Women's Studies Certificate Program
Courses, Fall 2003
WSCP 71700
Proseminar: Multicultural/Transnational Feminisms
GC W 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3 credits
Profs. Patricia T. Clough/Peter Hitchcock [45747]
By strategically reading
a set of political, economic and cultural texts, the course will provide a
symptomatic exegesis of feminisms in a transnational frame. The aim of the
exegesis is to address several questions, first among them is: if sisterhood is
global, what are the political, economic and cultural components of this
worldly embrace? In taking up this question, other questions follow: What
constitutes a critical understanding of a globalizing political economy and
what role do international/national institutions play? How are national
differences to be thought against a transnational politics on one hand and
world wide media technologies on the other? What do critical post-colonial
theory, queer theory, and critical race theory offer an understanding of race,
class, gender, ethnicity, religion and sexuality in relationship to feminisms
in a transnational frame. Among the authors to be read are: Aihwa Ong,
Rey Chow, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Obioma Nnaemeka, Nawal el Saadawi,
Micnael Hardt, Assia Djebar, Mahasweta Devi, Donna Haraway, Gloria Anzaldua,
Pheng Cheah, Georgio Agamben, Jao Biehl and Achille Mbembe, Julia Elyachar,
Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini. We also hope to include some pertinent
examples of film/popular culture.
WSCP 80801
Major Feminist Texts
GC T 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Profs. Gerrie Casey/Gloria Waldman [45748]
[Cross listed with MALS 72100]
This course will explore
classic texts from the feminist canon, including historical, cross-cultural and
literary expressions that elucidate core themes which continue to resonate in
the 21st century, such as the relationship of women to work, politics, health,
sexuality, racism and creativity. Guest lectures from the humanities and social
sciences will complement assigned readings. Among the writers whose works we
will examine are: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet
Jacobs, Emma Goldman, Luisa Capetillo, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir,
Lolita Lebron, Betty Friedan, Lidia Falcon, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Maxine
Hong Kingston, Susan Faludi and Julia Alvarez.
WSCP 81000
Multiculturalism: Critical Perspectives on Culture, Class and Conflict
GC R 2:00-4:00 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Leith Mullings [45750]
[Cross listed with Anth. 81200]
This course focuses
on contemporary challenges of multiculturalism and cultural pluralism. We begin
by exploring the ways in which relations of globalization have transformed
constructions of nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and other
forms of difference. We then trace popular and academic notions of culture
underlying public policy concerning race, ethnicity, class and immigration in
the United States and other areas of the world. As we critically examine
theories of multiculturalism and how these are played out in 'neo-liberal,'
'corporate' and 'radical' directions, we consider a range of sites
characterized by competing concepts of culture and relations of power. Seminar
participants are encouraged to explore specific problems of contemporary
multi-ethnic societies.
WSCP 81000
Inventing Italy: Narratives of Nationhood, Identity, Otherness
GC M 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Eugenia Paulicelli [45751]
[Cross listed with Comp. Lit.88400]
How do concepts of nation,
nationality and identity take shape in people's minds, imagination and political
ideologies? Can we locate these notions in the birth of the modern Italian
state? Are such concepts still relevant in a global age? Are local identities
under threat? How do questions of identity relate to the insurgence of
neofascism? Posing these and other questions this course will concentrate on
Italy, a relatively young nation compared to other European countries such as
Britain or France. We will focus on the pre-Risorgimento period, the
unification process and its aftermath, fascist and colonial Italy. Along with a
series of critical texts, we will analyze in depth a variety of other sources
including the literary, the aesthetic and the visual and film. Authors to be
studied will include Leopardi, Verga, Boito and the "scapigliatura",
D'Annunzio, Pirandello, Bassani, Sciascia, Consolo); as well as films by
Blasetti, Rossellini, Visconti, Vancini, Bertolucci and Scola. At the end of
the course we will see how foreign travellers such as Goethe and Stendhal
envisioned Italy, its identity, culture, stereotype and national character.
