Sabina Knight Theme for 2013: Intimacy. How do stories about love, romance, and desire (including extramarital affairs, serial relationships and love between women) challenge our assumptions about identity? How do pursuits, successes, and failures of intimacy lead to personal and social change? An exploration of major themes through close readings of contemporary fiction by women from China, Taiwan, Tibet, and Chinese diasporas. Readings are in English translation and no background in China or Chinese is required.
ENG 241 "The Empire Writes Back: Postcolonial Literature"
Ambreen Hai An introduction to Anglophone fiction, poetry, drama and film from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia in the aftermath of the British empire. Concerns include: the cultural work of writers as they respond to histories of colonial dominance; their ambivalence towards English linguistic, literary and cultural legacies; the ways literature can (re)construct national identities and histories, and explore assumptions of race, gender, class and sexuality; the distinctiveness of women writers and their modes of contesting cultural and colonial ideologies; global diasporas, migration and U.S. imperialism. Probable writers: Achebe, Soyinka, Ngugi, Aidoo, Dangarembga, Naipaul, Walcott, Cliff, Rushdie, Kureishi, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Meera Syal, and some theoretical essays.
ENG 309 Seminar: Black Prison Intellectuals
Andrea Stone
Interrogating theories of intellectualism, among them Antonio Gramsci's notion of traditional and organic intellectuals, and distinctions between categories of criminal and enemy, this course will trace the role of black prison writings in the development of American political and legal theory. From 18th-century black captivity narratives and gallows literature through to the work of 20th and 21st century thinkers like Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, this course asks how the incarcerated black intellectual has informed and challenged ideas about nationalism, community and self-formation from the early republic to the present
ENG 334 Servants in Literature and Film
Ambreen Hai Often invisible but crucial, servants in English literature have served as comic relief, go-betweens, storytellers, sexual targets, and sometimes as central protagonists. But what roles do they play in contemporary literature and film? What can we learn from them about modernity, class, power relations, sexuality, gender, marriage or family? What new responses do they evoke from us? This seminar will consider how writers from various cultures and times call upon the figure of the domestic servant for different purposes, and how a view from (or of) the margins can change how and what we see. Writers include Shakespeare, Samuel Richardson, Emily Bronte, Wilkie Collins, Kazuo Ishiguro, Nadine Gordimer, Aravind Adiga. Films include "Remains of the Day," "Gosford Park," "The Maid," and "Earth." Admission by permission. Enrollment limited to 12.
FYS 114 Turning Points
Susan Van Dyne
How do we understand and articulate the defining moments in our lives? Using a variety of fictional and historical sources, we’ll consider turning points in U.S. history (migrations, abolition, internment, freedom movements) as well as personal turning points (falling in love, leaving home, resisting oppression). How do history and memory, the political and the personal define each other? In addition to analytical essays, we’ll do independent research about early Smith students and write mini-memoirsabout our own lives. Writing Intensive. Credits: 4.
FYS 179 Rebellious Women
Kelly Anderson 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.
FLS 241-02 Women and American Cinema: Representation, Spectatorship, Authorship
Alex Keller This course provides a broad survey of women in American films from the silent period to the present. It examines the topic at three levels: 1) how women are represented on film, and how those images relate to actual contemporaneous American society, culture and politics; 2) formulations, expectations and realities of female spectatorship as they relate to genre, the star and studio systems, dominant codes of narration, and developments in digital and new media modes; 3) how women as stars, writers, producers and directors shape and respond to, work within and against, dominant considerations of how women look. In other words, we'll be examining how women are seen, how women see, how women are expected to see and be seen, and consider how fields of moving images contribute to what constitutes "women," "Woman," "womanhood," "female," and other terms that refer to bodies, identities, communities, discourses and selves. Among the figures and films we will examine: Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy Arzner, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Su Friedrich, Carolee Schneemann, Julie Dash, Kathryn Bigelow, the vamp, the femme fatale, the sacrificial mother, the action heroine, chick flicks, Thelma and Louise, Boys Don't Cry, a range of contemporary works that may include Sex and the City, Girls, Bridesmaids, The Kids Are Alright, and a selection of Internet works.
FRN 230 Colloquia in French Studies: Consumers, Culture and the French Department Store
Jonathan Gosnell A gateway to more advanced courses. These colloquia develop skills in expository writing and critical thinking in French. Materials include novels, films, essays, and cultural documents. Students may receive credit for only one section of FRN 230. Enrollment limited to 16. Basis for the major. Prerequisite: FRN 220, or permission of the instructor. How have French stores and shopping practices evolved since the grand opening of Le Bon Marché in 1869? In what ways have megastores influenced French “culture”? We will examine representations of mass consumption in literature, the press, history, and analyses of French popular and bourgeois culture. We will pay particular attention to the role of women in the transactions and development of culture.
FRN 230 Colloquia in French Studies: Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean
Dawn Fulton A gateway to more advanced courses. These colloquia develop skills in expository writing and critical thinking in French. Materials include novels, films, essays, and cultural documents. Students may receive credit for only one section of FRN 230. Enrollment limited to 16. Basis for the major. Prerequisite: FRN 220, or permission of the instructor. 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, Yamina Benguigui, and Marie-Célie Agnant.
