Smith College - Program for the Study of Women and Gender

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.

Courses that count towards the Women, Race and Culture Concentration (check Smith College catalog to determine if course if offered this academic year)

SWG 101 Women, Race and Culture

SWG 212 Overseas Filipina Workers, Sexualities, and the State

SWG 210 Issues in Transnational Feminism: Reading Women’s Resistance in Muslim Societies

SWG 214 Migration, Gender and Transculturation

SWG 230 Women, Struggle and Resistance in Africa, Asia, Latin America & the Middle East

SWG 300 Special Topics: Women, Culture and Development

SWG 303 Afro-Caribbean Women Writers

SWG 311 Mothers in Law and Policy

SWG 316 Seminar: Feminist Theories of Cross-Border Organizing

SWG 320 Women of Color in Feminist Movements in the U.S. (former special topic in SWG 300)

SWG 330 Women’s Movements, Feminisms and the State

AAS 209 Feminism, Race and Resistance: History of Black Women in America

AAS 211 Black Cultural Theory

AAS 212 Culture and Class in the Afro-American Family

AAS 220 Women of the African Diaspora

AAS 248 Gender in the Afro-American Literary Tradition

AAS 300 Writing Race, Writing Gender

AAS 326 The Socio-Cultural Development of the Afro-American Woman

AAS 348 Black Women Writers

AAS 350 Race and Representation: Afro-Americans in Film

AAS 366 African American Women’s History

AAS 366 Womanist/Feminist Thought

AAS 366 Black Feminist Theories

AAS 366 Ida B. Wells and the Struggle Against Racial Violence

AAS 366 Sisters of the Spirit: Black Women’s Autobiography and the Psychology of Women

AAS 366 Toni Morrison

AAS 366 Readings in Black and Queer

AMS 230 Colloquium: The Asian American Experience: Asian Women Living in the Americas

ANT 244 Gender, Science and Culture

ANT 254 Gender, Media, Culture

ANT 251 Women and Modernity in Asia

ANT 254 South Asian Women: Narratives of Marginalization and Resistance

ANT 347 Writing Culture Through Fiction

CLT 267 African Women's Drama

CLT 268 Latina and Latin American Women Writers

CLT 278 Madness in Women’s Novels of Africa and the Caribbean

CLT 315 Feminist Novel in Africa

CLT 315 Gender Issues in African Women's Narratives

EAL 238 Literature from Taiwan

EAL 244 Constructions of Gender in Modern Japanese Women’s Writing

EAL 261 Major Themes in Literature: East-West Perspectives: Gendered Fate

EAL 360 Topics in East Asian Literatures: The Tale of Genji and Its Legacy

EAL 360 Topics in East Asian Literatures: Contemporary Chinese Women’s Fiction

EAS 230 Women of Korea from the Three Kingdoms Period to the Present

EAS 350 Modern Girls and Marxist Boys: Consumerism, Colonialism, and Gender in East Asia

ENG 278 Writing Women: Asian-American Women Writers

ENG 354 Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature

ENG 391 Modern South Asian Writers

FRN 230 Black Francophone Women Writers

FRN 230 Women Writers of Africa and the Caribbean

GOV 232 Women and Politics in Africa

HST 101 Introduction to Historical Inquiry: Topic: Geisha, Wise Mothers, and Working Women

HST 259 Aspects of African History: Race and Gender in Colonial Africa

HST 263 Continuity and Change in Spanish America and Brazil: Gender in the Study of Latin American History

LAS 202 Talking Back to Icons: Latino/a Artistic Expression

LAS 301 Topics in Latin American and Latino/a Studies: Topic: Temporary Latina Playwrights and Performers

MUS 100 Music and Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective

MUS 220 Topics in World Music: Women in Sub-Saharan African Music

POR 221 The Brazilian Body: Representing Women in Brazil's Literature and Culture

POR 381 Seminar in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies: Topic: Multiple Lenses of Marginality: New Brazilian Filmmaking by Women

SOC 213 Ethnic Minorities in America

SOC 222 Blackness in the Americas

SOC 228 Women, Gender and Globalization

SOC 314 Latina/o Racial Identities in the United States.

THE 214 Black Theatre

THE 215 Minstrel Shows from Daddy Rice to Big Mama’s House