Annual Women, Race and Culture Lecture / WRC Links
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The concentration in Women, Race and Culture seeks to understand gender as a category of analysis in the context of race, class, ethnicity and nationality. To that end, we seek to problematize issues of identity, genre, policy and practice specifically as they pertain to women. Implicit in our position is the belief that there is no one universal feminist standpoint and that gender oppression has much to do with the politics of location and dislocation.

Our focus is on gauging how relations of power have shaped women's knowledge, social practices and forms of resistance. We emphasize the distinct modes of analysis that women of color have brought to understanding their condition and how these are reflected in their political struggles: indigenous epistemologies, third and fourth world feminisms, black feminisms, womanisms, socialism.

The subjects that we cover include women and work, women as culture makers, writers, artists, performers, family as a site of resistance and domination, women and nationalism, images and representations of women of color, self representations, colonial and postcolonial identities, militarization, migrations, global capitalism, human rights, activism and community practice.

Requirements for the major include two (2) courses in the WRC concentration, one course each on U.S. and international topics. Following is a list of courses that may count toward the concentration and their context (U.S. or international). The Smith College catalog is always the definitive source for determining if course is offered this academic year.

Context
Course
US
AAS 202 Topics in Black Studies: Introduction to Black Feminist Theory
US
AAS 209 Feminism, Race and Resistance: History of Black Women in America
US
AAS 211 Black Cultural Theory
US
AAS 212 Culture and Class in the Afro-American Family
US
AAS 220 Women of the African Diaspora
US
AAS 248 Gender in the Afro-American Literary Tradition
US
AAS 300 Writing Race, Writing Gender
US
AAS 326 The Socio-Cultural Development of the Afro-American Woman
US
AAS 348 Black Women Writers
US
AAS 350 Race and Representation: Afro-Americans in Film
US
AAS 366 African American Women’s History
US
AAS 366 Black Women, Work and Family
US
AAS 366 Black Feminist Theories
US
AAS 366 Ida B. Wells and the Struggle against Racial Violence
US
AAS 366 Readings in Black and Queer
US
AAS 366 Sisters of the Spirit: Black Women’s Autobiography and the Psychology of Women
US
AAS 366 Toni Morrison
US
AAS 366 Womanist/Feminist Thought
US
AMS 230 Colloquium: The Asian American Experience: Asian Women Living in the Americas 
Int
ANT 251 Women and Modernity in East Asia
Int
ANT 254 Gender, Media & Culture in India
Int
ANT 271 Globalization and Transnationalism in Africa
Int
ARH 240 Art Historical Studies Topic: The Role of Women in Islamic Visual Cultures
Int
ARH 289/LAS 202 Talking Back to Icons: Latino/a Artistic Expression
Int
CLT 267 Contemporary African Women’s Drama
US
CLT 268 Latina and Latin American Women Writers
Int
CLT 278 Gender and Madness in African and Caribbean Prose 
Int
CLT 315 Feminist Novel in Africa
Int
EAL 238 Literature from Taiwan
Int
EAL 244 Construction of Gender in Modern Japanese Women’s Writing
Int
EAL 245 Writing Japan and Otherness
Int
EAL 360 Seminar: Contemporary Chinese Women’s Fiction; The Tale of the Genji and its Legacy
Int
EAS 230 Women of Korea from the 3 Kingdoms to the Present
Int
EAS 350 Modern Girls and Marxist Boys: Consumerism, Colonialism, and Gender in East Asia
Int
ENG 277 Postcolonial Women Writers
Int
ENG 278 Writing Women: Topic: Asian American Women Writers
US
ENG 279 American Women Poets
US
ENG 354 Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature
Int
ENG 391 Modern South Asian Writers
Int
ENG 392 South Asian Autobiographical Fictions
Int
FRN 230 Colloquia in French Studies: Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean
Int
GOV 232 Women and Politics in Africa
Int
HST 209 Colloquium: Aspects of Middle Eastern History: Women and Gender in the Middle East
Int
HST 253 Women and Gender in Contemporary Europe
Int
HST 263 Continuity and Change in Spanish America and Brazil: Gender in the Study of Latin American History
US
HST 265 Race, Gender and United States Citizenship, 1789-1861
US
HST 278 Women in the United States, 1865-present
US/Int
HST 280 Colloquium: Inquiries into United States Social History: Globalization, Im/migration, and the Transnational Imaginary
US
HST 280 Problems of Inquiry: Women Writing Resistance
US
HST 371 Problems in 19th-Century United States History: African-American Women in Slavery and Freedom
US
HST 372 Seminar: Race, Class and Social Protest in US History
Int
ITL 344 Women in Italian Society 
Int
LAS 301 Topics in Latin American Studies Topic: Temporary Latina Playwrights and Performers
Int
MUS 100 Music and Gender in the World
Int
MUS 220 Women in Sub-Saharan African Music
Int
POR 221 The Brazilian Body: Representing Women in Brazil’s Literature and Culture
Int
POR 381 Seminar in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies: Multiple Lenses of Marginality: New Brazilian Filmmaking by Women
US
PRS 305 Cultural Literacy
Int
REL 277 South Asian Masculinities
US
SOC 213 Ethnic Minorities in America
US
SOC 222 Blackness in the Americas
US/Int
SOC 314 Latina/o Racial Identities in the United States
Int
SOC244/LAS 244 Feminisms and Women’s Movements: Latin American Women’s and Latinas 
Int
SPN 230 Topics in Latin American and Peninsular Literature: Central American Poetry of War and Peace
Int
SPN 230 Topics in Latin American and Peninsular Literature: Latin American Women’s Poetry
Int

SPN 230 Topics in Latin American and Peninsular Literature: Female Visions of Mexico

Int
SPN 230 Topics in Latin American and Peninsular Literature: A Transatlantic Search for Identity
Int
SPN 246 Topics in Latin American Literature: Negotiating the Borderlands: Text, Film, Music
Int
SPN 250 Survey of Iberian Literature and Society - Topic:Sex and the Medieval City
Int
SPN 332 The Middle Ages Today: Queer Iberia
Int
SPN 372 Topics in Latin American and Iberian Studies: Women, Environmental Justice and Social Action
US
SWG 110 Feminist Public Cultures
Int
SWG 214 Migration, Gender and Transculturation
Int
SWG 230 Feminisms and the Fate of the Planet
US
SWG 252 Debates in Feminist Theory: The subject
Int
SWG 316 Seminar: Feminist Theories of Cross-Border Organizing
US/Int
SWG Sex, Trade and Trafficking
US
THE 214 Black Theatre 
US
THE 215 Minstrel Shows from Daddy Rice to Big Mama's House
US
THE 319 Shamans, Shapeshifters, and the Magic
 

 

  Courses no longer offered that count toward the concentration