Women's Studies

This analysis of marriage and the family as an institution in historical and cross-cultural perspectives places emphasis on the changing roles in marriage, processes of partner selection, and marriage adjustment.

Health care is as much a part of culture as religion. A particular culture not only shapes and defines illness, disability and health but also determines what illnesses are available, who get them. and how they are treated. This course will deal with in-depth analyses and comparison of several traditional non-western health care philosophies and approaches including eastern ( Chinese), middle eastern, Latino, and native American. Students will explore cultural factors related to therapeutic motivation, including health related beliefs and values, the quality of the health professional-patient communication process, and issues related to client control of treatment and dependency on the health professional and health care system.

This course examines sex, gender, and sexuality from sociological perspectives and feminist theoretical frameworks. It explores how categories of gender and sexuality are socially constructed and shaped by social institutions. Particular attention is given to feminist theories and social movements.

This course is an introduction to the study of sex, gender, and sexuality. We will use both a psychological and sociological lens to examine differences between sex, gender, and sexuality. We will explore how gender and sexuality exist today, how they have changed over time and place, and their centrality in how we experience the world around us. We will focus on the social processes, structures, and institutions that influence, and are influenced by, gender across cultures. That is, we will examine how gender and beliefs about gender affect: parenting and home life; educational experiences and achievements; friendships and romantic relationships; experiences in the workplace, military, and sports; media; and political and economic systems. To this end, we will critically examine the interconnections between gender, sexuality, power and inequality.

This course examines the participation and leadership of women in a wide variety of social movements in the United States and in the colonial societies that preceded it, from the earliest European colonial encounters to the present.   An important focus of the course is the creation by women of the “official” women’s and feminist movements.  However, the course also focuses on the roles of women in other movements-those of the poor, of the working class, of African Americans and other ethnic groups peoples, and of the middle and upper classes.  Women in movements promoting both progressive and conservative causes are studied.  This course may be taken with an optional cultural lab (HST 212L) for one additional credit.  This lab extends the focus of this course beyond the history of women and U.S. social movements strictly understood, into the realm of popular cultural understandings of that history.  In this lab, students will study the ways that this history has been represented and “taught” in the popular media and in public discourse, and the ways that these representations themselves have impacted broader historical processes.  Particular attention will be paid to depictions of this history in movies, television, print media,  museums, musical productions, and various other types of performance.  This lab will also attend to the ways that these depictions have shaped popular understandings.  (Cross-listed with HST 212)

An introduction to contemporary Cuban- American, Mexican-American (Chicano), and Puerto Rican Literatures, this course also explores the history and culture of these communities. Students will be introduced to some theoretical issues necessary to understand the main currents in Chicano/Latino Studies.

This course will provide a broad overview of female offending, covering offender characteristics, crimes, and histories leading to criminal behavior. Theories of victimization and female offending, and feminist criminology will be introduced. The physical, psychological, legal, and social implications of women's criminal justice system involvement and incarceration will be explored. This class will consist of lectures, in-class discussion/activities, and guest speakers and videos, when appropriate.   

A sociological perspective of issues pertinent to women, health and the body will be addressed. This course is designed to familiarize students with how social institutions, industries, and social group membership influence women's experiences with health and the body. Topics include, but are not limited to, reproductive health, women as consumers and providers of health care, women and aging, breast cancer, eating disorders, and body image.

This course will examine avant garde art of the 1960s and 1970s  in the context of the social history of the time, including the civil rights movement, feminism, the anti-war movement, counterculture and anti-authoritarianism, the sexual revolution, and other transformative paradigms. Period styles such as Beat, Pop Art, Fluxus, and Minimalism will be covered, as well as performance, installation, conceptual, video, land art, activism, photography, vernacular architecture, and postmodernism. Readings will be interdisciplinary: poetry, history, protest, commentary, and art criticism, among others.

The rapidly expanding literature of gender studies in art has emerged from feminist, LGBTQ, sexuality and masculinity studies. This course introduces the student to scholarly and critical methods used by authors in these fields as they examine gendered roles and human sexuality in art from the 16th-21st centuries. Students who receive credit in ARH 230 cannot take WST 230 for credit.

This course will give students an opportunity to learn history directly from voices of the past while studying the theory, methodology and techniques of oral history. Fieldwork will be central to the course: students will conduct and evaluate an oral history interview with a person of their choice. 

This course will use the fairy tale as a vehicle for studying the meaning and potential of metaphor. Readings will include traditional fairy tales as well as Modern English and European fiction. This is not a course in children's literature.

In this course, students read writing from several cultures to understand how women's cultural differences affect the reading of literature, and how cultural differences affect women's authoring of (authority over) texts.

This one and half credit course will allow students to explore feminist lives and legacies, with a particular focus on readings for March as Women's History Month. Students will study the lives of feminists not typically found in their high school textbooks and engage in critical discussion of the assigned readings with classmates. Class discussions will include feminist inquiry and feminist theory and will explore how knowledge is constructed and history preserved. This course may be repeated with permission of the instructor. Readings covered will be different each semester.

This interdisciplinary honors course takes as its focus the history and portrayal of nursing and nurses in literature, with a particular emphasis on the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries. From the religious orders of women who preceded Florence Nightingale in serving the ill and infirm to the empowerment of women in nursing currently, the course explores the field of nursing from its origins to current time. The challenges and opportunities that nursing presented for diverse women will be analyzed by considering the ways in which gender, race, and class shaped and continue to shape their work experiences. Students will analyze the role of nursing in a variety of text selections, including historical literature, biographies and first-person accounts of leaders within the nursing profession, selected essays and fiction, as well as film excerpts. The course emphasizes the important contributions that women have made in the development of the field of nursing, including creating an awareness of the profession through literary production.

