Course Listings

Women's Studies

WMST 245 Feminism, Gender and Society (1)

This interdisciplinary course will explore the ways that gender inequality structures aspects of personal lives and social institutions. We will examine a variety of feminist perspectives on work, family, sexuality and culture and will consider the role of class, race and ethnicity in feminist thought. Emphases will vary with instructor.

• Offering: Fall
• Instructor: Michel, Markowitz

WMST 256 (IT) Goddesses and Ghosts: Images of Women in Chinese Tradition (1)

[Crosslisted with REL 256]

This course examines images of women represented in various forms of texts including Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist scriptures, novels, poetry, Chinese art and films. Through close reading of these texts from 600 BCE to modern times, the course seeks to explore women's power, spirituality, and gender roles in different periods of Chinese history. The course will also focus on a comparison between the "woman" as an ideological construct and the actual living experiences of women, and between images constructed by male and female writers.

Mode of Inquiry: Interpreting Texts; Asia Cluster

• Offering: Alternate years
• Instructor: Zhou

WMST 342 Topics in Feminist Analysis (1)

This course provides an opportunity for qualified students to examine, from an interdisciplinary perspective, a particular topic in feminist analysis. Seminar topics and staff will change from year to year. Closed to freshmen. May be taken a second time.

Prerequisite: Two previous courses focusing on feminist scholarship or instructor's permission

• Offering: Spring
• Instructor: Markowitz, Bald

WMST 353 (W) Feminist Theory (1)

This interdisciplinary course will examine such basic issues as gender difference and its relationship to women's subordination; the intersections of gender with other dimensions of social identity and power (e.g., class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, nation); the way gendered discourse shapes social reality. These issues will be discussed from a variety of feminist theoretical perspective (e.g., those influenced by liberalism, Marxism/socialism, psychoanalysis, radical feminism, post-modernism, and post-colonialism). Closed to freshmen.

General Education Requirement Fulfillment: Writing centered

Prerequisite: One previous Women's Studies course

• Offering: Spring
• Instructor: Staff