Fall 2006

WGS 393 • Feminist Television Criticism

Course Description

This course introduces students to various critical and cultural approaches to feminist studies of television, including historiography, political economy, reception studies, and textual analysis. Our primary objective will be considering the relationship between sex, gender, feminism, and television over this medium's sixty-year history. We will investigate TV's construction of "woman," particularly with regard to issues of race, class, and sexuality and differing modes of female subjectivity within a primarily U.S. context. In addition, we will examine the gendered construction of television viewing, especially in relation to women and the development of the female commodity audience. We will also investigate various representations of feminism on television, including the recent emergence of "postfeminist" shows. Finally, we will examine alternate TV production and viewing strategies, especially those which have resulted from the emergence of new media technologies, such as VCRs, cable, DVDs, and the Internet.

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