This course is designed to familiarize and enhance students' critical and analytical reading and writing skills through selected works by Hispanic women writers from the Colonial through Contemporary periods.  Using different genres (novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and essays), we will endeavor to understand how women's literary expression has been shaped by history, society, cultural identity, traditions, and politics in Spain and Latin America. The course is taught in English.

This course studies women in developing societies experiencing social, political and economic change from a multidisciplinary perspective. It highlights the role and effects of cultural imperatives, historical transformations,and geographical conditions on the experiences of women. The contribution of women to the growth and development of their cultures, as well as to their own changing roles and status, is stressed. 

This course examines the nature, extent, and consequences of criminal victimization. Specific attention is paid to victims of domestic violence, victims of rape and sexual assault, child victims of abuse and neglect, and elderly victims.

The relationship of women to the law is explored from many vantage points, including: how law has been used to limit/expand women's place in society; the differential enforcement of law by sex; and women's role in the legal system. (Also: POL-319, SOC-319, CRJ-319) 
 

This course examines the theoretical and empirical literature to the psychology of women. Topics include: The social construction of gender differences; growing up female, communication styles, women and movies, women and intimate relationships.
 

This is a cross cultural, global, historical course studying women and children as participants and victims of war. Using comparative case studies, the course examines women in leadership and supportive roles, and children as soldiers and military aids. It will investigate how historical conditions, class, religion and ethnicity interact to determine roles and status of women and children as actors and victims. It will include a focus on women as battle queens and children as heroic defenders of their societies.

This course uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine the complexities of power, conflict, and violence in families. A main goal of the course is to improve students' analytic ability in consuming scholarly and popular knowledge about power and violence within the context of family relationships, including intimate partner and parent-child relationships. To achieve this goal, students critically evaluate how violence and abuse in families has been conceptualized over time and how researchers, service providers, policy makers, the criminal justice system, and the general public have responded to this social problem.

This course addresses the issue of conflict from two positions: (1) through an examination of the causes, processes, costs, and benefits of social conflict; and (2) by offering methods for conflict resolution. From a management perspective, the role of conflict in organizations will be approached by studying management structures and organizational hierarchies for the ways they produce various types of conflict. Using sociological theory and research, this course will address the relationship of social issues--e.g., difference and inequality, power and corruption-- to organizational and institutional conflict. Understanding that conflict can signal either a disruption in the operation of an organization or an opportunity for change and growth, this course will provide students with a broad-based perspective for making conflict an asset organizationally and interpersonally. The latter part of the semester will be devoted to methods for conflict resolution, including 25 hours of coursework needed for conflict mediation certification through a variety of certification options. Students will have the foundation to pursue an apprenticeship with a conflict mediation or dispute resolution center.

This course provides student with a foundation for making sense of the production and distribution of class, power, and privilege in the United States. The course will focus on the institutional and ideological organization of economic hierarchies and social mobility. Students will be introduced to: classical and contemporary theories of class, power, and mobility; current sociological research in these areas; and the implications of a global economy

This course examines the processes by which social movements emerge, develop, and decline. Particular focus will be on social change theory; the history of selected movements; political strategies for change; individual versus collective approaches; and the relationship of institutions and ideologies to the success and failure of social change. (Equivalent to POL 335, HST 335, and WST 335).

What skills do 21st century women leaders need? What is leadership and how do leaders lead? What are the challenges unique to women leaders across race, class, ethnicity, ability and age? Effective leaders must understand the unique issues that exist when dealing with a highly diverse global community. This course provides an opportunity to examine leadership, and to explore the relations of leaders and followers across a variety of settings. The essential skills of effective leaders are explored, such as elaborating a vision, facilitating communication, working with diverse groups and teams, overseeing finances, and facilitating change. Students will be encouraged to examine systematically their own leadership potential as they reflect on historical and contemporary examples of effective business and political leaders as well as leaders of causes and social movements. Emphasis will also be placed on providing an opportunity to apply theories in practical applications.

This course focuses on representations and self-representations of gender and sexuality in literature with an emphasis on literatures that represent gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, queer identity and sexuality. It will also explore key trends in feminist and queer literary and cultural theory that offer new approaches to the diverse literatures of the course.

Women's studies will from time to time offer special courses dealing with topics not already covered in our existing curriculum. Watch for announcements and descriptions of these courses.

This course explores the history of women in Africa from earliest times through today, in a wide variety of economic, political, cultural, geographic, and religious contexts. It stresses the changing role and status of women and their contributions to the growth and development of African society.

This course will explore innovation and change in the social and organizational world. Open to all undergraduates who have completed 45 credit hours of coursework, this course is transdisciplinary - from business, to the social and physical sciences, to education, to women's studies, to the arts and humanities, to the health professions - and holds broad appeal to students who are interested in the process, implementation, and effect of innovation, change, and entrepreneurship.

Independent or group projects are carried out by senior students in the Women's Studies Minor, under the supervision of the WST program coordinator and/or another WST faculty member.

This course offers in-depth study of issues in social responsibility either beyond the range of core courses or of subjects suggested by evolving professional practice and not otherwise addressed in the curriculum.