Women and Gender Studies Cross Listed Courses Spring 2013

CJ 302: Women, Crime, and Criminal Justice

(3 credits) T/Th 3:30 pm – 4:45 pm with Roni Mayzer

This class will explore the changing roles of women as offenders, as victims, and as professionals in the criminal justice system. Attention will be directed toward empirical findings, conflict theory insights, and the feminist perspective within the discipline. The basic goal of this course is to respectfully enhance understanding of the importance of gender equality within the field of criminal justice and to encourage self-examination of habitual modes of thinking and acting.

COMM 102: Communications and the Human Community

(3 credits) T/Th 9:30 am – 10:45 am with Stephen Rendahl

An introduction to the important concepts and principles of human communication, with a focus on how humans create meaningful worlds to live in through shared language, shared visual perception and interaction processes. Examination of the conflicts and opportunities that can result from communication differences within and among communities, with particular emphasis on gender, race and ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, class and physical ability.

COMM 310: Media and Diversity

(3 credits) T/Th 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm with Brett Ommen

Study of minority status within mass media organizations and in media content from historical, contemporary and speculative points of view.

COUN 250: Dialogue on U.S. Diversity

(3 credits) T/Th 12:00 pm – 1:20 pm with Cindy Juntunen and John McCullagh

This seminar on diversity issues in the U.S. will cover group communication skills, psychological impact of social/cultural group identities and inequality.

ENGL 228: Diversity in Global Literatures: Global Gender Studies

(3 credits) M/W/F 12:00 pm – 12:50 pm with Kathleen Dixon

This course will explore global literatures with a special emphasis on concepts like culture, difference, and diversity. The course will analyze global literature in cultural and historical contexts, and will emphasize the complex ways that literature is influenced by issues of social power (especially those that affect significant categories through which social inequalities are negotiated--such as gender, race, class, and sexual orientation).

ENGL 229: Diversity in U.S. Literature

(3 credits) M/W/F 10:00 am – 10:50 am with Bridget Tetteh-Batsa

This course will explore U.S. literatures with a special emphasis on concepts like culture, difference, and diversity. The course will analyze literature in cultural and historical contexts, and will emphasize the complex ways that literature is influenced by issues of social power (especially those that affect significant categories through which social inequalities are negotiated--such as gender, race, class, and sexual orientation).

ENGL 367: American Indian Literature

(3 credits) M/W/F 10:00 am – 10:50 am with Christopher Nelson

Butter boxes, gas station figurines, sports mascots—every day we're surrounded by images that define "Indians" within a set of bodily, and near mythological, parameters. While most people would claim some awareness of the devastating historical consequences of the equation of these highly stereotyped images of "redskins" with American Indians, few recognize how this equation continues to operate in mainstream American culture and how it perpetuates the common perception of the vanished Indian. And even those most aware—literary critics who study works by and about American Indians—tend to set aside how Indians continue to be defined by "traditional" physical features and practices in the struggle to define a generic, identifiably "Indian" identity and voice. In contrast, as we read a wide selection from the rich variety of oral tales, fiction, and poetry written by and about Native Americans in this course, we will approach questions of cultural representation by foregrounding more individual, idiosyncratic contexts. We will consider how Indian literature variously resists, accepts, or transforms different aspects of Western culture; how Native writers challenge and revise the standard parameters of Native cultural and bi-cultural identity; how people read/write across or within cultures; and how we can locate those readings in the history of Euroamerican/Native American relations, among many other issues. The course will require active participation in class discussion, in-class writings and three papers. Possible texts are listed below, although I will also provide handouts of additional short stories and poetry.

ENGL 369: Literature and Culture: Medieval Sex

(3 credits) T/Th 9:30 am – 10:45 am with Michelle Sauer

Sex and gender are intimately connected to each other throughout history, and the medieval era (approximately 500 to 1500 CE) played a critical role in the construction of modern Western sexual and gendered identities. It can be argued as well that many of our ideas about modern love originated in the narratives of medieval romance literature, where there is also a rich tradition of the creative subversion of traditional gender and sex roles. Located at the boundary between the biological and the cultural, human sexuality has been feared for its radical potential to disrupt various structures of human order- and meaning-making, and has been assumed to be a central key to understanding human nature and identity. Through readings of various medieval texts (literary and otherwise), as well as critical readings in body, gender, and sexuality studies, we will explore the critical role of sexuality in shaping the Western human subject and its radical powers for disrupting and transforming bodies and selves over time. This is a reading-intensive course.

ENGL 415: Seminar in Literature: Queer Theory and Literature (Fluid Sexualities)

(3 credits) T/Th 11:00 am – 12:15 pm with Yvette Koepke-Nelson

Shakespeare's most famous love sonnets were written to a man: Was he (or his speaker) gay? Bisexual, since he was married and had children? What does the title of his play "As You Like It" mean, when young men fall in love with boy actors portraying girls disguised as boys? How "fluid" is sexuality, and what's "queer"? Aphra Behn's poems about loving two "equally"? Or John Donne, who wanted God to "ravish" him? Or the infamous cross-dressing Moll Cutpurse, or the libertine Rochester, or the "matchless Orinda" whose fame rested on her passionate poems to soul-mate "Lucasia"? This class will use queer theory and literature to interrogate the categories used to define sex and sexuality---while enjoying some of the best (and sexiest) love poetry ever written. Queer theory and gender studies has become a leading area of contemporary intellectual work, with far-ranging implications for questions of identity, language, and culture. Like Shakespeare, figures like (Judith) Butler or (Michel) Foucault need no first names, and their influence extends beyond a particular academic field.