FRN 320 Women Writers of the Middle Ages
Eglal Doss-Quinby
What genres did women practice in the Middle Ages and in what way did they transform those genres for their own purposes? What access did women have to education and to the works of other writers, male and female? To what extent did women writers question the traditional gender roles of their society? How did they represent female characters in their works and what do their statements about authorship reveal about their understanding of themselves as writing women? What do we make of anonymous works written in the feminine voice? Readings will include the love letters of Héloϊse, the lais and fables of Marie de France, the songs of the trobairitz and women trouvères, and the writings of Christine de Pizan.
GOV 305 Strange Bedfellows: State Power and Regulation of the Family
Alice Hearst This seminar 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. Suggested preparation: GOV 202 or SWG 225.
HST 252 Women and Gender in Modern Europe, 1789-1918
Darcy Buerkle 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 259 Aspects of African History
Jeffrey Ahlman This course examines the political, social, and economic role of women in African history, while paying particular attention to the ways in which a wide variety of women - rural and urban, Christian and Muslim, married and unmarried, and literate and non-literate - engaged, understood, and negotiated the changing political and social landscapes associated with life under colonial rule. Key issues addressed in the course include marriage and respectability, colonial domesticity regimes, and women and religion. Additionally, students will interrogate the diversity of methodological techniques scholars have employed in their attempts to write African women's history.
HST 278 Women in the United States, 1865 to Present
Jennifer Guglielmo 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, medicine, war, consumerism, feminism, queer cultures, and globalizing capitalism. Emphasis on class discussion and analysis of original documents with short lectures.
HST 313: Seminar: Problems in East Asian History Topics course: Women and Gender in Early Modern East Asia
Marnie Anderson Gives students the opportunity to think about gender in a non-modern, non-Western context by focusing on women’s and gender histories of China, Japan and Korea from the sixteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries. After reading several exemplary works of scholarship and translation, students conduct their own research and write up their findings in a seminar paper. By examining a period before modern conceptions of rights and feminism existed, the course encourages students to grapple with the complexity of the historical past.
HST 350 Gender and Histories of the Holocaust
Darcy Buerkle In this course, we will read and discuss testimony, texts and images that have been pivotal to the study of women and gender in the Holocaust, while also exploring recent debates and new directions in research.
HST 383 Seminar: Research in United States Women's History: The Sophia Smith Collection
Jennifer Guglielmo 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 20-25 page research paper on a topic of their own choosing.
IDP 320 Seminar on Global Learning: Women's Health of Tibetan Refugees In India
Leslie Jaffe 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
LAS 260 Colonial Latin America, 1492-1821
Ann Zulawski Same as HST 260. The development of Latin American society during the period of Spanish and Portuguese rule. Social and cultural change in Native American societies as a result of colonialism. The contributions of Africans, Europeans and Native Americans to the new multi-ethnic societies that emerged during the three centuries of colonization and resistance. The study of sexuality, gender ideologies and the experiences of women are integral to the course and essential for understanding political power and cultural change in colonial Latin America. Basis for LALS major.
PSY 265: Political Psychology
Lauren Duncan This colloquium is concerned with the psychological processes underlying political phenomena. The course is divided into 3 sections: Leader, Followers, and Social Movements. In each of these sections, we will examine how psychological factors influence political behavior, and how political acts affect individual psychology. Prerequisites: PSY 100, PSY 202.
SOC 214 Sociology of Hispanic Caribbean Communities in the United States
Ginetta Candelario 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. In addition, students are required to participate in a laboratory component (time to be arranged individually by the instructor) Enrollment limited to 20.
SOC 229 Sex and Gender in American Society
Nancy Whittier 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 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 course: Creative Writing with Spanish Women Writers
Reyes Lozaro This is a hinge course between beginning-intermediate and advanced-intermediate courses. Students will read and practice creative writing (essays and pieces of fiction) with the aid of fictional and biographical pieces written by Spanish women from the 12th century to our day. Its goal is to develop: students’ competence and self-confidence in the analysis of short and longer fiction in Spanish; knowledge of the history of women’s writing in Spain; and acquisition of linguistic and cultural literacy in Spanish through playful fiction writing. Enrollment limited to 19.
SPN 250 Survey of Iberian Literatures and Society I
Topic: Sex and the Medieval City
Ibtissam Bouachrine 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.
THE 221 Rehearsing the Impossible: Black Women Playwrights Interrupting The Master Narrative
Andrea Hairston Building on the legacy of Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne Kennedy, and Ntozake Shange, this course will explore the work of Pearl Cleage, Lynne Nottage, Suzan Lori Parks, Anne D. Smith and other playwrights who from the 1950's to present go about reinventing the narrative of America. We will consider their theatrical/artistic production in the context of black feminism. As artists, audiences, and critics grapple with the enduring legacy of minstrel storytelling in the late 20th early 21st, what were/are the particular artistic and intellectual challenges for these theatre artists? What are/were their strategies, missteps, triumphs?
