Flags: Cultural Diversity in the U.S. and Writing 

Nostalgic images of the nuclear family in the United States present us with the picture of a father, mother, and biologically conceived son and daughter all living in a single family home. As a social institution, the family has experienced many changes in contemporary U.S. society. This course is designed as an introduction to alternative family systems in the United States contextualized in a Post-WWII framework. Asian Americans will serve as our central focus to survey the development of alternative families. The course addresses the historic, more traditional forms of Asian immigration and quickly moves into the ways globalization, transnationalism, imperialism/occupation, mixed race, modern reproductive technologies, and transracial adoptions complicate our understanding of the contemporary family. Examples include transnational Filipino families and caregivers, surrogate motherhood, and South Korean adoption beginning in the Cold War stretching to more contemporary practices in China. This course will incorporate interdisciplinary texts, media sources, and documentary films. A major topic of this course will be to analyze how issues of race and ethnicity inform identity. Additionally, we will explore the ways family formation is situated in history, politics, military engagements, and imperialism. Throughout the course we will also investigate how gender, kinship, and transnationalism intersect and shape our understanding of transracial and transnational families. Many people have different experiences with family formation and this course will examine them through an analytical and critical lens.Throughout the semester this course raises many questions. Examples include but are not limited to: What does it mean to be an immigrant? How are family structures complicated by larger global issues? How does transracial adoption change our understanding of what it means to be “American” or “Asian America?” This class provides a space to examine questions, interpret materials, exchange ideas, and gain an increased understanding of contemporary alternative family formation.

The relationship between representation and “reality” has been grappled with by authors and photographers since the invention of photography in the nineteenth century. This course explores the intersection of American literature and photography from the late nineteenth century to the present, focusing on the camera as a central technology in the making of modernity. We will read novels, short stories, critical texts and will consider the work of several photographers, analyzing each artists’ ways of representing the world within the contexts of shifting social and cultural orders. We will consider several key questions:  How has photography altered our understanding of American history and culture?  How have American authors responded to photography, represented the act of image-making, or marshaled the power of photographs for their works of literature?  How does a photograph impact our understanding of a written work?  How does writing about a photograph change our perception of the image?  In an increasingly image-saturated culture, how does an artist visually and textually represent his or her reality? How is a photograph or manuscript framed by digital and institutional archives and how do these collections shape understandings of the texts?

This course places the archive—both physical and digital—at the center of our exploration of visual and textual works. Questions about the power of archives to frame understanding, to delimit self and Other, and to constitute and challenge the terms of national, regional, or social belonging will guide our inquiry. We will cover the relationship between photography, literature and several key topics in American cultural history including: the construction of identity, the family, nation and empire, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, literary genres, and cultural memory.  We will consider a broad range of sources from paintings to carte-de-visite to digital images, from novels and shorts stories about photography to critical theories of photography.  This class will be partnered with both the Harry Ransom Center and the Digital Writing and Reading Lab so that we may draw on special collections material for course content and make use of digital classrooms and online environments to construct and interpret our own collections of text and images. Because this is a writing intensive course, we will study the writing process as we practice close textual analysis and the crafting of arguments across many forms of written and visual communication.                 

Requirements

Two-Page Paper #1                       10%

Two-Page Paper #2                       10%

Blog Postings and Conferences       20%

Lead Class Discussion                    10%

Final Paper (5 pages)                     15%

Final Paper Revision (7 pages)        35%

Possible Texts

Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown

Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

Course Reader

Flag(s): Writing

Description

This interdisciplinary course explores over two decades of work produced by and about black queer subjects throughout the circum-Atlantic world. While providing an introduction to various artists and intellectuals of the black queer diaspora, this seminar examines the viability of black queer aesthetic practice as a form of theorizing. We will interrogate the transnational and transcultural mobility of specific art forms as well as the concept of “aesthetics” more broadly. Our aim is to use the prism of artistry to highlight the dynamic relationship between Black Diaspora Studies and Queer Studies.

*Please Note: This course deals with aspects of gender and sexuality in a candid and explicit manner at times. Students who do not feel comfortable with this approach should not take the course. If you choose to take this course, you have agreed to respect our classroom as a safe space. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or xenophobia of any sort will not be tolerated.

AimsThe aims of this course are:1. To introduce the multidisciplinary field of Black Queer Studies2. To explore the artistry and scholarship of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender peoples of African descent throughout the circum-Atlantic world.3. To encourage critical thinking about the links that interconnect experience, art and theory.

ObjectivesOn completion of this course, students should be able to:1. Provide a basic definition of “aesthetics” and interpret various works of art.2. Identify the particular contributions of various artists and scholars to the elaboration ofa transnational Black Queer Studies project.3. Appreciate the variety of terms and concepts used to describe same-sex desire andgender non-conformity in the African Diaspora.4. Articulate how Black Queer Studies enhances both Black Diaspora Studies and Queer Studies.

Requirements & Assignments1. Attendance: Each student is required to attend every class session. Unexcused absences are unacceptable. More than one unexcused absence during the term will result in a reduction of the overall course grade for each session missed (AA-, B+B, etc.).*Note: Laptops, mobile phones and any other portable electronic devices areNOT permitted in the classroom

2. Informed participation: Each student will complete the assigned readings and bring hardcopies of these readings to class. Students will come to class on time and prepared with questions and comments on each reading.

3. Films: As part of the course, I will screen the occasional film during our Friday sessions. Even if time does not permit us to see the film in its entirety, students are still responsible for viewing the film in full. Attendance at these film screenings is NOT optional.

4. Reading responses: One-page reading responses will be posted on Blackboard by 11:59pm on the Sunday before our first class. These responses will discuss at least two of the week’s assigned readings (one or more from Monday and one or more from Wednesday) and comment on at least one other person’s response paper from the week of your choice. Rather than summarize the readings, the responses should focus narrowly on a particular theme or guiding question. These responses will be graded on a credit/no credit basis. Students will receive no credit for late reading responses.

5. Discussion facilitation: Each student will choose two class sessions in which to lead class discussion (two students may co-facilitate together).  Facilitators are expected to draft questions for discussion based on the readings and are required to read all the response papers submitted for that week. Facilitators are not required to write response papers for that week. Students will receive a grade for these facilitations. The inclusion of course-relevant audio/visual material as a way to encourage conversation is highly encouraged.6. Final paper proposal: Each student will write a 2-3 page proposal (12pt. Times New Roman font, double spaced). This proposal will explain the thesis of the final paper and the texts the student will use to make that argument. These texts must include course related readings/films, but may also include outside resources. This proposal will be accompanied by a briefly annotated bibliography (the bibliography does NOT count toward the minimum page limit).

7. Final paper: Each student will write a 8-10 page final paper (12pt. Times New Roman font, double spaced).For the Final paper you may: Compare the lives and work of two black queer artists or intellectuals from different geographical locations. One of these subjects must have been included on the syllabus; the other may or may not have been on the syllabus. Using the works and experiences of the artists/intellectuals you have chosen, develop a theory that might enhance or challenge an idea/opinion/(theoretical/artistic) proposition addressed in class or in the course material. This comparative analysis must directly reference the course readings. Propose a comparable final project in another medium (performance, film, painting, sculpture, photography, literary text, web, etc. or using multiple media) accompanied by a written guide/script/description of at least 5 pages. Students who choose this option will be graded on the script as well as the project; the course material ought to have significantly informed both the project and the script.Note for all written assignments:

* Late papers will be penalized for every day they are late (i.e. A  A- if one day late, A  B+ if two days late, etc.). Students are required to proofread their papers prior to submission (ideally, someone else will also read the paper for grammatical/spelling/flow errors your eyes might miss). Papers that show evidence of not having been proofread will be returned and marked late. Extensions may be considered only under extenuating circumstances and in emergency situations. When possible, advance notice is encouraged and documentation will be required.

* For assistance with cultivating your ideas, outlining your written work and tips on proofreading/editing your polished writing, please make an appointment at the Undergraduate Writing Center: www.uwc.utexas.edu

* Students are expected to comply with the University of Texas at Austin’s Honor Code and its standards of academic integrity:http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acint_student.phpIt is each student’s responsibility to become familiar with this code and these university-wide standards; ignorance will be unacceptable as an excuse for violations. All written assignments may be scanned for plagiarism.