IS 346: American Indian Women

(3 credits) M/W/F 1:00 pm – 1:50 pm with Patricia King

An examination of the historical and contemporary traditions, roles, contributions, and issues concerning Indian women.

NURS 322: Communication, Diversity, Families

(3 credits) M 8:00 am – 10:50 am with Barbara Roll or Online with Brenda Espeseth

This course introduces students to elements of the nurse patient relationship, the assessment of diverse families, use of therapeutic communication, and application of transcultural concepts. Lecture.

POLS 351: Women and Politics

(3 credits) M/W 3:00 pm – 4:15 pm with Kate Scheurer

Role of women in politics, including selection of women for political offices, the political attitudes and behavior of women; and the development of public policy initiatives as they affect or are likely to affect women.

PSYC 365: Psychology of Women

(3 credits) M/W 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm with Cheryl Terrance

Examination of topics relevant to women that are often ignored in traditional psychology courses, such as gender bias in research, gender identity and roles, sexuality and violence.

RELG 216: Women and Religion

(3 credits) M/W/F 2:00 pm – 2:50 pm with Gayle Baldwin

An examination of the role of women's experiences in religious thought, symbols and traditions, beginning with the centrality of goddess and mythic female figures, to the shift from matriarchy to patriarchy in the major cultures of the world and the consequential suppression of women's experiences by patriarchal society, up to the current trend towards reformation and reconstruction of traditional religions by contemporary women theologians and religious thinkers.

RELS 466: Sex, Gender, and Religion

(3 credits) W 3:00 pm – 6:30 pm with Gayle Baldwin

This course presents issues generated by the interrelationship of sex, sexual orientation and gender with religon. Included in our investigation are examination of the various interpretations of sacred texts which produce discourses of sexual control, establish moral authority and seek to define sexual identity. Other discourses are those created from other religious experiences and therefore resist those of the dominant society.

RELS 491: Seminar on Religion: Women in Hinduism

(3 credits) T/Th 3:30 pm – 4:45 with David Lawrence

This class will overview traditional Hindu cultural norms and ideals regarding women, as well as Hindu women's social situations and actions throughout history. Then we will study in more depth two of the most widely discussed subjects in gender studies of Hinduism—Goddesses and women saints. Throughout the class, we will reflect on the significance of the subjects studied for contemporary Hindu as well as non-Hindu women and men.

SOC 115: Social Problems

(3 credits) M/W/F 10:00 am – 10:50 am with Ashley Leschyshyn

A sociological analysis of major social problems in America.

SOC 250: Diversity in American Society

(3 credits) M/W/F 12:00 pm – 12:50 pm with Peeter Tammeveski

An introductory survey of the racial, ethnic and cultural mosaic of American Society. Basic theories of intergroup relations, prejudice and discrimination are covered.

SOC 340: Sociology of Gender and Sex Roles

(3 credits) M/W/F 11:00 am – 11:50 am with Krista Minnotte

The implications of gender for social behavior in cross-cultural and historical perspective as well as in contemporary Western society.

T&L 319: Inclusive Strategies

(3 credits) W 4:00 pm – 6:50 pm with Todd Lauzon or T/Th 12:30 pm – 1:45 pm with Joe Leggio or Online with Patricia Mahar

An introductory course dealing with the etiology of conditions and the characteristics affecting individuals with emotional disturbance, learning disabilities, and cognitive/developmental disabilities within the general education classroom. Instructional approaches and service delivery models within the general education classroom will also be explored.

WGS 200: Gender Studies

(3 credits) Th 5:00 pm – 7:30 pm with Christopher Stoner

An introduction to the social construction of gender, a concept that underlies research in women studies and the new masculinity studies-indeed, of much work in the humanities and social sciences, generally. Topics may include the role of gender in the formation of human symbol systems and institutions worldwide, as well its capacity to shape individual bodies, identities, and kinship relations.

WGS 225: Introduction to the Study of Women

(3credits) T/Th 9:30 am – 10:45 am with Nikki Berg Burin or T 5:00 pm – 7:30 pm with Tom Harlow

An introduction to the study of women as subjects of scholarly inquiry, with emphasis on assessments of women's contributions to Western culture. The course will provide an interdisciplinary focus on the central issues and questions posed by the new scholarship on women, and introduce students to the perspectives and methodologies of a variety of disciplines.

WGS 480: Feminist Philosophy

(3 credits) T/Th 2:00 pm – 3:15 pm with Kathleen Dixon

Feminist theory examines the foundations of American feminism from enlightenment liberal to postmodern and standpoint theories. The course first develops then critiques these fundamental approaches. Opportunities are provided to integrate mainstream and marginal experiences of feminist theory and its practice.