SPRING 2014 SWG COURSES
SWG 100 Issues in Queer Studies
Kevin Quashie 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, studentswill learn about subject areas, methodological issues and resources in queer studies. May not be repeated for credit. Offered for 2 credits,graded satisfactory/unsatisfactory only. 2 credits.
SWG 150 Intro to the Study of Women and Gender
Carrie Baker 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.
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. Prerequisites: SWG 150 or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 20. 4 credits.
SWG 271 Reproductive Justice
Carrie Baker 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. Prerequisite: SWG 150 or permission of the instructor. 4 credits.
SWG 290 Gender, Sexuality and Popular Culture
PENDING CAP APPROVAL
Anna Ward
How do popular culture texts reinforce and/or challenge social norms? How do they both reflect and construct our sexual and gendered identities, the communities we identify with, what and who we find pleasurable? This course provides an opportunity to think critically about the media around us and what makes popular culture such a tremendous source of both pleasure and displeasure. The course examines a range of popular culture texts, including television, music, and new media. We will focus in-depth on a set of case studies designed to introduce key concepts in feminist and queer media studies, critical media literacy, and cultural studies. Prerequisite: SWG 150 or permission of the instructor. {A}{S} Credits: 4
SWG 300 Special Topics in the Study of Women and Gender: The Gay 80s
Kevin Quashie In this seminar, we will look at the gay cultural aspects of the 1980s. In this regard, we will consider four particular things: the AIDS epidemic in the US and the activism that engages this crisis; the explosion of underground and mainstream art (visual art, music, literature, film, theater) that showcases an interest in thinking about sexuality, gender and gender normativity, sex and eroticism, intersectionality; the decade’s culture of conservatism, especially in relationship to the legacy of the 60s and the 70s; and the emergence of queer studies scholarship. Permission of the instructor required. 4 credits.
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 memoir portfolio. Through the process of reflecting, re-imagining, and revising, we explore multiple writing strategies to turn our lives into art. Prerequisites: SWG 150 and at least one other course in the major, with preference for courses in queer studies and literature. Permission of the instructor and writing sample required. Enrollment limited to 15. 4 credits.
CROSS-LISTED COURSES SPRING 2014
AAS 155 Black Feminist Theories: Introduction to Black Women’s Studies
Riche' Barnes
AAS 202 Topics in Black Studies: Race and Love
Kevin Quashie
PENDING CAP APPROVAL
AAS 212 Family Matters: Representation, Policy and the Black Family
Riche' Barnes
ANT 251 Women and Modernity in East Asia
Suzanne Z. Gottschang
ANT 271 Globalization and Transnationalism in Africa
Caroline Melly
ARH 257 Gender, Sexuality, and the Built Environment, 1789-1989
Laura Kalba
CLT 206 Empathy, Rage and Outrage
Katwiwa Mule
EAS 219 Modern Korean History
Jina Kim
ENG 310 The Fictions of Women’s Lives
Sharon Seelig
FLS 250 Queer Cinema/Queer Media
Lokeilani Kaimana
GOV 347 Seminar in International Politics and Comparative Politics
Gregory White
HST 238 Gender and the British Empire
Jennifer Hall-Witt
HST 253 Women and Gender in Contemporary Europe
Darcy Buerkle
HST 265 Race, Gender and United States Citizenship, 1776-1861
Elizabeth Pryor
HST 270 Slavery in the Atlantic World
Elizabeth Pryor
HST 280 Globalization, Immigration and Transnational Cultures
Jennifer Guglielmo
HST 270 Aspects in American History: Problems in American History
Neal Salisbury
HST 289 Aspects of Women's History
Jennifer Hall-Witt
HST 355 Seminar: Topics in Social History:
Recent Historiographic Debates in the History of Gender and Sexuality
Darcy Buerkle
IDP 142 Women's Sexuality
Emily Nagoski
IDP 208 Women's Medical Issues
Leslie Jaffe
JUD 237 Forbidden Love: Cinematics of Desire in Israel and Beyond
Miri Talmon
PENDING CAP APPROVAL
PSY 266 Psychology of Women and Gender
Lauren Duncan
REL 320 Seminar: Problems in Jewish Religion and Culture: Judaism, Feminism, and Religious Politics
Lois Dubin
SOC 213 Race and National Identity in the United States
Dwanna Robertson
SOC 232 World Population
Leslie King
SOC 244/LAS 244 Feminisms and Women's Movements: Latin American Women's and Latinas'Pursuit of Social Justice
Ginetta Candelario
SPN 245 Topics in Latin American and Peninsular Studies
Ibtissam Bouachrine
SPN 250 Survey of Iberian Literatures and Society I
Topic: Sex and the Medieval City
Ibtissam Bouachrine
SPN 332 Seminar: The Middle Ages Today
Topic: Islam in the West
Ibtissam Bouachrine
SPN 240 From Page to Stage: Mujeres de Artes Tomar
Maria Estela Harretche
THE 319 Shamens, Shapeshifters, and the Magic If
Andrea Hairston
Course Offerings
UMass Amherst Fall 2012 Courses
Amherst College Fall 2012 Courses
Hampshire College Fall 2012 Courses
Mt. Holyoke College Fall 2012 Courses
