Rev. 9/6/03

Women’s Studies Fall 2003

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/wstudies/

WSTD-002-001 GENDER AND SOCIETY

MW 11-12 Barron (dbarron@sas)

201 Rec W 12-1

202 Rec F 11-12

General Requirement I: Society

This course examines the impact of sex and gender roles on contemporary American society. Differentiation by sex is the central organizing principle of nearly every human society. How can we understand the relationship between biological sex and socially constructed gender? How do maleness and femaleness affect the balance of power and resources in our society? How much has changed since the beginning of the Women's Movement of the 1960s? The course will examine key issues of gender difference and inequality including family life, paid work, economic status, violence, body image, sexuality, and reproduction. The course will examine men's roles and women's roles, treating gender as an interactive and dynamic concept.

WSTD-004-401 THE FAMILY

MW 3-4:30  Noakes noakes@sas.upenn.edu

Cross Listed: SOCI-004

General Requirement I: Society

Fulfills College Quantitative Data Analysis

Historical and cultural development of the family, analysis of sexual codes; discussion of role differences between men and women; factors involved in mate selection and marital adjustment, analysis of family disorganization with both individual and societal implications.

WSTD-008-401 HUMAN REPRODUCTION AND

SEX DIFFERENCES

MWF 2-3 Waldron (iwaldron@sas)

Rec 402 M 3-4

Rec 403 W 1-2

Cross Listed: BIOL-008

General Requirement V: Living World

This course will discuss human reproduction, including anatomy, physiology, hormonal control, genetics, development, infertility, contraception, sexual behavior, sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, and relevant basic molecular and cellular biology. In addition, this course will discuss sex differences and similarities in health and mortality, including relevant basic biology of the cardiovascular system and cancer.

WSTD-009-301 LAW AND SOCIAL POLICY ON SEXUALITY & REPRODUCTION

T 1:30-4:30 Tracy (lawproject@aol.com) Wharton (ljwharton@aol.com)

This course will examine how statutory law, court decisions and other forms of social policy, encourage or discourage various forms of sexuality, reproduction and parenting. Such issues as contraception, abortion, gay and lesbian rights, reproductive technology, family violence, and welfare and family policies will be covered.

WSTD-060-401 INTRO TO LATINA/O LITERATURE:

TR 3-4:30 BEGINNINGS TO 1898

Padilla (amparo@dept.english)

Cross Listed: ENGL-070/LTAM-060        

Distribution III: Arts and Letters

This course is an introduction to Latina/o literature, from the period of Spanish colonization to 1898 and the Spanish-American War. The readings are organized, with a few exceptions, in roughly chronological order. As we move through our survey of the literature, we will attend to the distinct historical and cultural conditions in which the texts were produced.  Some of the historical narratives that will inform our discussions include Spanish colonization prior to the U.S. occupation of the borderlands, the 1846-48 Mexican War and its consequences, and U.S. economic and political interest in the Caribbean territories leading up to the Spanish-American War.  Throughout the course, we will interrogate the possibilities, limitations, and the viability of studying these diverse literatures under the rubric of "latinidad."  Writers will include Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, José Martí, and Américo Paredes.

WSTD-090-401 WOMEN, SEX, AND POWER: LITERATURE AND THE RISE OF FEMINISM

TR 10:30-12 Thompson (aselda@dept.english.upenn.edu)

Cross-Listed: ENGL-090

Distribution III: Arts and Letters

Is it possible for a woman to be feminine and powerful? Ambitious and domestic? A mother and a feminist? Our society's uneasiness with these questions reveals its impossible and conflicted expectations of twenty-first century women. Perhaps a heightened understanding of our current dilemma of overwhelmed gender identity will come from a glance backward at the long history of feminism. This course will focus on the history of social, political, and cultural constructions of gender, as represented in literature. We will follow women's quest for and attainment of power in an attempt to pinpoint the ways in which the women's movement extends to, is driven by, and is regularly hindered by literature. By means of eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century literature, theory, and criticism, we will trace the origins and rise of the women's movement, looking particularly at issues of sexuality, desire, maternity, and ambition.