* Students with disabilities may request appropriate academic accommodations from the University. To determine if you qualify, please contact the coordinating office at 471-6259 (voice), 232-2937 (video phone) or www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/ssd.

Course Grade PercentagesReading responses 10%Class participation/ Discussion facilitation 20%Final paper proposal 30%

Final Paper 40%

Required Texts

Brand, Dionne1996 In Another Place, Not Here. New York: Grove Press.Glave, Thomas 2008

Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from The Antilles.Durham: Duke University Press

Johnson, E. Patrick and Mae G. Henderson 2005 Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. Durham: Duke University Press.

Murray, Stephen O. and Will Roscoe 1998 Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities.New York : St. Martin’s Press.

All the above texts are available for purchase at Resistencia Books (an independent bookstore located at 1801-A South 1st Street); I highly recommend purchasing here. Check out www.resistenciabooks.com for details. These texts are also available at the Co-Op and have been put on reserve at the Perry-Castañeda Library.

Additional required readings (book chapters, articles, etc.) are also available as pdf documents on Blackboard.

Films

Camara, Mohamed 1997 Dakan [Destiny]. San Francisco: California Newsreel.

Frilot, Shari1995 Black Nations/Queer Nations: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities in the AfricanDiaspora. New York: Third World Newsreel

Lescot, Anne and Laurence Magloire 2002 Des Hommes et des Dieux [Of Men and Gods]. Watertown: Documentary Educational Resources.

Maccarone, Angelina and Fatimah El-Tayeb 1997 Alles Wird Gut [Everything Will Be Fine].

Most of the above films are available on reserve at the Fine Arts Library.

Other Required Reading Text Citations

Part I: The Americas

Aaab-Richards, Dirg et al.1987

Tongues Untied. London: Gay Men’s Press.

Beam, Joseph1986 In the Life: a Black Gay Anthology. Boston: Alyson Publications.

Hemphill, Essex 1991 Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men. Boston: AlysonPublications.

James, G. Winston and Lisa C. Moore 2006 Spirited: Affirming the Soul and Black Gay/Lesbian Identity. WashingtonD.C.: RedBone Press.

Johnson, E. Patrick 2008 Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolina Press.

Lorde, Audre 1984 Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg: Crossing Press.1997

The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. New York: Norton.McKinley, Catherine E. and L. Joyce DeLaney1995 Afrekete: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Lesbian Writings. New York: Anchor Books.

Part II: Europe

Fani-Kayode and Alex Hirst 1996 Rotimi Fani-Kayode & Alex Hirst. Paris: Revue Noire.

Mercer, Kobena 1994 Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. New York:Routledge.

Squiers, Carol 1999 Over Exposed: Essays on Contemporary Photography. New York: NewPress.

Wekker, Gloria 2006 The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora. New York: Columbia University Press.

Part III: Africa

Muholi, Zanele 2010 Faces and Phases. Munich: Prestel.

Nkabinde, Nkunzi Zandile 2008 Black Bull: Ancestors and Me, My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma. Johannesburg: Jacana.

Nyeck, S.N. and Unoma Azuah 2008 Outliers, Vol.1 No.1. New York: International Resource Network - The Centerfor Lesbian and Gay Studies, City University of New York.

Part IV: The Caribbean

Brand, Dionne 1990 No Language Is Neutral. Toronto: M&S.

Elwin, Rosamund 1997 Tongues on Fire: Caribbean Lesbian Lives and Stories. Toronto: Women’sPress.

Wright, Michelle M. and Antje Schuhmann 2007 Blackness and Sexualities. Forum for European Contributions in African American Studies (FORECAAST). Berlin: Verlag.

Grading Schema(informed by “Grading Standards II” by Maxine Rodburg of the Harvard Writing Center)

The following are the standards I adhere to when I grade essays. Pluses and minuses represent shades of difference, as do split grades (e.g. B-/C+). I assign grades on the evidence of the essay submitted, not on effort or time spent.

A: An excellent piece of writing (this is not the same as perfect). This is an ambitious, perceptive essay that grapples with interesting, complex ideas, responds discerningly to counter-arguments, and explores well-chosen evidence revealingly. The discussion enhances— rather than underscores— the reader’s and writer’s knowledge (it doesn’t simply repeat what has been discussed in class). There is a context for all the ideas; someone outside the class would be enriched, not confused, by reading the essay. Its beginning opens up— rather than flatly announces— its thesis. Its end is something more than a summary. The language is clean, precise, often elegant. As a reader I feel surprised, delighted, changed. There’s something new here for me, something only the essay’s writer could have written and explored in this particular way. The writer’s stake in the material is obvious.

B: This is a piece of writing that reaches high and achieves many of its aims. The ideas are solid and progressively explored but some thin patches require more analysis and/or some stray thoughts do not quite fit together well. The language is generally clear and precise but occasionally not. The evidence is relevant, but there may be too little. The context for the evidence may not be sufficiently explored, so that I have to make some of the connections that the writer should have made clear for me.OR This is a piece of writing that does not reach as high than an ‘A’ essay, but thoroughly achieves its aims. This is a solid essay whose reasoning and argument may nonetheless be rather routine— in this case the limitation is conceptual.

C: This is a piece of writing that has real problems in one of these areas: 1) conception (there is at least one main idea but it is obscure and hard to get to); 2) structure (the logic behind the ordering of the text is far from clear); 3) use of evidence (there is no evidence presented or that which is provided is weak and/or the connections among the ideas are unclear or without context; the text is plagued by generalizations and absent substantial proof); 4) language (the writing is awkward and generally stands in the way of comprehension). Overall, the essay may be repetitive, poorly organized, and/or superficial in its treatment of the subject matter. In addition, punctuation, spelling, grammar, citations, and transitions may be problems as well.OR This is an essay that largely summarizes any given text or other work (of art or analysis), but is written without too many major problemsOR This is an essay that is chiefly a personal reaction to something. This is perhaps well written, but there is scant engagement with course content or other scholarly material; it is mostly opinion.

D: This is an essay that demonstrates very little effort to grapple seriously with the ideas it hopes to explore.OR This is a piece of writing that is extremely problematic in many of the areas mentioned above: conception, structure, use of evidence, language, etc.OR This is writing that does not come close to meeting the expectations of the assignment.

F: This is a piece of writing that should most definitely be re-conceptualized and revised drastically so that it can be re-submitted if that option is available.

Grading ScaleA+ 100A 99 – 95A- 94 – 90B+ 89 – 85B 84 – 80B- 79 – 75C+ 74 – 70C 69 – 65C- 64 – 60D+ 59 – 55D 58 – 54D- 57 – 53F 52 or less

Some topics partially fulfill legislative requirement for American history.

Prerequisite: Varies with the topic.

This course examines the history of Mexican women in the United States in the twentieth century. Starting with the Mexican Revolution, which led to the first significant migration of Mexicans to the United States, we will look at lives and roles of Mexican and Mexican American women in this country and along the U.S.-Mexico border. We will explore how race, gender, class and religion shape the experience of Mexican American women, and how the writing of their history has changed in the last one hundred years.

Texts:

Vicki L. Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows (Oxford)

W. K. Stratton with Anissa Zamarron, Boxing Shadows (Texas)

A packet of required readings is available at Jenn’s on Guadalupe at Dean Keeton.

Additional required readings are available on Blackboard.

This class will look at the history of the political, economic and cultural relations between the United States and Africa from the early origins of the slave trade to the present. It explores the role of the US in historical global contexts. The class is intended to elucidate historical developments both in the US and on the African continent, and should satisfy students with a strong interest in US history as well as those interested in the place of the US in the African Diaspora.  The semester is divided into four parts, each covering a major theme.

Course Objectives

To develop a base of African and US history and increase the level of awareness of the African Diaspora in the US. 

To obtain a well-rounded approach to the political, economic, and cultural connections between the United States and Africa.

To reevaluate perceptions of Africa, to recognize the vibrant nature of African culture, and to apply new knowledge to the different cultural agents active in US popular culture, such as music, dance, literature, business and science.

To help students understand present-day politics in Africa at a deeper level and to obtain a better understanding of racial conditions in the US.

To learn how to assess historical materials -- their relevance to a given interpretative problem, their reliability and their importance -- and to determine the biases present within particular scholarship. These include historical documents, literature and films.