Students opting to read the books in Italian will fulfill the foreign language
requirement in Comparative Literature. Students are invited to select and
tailor their bibliography according to their research interests that may
involve a comparison between Italy and another country, European or non. The
course might also be of interest to students in history, cultural studies,
women's studies and film. For more information contact Professor Paulicelli at
the following email address: eplqc@forbin.qc.edu
WSCP 81000
Feminist Criminology
JJ T 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Jane Mooney [45752]
[Cross listed with CRJ 80200]
This course examines the major
feminist perspectives in criminology and the basis of their critique of
mainstream criminology. This will include the differentiation of the various
feminist theoretical approaches (including liberal, radical and neo-Marxist) to
crime. We will explore exemplars of feminist research in criminology and how
these have contributed to the study of women offenders, victimization and women
working within the Criminal Justice System. We will consider explanations for
the relatively low offending rate yet high victimization rate of women and
patterns of victimization by gender. Specific topics covered include: violence
against women, domestic violence, pornography, women offenders, prostitution,
battered women who kill, femicide and child abuse. The implications for the
development of policy will be considered throughout.
WSCP 81000
Experiments in Contemporary Poetry
GC T 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Koestenbaum [45753]
[Cross listed with Eng 87200]
The consoling
chimera of "experiment" has permitted American poetry to flourish for
a century and to keep calling itself "contemporary." Without
legislating what qualifies as experimental, we will read the works of recent
poets who have attempted innovative subject or technique. Always we will be alert
to questions of sound, muteness, brevity, length, disclosure, stammering,
dailiness, difficulty, and accident. We will begin with a few predecessors,
possibly including Kenneth Koch, Lorine Niedecker, or Carl Rakosi, and then
will read recent work by some of the following: Robert Creeley, Alice Notley,
David Antin, Elaine Equi, Michael Palmer, Lee Ann Brown, Reginald Shepherd,
Barbara Guest, Marjorie Welish, Fanny Howe, Amy Gerstler, Rae Armantrout, Lorna
Goodison, and Christian Bök. (The syllabus is not yet fixed: I would be pleased
to receive suggestions from prospective students.) Requirements: oral
presentation, and an essay (20-25 pages, due at the end of the semester). At
least once in the term I will try to arrange for the poet we are discussing to
visit the seminar.
WSCP 81000
Wordsworth and Walcott:
Traveling Texts
GC W 11:45-1:45 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Meena Alexander [45754]
[Cross listed with Eng. 84200]
We will examine
questions of language and locality, history, race and memory focusing on two
great autobiographical poems William Wordsworth's Prelude (1805) and
Derek Walcott's Another Life (1973). We will also read Walcott's epic
poem Omeros (1990). Using postcolonial theory we will examine the poem
as a site for making sense of troubled history, fraught geography, a way to
refashion language as it touches on public space. The ways in which Walcott
draws on Wordsworth, as well as other canonical writers in the English
tradition, is part of the complex rewriting that he subjects the past to. The
question of poetic language becomes important here and its bond with an often
bitter colonial history. While the past a poet makes is critical to the
internal structures of feeling crystallized in the poem, how might such a past
allow for the emergence of the self? The question takes on rich resonance as we
move from Wordsworth to Walcott, paying particular attention to questions of
self and other, national borders, trauma and desire. Questions of body and
voice, gender and sexuality and the crossing of borders, will be critical to
our explorations. After Wordsworth we will examine the writings of Dorothy
Wordsworth, sister to the poet. After Walcott's Carribean epics, we will read
the poetry of his North American contemporary, Adrienne Rich. Theoretical
readings will draw on Adorno, Appadurai, Bhabha, Benjamin, Caruth, Clifford,
Deleuze and Guattari, Glissant, Mehta, Spivak, Soja and others.
Course Requirements: this course will be a seminar and as such will
include weekly discussions. There will be a mid term paper and a final research
paper, the latter due at the end of the semester. Texts will be on order at
Labyrinth Books, 112 street between Broadway and Amsterdam, Tel: 212-865-1588.
The texts will include William Wordsworth, Poems; William
Wordsworth, The
Prelude; Dorothy Wordsworth, Alfoxden and Grasmere
Journals; Derek Walcott, Collected Poems; Derek Walcott, Omeros;
Derek Walcott, What the Twilight Says.
Adrienne Rich, The Fact of a Doorframe;
Adrienne Rich, What is found there: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics.
