Fall 2024 Women's and Gender Study Course Descriptions

To view a list of courses offered in the Fall 2024 semester that can be applied to the Women's and Gender Studies Concentration requirements, please see the listings below:

ART 112: Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Islamic Art, CRN 12209
Professor Sascha Crasnow | MW 12:30-1:45pm, FAC 336

Gender & Sexuality: Stereotypes about the Islamic world that proliferate outside of it frequently center on issues of gender and sexuality. This course will examine contemporary art alongside the historical, cultural, and political roots of the current (varied) condition(s) of gender and sexuality in the Islamic world. We will look at artists from the Islamic world and its diaspora who are addressing issues of gender and sexuality—articulating domestic concerns, challenging foreign conceptions, and exposing the particularities of their intersectional experiences, among others.

EDUCATION 164: Perspectives in Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, CRN 1460 and 1594
Professor Jennifer Chung | M 4:30-7:20pm, Collier Scripps 235

An historical, social, and cultural analysis of the interrelationships among racial, ethnic, class, and gender experiences in conjunction with an examination of the individual, institutional, and social constructs of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping. The course will, through its comparative approach, aim to increase understanding of race, ethnic, and gender identity, and sensitize students to the subjective experience of marginalized groups. Case studies will augment the course content for the direct application of course content to the development of instruction programs. There will be an emphasis on African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, gender, sexual orientation, class structure, and people with disabilities. A 10-hour service- learning component at a social service organization is required. The course meets the human relations standards for teachers as outlined by the Iowa Department of Education.

EDUCATION 164: Perspectives in Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, CRN 5204 and 4424
Professor Jennifer Chung | MW 12:30-1:45pm, Collier Scripps 135

An historical, social, and cultural analysis of the interrelationships among racial, ethnic, class, and gender experiences in conjunction with an examination of the individual, institutional, and social constructs of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping. The course will, through its comparative approach, aim to increase understanding of race, ethnic, and gender identity, and sensitize students to the subjective experience of marginalized groups. Case studies will augment the course content for the direct application of course content to the development of instruction programs. There will be an emphasis on African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, gender, sexual orientation, class structure, and people with disabilities. A 10-hour service- learning component at a social service organization is required. The course meets the human relations standards for teachers as outlined by the Iowa Department of Education.

ENGLISH 075/WGS 075/SOCIOLOGY 075: Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies, CRN 8415/11670/8417
Professor Beth Younger | MW 11:00-12:15pm, Howard 308

Introduction to women's and gender studies is a course designed to explore how questions of gender, ethnicity, race, class, culture, and sexuality impact access to opportunity, power, and resources. We will approach these analyses through an interdisciplinary lens, utilizing various feminist theoretical frameworks. We will also analyze the way culture has constructed femininity, masculinity, sexualities, and identity under patriarchy. With a wide-ranging intersectional approach, we will read critical essays, personal essays, popular culture, and some fiction. We will examine television, advertising, magazines, literature, theoretical essays and other cultural productions (including our own daily lives and experiences) in order to explore representations of gender, ethnicity, class and sexuality. Course requirements include extensive weekly reading, frequent writing, class participation, essays, a midterm and a final examination.

ENGLISH 075/WGS 075/SOCIOLOGY 075: Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies, CRN 12176/12177/12175
Professor Melisa Klimaszewski | TR 11:00-12:15pm, Howard 111

This class explores gender and sexuality as categories that affect one’s experience of the world. How does gender operate as a category that organizes our world? How do we define feminism and simultaneously decenter whiteness? In what ways can feminist discourses empower societies? How do discourses of race, class, and religion coexist with, influence, or push against discourses of gender and sexuality? How do discourses of gender and sexuality shape institutional power? How does gender operate in popular culture? As we investigate these questions with an interdisciplinary approach, we will learn with an emphasis on collaboration and discussion. We aim to analyze discourses and representations of gender and sexuality with robust critical thinking skills and to communicate our analyses in clear speech and clear writing. Films and readings include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists and the films Moonlight and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

ENGLISH 077: Reading Gender, CRN 12145
Professor Yasmina Madden | MW 2:00-3:15pm, Howard 111

This course will focus on classic and contemporary fiction by women. We will read and discuss works by writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Susan Glaspell, writers who created female protagonists who struggle for independence, and we will ask to what degree, and how, these characters achieve what they desire. Paired with these “classic” texts will be a contemporary texts that examine similar issues in a more modern context by such writers as Jia Qing Wilson-Yang, Carmen Machado, Kristen Roupenian, Venita Blackburn, Margaret Atwood and more. We will examine and discuss the roles and representations of these authors’ female-identifying protagonists, as well as the other characters in their lives, and the real-life issues women writers faced and currently face. We will also discuss, among other topics, how race, class, sexuality, gender identity, motherhood, partnerships, and violence are depicted in these novels and stories. Though the emphasis will be on close readings of and thoughtful engagement with the primary works, we will also read several critical essays meant to open up our discussions of the readings.

ENGLISH 135: Adolescent Literature, CRN 12187
Professor Beth Younger | W 5:00-7:50PM, Howard 308

Adolescent Literature, also known as Young Adult Literature, is an upper division literature course where we read a wide variety of significant novels alongside critical, interpretive, and academic writing about YAL. Our goals in the class will be to explore, analyze, and critique these works as well as to examine how they participate in the way our culture defines adolescence itself. Weekly writing, lots of reading, and lively discussion. Texts include Pet (Akwaeke Emezi), Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie) and I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (Erika Sanchez).