Texts:

1. Joseph E. Holloway, ed., Africanisms in American Culture  (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005 second edition).

2. Curtis A. Keim, Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind (Westview Press, 1999).

3. Alusine Jalloh, ed., The United States and West Africa (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2008).

4. Kevin Roberts, ed., The Atlantic World 1450-2000 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).

5. Karen Bouwer, Gender and Decolonization in the Congo: the Legacy of Patrice Lumumba (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

6. Gendering the African diaspora : women, culture, and historical change in the Caribbean and Nigerian hinterland / edited by Judith A. Byfield, LaRay Denzer, and Anthea Morrison. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.

Grading:

i. Public Lecture Review 10%    

ii. First  Examination 25%

iii. Book Review 20%

iv.   Book Review 20%

v. Second Examination 25%

Course Description:

In the past couple of decades, African women’s/ gender studies have increasingly becomea focus of inquiry in many spheres--- socio-economic, political, religious, and cultural.However, Western feminist and womanist perspectives and theoretical frameworks havedominated the studies and analyses of African women’s lives. This course, whichfocuses on Yorùbá women, will examine gender construction in Yorùbáland and furtherexplore the differences between Western gender construction and African notions ofgender. For many centuries before colonization, the Yorùbá of southwestern Nigeria hada history of statehood supported by different categories of power--- military, religious,and political. By analyzing the religious, linguistic, and socio-political aspects of cultural,and socio-political aspects of Yorùbá life, the course will shed light on gender relations inYorubaland and revisit the construction- -African/Yoruba womanhood in extantscholarship.

Course Objective:

The course seeks to develop in students an understanding andappreciation of African gender theories through an examination of the variables betweenthe realities of African gender perspectives and current gender theories. Students willengage in effective and meaningful dialogue that not only affects Africa but also theWest, thus increasing an awareness in cross-cultural gender issues.

Required Texts: All readings in course packet are required

****(Reading) Course Packets: Available at the UT Copy Center, TX Union,Room 2.214, 2247 Guadalupe Phone: 475-6675Akinwumi Isola. Efúnsetán Aníwúrà, Ìyálóde Ègbá: Two Yorùbá Historical Dramas.Translated from the Yorùbá. Pamela Olubunmi Smith, translator. Trenton, N.J.:Africa World Press Inc., 2005.

Cheryl Johnson-Odim and Nina Emma Mba. For Women and the Nation:Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Grading Policy:

Attendance and Participation: 10%

Assigned Readings (with brief summary and reactions) 10%

Individual Term Paper 25%

Individual Oral Presentation 15%

Group Term Paper 25%

Group Oral Presentation 15%

A = 94-100A- = 90-93B+ = 88-89B = 85-87B- = 80-84C+ = 78-79C = 75-77C- = 70-74D+ = 68-69D = 65-67D- = 60-64F = 59-0

Individual Term Paper

There will be a mid-semester term paper of 5 to 7 pages (minus bibliography). A topic will beassigned by the professor. If you have difficulties researching and writing, see me or go to thewriting center as soon as possible for help.

Group Term PaperThere will be an end of semester term paper of 10 to 12 pages (minus bibliography). No lateterm papers will be accepted. Students will be placed in groups and a topic will be assigned toeach group by the professor.

All term papers (group and individual) should be turned in to me in class only.

Assigned Readings

Required readings will be assigned to each student throughout the semester. These assignedreadings (with a brief summary of about 2-3pages typed written to be turned in on the day ofpresentation) get all students engaged.

Oral Presentation:

In the middle of the semester, there will be an individual oral presentation of each student’sfinal term paper. At the end of the semester, there will be an oral presentation of group termpapers. Oral presentation, like the term paper, should be structured: introduction, body, andconclusion. No YouTube presentations. You need permission from the professor if you will usetechnology for presentation of your work, which means—come to class early to prepare the useof the consul.-No student shall read from his or her paper. Prepare to use flashcards or speak spontaneously.

Video:Films / documentaries will be watched in class, followed by discussions.

This course will be oriented around your gaining an understanding of family relationships across the

(relationship) life span, but with a particular focus on relationship development, maintenance, and parenting. As

an introductory course, we will not spend much time on any particular topic, but rather will touch on many of the

major areas of the field. Each of these topic areas could easily take entire summer sessions to cover in depth; my

goal is for you to leave the class with a broad understanding of the field as well as an appreciation for the theories

and research that guide our understanding of the topic. Throughout the course, I will stress the importance of

utilizing sound research in the quest for understanding the development, maintenance, and dissolution of family

relationships. You will be expected to learn numerous new concepts and be able to apply them to unique

situations.

This course will survey both biological and environmental factors that shape the development of a child from conception through adolescence.  The specific areas to be covered include biological, cognitive, emotional, and social development.

This course will survey both biological and environmental factors that shape the development of a child from conception through adolescence.  The specific areas to be covered include biological, cognitive, emotional, and social development.

This course will survey both biological and environmental factors that shape the development of a child from conception through adolescence. The specific areas to be covered include biological, cognitive, emotional, and social development.

The purpose of this course is to examine the various experiences, perspectives, and expressions of Chicanas in the United States. This involves examining the meaning and history of the term, "Chicana" as it was applied to and incorporated by Mexican American women during the Chicano Movement in areas of the Southwest U.S., such as Texas and California. We will also explore what it means to be Chicana in the United States today. The course will begin with a historical overview of Mexican American women's experiences in the U.S., including the emergence of Chicana feminism. We will discuss central concepts of Chicana feminism and attempt to understand how those concepts link to everyday lived experiences. Specifically, the relationship between gender, race/ethnicity, and class will be key as we discuss issues that have been significant in the experiences and self-identification of Chicanas, such as: family, gender, sexuality, religion/spirituality, education, language, labor, and political engagement. We will be engaging in interdisciplinary analysis not only concerning cultural traditions, values, belief systems, and symbols but also in relation to the expressive culture of Chicanas, including folk and religious practices, literature and poetry, the visual arts, and music. Finally, we will examine media representations of Chicanas through critical analyses of film and television portrayals. 

This course explores the complex politics of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nation and other categories of power in relationship to systems of oppression and privilege in a transnational context. Focusing on the experiences of people of African descent, texts examined in this course will range from theoretical to first-person narratives. We will interrogate categories of sex, gender, and sexuality, and explore issues of identity, representation, socio-economic policy and political rights. We will examine African and Black feminist critiques of historical, institutionalized oppression, including poverty, poor working conditions, criminalization, reproductive and sexual control, gendered violence, stigma and stereotypes, homophobia, and xenophobia.  We will explore the relevance of changing understandings of the term "culture" for the study of women, gender, and/or sexuality across Africa and the African Diaspora. Particular attention will be devoted to the ways in which gender as practice, performance, and representation has differed for women and men according to race, class, and other divisions.   Women’s and Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary field committed to imagining justice through analysis and creation of culture. Part of our work will reveal how African and African Diaspora Feminisms have challenged racism and white supremacy within feminist scholarship and activism. Your work in this course will prepare you for advanced study and to participate in discussions for community and academic advocacy.

Description

Population studies or demography is an interdisciplinary field, encompassing the study of the size, distribution, and composition of human populations, and the processes of fertility, mortality, and migration through which populations’ change. These processes are closely connected to many of the pressing problems facing contemporary societies. For instance, the funding of health care in developed countries is a major issue because of declining fertility and population aging. Civil unrest in parts of Africa and the Middle East are, in part, a function of persistently high fertility rates. These processes are also important drivers of many contemporary environmental problems. Finally, a grasp of population processes is important for a deeper understanding of the population explosion in urban areas and the higher transmission and impact of AIDS in the developing world. 

This course provides an overview of the field of population studies. A sociological approach is emphasized, but economic, geographic, anthropological, and biological perspectives will also be used. Attention will be given to a) the demographic concepts needed to objectively evaluate population issues and b) the substantive content of the population issues. Emphasis will be given to evaluating the evidence regarding debates on population topics. 

Reading Materials 

Required text: Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues, 10th edition, John R. Weeks. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co. ISBN-10: 0495096377 

On-line Readings: There are a number of short reading assignments, marked with an [EL]. These readings can be found in External Links section of the class Blackboard site and should be read prior to class period. 