WSCP 81000
Virginia Woolf for the 21st Century
GC W 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Jane Marcus [45755]
[Cross listed with Eng. 86000]
How do we read
Virginia Woolf in the 21st century? Taking in the whole body of her writing and
her cultural work, as well as the cultural work her image has done, and her
writing, for others' agendas, the seminar will try to explore this question and
its answers for us at the moment. Woolf was especially aware of the reader in
her writing. Have we learned to be the kind of readers she wanted? We will
begin with Three Guineas. This will begin our study with the writer's
role as a public intellectual, especially as a pacifist. [Please try to find a
copy with the photographs, which will be essential to our discussion.] Then we
will discuss photographs of Virginia Woolf and her circle, paintings and dust
jackets by Vanessa Bell, their aunt, Julia Margaret Cameron, reading a new book
on this topic by Maggie Humm (Rutgers UP). The discussion of Woolf as an icon
and maker of icons will alternate through the semester with discussion of the
novels, diaries, essays and letters. One of our questions throughout will be
what kind of theory is useful to discussions of Woolf's writing now? Is
feminism (hers and ours) still pertinent? How do we respond to her attitude
toward race, for example? Students will be expected to attend all classes,
preparing to make presentations and write short papers for each class. A
research paper will be due at the end of term.
WSCP 81000
19th Century American Women Writers
GC M 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. David Reynolds [45756]
[Cross listed with Eng. 88000]
Nineteenth-century
America produced arguably the greatest woman poet, Emily Dickinson, as well as important
literature by other writers reflecting all aspects of women's experience. This
was a vital century of change for women, who saw new vistas of literary
expression, employment, political involvement, and reform activity open before
them, even as they wrestled with the conventional gender roles of the past.
This course covers the various genres of women's writing produced by both
canonical and non-canonical authors. Among the themes addressed are women's
rights (Margaret Fuller, Lillie Devereux Blake), the cult of domesticity (Susan
Warner), industrialism (Rebecca Harding Davis), slavery and the
African-American experience (Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet
Wilson), religious and racial themes (Lydia Maria Child, Catharine Sedgwick),
and regionalism (Sarah Wilkins Freeman, Kate Chopin). The life and poetry of
Emily Dickinson are held up against this vital cultural background. Gender
theory and feminist criticism are brought into play, both in class discussion
and in oral reports. A 15-page term paper is required.
WSCP 81000
The African-American Legal Novel
GC W 2:00-4:00 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Chris Suggs [45757]
[Cross listed with Eng. 75600]
While most African American
novel-length fiction implicates the law to one degree or another in its
argument, there are some fictions written by African Americans in which the
substantial work of the text is to interrogate the law. This course will look
at a cross-section of those texts, concentrating on the novel form in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, the diversity of African American
literary production in prose is of such considerable variety that we will also
examine short stories, essays, autobiography and slave narrative, and the use
of the fable form. A preliminary text list for the course includes Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl; Blake or, the Huts of America; Contending
Forces; The Marrow of Tradition; Fire in the Flint; Native
Son; The Lonely Crusade; Beloved; The Alchemy of
Race and Rights; And We Are Not Saved; Free Enterprise
and selected short readings provided or on reserve. The final alignment of the
list may omit one or two of the titles above and/or may include others not
named. A final paper dealing with the intersection of law and African American
literature will be the primary source of your final grade but each student will
be responsible for one class presentation.
WSCP 81000
African-American Drama
GC W 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. James De Jongh [45758]
[Cross listed with Eng. 79010]
This seminar is
designed to encompass the history and development of African American drama in
the United States from its origins to the present moment. The course is divided
into three moments. Part I will explore the roots of African American Drama,
1751-1890 with an examination of early stage images of blacks, the 19th
Century stage stereotypes of Minstrelsy and Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the
relatively unknown initial achievements of The African Grove Theatre,
the stellar career of Ira Aldridge, and the first black playwrights. Part II
the period from 1910-1950 will focus on the black theatre of the Harlem
Renaissance, the Little Theatre Movement, and the Harlem Unit of the Federal
Theatre Project. Part III, 1950-Present, which occupies the major portion of
the semester, will be devoted to the study of major plays and playwrights from
the watershed production of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun
(1959) to the recent Pulitzer Prize production of Suzan-Lori Parks Top Dog,
Underdog (2001).
Play
attendance requirement: Each member of the seminar will be expected to attend and
report on a current play by an African American playwright in the course of the
semester.
WSCP 81000
The Historical Literature of the Middle East
GC W 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Samira Haj [45761]
[Cross listed with Hist. 87900]
This course introduces the
students to some of the key historical questions relating to the formation of
the Middle East in the 20th century. More specifically, the course
is designed to interrogate the analytical/theoretical frameworks utilized in
the analysis of economy and polity of some of these societies and to explore
the question of modernity through a range of relevant topics and issues
including the nature of social conflicts, national revolutions, post-colonial
states, gender, Islamism and Islamists among others.
