Feminism In 20th Century U.S. Literature and Culture

(Cross-listed as ENG 89) How the postwar U.S. women’s movement for equality, born of the mid-twentieth century antiwar and civil rights movements, made civic, legal and ethical challenges that are expressed in literature and film, in mass and high cultures, and in women’s experiences across race, class, ethnic, and sexual lines. Explores the effect of second wave feminism on discourses of gender and women’s sexuality using novels, poetry, essays and films with a view to understanding that forms of knowing are gendered; not universal but culturally constructed, contextual, mutable. Questions how feminism is postmodern; speculates how postmodernism is in part a feminist production; how the postmodern fits with recognitions about gender and liberations of sex and sexualities in the postwar U.S. women’s movement. Authors include: Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Alix Kates Shulman, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Chuang Hua, Valerie Solanas. No prerequisites. WGSS 0099 Internship. Gain experience, make connections, explore career opportunities working alongside individuals, agencies or organizations (private, non-profit, or government), political advocacy groups, or women's social movements that impact the lives of women. WGSS 109 The Power of Feminist Art. (Cross-listed as MDIA 109) How contemporary women’s and queer movements affect the ‘post-feminist’ world. Major themes of feminist art and their intersection with ethics, politics, and strategies of art making. How art history, critique, and philosophical aesthetics inform the creation, interpretation, and appreciation of feminist art. Issues of race, gender and sexuality, class, ableism, religion, privilege, and oppression. Studio assignments, presentations and discussions to examine connections among feminist philosophy, art activism, and feminist art. Mobilize feminist cultural production to create change via street intervention, billboards, printed matter, public projection, cyberfeminism, and poster-making. Non-SMFA students and MAT Art Education students will receive a letter grade. WGSS 113 Renaissance Drama. (Cross-listed as ENG 113) A course focusing on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Topics include forms of power and authority, constructions of gender and sexuality, and attitudes toward language and toward the theatre itself. Plays by Marlowe, Kyd, Jonson, Webster, Cavendish, Middleton and his collaborators, and Ford. Recommended: ENG 20,21,22, or 23. WGSS 123 Frankenstein's Sisters: Austen and Shelley (Cross-listed as ENG 123) Intensive focus on the writing of Jane Austen and Mary Shelley in the context of ideas about authorship, identity, and gender in early nineteenth-century Britain. Considers questions of narrative structure, style, and history; includes critical readings and some discussion of film adaptations. WGSS 124 Queer Anthropology. (Cross-listed as ANTH 124) Meanings surrounding queer sexual practices and subjectivities, derived from anthropological research from throughout the world and classic works on queer theory. Counts toward the Cultural and Social Justice Anthropology minors. Prerequisite: one course in Sociocultural Anthropology or Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, or instructor permission. WGSS 0140 Feminist Theologies. (Cross-listed with REL 104) Survey of feminism's impact on the religious commitments of women and on traditional religious institutions, beliefs, and practices. Feminist scholarship in the study of scriptural texts and other historical sources, the rise of women's rituals and alternative spiritualities, religious feminism in relation to other struggles for human dignity and liberation and how the inclusion of women's perspectives is influencing the craft of theology itself.