Grading and Requirement:

You are expected to complete all readings for the day's class before coming to class. Read as actively as possible. Class time will be an opportunity to discuss and further explore the readings, so it is essential that everyone comes prepared to participate. Our class periods will be more productive and enjoyable when we all begin with the same materials. 

There will be TWO examinations during the semester, each worth 20% of your final grade. The exams will draw from both readings and class discussions. The exams are not cumulative. Each will include multiple choice and short answer questions. Make-up examinations will not be administered except in extreme circumstances and only if I am notified beforehand. All make-up examinations are 100% essay. 

You must also complete TWO assignments and ONE short paper during the semester. The assignments—on mortality and fertility—are designed to familiarize you with demographic data on the web, give you an overview of your country of choice, and help you identify your country’s population angle that most interests you and that you will explore in more detail in the short paper. Each assignment is worth 15% of your final grade. The short paper is worth 25% of your grade. 

The final 5% of your grade is based on attendance/class participation. I expect you to show up and engage (i.e., not text, sleep, or read the newspaper) with classmates, the TA, and me in the class. 

This course will provide an overview of theories in the emerging field of Surveillance Studies, with afocus on race and gender. We will examine transformations in social control and the distributions ofpower in U.S. and global contexts, with a focus on populations within the African diaspora. As such,this is a Black Studies course. Course topics include: the Trans-Atlantic slave trade; prisons andpunishment; the gaze, voyeurism and reality television watching; social media; travel and stateborders; biometrics and the body.

Students will be encouraged to develop critical reading and analytical skills. Through the use of filmsand other visual media students will be challenged to better understand how surveillance practicesinform modern life.

Your participation grade will be based upon your informed participation and not solely on yourattendance. You are expected to contribute informed opinions based on a close reading of the coursematerials and engagement with the themes of the course. Sharing your personal opinions, whileimportant, will not solely constitute informed discussion.

Students who acquire six or more unexcused absences will receive a failing grade.

GRADING SCHEME

A: 100-94

A-: 93-90

B+: 89-88

B: 87-83

B-: 82-80

C+ 79-78

C: 77-73

C-: 72-70

D+: 69-68

D: 67-63

D-: 62-60

F: 59-0

Your grade in this course will be based on:

Participation, Attendance &In-class Assignments 10%

Everyday Surveillance Assignment 15%

Film Review 15%

Mid-Term Test: 20%

Social Media Project: 20%

Final Test 20%

Final grades will be determined on the basis of the above rubric. To ensure fairness, all numbers are absolute, and will not be rounded up or down at any stage. Thus a B- will be inclusive of all scores of 80.000 through 83.999. The University does not recognize the grade of A+.

Attendance and Informed Participation

Students who acquire six or more unexcused absences will receive a failing grade.

Please note that this is an upper level undergraduate seminar and your success in this course depends on close reading and engagement with the texts (readings, films, audio recordings, videoclips, video games and weblinks posted to Blackboard), as well as active participation in class discussions. You will be responsible for checking the Blackboard course site regularly for additional texts and announcements.

Class participation will be based on attendance and meaningful participation in class discussions.

Meaningful participation is taken to be analytic engagement with the texts, not vague commentary or generalizations. You are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the readings.

Over the course of the semester you will be ask to respond, in writing, to texts discussed during the lecture.

These assignments will form a part of your participation grade.

Description:

This course examines the social and cultural construction of gender, focusing on women and men in U.S. society.  We will explore how gender is experienced by different groups of men and women, with a focus on race/ethnicity, sexuality, class, and nationality.  The course begins with description of current gender stereotypes in popular culture, and differences in the socialization and education of girls and boys.  Next we will examine gender differences in the workplace, exploring the reasons for the persistent gap in pay between employed men and women.  The third part of the course examines women’s changing relationship to the home and work, including changes in the meanings of marriage and motherhood, with a focus on the lives of impoverished women.  This section also reviews public policy responses to women’s poverty.  The final part of the course examines the impact of globalization on men and women around the world.

Texts:

C.J. Pascoe, Dude, You’re a Fag, Univ. of California Press, 2007.

Kristen Schilt, Just one of the guys?, University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Susan Thistle, From Marriage to the Market, Univ. of California Press, 2006.

Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, Promises I can keep, Univ. of California Press, 2005.

Carolina Bank‐Mu.oz, Transnational Tortillas: Race, Gender, and Shop‐Floor Politics in Mexico

and the United States. ILR Press, 2008.

The Education of Shelby Knox (DVD).

Grading and Requirement:

Grades in the class will be based on three examinations and four homework assignments. The

first two exams are worth 30 percent, and the third is worth 20 percent of the final grade. All

examinations will have an essay format (Blue Books are required). Make‐up examinations will

be given only to those absent for university‐approved reasons. The final 20 percent of the grade

is based on written homework assignments. The assignments require students to write 2‐page

essays. Essay questions will be distributed in class and posted on Blackboard. They will be due

the following class period. No late assignments will be accepted. Evaluations (letter grades) are based on mastery of the material and quality of the writing.

This course introduces students to critical analyses of women's relations to media culture.  Focusing specifically on magazines, films, and television, we will explore the dominant strategies used by the commercial culture industries to represent women and women's issues.  In addition, we will examine how women participate in media culture via their role as consumers, as well as how some women have created alternatives to commercial culture by creating their own media texts.

This course is a study of one of the most traumatic periods in South African history. It is also a study of a people’s agency and resilience in the face state sanctioned terror. With a brief detour into the deeper past of South Africa to contextualize the rise of apartheid, the course will predominantly focus on the period since 1948. We will study the social, political, economic, and cultural history of a nation in the grip of legalized oppression from the perspectives of women, children, and men - of all "racial" backgrounds - who lived through that particular period. Since the course focuses on both oppression and agency, and the in-between-spaces, students are advised that some of the course content (books, audio, and video material) will include violent scenes – apartheid was violent by definition. The course will NOT cover everything, but aim for a deeper understanding of some of the key moments that illuminate apartheid in the history of South Africa. Course Objectives: a) Students will come away with a greater appreciation of not only of the history of that country, but of Southern Africa, and the United States’ role in supporting the apartheid regime as well as the anti-apartheid movement in South African and abroad. b) Students will greatly improve their critical reading and writing skills. c) Students will have a greater understanding of South Africa – and the continent’s – postcolonial opportunities and challenges. Samukele, Kamohelo, Welcome!

Texts:

• Robert Ross, A Concise History Of South Africa

• Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

• Steve Biko (and Aelred Stubbs, ed.), I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

• Mamphela Ramphele, Across Boundaries

• Nadine Gordimer, July’s People 

• J.M. Coetzee, Boyhood

Grading:

  10% - Two Map Quizzes (5% each)

  20% - Attendance and Participation

  50% - Weekly Journal (2 typed pages each week)

  20% - Final paper (10 pages).

This course surveys Black women's experiences livingwith and confrontingstate oppressionaround the world. From the United Statesto Brazil Black women experience similar patterns of political, social, and economic inequality. Transnationally, racism, sexism, patriarchy, homophobia,andclassism affect the quality of life of Black women, particularly within nation-states with legacies of slavery and colonialism. This course takesan historical, social, andtheoretical look at the roots of this inequality and how Black women have chosen to respond to it locally and globally. Howhave interlocking forms of oppression affect Black women's citizenship within the modern nation-state? How have Black women, in turn, sought to organize themselves inresponse to this oppression? Key themes include racism, sexism, patriarchy, homophobia, classism, migration, and Black feminism.

Assignments

Class Attendance – 15%

Engaged participation in class discussion – 15%

Midterm – 25%

Final – 25%

Research Report Paper – 10%

Research Report Team Presentation – 10%

 Sample texts

Davis, A. Y. 1983. Women, race & class, 1st Vintage Books edition. New York: Vintage Books.

James, J. 1999. Shadowboxing : representations of black feminist politics, 1st edition. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Oparah, J. C. 2005. Global lockdown : race, gender, and the prison-industrial complex. New York: Routledge.

Women's experiences in different cultures. Some topics partially fulfill legislative requirement for American history.

Topic: Diaspora visions: exiles, aliens and nomads.

