Women, Gender, and Sexuality Courses Originating in Other Departments
[American Studies 248. Female Bodies in the 19th Century American Literature]: Corsets, bloomers, hysteria, mammy, jezebel, gynecology, angel on the hearth, suffragette. These are just a few garments, labels, cures, and stereotypes applied to womens bodies during the last century. By reading womens fiction and autobiography, we will explore how race, class, ethnicity, and gender operated in the 19th century America and examine moments of resistance to prevailing definitions of femininity.
Anthropology 207. Anthropological Perspectives on Women and Gender: Using texts and films, this course will explore the nature of womens lives in both the contemporary United States and a number of radically different societies around the world, including, for example, the !Kung San people of the Kalahari and the Munduruc of the Amazonian Brazil. As they examine the place of women in these societies, students will also be introduced to theoretical perspectives that help explain both variations in womens status from society to society and universal aspects of their status.: Nadel-Klein
[Anthropology 305. Women in East Asia: Anthropological and Literary Consideration]s: Crossing national and disciplinary boundaries, this course will examine through the perspectives of anthropology and literature the lives of women in three East Asian countries: China, Japan and Korea. Deeply influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism, these three countries share cultural characteristics yet present striking social differences. Drawing on novels, memoirs, ethnography and film, we will compare womens experiences in family life, religious practice, the workplace and battlefield. As we consider similarities and differences, we will also scrutinize the common practice of grouping these three countries as a cultural entity, thus complicating our understanding of the idea of East Asia.
[Classical Civilization 208. Men, Women and Society in Ancient Greece and Rome: Myth and Reality]: This course takes a look at the assumptions about the nature and function of men and women that informed the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, as revealed through their mythology, law, politics, religion, literature, art and daily life. From this investigation emerge both a clearer sense of what the Greek and Roman civilizations were like and an understanding of the ways in which our own society incorporates or diverges from their principles.
Classical Civilization 224. Sex and Sexualities in Ancient Greece and Rome: Do current Western attitudes toward sex and sexuality have a history? How and why did ancient Greek society glorify and institutionalize homosexuality and consider it superior to heterosexuality? What were the origins and evolution of Greek and Roman sexual attitudes and practices, and in what ways did Roman sexuality differ from Greek? This course will examine ancient Greek and Roman sexual values and practices in order to illuminate contemporary attitudes toward sex and the body. Readings will include selections from Homer, Sappho, Plato, Juvenal, Martial, Petronius, Catullus, and other ancient writers, as well as modern critical analyses. This course is intended for and open to all students.: TBA
[College Course 271. Health, Gender and Human Rights]: The third article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that: Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person. Health and bodily integrity are considered fundamental to achieving all other basic human rights. This course will examine how gender discrimination and cultural politics have influenced equitable access to the right to health. We will explore the relationship between biology and social policy in conceptions of health and disease, in scientific research, in the international mechanisms that protect human rights, as well as in both traditional and non-traditional health care delivery systems. Selected topics that illustrate the differences in the ways men and women are treated by the health sector include: sex-specific illnesses (eating disorders, heart disease, etc.), mental health, sexual and reproductive health, domestic violence and health promotion strategies.
[English 290. Introduction to Literature and Psychology]: Emphasizing the roots of literatures power to generate emotional and aesthetic responses, and exploring the relationship between literary works and dream work, this course examines how literature transforms fantasies toward meanings. Authors to be studied include Shakespeare, Kyd, Coleridge, Keats, Mary Shelley, Poe, Virginia Woolf, Freud, Erikson, Holland, Stoppard, Plath, and Hughes. For English majors, this course fulfills the requirement of a literary theory course.