ENGLISH 151/HONORS 124: Salem Witch Trials, CRN 11472 and 12169
Professor Lisa West | TR 2:00-3:15pm, Meredith 238

What caused the infamous witch trials? Religious attitudes? A social crisis? Introduction of new ideas from the West Indies? Trauma from recent Indian attacks? Changes in the status of women? This course will read a variety of explanations of the Salem witch trials. However, rather than decide what ""really"" caused them or argue about what ""really"" happened, this course will focus more on the nature of evidence. When we read a description of ""what happened"" what constitutes the evidence? Who gets to decide what is valid and what is not? How do these ideas of evidence come into play with various strategies of writing from personal narrative to sermon to other forms? How does this increased awareness of the way evidence is ""embedded"" in social reality affect your views about your own reading, writing, and judging? In addition to thinking and writing about these questions, we will assess similarities and differences between the witch trials and the trail of Anne Hutchinson. We will do this through a ""Reacting to the Past"" curriculum which provides selected readings and role playing. This unit will be about a month of the semester and will give us another ""body of evidence,"" so to speak. Readings will include historical and sociological explanations of the witch trials, 17 century readings (diaries, accounts of trials, etc.), and 19th - 21st century imaginative writings about the Salem event, such as ""The Crucible."" There will be several short papers rather than a single large project.

HISTORY 099: European Women’s History, CRN 7353
Professor Deborah Symonds | MW 2:00-3:15PM, Meredith 201

A survey course, covering both women's experiences and the shifting definitions of gender in Western and Central Europe and its colonies from 1400 to 1945. Topics include peasant women, the witch hunts, aristocratic women, the female intellectual tradition, factory women, socialists and feminists.

HISTORY 194: Race, Gender, and Politics in American Sports, CRN 11536
Professor Brett Russler | MW 2:00-3:15pm, Meredith 233

Sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry that not only entertains Americans, but also helps to shape and define American culture and social norms. This course provides a close reading of how sports and particular athletes have both reflected and shaped attitudes about race, gender, and politics in American history. It is not a history of such sports as baseball, boxing, basketball, or football per se, but rather an exploration of how race, gender, and politics have intersected with the world of U.S. sports. Because these connections are most prominent in boxing and baseball, the course will emphasize them and the lives of athletes like Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Curt Flood. It is also about how historians, the media, cultural producers, and consumers have tried to make sense out of sports and give meaning to them.

HISTORY 194: Race, Gender, and Politics in American Sports, CRN 12202
Professor Brett Russler | MW 3:30-4:45pm, Meredith 233

Sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry that not only entertains Americans, but also helps to shape and define American culture and social norms. This course provides a close reading of how sports and particular athletes have both reflected and shaped attitudes about race, gender, and politics in American history. It is not a history of such sports as baseball, boxing, basketball, or football per se, but rather an exploration of how race, gender, and politics have intersected with the world of U.S. sports. Because these connections are most prominent in boxing and baseball, the course will emphasize them and the lives of athletes like Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Curt Flood. It is also about how historians, the media, cultural producers, and consumers have tried to make sense out of sports and give meaning to them.

HONORS 080: Medical Sociology, CRN 5722
Professor Andrea Kjos | MW 2:00-3:15pm, Howard 212

This course applies sociological principles to health, illness, and health care. In order for students to fully develop an understanding in this context, a variety of perspectives will be explored and critiqued including that of patients, providers and society. This draws on foundational disciplines at the broader level and frames them into the biomedical experience. For example, sociological constructs of age, gender, ethnicity, and social class; psychosocial aspects of personal illness experience, historical and political perspectives of dominance, regulation and governance of providers and health care organizations will be the multidisciplinary topics covered. Other topics may include but are not limited to: history of 'western' medicine, models of illness, stress and well-being, social stratification of illness, health demography, medicalization and de-medicalization of illness, disability, and patient-provider relationships. A combination of reading, discussion, reflective activities, and paper/project composition will be used to facilitate comprehension of the course material.

HONORS 195: Women and the Law, CRN 1162
Professor Sally Frank | M 3:35-5:35pm, Legal Clinic 219

This seminar reviews how sex role understandings have affected various aspects of the law including criminal law; employment credit and insurance discrimination; abortion and fetal protection; family law; and lesbian and gay rights. Standards of review for laws that discriminate on the basis of sex as opposed to other kinds of discrimination also are discussed, as is the issue of how women are treated in courts today.

SOCIOLOGY 150: Women and Work, CRN 11658
Professor Elizabeth Talbert | M 5:00-7:50pm, Meredith 102

This course will examine women and the institution of work and will assess how power, work, and gender are connected.  It will expand on the popular media attention by addressing the ways in which class and race are intricately connected to women’s working experiences and opportunities, and how social inequality is reproduced through work and employment policy.  The course considers how people divide time between family and work; explanations for the gender differences in employment, occupation choice, and earnings; gender and low-wage work; how policy affects the experiences of working women; and how to think about the issues of work, family, and individual well-being in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Students will consider the content of the course both personally and academically, through discussion posts, class presentations of readings, a written midterm exam, and a final presentation of a family work-history that takes into account concepts and theory from the course.

STUDY AWAY (DU England)

POLITICS 149: Sites of Memory
Professor Mary McCarthy | TR 1:00-2:15pm, off-site

Collective memory is an important part of identity building and finding place in society. In this interdisciplinary course we explore how national and group memories are created and perpetuated through sites of memory, such as museums, monuments, statues, and memorials, with a particular focus on society’s gradual inclusion of the memories of the traditionally marginalized, disenfranchised, and dislocated. We will concentrate on three case studies in the UK: empire and migration, Black Britons, and women. We will hear from activists and other memory entrepreneurs who have played influential roles in how historical narratives are remembered, told, and passed down through the generations through sites of memory. We will discuss the politics and the societal norms around collective and public memory creation. We will have site visits and guest speakers for each of our three case studies.