The course is devoted to the study of gender politics in the Islamic world.  It shows how culture is mediated by politics, resulting in diverse interpretations of the cultural tradition and in different policies with respect to gender. We start by examining the themes and issues that are part of the common denominator of the Islamic tradition.  We then consider how the diversity can be explained and what factors contribute to it.  The focus is on women's rights, which have been a key political issue in several countries and internationally. The course is designed to help students gain a better knowledge of the Islamic tradition and, at the same time, increase their understanding of major sociological concepts such as gender, social organization, culture, and politics.

Course Requirements and Grading Policy:  

Students are encouraged to take an active role in discussing readings and raising questions.  I expect students to attend class and to complete the assigned readings prior to coming to class.  

Exam 1 30%

Exam 2 30%

Country Report 20%

Team presentation 10%

Class participation 10%  

Text/Readings

M. M. Charrad, States and Women's Rights:  The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Berkeley:  Univ of California Press, 2001.

Mernissi, Fatema. Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems. New York: Washington Square Press, 2001.

Fadela Amara, Breaking the Silence:  French Voices from the Ghetto. Berkeley:  UC Press 2006

Articles are listed on relevant weeks on the syllabus.  They will be placed on Blackboard.

Audiovisuals:

Audiovisuals are an integral part of the course and will be covered in the exams. 

Too many portrayals of Islamic societies are treated as superficially as the issues involving the hijab and veiling. Among the hip and the fashionable, the religious fronts and political systems in contemporary Muslim societies (particularly in the Middle East and North Africa), a complex and complicated phenomenon has been developing for decades:  the “art of the wall,” namely, graffiti and poster art.

Poster art and graffiti are employed by various groups within the Islamic world to project their ideas through the mediums of photography, video, the film of documentary makers, the paint and ink of professionals, anonymous or amateur designers and artists to record the political and social events within urban areas. Such visual records depicting aspects of everyday life give voice to the people living and working within the Muslim world. An observer can see acts of rebellion as the anonymous young population in Muslim societies experiments with ways to test the limits of freedom. This is done with creativity and often with courage, which may cause concern to the political systems ruling over people whose freedom of speech and action are limited.

In this course, the students are introduced to a common and general principle of Islam, followed by a study of differences in culture and linguistic background of the people in lands of a Muslim majority. The major part of the semester is devoted to analysis and studying graffiti and poster art as it relates to social and political events unfolding. It is expected that the students become interested and learn that the interpretation of today’s Muslim youth through popular culture, expressed in the art and work of talented people manifesting their identities and personal expression about the world around them, provides a valuable access to learning and getting closer to the cultures that may seem strange, illogical, or somewhat hostile to the principles of “Western democracy.” This is an opportunity for us to look at the body and soul of people of ancient civilizations and of a recent troubled history with high hopes for a bright future from the perspective of those from the inside looking out.

Texts:

Reader packets TBD

Grading:

TBD

Since the late 1980s, the African film industry has undergone radical changes that reflect increased globalization, the availability of new production and distribution methods, and the rise of a new generation of African filmmakers. This revolution is characterized by the low-budget, direct to video films commonly referred to as Nollywood.  While these films have drawn criticism for their low production values and popularization of negative cultural stereotypes, the Nigerian video industry has become the third largest film industry in the world, sweeping across the continent and throughout the global diaspora.  

This course examines the rise of Nollywood and the genesis of a popular African art form. It assesses aspects of African culture such as gender roles in the society, cultural beliefs, westernization, education, and social constructs that are depicted in the films. One major way to evaluate these will be through examination of African women, who play diverse roles in the films. Women have been the bedrock of African societies ensuring continuity in traditions and families as well as socializing the young generations. Using films and the readings, this course seeks to highlight the status of African women, and to understand the changing roles of women in Africa.   

Through a combination of films and readings, students will explore how Nollywood, in comparison to Hollywood, depicts the society and culture of Nigeria and Africa as a whole.  Each week addresses a different theme in an attempt to introduce students to the various dynamics that shape African cultures, societies and governments.  Additionally, this course seeks to engage students in a debate about how popular films affect historical imaginations and memory.  While these images have previously been the product of Hollywood and European films, this course will introduce Nollywood as an African alternative to how films depict, and people understand, their history. 

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

1.     To increase the knowledge and understanding of African history, culture, and society.

2.     To identify key themes in African history that transcend national boundaries.

3.     To help students understand the social, cultural, political, and economic agents that have affected African history, particularly the role of women and gender.  

4.     To assess the viability of film as a historical source.

5.     To understand popular perceptions about Africa depicted in films and how they lead to misunderstandings of the past.

Texts:

Haynes, Jonathan, ed. Nigerian Video Films. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000.

Rosenstone, Robert A. Visions of the Past: The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Saul, Mahir and Ralph A. Austen, eds. Viewing African Cinema in the Twenty-First Century:

Art Films and the Nollywood Video Revolution. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Women Filmmakers of the African & Asian Diaspora: Decolonizing the Gaze, Locating Subjectivity  Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (May 1, 1997).

Kathleen Sheldon, ed. Courtyards, Markets, City Streets: Urban Women In    Africa. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996.

Toyin Falola and Nana Akua Amponsah. Women's Roles in Sub-Saharan Africa. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2012.

Kathleen M. Fallon. Democracy and the Rise of Women's Movements in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

*There will also be several journal articles assigned throughout the semester.  These will be available through the university library’s online databases and posted to the course documents section of the class Blackboard page.

Grading:

Assignment              Due                         Points

Attendance              Every class session 50

Book/Film Review   Week 6             100

Conference Report  Week 10             50

Final Paper              Week 15             200

Discussion Posts   See syllabus for deadlines 100

Southern Africa is one of the continent's rich and varied regions, a region that holds cradle of humanity historical sites as well as thriving modern cities and everything in-between. Designed to both introduce students to the history of the region and give an in-depth historical understanding of contemporary dynamics, the course focuses on two countries as case studies for understanding the region. Each year the country case studies may change; this year, 2013-14, the case countries will be Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Course Objectives: a) Students will understand the precolonial history of the region, and especially the impact of European colonialism on contemporary Southern Africa; b) Students will learn research methods in history; c) Students will learn how to write original research papers. Welcome!

Texts:

Gretchen Bauer, Politics in Southern Africa: State Society in Transition 

Kathleen Sheldon, Pounders of Grain, A History of Women, Work...

George Ndege, Cultures and Custom of Mozambique

Terence Ranger, Bulawayo Burning

Yvonne Vera, Butterfly Burning

Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions

Grading:

20% Attendance & Participation 

30%  Three Analytical Essays (x10% each)

10% Two map quizzes 

10% Proposal and Bibliography

30% Final Essay

The events of the Holocaust changed Western culture in fundamental ways. Not only was a great part of Jewish culture in Europe destroyed, the circumstances of the Nazi genocide as a modern, highly rationalized, efficient form of mass murder which took place in the heart of civilized Europe changed the conception of the progress of modernity and the Enlightenment in fundamental ways. This course explores the historical, political, psychological, theological, and cultural fall-out, as well as literary and cinematic responses in Europe and the U.S. to these events as they first became known, and as one moved further away from it in time and came to understand its pronounced and often problematic after effects. Central to our inquiry is the realization that the events of the Holocaust have left indelible traces in European and U.S. culture and culture production, of which a closer look (first, decade by decade, then moving on to a number of themes and questions), reveals profound insights into current day culture, politics, and society. 

Texts:

• Levi and Rothberg, The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings
• Art Spiegelman, Maus I & II
• Ruth Klüger, Still Alive: a Girlhood Remembered
• Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz
• Elie Wiesel, Night
• Additional course packet

Films:

• Nuit et Brouillard
• Holocaust (excerpts)
• Shoah (excerpts)
• Schindler's List (excerpt)

Requirements:

• Attendance/participation, 15%
• Response papers (2), 10%
• Class presentation, 10%
• Presentation paper, 15%
• Midterm exam, 20%
• Final research paper, 30% (proposal, bibliography, outline + 1st ¶, 5% each, paper: 15%)

After a continuous history of a thousand years in which verse figured much more significantly than prose, Persian literature began turning attention to Iranian prose fiction in the early years of the 20th century. By mid-century, prose fiction became the leading form of Iranian literary expression and remains so in the first decades of the 21st century. This survey course traces that development and focusses on classics of Persian prose fiction during the Pahlavi Era from 1921 to the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy and establishment of the Islamic Republic in early 1979. The chief course business is a close reading and discussion of classics of Persian fiction in the contexts of, first, 20th-century Iranian society and culture and, second, 20th-century modernist fiction around the world. The course uses works of Persian fiction as a window into Iranian culture to glean from them Iranian self-views about modernization and Westernization, cultural and political nationalism, patriarchy and ruler-subject relations, religion, and women. In addition, the course seeks to reach appreciative conclusions as to the critical appeal of classic works of Persian fiction qua fiction.