English 318. Sylivia Plath: This course will examine the life, death, literary work, and critical reception of Sylvia Plath in the context of her ancestral heritage, her historical context, and her marriage to Ted Hughes. This course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after 1800, or a literary theory course. --Hunter
English 323/823. Parallel Lives: Shelleys, Woolfs, Plath/Hughes: This course examines the works, lives, and cultural contexts of Mary and Percy Shelley, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, and Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Key themes of discussion will include literary collaboration and inspiration, the history and psychology of marriage, how gender roles inform literary texts, Romanticism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. This course fulfills a requirement for the Literature and Psychology Minor; and for the English major, the requirement for a theory course or for a course in cultural contexts.: Hunter
[English 324. The Resisting Reader]: Using feminist, narratological, and reader-response approaches, we will re-examine a number of canonical American texts read against the grain. That is, we shall pay attention to the inadvertent ways in which both central and marginal figures are distorted in order to create stories that re-enact central American myths of adventure, manliness, conquest, and manifest destiny. Authors will include Sherwood Anderson, Henry James, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, and possibly Stowe, Cather, Richard Wright, Mailer, and Erdrich, among others. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after 1800, or a literary theory course.
English 359. Victorian Heroines: Transgression and Transcendence-In an era characterized by the prominence of women writers and by its female monarchy, this course will investigate the variety of ways Victorian writers construct heroines and other exceptional women. Our focus will be on literary texts (fiction and poetry), but we will read them in the context of selected other Victorian writings: conduct literature, biographical texts, aesthetic debates, the Crimean War, and writings by and about Queen Victoria. The courses goal is to give students a detailed knowledge of some Victorian literature, and to enable them to read these works in dialogue with Victorian history: specifically, with attention to the gendered economics of the literary marketplace, to the emerging feminist movement in England, to the role of women in wartime, to the conditions of the working-class, and to the authorizing (and disabling) presence of Queen Victoria. Texts will include: Bronts Jane Eyre, Tennysons The Princess and Maud, Barrett Brownings Mary Barton, Eliots The Mill on the Floss, Oliphants Miss Marjoribanks, Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles, and Shaws Candida, and selected writings by Hemans, Carlyle, Ruskin, Jameson, Mill, Ellis, and some recent critics. Also listed under Womens Studies Program. For English majors, this course satisfies the requirement of a course emphasizing literature after 1800.: TBA
[English 395. 19th-Century Novel: Fiction and the History of Sexuality]: This course examines the invention of a number of novelistic forms in 19th-century England as part of the invention of modern men and women. It explores the characteristics of emerging genres (such as Gothic fiction, the industrial novel, sensation fiction, detective fiction, naturalism, the adventure novel) as they shaped theories of gender difference and the Victorian body and reconfigured conflicts between forces of patriarchy and feminism, reform and revolution, professionalism and class. Includes readings from Darwin, Mill, Freud, and Foucault together with such novels as Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Mary Barton, The Woman in White, Lady Audleys Secret, Jude the Obscure, Dracula, and She. Permission of the instructor is required.
[English 413-03. Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury]: Study of Woolfs fiction, criticism, and biography with allied works by or about Vanessa Bel, Roger Fry, Lytton Strachey, Vita Sackville-West, and E.M. Forster.
[English 495-01. Senior Seminar: Melville]: An intensive reading of Melvilles major fiction, from Typee through Billy Budd, with an emphasis on the relationship between masculinity and authority in his work, and in the developing capitalist culture of 19th century America. Some familiarity with Marxist, feminist, and/or psychoanalytic criticism helpful but not required; various readings drawing on these theories will be assigned in addition to the primary readings for the course.
French 355-05. Special Topics in French Literature: Representations of Youth and Childhood in Modern French LiteratureIn this course, we will explore how nineteenth and twentieth century writers depict youth and childhood in relation to their cultural contexts. We will discuss a variety of different topics such as family structures, educational values, parental and social authority, gender roles, childhood trauma, and childhood and adolescent rebellion. In addition we will explore how these themes and concepts influence identity and self-representation. Readings may include works by Hugo, Daudet, Colette, Beauvoir, Duras, Sarraute, Sartre, Vian, Le Clzio, and Shebbar.(Also offered under Women, Gender and Sexuality.) Humphreys.