WSTD-093-401 INTRO TO ANGLOPHONE CARIBBEAN LITERATURE: "BABYLON MUST BURN!"

TR 12-1:30 Clarke (clarkej2@dept.engl)

Cross Listed: ENGL/AFST/AFAM-093

Distribution III: Arts and Letters

This slogan was often heard in the Caribbean in the 60's and  70's. It expressed the rage of the Caribbean under-class through the mystical language of Rastafarianism. This resistant cry was not new to the region, however. Resistance has a long history in the Caribbean. The Caribbean, after all, came into being through European Conquest. As a consequence, resistance would become central to the formation of political, cultural and aesthetic identities. This course explores the origin, history and legacy of resistance in the Anglophone Caribbean (or the West Indies as some prefer to refer to it). We will begin by talking about the complex history and culture of the region. Then we will move into a chronological survey of the literature. If Caribbean cultural production must engage with a politics of resistance, is it interminably defined by the (ex)colonizer? What happens to "authentic" Caribbean Cultural production? Does such a thing exist? What happens when the conqueror has (ostensibly) departed? What is the relationship between nationalism and expressive culture? Along the way we might take a look at other expressive forms like roots reggae music, dub poetry, Ska and perhaps some calypso.

WSTD-122-301 SOCIOLOGY OF GENDER

TR 10:30-12 Roth (silkerot@ssc)

Cross-Listed: SOCI-122

General Requirement I: Society

The assignment of gender roles and the creation of gender identities have profound consequences for women and men at every level of society: from their intimate relations: to how they manage and participate in the institutions of society; to their place in society's stratification systems. In this course we will examine four aspects of gender relations: historical and cross-cultural examples of gender roles; gender relations in contemporary American institutions; theories of sex differences, and the many specific topics to be covered are: women and the economy, women and the professions, working class women, minority women, violence against women, changing male identities, the nature of male power, and women's liberation movements.

WSTD-129-601 WOMEN AND GENDER IN THE MIDDLE EAST

R 5:30-8:10 Gursan-Salzmann (salzmann@sas )

Middle Eastern women have long been a subject of great fascination to outsiders whose popular image is generally reduced to two extreme dimensions: one, veiled and oppressed, entrenched in domestic chores, and leading a life of seclusion from public sphere. The other, emancipated, professional, and actively engaged in public life, not too dissimilar in life style to western women. The social realities are, however, far from both stereotypes. The Middle Eastern women live in a complex world balanced by work, Islamic law and patriarchal family structure. This course is an introduction to an anthropological perspective on what exactly is a Middle Eastern woman, tradition versus modernity, and the “language” of dress—its connection to honor and modesty. Is the veil a source of protection and virtue? Does women’s labor affect gender roles and relations? These issues and others will be contextualized and compared cross-culturally, using ethnographic and historical sources from Egypt, Turkey and Iran with references to other Middle Eastern and Asian cultures.

WSTD-187-401 POSSESING WOMEN

TR 10:30-12 Chance (lchance@sas)

Cross Listed: COML/AMES-187

Distribution III: Arts and Letters

A man from Tennessee writes Memoirs of a Geisha. A Japanese novelist tells the story of the "comfort women" who served the Japanese army. A tenth century courtier poses as woman writing the first woman's diary. Poets from Byron to Robert Lowell, through Ezra Pound to Li Po, have written as though they were women, decrying their painful situations. Is something wrong with this picture, or is "woman" such a fascinating position from which to speak that writers can hardly help trying it on for size? In this course we will look at male literary impersonators of women, as well as women writers. Our questions will include who speaks in literature for prostitutes--whose bodies are in some sense the property of men--and what happens when women inhabit the bodies of other women via spirit possession. Readings will draw on the Japanese tradition, which is especially rich in such cases, and will also include Western and Chinese literature, anthropological work on possession, legal treatments of prostitution, and film. Participants will keep a reading journal and write a paper of their own choosing.