Texts

The required course readings, i.e., seven novels in paperback, and short stories, a screenplay, and critical writing in the “Iranian Fiction Course Packet” will be on Blackboard. Online materials (e.g., at iranica.com) will appear on the course calendar.

Grading

Class participation (10% of the course grade); eight two-page papers, each analyzing a specific, assigned work of fiction (4% of the course grade each), a book report on a study of Persian fiction chosen from a list in the course bibliography (10% of the course grade), and two review tests (25% of the course grade each). The grading scale is: A (93–100), A- (90–92), B+ (87–89), B (83– 86), B- (80–82), C+ (77–79), C (73–76), C- (70–72), D+ (67–69), D (63-66), D- (60–62), and F (0-59).

Note: Students with advanced Persian reading skills can participate in a parallel, one-credit PRS 130D course in which they read selected Iranian Fiction course materials in the original Persian as presented in the context of advanced Persian reading lessons in RIRI® Persian Fiction Syllabus (2010, 220+ pages).

Cultural critic Wahneema Lubiano argues that “postmodernisn offers a site for African American cultural critics and producers to utilize a discursive space  that foregrounds the possibility of rethinking history, political positionality in the cultural domain, the relationship between cultural politics and subjectivity, and the politics of narrative aesthetics”. Other scholars such as Cornel West conclude that the Black experience in American is fundamentally absurd. If postmodernism is characterized by a de-centered human subjectivity then the Black condition in the Americans is fundamentally postmodern. This course examines texts that re-imagine Black subjectivity beyond traditional narratives of suffering and oppression. Class participants will become acquainted with a variety of genres such as literary satire, rock musical, faux documentary, and speculative fiction.

Texts:

Paul Beatty “White Boy Shuffle” (1996)

Octavia Butler “Kindred” (1979)

Edward P. Jones “The Known World” (2003)

Andrea Lee “Sarah Phillips” (1984)

Jill Nelson “Volunteer Slavery” (1993)

Baratunde Thurston “How to Be Black” (2012)

Grading breakdown (percentages):

Essay One – 5 pages – 20%

Midterm – 30%

Presentation – 10%

Essay 2 – 7 pages – 30%

Participation – 10%

This multi-disciplinary course explores various experiences and theories of sex/intimacy/desire alongside intellectual and artistic engagements with power hierarchies and spirituality across black communities within and beyond the borders of the United States. We will consider the concept of “erotic subjectivity” from various theoretical and methodological angles principally within African Diasporic contexts.

Texts:

Alexander, M. Jacqui

    2005    Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics,

        Memory and the Sacred. Durham: Duke University Press.

Allen, Jafari

    2011    ¡Venceremos? The Erotics of Black Self-making in Cuba. Durham: Duke

        University Press.

Holland, Sharon P.

    2012    The Erotic Life of Racism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Hopkinson, Nalo

    2003    The Salt Roads. New York: Warner Books.

Murphy, Joseph and Mei-Mei Sanford

    2001    Osun Across the Waters: A Yoruba Goddess in Africa and the Americas.

        Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.

Tinsley, Omise’eke

    2010    Thiefing Sugar: Eroticism Between Women in Caribbean Literature. Durham:

        Duke University Press.

Grading:

Attendance                                                                              10%

Two class discussion facilitations                                                   20%

Five one-pg response papers                                                        30%

2 Quizzes                                                                                10%

Final paper                                                                              30%

Flag: Cultural Diversity in the U.S.

This course examines the South Asian diaspora in United States. We will focus on Americans who trace their descent to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. While studying the history and culture of South Asian America, we will discuss globalization, transnationalism, migration, assimilation, formation of a diaspora, discrimination, and gender and sexuality, all major themes in Asian American Studies. The course is arranged chronologically and thematically. We will start in the early twentieth century following the journey of the first South Asian migrants to arrive in California. The second part of the course will focus on the effects of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act. Topics covered include economic and social reasons for immigration, adaptation to American life, cultural and religious assimilation, changing family structures, and discrimination and exclusion. We will end the semester by discussing South Asian American life in the twenty-first century.

In this course, we will study the religion of Islam through its sacred text, the Qur’an. To this end, this course will entail extensive reading of the Qur’an itself, as well as of other texts. In our studies, we will focus on the following themes of the Qur’an: cosmology and theology, ethical principles, ritual prescriptions, and legal injunctions. We will also examine some of the prominent symbols, images and rhetorical structures of the Qur’an. Through reading the prophetic narratives, we will have an opportunity to compare Qur’anic and Biblical accounts of the major prophets shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The syllabus also includes an inquiry into role of the Qur’an in Muslim devotion and as a medium for artistic expression. We will also discuss the tradition of interpretation (or “exegesis”), especially as it pertains to those verses that engender the most debate today: those surrounding politics, intercommunal (i.e. interreligious) relations, and women/gender. Prior knowledge of Islam is helpful but not required for this course.

This course explores the variety of feminisms developed by women of color and non-western women to critique the racism and ethnocentrism of white-dominated systems and practices, including feminism. Its overall concern is with the contemporary re-conceptualizations of feminism in light of "difference" as a result of the critical perspectives developed by women of color. We begin by examining the dominant approaches to feminist theory that emerged in the United States and Europe, such as liberal, Marxist, and radical feminism, as well as feminist epistemology and post-modern feminist analyses. We will then focus on the critiques of these traditions developed by women of color and their insistence on the need to address the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class.  Finally, we will examine recent debates regarding the politics of sexuality, the role of men in feminism, the relationship between race, gender and sexuality, and Arab feminism.

Grading Policy

Grades will be assessed based on class participation, 2 short essays, and a final paper. 

This course focuses “women behaving badly” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in America.  We are especially interested in exploring the histories of female murderers and criminals as well as examining the experiences of women who transgressed racial, gendered, and sexual mores; ultimately, we will investigate the tension between accepted social norms and the struggle for female autonomy.

Texts:

Lisa Duggan, Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence, and American Modernity (Duke, 2001)

Kali Gross, Colored Amazons: Black Women, Crime, and Violence in the City of Brotherly Love, 1880-1910 (Duke, 2006)

Mary Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885-1920 (UNC, 1995)

Grading breakdown:

Engaged, critical participation 25%

Weekly writing responses 25%

Midterm Exam 25%

Final Paper 25%

In a New York Times Magazine article, Toni Morrison eloquently described the dilemmas of black female identity in a now oft quoted phrase: “…she had nothing to fall back on; not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything.  And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may well have invented herself.”  By examining the ways in which black women in the United States sought to “invent” themselves as historical agents despite economic, social, and political challenges, Morrison’s statement will, in many ways, form the basis of our intellectual journey.  To that end, the course will use primary sources, historical monographs, and essays to provide a chronological and thematic overview of the experiences of black women in America from their African roots to the circumstances they face in the present era.  This seminar class will be discussion driven and will address the following topics: the evolution of African American women’s history as field of inquiry; African American women historians; the trans-Atlantic slave trade; enslavement in the United States; abolition and freedom; racial uplift; urban migration; labor and culture; the modern civil rights movement; organized black feminism; hip-hop culture; AIDS and the Black Women's Health study.  Additionally, the course will draw upon readings written by and about African American women with a particularly emphasis on their approach to gender and race historiography.

Texts:

Wilma King and Linda Read, eds. African American Women (forthcoming, Blackwell Publishers)

Assata Shakur, Assata

Tiffany Gill, Beauty Shop Politics

Daina Ramey Berry, Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe

V.P. Franklin and Bettye Collier-Thomas, Sisters in the Struggle

Willie Lee Rose, A Documentary History of Slavery in North America

Carroll Parrott Blue, The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing.