History 247. Latinos/Latinas in the United States: Who are Latinos/Latinas and how have they come to constitute a central ethnic/racial category in the contemporary United States? This is the organizing question around which this course examines the experiences of major Latino/Latina groups, Chicano/Mexicanos, Puerto Ricans and Cubans: and new immigrants from Central America and the Caribbean. We study U.S. colonialism and imperialism in the Old Mexican North and the Caribbean; migration and immigration patterns and policies; racial, gender and class distinctions; cultural and political expressions and conflicts; return migrations and transnationalism; and inter-ethnic relations and the construction of Pan-Latino/Latina diasporic identities.: Figueroa
History 315. Women in America: An examination of womens varied experiences in the public and private spheres, from their own perspective as well as that of the dominant society. The experiences of women of different classes and races will be compared, as well the relationship between images of women and changing realities of their lives. Emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries.: Sicherman
[History 316. Families in American History]: An exploration of American families, past and present, that draws on a wide range of historical and literary sources. Topics will include: changing ideals and realities of the American family life; racial, religious, class, and ethnic variations; and shifting gender and generational relationships. The culminating project for the course is a family history, based on oral interviews and other sources.
[History 319. Gender, Heresy and Resistance in Medieval Europe]: How did medieval people and communities define themselves and what happened when new forms of identity were created? What happened when individuals and communities came into conflict with other groups as they expressed these new identities? Case studies will focus on, among other topics, the history of women, such as Joan of Arc, who redefined traditional female identities, and heretical and peasant movements that challenged the leadership of the Church and elite landlord.
[History 401-08. British Imperialism: Gender, Politics and Culture]: This seminar examines the recent interdisciplinary literature on race, gender and empire in British history. We focus on the period from 1815 until the present. Topics include: the economic and political struggles surrounding the abolition of slavery and feminist and religious involvements in those struggles; the imprint of imperialism on British and colonial culture and its imprint upon racial and gender relations; labor relations within the empire and their links to conditions in Britain, especially in the maritime and textile trades; the recruitment of non-white forces in both world wars and its implication for political struggles and demographic changes in Britain; anti-imperialism, Pan-Africanism and the struggles to end colonial rule; Black and Asian British communities of the postwar era: their familial, cultural and political lives. Open to students from all majors with permission of the instructor.
[History 401-63. Woman and Man in Latin America]: Woman and Man in Latin American History: -The course will survey the differences and similarities of womens and mens experiences in distinct historical periods in the Latin American past, from the colonial years to twentieth century industrial capitalism and urbanization. The course will be developed chronologically, thematically and geographically. Special attention will be placed on the analysis and description of the interaction of gender, class and race.
[History 457. Subcultures in American History]: This seminar explores the relationship in America between selected subcultures (groups with at least a partially distinct and autonomous culture) and mainstream society using the perspective of gender. In particular, the course focuses on the different ways men and women of these groups view American values and interact with American society. Subcultures include: Puritans, Native Americans, blacks, immigrants and the working class, with an emphasis on the 19th and the early 20th centuries.
[International Studies 204. Feminist Diversities: Cross-Cultural Womens Movements and Thought]: This course surveys the diversity of womens movements: religious and secular, urban and rural, black and white, struggling for sexual and reproductive rights, political and social representation, and equal opportunities from North America to Asia. Using historical contrasts of different feminisms from the 19th century to the present we will interrogate the meaning of feminism, the possibilities of a transnational feminism of similarity with difference, the place of cultural relativism in assessing other cultures and movements, and the challenge of womens movements to state and society.
[International Studies 218. Women and Family in Middle East]: The examination of womens lives in the mans world of the Middle East. Is there a conflict between modern and traditional gender roles and expectations? The course looks at the impact of 20th century modernization and socio-political change on gender relations, sexuality, adolescence, family structure, local culture and feminist movements across the Middle East and North Africa. Case studies survey male and female perspectives in a variety of ethnic/religious communities (Muslim, Jewish, Christian) and types of societies (Bedouin, agricultural, urban).