WSTD-199 INDEPENDENT STUDY

Arranged Kurz (dkurz@sas)

WSTD-225-401 PREMODERN WOMEN

TR 10:30-12  Wallace (dwallace@dept.english.upenn.edu)

Cross Listed: ENGL-225

Distribution III: Arts and Letters

In this course we'll consider the relationships of women to writing from c. 1220 (Ancrene Wisse, a text written for enclosed religious women) to 1689 (the death of Aphra Behn: we'll read her Oroonoko). We'll concern ourselves with texts written, dictated, inspired or commissioned by women, plus texts written against or forced upon women: texts, in short, that helped shape the possibilities of medieval women's lives. The course's 'center of gravity' will be texts in Middle English, including translated segments from continental women such as Marguerite Porete (burned 1310), Bridget of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena. We'll read some Trotula texts, in which women tell women how a female or male

child might be conceived (a matter of strategic positioning) and how in which women tell women how a female or male virginity, or its simulacrum, might be restored. We'll read some Christine de Pisan, an author virtually unedited and unknown twenty years ago who is now acknowledged as one of the first vernacular professional authors. Other women to be considered include Heloise, 'That was abbesse nat fer fro Parys' (Chaucer, Wife of Bath's Tale, 3.677-8), Marie de France, and Joan of Arc (by the English in 1431). We will read a good deal of Julian of Norwich (an anchoress who employed her body as a spiritual laboratory) and the whole of the Penguin Margery Kempe (mother of fourteen, businesswoman, traveller, pilgrim, prodigious weeper. We might read some Chaucerian tales that are of particular importance in constructing models of female identity (The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale; the Physician's Tale; the Second Nun's Tale). We may catch sight of Christina the Astonishing or Joan the Meatless.

This course will question traditional periodizations by shooting the medieval/ Renaissance divide and by considering arguments of advance and decline for women. Does the rise of the university, for example, bring a diminution of educational opportunities for women? Is the Middle Ages to be seen, as some feminist historians have seen it, as a 'golden age' for women? Does the coming of the 'Renaissance' reduce female options to that of marriage or marriage? How do both the observant and oppositional activities of women shift as we move from Catholic through Lollard to Protestant

cultures? We'll consider the writings of Protestant Elizabeth I and the embroideries of Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots; other authors to be considered might include Margery Baxter, Anne Askew, Isabella Whitney (fl. 1567-1573), Mary Herbert (1562-1621), Mary Wroth (1587?-1651?), Elizabeth Cary (1585?-1639), Martha Moulsworth (1577-16??), Rachel Speght (c. 1597-16??).

Examination in this advanced undergraduate seminar will be by two essays: one of 5 pages (written after about six weeks) and one researched in the latter part of the semester and handed in during final week of class (12 pages). We'll try to develop a friendly, collaborative working mode in this seminar; students will have opportunity of writing a one-page, brainstorming abstract of their final paper and of sharing their ideas with the class.

WSTD-235-401 PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMEN

T 4-7 Bell

Cross Listed: EDUC-235

A critical analysis of psychological theories about women and sex differences, a thorough examination of "psychology of women" research articles and our own research will help this class generate an understanding of the psychologies of women. Discussions of economic, cultural and social structures as they impact upon women will be undertaken through diverse readings, experiential techniques, group projects and discussions, and class initiated research on topics relevant to feminist psychology.

WSTD-238-401 IMAGES OF WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE EAST IN POST COLONIAL LITERATURE

TR 3-4:30 Nassif (mnn@sas)

Cross Listed: AMES-238/COML-236

Distribution III: Arts and Letters

This course is designed to study the images of women in the Middle East. We will study different texts that represent different geographical and ideological entities. We will start by reading the memoirs of Hoda Sharawi, whose struggles in the early 20th century established the feminist movement in Egypt. We will then explore different Arabic works-some are in translation, written by female authors from Morocco, Egypt and Lebanon. These will examine the issues of identity, gender, sexuality, and nationalism. Different perspectives will be provided by looking at other works written in English. Gates of Damascus, written by a European travel writer, will provide the point of view of an outsider, while Habibi will reflect the dilemma of a Palestinian American teenager's search for identity. A supplementary packet will provide essays that represent various examples of feminist and postcolonial critical theory that will aid the students' appreciation of the context in which the texts were created.