Deborah Gray White,ed.  Telling Histories:  Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower.

Grading:

Class Engagement     10% 

 Posting Responses to the Week’s Readings    10%

Cultural Critique    20%

Outline of Research Paper with Annotated Bibliography    25%

Final Research Paper and Presentation    35%

This course is designed to provide students a comprehensive historical and sociological overview of media treatment of minorities, including identity constructions of racial and ethnic and gender groups as well as class issuesthat  who contextualize the minority experience. 

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer  (LGBTQ) people on the UT campus and beyond face many challenges due to homophobia, heterosexism, biphobia, and transphobia. Education and awareness are the first steps in combating hate and discrimination. This course will serve as a way for students in the program to use the information and skills learned in the first course across campus.  Students will continue to fine tune their facilitation skills and continue learning about LGBTQ people on the UT campus and beyond.

In our democracy, justice concerns certain inalienable rights: liberty, due process, equality. And it concerns freedom from governmental intrusion on the right to speak, to assemble, to be secure in our homes, to practice or not practice any religion we choose.  Certainly justice includes some notion of fairness. These fundamental values are expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. The Face of Justice reflects the individuals whose rights are being protected (and those whose rights are being overlooked) by our operating system of justice at given time.

Instructor:  Cvetkovich, A Areas:  V / G

Unique #:  35940 Flags:  Global Cultures; Writing

Semester:  Fall 2013 Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  WGS 345 Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: This course will explore the increasing visibility of creative non-fiction in fostering public debate and making social and political interventions.  We will consider whether the genre of “creative non-fiction” differs from non-fiction prose or the essay, as well as how it overlaps with memoir, fiction, and experimental writing.

As a “Gender, Literature, Culture” offering, the course will focus on women writers in order to consider how creative non-fiction has been shaped by feminist work and how it promotes feminist concerns.  We will explore the feminist history of creative non-fiction in Virginia Woolf’s essays; the innovative prose formats used by women of color feminists such as Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, and Audre Lorde; and the new journalism of Joan Didion. Building on that background, we will explore the many ways that women writers are documenting global histories and cultures through creative non-fiction, including subjects such as following:  histories of slavery (Hartman), lesbian modernisms (Cohen), South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Krog), a husband’s death (Didion), postcolonial tourism (Kincaid), Hurricane Katrina (Trethewey), democracy (Roy), environmentalism (Solnit), multiculturalism (Smith), the Haitian earthquake (Danticat).  Although not all of this work is explicitly concerned with women and gender, we will consider how feminist sensibilities inform its concern with the relation between local experience and global cultures and economies (reflecting the Global Cultures flag). 

In keeping with the course’s Writing flag designation, students will be encouraged to write in a range of forms, including discussion questions, personal narrative, an ethnographic report, and a critical review, some of which will enable them to practice writing their own forms of creative non-fiction.  The final project will include opportunities for revision and peer review.

Texts will be selected from among the following:

Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas

Audre Lorde, “Poetry is not a Luxury” and “The Uses of the Erotic”

Cherrie Moraga, from Loving in the War Years and/or A Xicana Codex

Gloria Anzaldua, from Borderlands/La Frontera

Joan Didion, from Slouching Toward Bethlehem

     *******

Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother

Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Island

Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

Antje Krog, Country of my Skull

Lisa Cohen, All We Know

Natasha Trethewey, Beyond Katrina

Essays by Rebecca Solnit, from Storming the Gates of Paradise; Arundhati Roy, from Field Notes on Democracy; Zadie Smith, from Changing My Mind; Edwidge Danticat, from Create Dangerously

Requirements & Grading: Discusssion questions posted to Blackboard every other week, 10%; 4 short writing assignments: personal narrative, ethnographic report, review of additional author; critical reading, 10 each%; final essay (7-8-page paper, including proposal, rough draft, peer review, group presentation), 30%; class attendance and participation, 20%.

Freud’s psychoanalytic project started in the 1890s and thus stands at the beginning of the 20th century’s discourse on sexuality. Queer Theory, emerging around 1990, marks its end. Within those 100 years all theorists on sexuality in the cultural context of the West such as Marcuse or Foucault had to position themselves in relation to Freud – whether they approved of his concepts or not.

In the context of Feminist and Queer Theory this conflict has played out in a particularly dramatic fashion: One of the reoccurring question has been, whether Freud provides a diagnosis of patriarchy or rather one of its manifestations.

In this course we will start with a close reading of Freud’s canonical texts, for instance The Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and The Interpretation of Dreams.  In the second part we will focus on the Feminist reception of Freud in the writings of Juliet Mitchell, Luce Irigaray, and Julia Kristeva, before we will eventually breach into Queer Theory and discuss a couple of essays by authors such as Leo Bersani and Tim Dean who renegotiate Freud’s thinking on the body and desire from a non-normative perspective.

While this course has its emphasis on psychoanalytic theory and its reception in the historical context of the 20th century for each of these three sections we will also analyze films and novels in order to put, in an exemplary fashion, the concepts on sexuality that these theories provide to the test. Readings include Thomas Mann, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jean Genet.

Readings

Leo Bersani: The Freudian Body

Tim Dean and Christopher Land (eds.): Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis

Anthony Elliott: Freud 2000

Sigmund Freud: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality

Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams

Sigmund Freud: Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Sigmund Freud: Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria

Jean Genet: Funeral Rites

Alfred Hitchcock: The Birds

Luce Irigaray: The Sex which Is not One

Julia Kristeva: The Portable Kristeva

Thomas Mann: Death in Venice

Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain (excerpts)

Juliet Mitchell: Psychoanalysis and Feminism

Grading 

2 Writing Assignments (3 Pages)                                  20%

Participation (incl. Attendance & Homework)                   40 %

Presentation                                                            10 %

Final Paper                                                              30 %

Topic: Theatre for dialogue: exploring interpersonal violence. Prerequisite: Consent from instructor required.

Description

This course analyzes the family as a social institution, using the sociological perspective. 

Studying the family can be tricky in that we all have our own experiences being part of families.  It is important, then, to go beyond our own experiences to explore both the private aspects of the family as well as public aspects of the family using various kinds of empirical data.  Shifting definitions of the family are the context for a brief history of the family.  Throughout the course we will explore family change. Specific topics will include dating, “hooking up” and marriage; parents and children; cohabitation, divorce and stepfamilies; and how the family intersects with, is shaped by, and shapes other social institutions, with particular attention to the economy and the world of work as well as state and social policies.

 Grading Policy

Students will be evaluated via short papers, in-class short answer and essay examinations, a group project, and class participation. 

 Texts: (subject to change)

Bogle, Kathleen.  2008.  Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus.  NYU Press.       

Coontz, Stephanie.  2006.  Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage. New York: Penguin.                

Ferguson, Susan J. (ed.).  2010.  Shifting the Center: Understanding Contemporary Families, Fourth Edition.  Boston: McGraw-Hill. 

Lareau, Annette.   2011. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, Second Edition with an Update a Decade Later.  Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stone, Pamela.  2007. Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home. Berkeley: University of California Press.

In this seminar students will explore the experience of American women, in sickness and in health.  Students will learn about medical and biological views of woman and women’s health, the social context of those views, the development of medical practices and, indeed, a new medical specialty, for the treatment of illness and debility. This study of American women focuses on the 19th and 20th century and looks at the experience of Native-American women, African-American women, Latinas, working class women, and white middle- and upper-class women.  Health topics include menarche and menstruation, childbirth, birth control and abortion, gynecological disorders and reproductive organ cancers, as well as mental health and mental illness.

Texts:

• Judith Walzer Leavitt,  Women and Health in American, 2nd ed.,  University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

• Tina Cassidy, Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born.  Grove Press, 2006

• Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Birthing a Slave:  Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South.  Harvard University Press, 2006.

• Sarah Stage, Female Complaints:  Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women’s Medicine.  W.W. Norton & Co., 1979.

• Andrea Tone, Devices and Desires:  A History of Contraceptives in America.  Hill & Wang,  2001.

• Jael Silliman, et. al, Undivided Rights:  Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice.  South End Press,  2004.