International Studies 249. Immigrants and Refugees: Strangers in Strange Lands-The post-cold war world is one of changing national boundaries and governments, environmental devastation and internal conflicts, resulting in an apparently unprecedented flow of people from their native homelands. At a time when multiculturalism is not a popular model for national integration, immigrants, refugees, and other sojourners find themselves in new places creating new lives for themselves. The processes by which this occurs illustrate some of the basic social, cultural, and political dilemmas of contemporary societies. Using historical and contemporary case studies from Europe and the Americas, this course looks at issues of flight, resettlement, integration, cultural adaptation, and public policy involved in creating culturally diverse nations. Questions to be raised include what are the conditions under which people leave, who can become a (authentic) member of society, what rights do non-citizens versus citizens have, are borders sacrosanct, are ethnic and racial diversity achievable or desirable, is multiculturalism an appropriate model, do people want to assimilate, what are the cultural consequences of movement, and how can individuals reconstruct their identities and feel they belong? This course will have a community learning component. (May be counted towards American Studies, Comparative Development Studies, and Public Policy Studies)-Bauer
[Modern Languages 233-32. African Cinema]: Although the image of Africa has been a major subject and a racist misconception of Western cinema since its inception, African cinema itself appeared on the world screen with the independence of the continent in the 1960s. This course will introduce students to the images that Africans have of themselves and their societies, past and present. As we study the evolution of African cinema using a wide array of films that portray the many cultural facets of the Continent and the diverse political agendas of the directors, we will explore the issue of cinema as a nation building endeavor as each African society defines its own modern identity while reconsidering its past. We will see that this modern identity is anchored for the most part in the redefinition of the family and the status of women. The films studied will be mostly from West and North Africa, and women directors will be represented as much as possible; although, as in the West, they are still less numerous in the field than male directors.
Modern Languages 233-77. Women and War: World War I and II. This course will bring to light the lesser known and diverse story of women in war as active participants in combat, as ambulance drivers at the front, as members of resistance groups, in espionage for or against their own country, as munition workers, and in laboring positions previously denied them because of their gender. Some women collaborated with the enemy and were subject to execution or imprisonment after the wars while others stayed at the home front and involved themselves in volunteer work to contribute to the war effort. Through readings of novels, plays, poetry, short stories, diaries, memoirs and history books, and through viewings of art, documentary and feature films, we will study the experiences of European women during World War I and World War II, and consider the social and political changes these events brought to their lives.Katz
[Music 150. Women in Music]: A broad survey of the music and music-making traditions of European and American women from antiquity to the present. While the focus will be on women active as composers and performers in the classical traditions, some attention will be given to womens contributions to popular idioms, including blues, jazz, and more recently, hip hop. The final project will be an interview with a Connecticut woman active as a music historian, composer, or performer. No previous training in music is required. Enrollment limited.
Political Science 277. The Law, Gender Issues, and the Supreme Court: This course introduces students to contemporary gender issues as they are treated both in the law and in the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. We will explore some of the historical antecedents to contemporary legal gender questions and then examine in detail the following areas of controversy: affirmative action, the equal rights amendment, surrogate parenthood, abortion, and sex discrimination, including AIDS-related questions. For background, the following courses are recommended but not required: Political Science 102, 307, 316, Women, Gender, and Sexuality 301, or a course in U.S. history since the Civil War. The format of the course is primarily discussion. Enrollment limited. (Also listed under Public Policy)Fulco
[Political Science 326. Women and Politics]: This course explores the role of women in American politics across the 20th century. We will examine the collective efforts made by American women to gain political rights, secure public policies favorable to women, and achieve an equal role for women in the political realm and society more broadly. We will try to under-stand how and why womens political views, voting behavior and the rates of participation have changed over the 20th century and why they remain distinctive from mens. We will also explore the deep ideological divisions among American women, exploring the strikingly different ways that feminists and conservative women define what is in the best interest of women. Finally we end the course by studying women as politicians. We will assess the obstacles women face in getting elected or appointed to political positions, whether or not they act differently from their male counterparts and the significance of their input. Prerequisite: Political Science 102.
[Public Policy 325. Gender and Public Policy]: Treating people justly means treating them similarly when they are relevantly similar and differently when they are relevantly different. Accordingly, if public policy is to be just in its effects on persons, it too must reflect similarities and differences among them. Profound disagreements quickly arise though when we ask which differences and similarities are relevant when, where, and how. One apparent difference between individuals is gender. When, where and how is gender relevant to public policy? This course will tackle this question by examining a variety of public policy issues that centrally involve gender in some important way. Among the issues which may be covered are gender discrimination, reproduction and public policy, alleged differences between male and female moral outlooks, and the roles that public policy can or does play in creating, sustaining, and changing gender differences and their significance. Permission of the instructor is required.
[Religion 248. Women and Religion]: A wide-ranging historical and contemporary exploration of the role of women in various world religions, and an analysis of gender in shaping the mythological and political structures of specific religious traditions. The course will include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Native and African American religions. The class will draw on the actual experience of women living these traditions as well as on primary and secondary sources.