WSTD-253-401 MUSIC AND PERFORMANCE IN AFRICA

MW 3-4:30 Muller (muller@sas)

Cross Listed: ANTH/AFST/AFAM/FOLK/MUSC-253

This class provides an overview of the most popular musical styles, and discussion of the cultural and political contexts in which they emerged in contemporary Africa.  We will cover sub-Saharan and North Africa, with a strong focus on southern Africa.  Learning to perform a limited range of African music/dance will be part of this course.  No prior performance experience required, though completion of Music 50 is recommended.

WSTD-260-401 DISLOCATIONS OF EMPIRE: STORIES OF MIGRATION AND DISPLACEMENT

TR 1:30-3 Krishnan (skrishn2@english.upenn.edu)

Cross Listed: ENGL/AFST-260, AFAM-262

Distribution III: Arts and Letter

In this class we explore the different forms of dislocation pr as a result of European domination in Africa and Asia. The texts we study reveal the many possibilities for cultural expression opened up (and closed off) by colonial rule. We examine the relationship that such stories bear to their institutional and historical settings. To get to some of these knotty issues we will be focusing chiefly on stories that depict individuals and subject peoples who are transported to or are born in places that are alien or unfamiliar, we study the formal aspects of how such stories get told and how they depict their relations to the dominant culture. We also consider how such stories offer insights into modernity. Readings include Tayib Salih, Nadine Gordimer, Jean Rhys, V. S. Naipaul, Rudyard Kipling, Roberto Enrique Retamar, Ashis Nandy. Course requirements: periodic short writing assignments, two in-class presentations, and two 8-10 page essays.

WSTD-276-401 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND FICTION: LATIINO/A AUTOBIOGRAPHY

TR 9-10:30 Padilla (amparo@dept.english)

Cross Listed: ENGL/LTAM 276

Distribution III: Arts and Letters

In this course, we will read autobiographical expressions by Latinas/os, aiming to examine the historical, material, and social conditions that often make these texts distinct from more familiar examples of the genre.  We will keep a number of questions in mind as we read:  What kinds of strategies do these writers employ in their attempts to assert authorial privilege?  How do these texts negotiate the aim to fashion an individual identity on the one hand while evoking a collective experience on the other?  How do cross-cultural and / or transnational influences manifest themselves (e.g. the influence of the Latin American "testimonio" form)? Authors will include Cleofas Jaramillo, Piri Thomas, Ernesto Galarza, Richard Rodriguez, Cherríe Moraga, Judith Ortiz Cofer, and John Philip Santos.

WSTD-290-402 SEX, DRUGS & CRIME: GENDER RELATIONS IN THE

ROMANTIC BALLET OF THE 19^th CENTURY

W 2-5 Kant (mkant2@english.upenn.edu)

Cross Listed: ENGL-290

Distribution III: Arts & Letters

Ballet has had a bad press for a long time. It is seen as a "misogynist", "conservative" art form and an "aristocratic" relic. In this course we shall study the context and the content of romantic ballet as it emerged as a revolutionary movement in the early 19th century in France. We shall read and analyze ballet libretti of French, English, German, Italian and Russian works and contextualize their stories. We are going to answer the following questions: When and why do women become the heroines of ballet narratives? What do these heroines stand for? What is their relationship to their male counterparts? Through the theories of Heinrich Heine and Théophile Gautier we are going to understand the concept of romanticism in dance and follow its development to the end of the 19th century into the early 20th century. Together with the narrative we shall trace the history of ballet from the 15th century to the French revolution, study the social reality of the dance world, the practice in the opera houses of Europe and the development of a particular dance aesthetic that made ballet world famous.

