Spring 2007

WGS 392 • Research Seminar in Women's and Gender Studies

Course Description

Foundations III course This course is a resource-rich writing workshop for feminist academic writers. It is a required course for students about to embark on their master's thesis or report in Women's and Gender Studies. Students in other programs can use the course to develop research projects such as a master's thesis or report, a dissertation prospectus or chapter, a policy report, a conference paper or a journal article. The first part of the semester will be spent familiarizing ourselves with different genres of feminist academic writing, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach from the perspective of designing a research project. Next, we will visit and use the three world-famous research collections here at UT, the Perry-Casteneda Library, the Benson Latin American Collection, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. During the third section of the course we will read the work of some feminist scholars at UT and then discuss with each how she or he got the idea for, carried out, wrote up, and found a publisher for that particular piece of research. Finally, students will present their own research questions, based on the proposal they will write, in an oral presentation at the end of the semester. Students can expect to complete the class with an annotated bibliography and 10-15 pages of narrative writing on a topic they will have developed during the semester a good start on a master's thesis, dissertation prospectus, or publishable article.

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