[Sociology 260. Sexual Diversity and Society]: Sexuality has often been considered to be a natural, biological instinct: a drive that is fueled by hormones, genes or deep psychic impulses. During the last twenty years, however, scholars (including sociologists) have challenged this view of sexuality. Instead, they argue that how we organize our sexuality: our desires, ideas, value systems, practices and identities: is profoundly shaped by social and cultural influences. Although this course focuses on the social construction of homosexuality, we will also examine the many ways that normative as well as non-normative sexualities are socially constructed. We will also examine the many ways that the social construction of sexuality is informed by class, gender, race and ethnicity. Using materials from sociology and from the many other disciplines that are working in the areas of lesbian and gay studies and queer theory, we will explore the impact that history, economics, social structure and cultural logics have had on sexual behaviors, identities and belief systems. Prerequisite: permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited.
[Sociology 280. Women and Work]: This course is an overview of U.S. womens experience with paid and unpaid work. We cover theoretical and empirical literature that examines historical and contemporary patterns of work done by women and the relationship of these patterns to political and economic structures of society. Specific issues discussed in the course include gender discrimination (e.g., wage discrimination, sexual harassment), occupational sex segregation, earning differentials between men and women, the division of labor by sex within households, and the relationship between paid and unpaid labor.
[Spanish 233-51. Latin American Womens Literature: Survey of Latin American Womens Literature in Translation]: This course is aimed at a broad and general audience and introduces students to a set of key Latin American womens literary works of the 19th and 20th century, from various areas (the Caribbean, Mexico, Latinos in the US/The Border, Central America, South America, the Southern Cone), of various kinds (novels, short stories, essays, testimony, etc.) and reflecting on a variety of social and cultural issues.
[Spanish 318. Gender and Sexuality in Latin America]: How is gender imagined in 20th century cultural production from Spanish America? What role has feminism played in transforming womens writing? How is homosexuality represented in film and literature? What is the relationship between gender and ethnicity in articulating subjectivity? We will consider these questions and many others in our exploration of constructing gender and sexuality in texts by men and women in Spanish America.
Spanish 325. Literature of Popular Consciousness and RevolutionThis course explores the way certain literary works, themes, genres and movements emerged from or accompanied a series of popular uprisings and revolutions (e.g., the Mexican Revolution) as well as from emerging urban, working class and nationalist forms of consciousness during the first half of the twentieth century. Prerequisite: Spanish 228 and one of the following: 261, 262, 263 or 264, or permission of the instructor. (Also offered under the Latin American, Caribbean Studies, and Women, Gender and Sexuality programs.)Skar
[Theater and Dance 245. Staging Women: 20th Century American Women Playwrights and Choreographers]: This course surveys plays and choreographies by 20th century American Women which explore the nature of female subjectivity and experience in theatrical terms. Students will examine such themes as motherhood and the maternal self; female bonding and female difference; the body and desire; and Woman as outlaw. Additionally, students will address the following questions: is a female heroine necessarily a feminist heroine?; what kinds of male characters do women create?; what does theater by women reveal about womens place in cultural history?; and in what specific ways do issues of race, class, and sexualities inform theatrical authorship?
[Theater and Dance 373. Human Rights Through Performance: Mothers of the Disappeared]: In this course we will examine selected human rights issues through a multi-disciplinary, multi-arts approach that includes readings, discussion, journal writing, movement exploration, and finally, the creation of a performance piece. This semesters study will look at womens protests in Chile during Pinochets regime of political terrorism (1973-1988). Through our readings we will contextualize this phenomenon in Chilean history as well as look for parallels in other periods of political terrorism around the globe. Finally, we will build a performance piece that expresses our findings and collective viewpoint.
[Theater and Dance 409-03. Study in Process and Performance: Dance: Witches, Saints and Prostitutes]: An in-depth study of the sacred, mystical, and profane as they relate to various currents and events in womens history and spirituality movements. We will explore specific mythic, historical, and contemporary figures, investigate local folklore, visit Salem and other sites, and develop a performance piece from our research and classroom experiences. Additional rehearsal hours will be required the last five weeks of the semester.