• Barron H. Lerner, M.D.  The Breast Cancer Wars:  Fear, Hope, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America.  Oxford University Press, 2001

Grading:

Class participation = 30% of course grade

Writing assignments = 70% of course grade

Three 3-5 page essays = 14% each; for total of 42% of course grade;

8-10 page essay = 28% of course grade

Description:  

This course examines critical American social problems that threaten the very fabric of our collective life as a nation.  These include problems in the economy and political system, social class and income inequality, racial/ethnic inequality, gender inequality and heterosexism, problems in education, and problems of illness and health care.  The course has three main objectives.  One involves providing students with the theoretical and methodological tools needed to critically analyze these problems from a sociological perspective.  A second involves providing students with current data and other information documenting the seriousness of these problems.  The final objective focuses on evaluating social policies addressing these problems (e.g., welfare-to-work programs, pay equity legislation), with special reference to questions of social justice, the common good, as well as public and individual responsibility.  Class format will be a mixture of lecture and discussion, with a strong emphasis upon the latter.  This course carries a writing flag.

Required Readings: 

A packet of readings to be purchased from Austin Text Books at 2116 Guadalupe (i.e., the Drag)

Additional readings will be made available on Blackboard

Attendance Policy:

Regular attendance and punctuality are expected.  You’re allowed three absences without penalty during the semester (excluding our introductory class meeting).  The nonpenalized absences are intended to cover such situations as illness, family emergencies, university sponsored trips, etc.  Students who miss more than three classes, regardless of the reason, will have their semester grades reduced by one full percentage points for each absence beyond the three allowed.  The one exception to this policy concerns absences for religious reasons, assuming advance, written notification is given.

Grading Policy:

Four Short Papers (2-3 pages)               65%

Class Participation                                20%

Pop Quizzes                                        15%

Psychosocial issues in women's physical and mental health. Includes a broad definition of women's health that considers traditional reproductive issues, disorders that are more common in women than in men, and the leading causes of death in women. Covers gender influences on health risk behaviors, and societal influences on women's health through a consideration of social norms and roles. Some topics partially fulfill legislative requirement for American history.

This course intensively examines U.S. women's history between World War II and the 1970s. In doing so, it also explores popular perceptions of womanhood, manhood and sexuality that became central to the cultural politics and social conflicts of the postwar period. By weaving together these topics – women’s history, popular culture, and postwar social movements – we raise fresh questions about well-known episodes of U.S. history. Why, for example, do most Americans remember Rosa Parks only as a demure seamstress who initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott because she was too tired to give up her seat to a white? If every young woman hoped to be like Donna Reed or June Cleaver in the fifties, then where did the sixties movements come from? We also explore how various groups (e.g., suburban girls, working-class women, civil rights activists, immigrants, and others) negotiated ideas of family, work and sexuality. In doing so, we examine roots of issues that continue to have political purchase today, such as reproductive rights, sexuality, job equity, welfare, race, and ethnicity.

Course Activities:This is primarily a discussion seminar, but class will occasionally include short lectures and films. Readings include historical documents, memoirs, scholarly articles and full-length historical studies. The course has a writing flag, and is designed to help you develop skills in historical writing and analysis. Students will write regularly to encourage critical thinking and class discussion of readings. Graded assignments include weekly reading summaries, a short media research paper based on popular magazines of the postwar era; and a “Postwar Women’s Memoir Project” based on interviews with women who came of age between World War II and the 1970s.

Texts:

* Bailey, Beth. Sex in the Heartland

* Douglas, Susan J. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media 

* Gilmore, Stephanie, ed. Feminist Coalitions: Historical Perspectives on Second-Wave Feminism in the United States

* Grace, Nancy M. and Ronna C. Johnson, eds., Breaking the Rule of Cool: Interviewing and Reading Women Beat Writers

* Lee, Chana Kai. For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer

* Meyerowitz, Joanne, ed. Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960 (noted as NJC on syllabus)

* Santiago, Esmeralda. Almost a Woman

* Shakur, Assata. Assata: An Autobiography

Grading:

10% Attendance, promptness, class participation

30% 350-word weekly analyses of readings (6 essays, 5% each)

20% Media research essay, 5 pages 

35% Final Postwar Women’s Memoir Project essay, 8-10 pages

5%  Group Presentation on Memoir Projects

Because gender, sexuality, and the lives of marginalized peoples have historically been obscured by traditional archives/ists, colonized by traditional research practices, and condescended to by disembodied researchers, a key project of women’s and gender studies has been to develop new archives, methods of research, and a lively discussion about the responsibility of researchers to our collaborators. In this course we will ask how feminism has restructured research. This course will prepare you to formulate a research prospectus and a methodology in order to undertake an article, conference paper, undergraduate thesis, or other similar project. In the process, we will examine various feminist research methods, question their assumptions, and practice articulating our relationships, as researchers, to these methods as well as to our projects. Through readings, field trips, and panels of UT-based researchers, we will become familiar with our local university and community resources and will learn about research methods including archival research, case studies, textual analysis, oral history, ethnography, digital resources, and activist research.

Supervised individual research on an issue in women's and gender studies.

Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and written consent of the supervising faculty member; consent forms are available in the Center for Women's and Gender Studies.

Individual project or paper to be completed under the direction of a women's and gender studies faculty member.

Prerequisite: Upper-division standing and written consent of the supervising faculty member; consent forms are available in the Center for Women's and Gender Studies.

Undergraduate Thesis

An student pursing the B.A. in Women's & Gender Studies may choose between 3 hours from WGS 379L Internship in WGS or WGS 360 Research & Thesis in WGS.

The form should be turned in before registering for the WGS 360 Research & Thesis course. (PDF) (DOC)

Please note that a second reader is not required for the undergraduate thesis.  The undergraduate thesis must also be completed in one semester.

More Information at: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/cwgs/academics/Undergrad-Thesis.php

Undergraduate Thesis

An student pursing the B.A. in Women's & Gender Studies may choose between 3 hours from WGS 379L Internship in WGS or WGS 360 Research & Thesis in WGS.

The form should be turned in before registering for the WGS 360 Research & Thesis course. (PDF) (DOC)

Please note that a second reader is not required for the undergraduate thesis.  The undergraduate thesis must also be completed in one semester.

More Information at: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/cwgs/academics/Undergrad-Thesis.php

Experience working in the community or for a nonprofit agency.

Prerequisite: At least twelve semester hours of coursework in women's and gender studies and written consent of the supervising faculty member; consent forms are available in the Center for Women's and Gender Studies.

• Internship courses are available as part of the class offerings at Women's and Gender Studies.  These are individual instruction courses and do not meet in the classroom as lectures do. 

• Students are responsible for finding their own internships.  Resources on campus such as Liberal Arts Career Services, LACS Internship Services, theCareer Exploration Center, the CWGS blog, and the WGS email list serves may help to find an internship.

• After finding a place to work as an intern, students must also obtain a faculty supervisor for their internship.  CWGS can assist in matching a student with a faculty member based on research interests.  This faculty supervisor will be responsible for submitting a grade for the student. According to the Provost’s office - TAs, RAs, and GRAs are ineligible to serve as faculty supervisors.

• Once students have an internship and a faculty supervisor, they must fill out and turn in the Internship Proposal Form (PDF) (DOC) to the CWGS office in order to be cleared to register for the course.

• On the proposal form, the student and faculty member will explain how the student will be graded for the internship course.  Some students keep a work journal that they submit for a grade, some turn in a large paper at the end of their internship.  Other final grade assignments might include a presentation or a larger project that was done for the organization.

More Information at: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/cwgs/academics/internships.php

The equivalent of three lecture hours a week for two semesters. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Women's and Gender Studies 698A and Women's Studies 698A may not both be counted. Prerequisite: For 698A, graduate standing in women's and gender studies and consent of the graduate adviser; for 698B, Women's and Gender Studies 698A.

The Thesis or Report is required by the Master's Program.  It represents the final paper or research project that the student creates to culminate their coursework in Women's and Gender Studies. A student must be enrolled in the Thesis or Report course during the semester they intend to graduate.

When registering for the Thesis or Report course, the student must turn in the Thesis/Report Proposal Forms linked below.

The Thesis form is used to link the professor to the online grading system.  This also serves as documentation for faculty supervising the Thesis or Report.  Students should sign up for the Thesis course when they have secured a faculty member to work with them.

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/cwgs/graduate-application/thesis-report.php