WSTD-293-401 CONTEMPORARY CARRIBEAN WOMEN WRITERS TR 3-4:30 Clarke (clarke2@english.upenn.edu)

Cross Listed: AFAM/ENGL Distribution III: Arts and Letters

Anglophone Caribbean folk culture inherits a vestigial West Africanism in the figure of the "market woman." In some West African cultures the market was the sphere of women and provided forms of autonomy for women. In the Caribbean, this social formation appears during slavery (and after) as the "market-day" (usually on a Saturday) the day plantation owners allowed slaves to sell their produce and create and participate in circuits of economic exchange. And of course, running alongside this there was the creation and exchange of cultural capital; what Caribbean sociologists will later claim as "folk culture." Curiously enough, the first generation of writers did claim this folk culture, but gendered it male for the most part. That tradition, some have argued, has

exhausted itself; and indeed, the tradition of Anglophone Caribbean writing would have ended with this first generation, were it not for the explosion of the female voice in Anglophone Caribbean fiction. The now legendary gathering of women writers at the "Caribbean Women Writers Conference" held at Wellesley College in 1988 and organized by the noted Caribbeanist Selwyn Cudjoe was a public signal of what many had privately noted.

Why the sudden silence from the male pen? How do these women writers write themselves into the (Caribbean) social contract? How do these writers engage with the earlier tradition? How do these women claim and (re)construct the lives of Caribbean women? If "the pen," as two of the key players in the elaboration of North American feminist criticism have argued, "is a metaphorical penis" which writes across a blank (female) page, what do Caribbean women writers encounter at their (metaphorical) blank pages?

WSTD-344-401 PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONAL GROWTH

T 4:30-7:30 Bartoli (bartoli@pobox.upenn.edu)

Cross Listed: EDUC-345

Intellectual, emotional and behavioral development in the college years. Illustrative topics: developing intellectual and social competence; developing personal and career goals; managing interpersonal relationships; values and behavior. Recommended for submatriculation in the Psychological Services Master's Degree Program.

WSTD-349-401 HISTORY OF SEXUALITY IN U.S.

MW 3-4:30 Peiss (peiss@sas.upenn.edu)

Cross Listed: HIST-349

This course introduces students to a relatively new field of inquiry, the history of sexuality in the U.S. It explores the past to consider why sexuality has become so central to American identities, culture, and politics. Primary documents and other readings focus on the history of sexual ideology and regulation; popular culture and changing sexual practices; the emergence of distinct sexual identities and communities; the politics of sexuality; and the relationship between sexuality and other forms of social difference, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, and class. Topics include many with continuing relevance to contemporary public debate: among them, sexual representation and censorship, sexual violence, adolescent sexuality, the politics of reproduction, gay and lesbian sexualities, and sexually transmitted diseases.

WSTD-400-301 SENIOR THESIS

F 2-5 Kurz (dkurz@sas.upenn.edu)

This seminar is for senior undergraduate Women's Studies majors who are writing their theses. The seminar will help students decide on their theses topic and methodology. The seminar will also focus on drawing conclusions from primary and secondary sources of data.

WSTD-532-401 GENDER, LABOR FORCE AND MARKETS

MW 10-11:30 Madden (jmadden@ssc.upenn.edu)

Cross Listed: DEMG/SOCI-541

This course focuses on gender inequality in employment and earnings in the contemporary U.S.  The course examines determinants of men's and women's employment and unemployment, occupational sex segregation, the sex gap in pay, and career trajectories across the life cycle.

WSTD-599 INDEPENDENT STUDY

Arranged Kurz (dkurz@sas)

WSTD-652-401 EARLY MODERN FRENCH WOMEN WRITERS

W 2-4 DeJean (jdejean@sas.upenn.edu)

Cross Listed: FREN/COML-652

Topics of discussion will vary from semester to semester. One possible topic is: "The Female Tradition and the Development of the Modern Novel." We will discuss the most important women writers--from Scudery to Lafayette--of the golden age of French women writers. We will be particularly concerned with the ways in which they were responsible for generic innovations and in particular with the ways in which they shaped the development of the modern novel.