Requirements
Students are required to
prepare a 2-page abstract critical commentary on the assigned readings each
week. Additionally, students are to write two 5 to 7 page historiographical
essays on independent work or an area not covered in class.
WSCP 81000
History of Women and the Family: U.S., 1820 to the Present
GC M 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Barbara Welter [45759]
[Cross listed with Hist. 75500]
This course
considers the impact of gender on all areas of life in the United States in the
19th and 20th century. It relies heavily on primary sources. Particular
attention is paid to the changes in family structure and role definition, to
reforms and counter-reforms, religion, popular culture, education, and
childhood.
WSCP 81000
Africa and the Age of the Atlantic Slave Trade
GC W 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Martin Atangana [45760]
[Cross listed with Hist 78000]
An examination of
the challenges confronting Africa during the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade
(15th-19th century). Topics will include Africa from early times to the
fifteenth century, state building, the coming of the Europeans, The Atlantic
Slave Trade and its effects, Africans abroad, the abolition of the slave trade
and its consequences.
WSCP 81000
Modern Political Thought
GC W 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Rosalind Petchesky [45762]
[Cross listed with P SC 70200]
This course is
designed primarily for Political Science graduate students preparing a major or
minor in Political Theory but is also open to students in Women's Studies,
Philosophy, History, and other allied fields in the social sciences. Its
purpose is not only to familiarize you with a number of canonical texts but
also to introduce you to a critical perspective for viewing "modern"
political and philosophical debates and the historical and social contexts in
which those debates emerged. We will begin by interrogating what we even mean
when we call an idea "modern" and what we understand by
"political theory." We will then go on to examine a range of
well-known political thinkers, all of whom can be classified as modern--not
mainly because of the time period in which they wrote but because of the kinds
of ideas they had and the ethos surrounding those ideas. They include Hobbes,
Locke and the Levellers in the17th century; Rousseau, Wollstonecraft
and Montesquieu in the18th century; Hegel, Ram Mohan Roy, Marx and
Engels, Mill, Douglass, American and Egyptian feminists and Nietzsche in the 19th
century. Throughout this inquiry, we shall address concepts that political
theory has traditionally staked out as its peculiar territory, such as power,
liberty, property, equality, citizenship,
and the nation. At the same time, we shall refocus those concepts
through a multicultural and feminist lens, one that interrogates the
orientalist and patriarchal underpinnings of mainstream modern political theory
and of the modernist project itself. In so doing, we shall complicate the
debates about power, liberty, equality, and the nation with a different cast of
characters that have always been lurking in the background--slavery, colonialism,
class, race/ethnicity and gender.
WSCP 81000
US Public Policy Making
GC M 6:30-8:30 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Joyce Gelb [45763]
[Cross listed with P SC 73901]
This course will
relate theories of the policy making process to actual case studies in decision
making in the US. Among the topics to be analyzed will be policies selected
from the following: policy toward breast cancer and health, anti tobacco, the
environment, family policy (child care and parental leave), and crime and
criminal justice, as well as possible consideration of the decision to invade
Iraq or NAFTA . Sources to be utilized will drawn from: Stone, Policy
Paradox; Hayes, The Limits Of Policy Change; Kingdon, Agendas
Alternatives and Public Policies and Baumgartner and Jones, Agendas
and Instability in American Politics. as well as relevant case studies.
Course work will include a midterm, short paper and take home final.
WSCP 81000
Federalism and State Politics
GC T 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Marilyn Gittell [45764]
[Cross listed with P SC 82401]
The course will
discuss the constitutional, historical, and institutional evolution of American
federalism and the formation of an intergovernmental structure that defines American
politics in the 21st century. The role of centralization and
decentralization of governance structures and the role of civil society in
those communities will be an important part of the discussion. There will also
be an analysis of state politics, policies and institutions, and the ways in
which they are shaped by changes in federalism. Emphasis will be placed on
different recent practices of devolution, as well as on the effect of current
factors and events (e.g.; the economic slowdown and the Republican ascendancy
following the 2002 midterm elections) on state politics. Readings and research
papers will compare historical differences in the political culture of states,
local governments, and regions, including issues of race and gender and their impact
on regime politics and the policy process. There will be an extensive list of
readings and a research paper required.
WSCP 81000
Social Injustice
GC T 11:45a.m.-1:45 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Michelle Fine [45765]
[Cross listed with Psych 80103]
Students will be
expected to read broadly and deeply the psychological, anthropological and
sociological literatures on experiences and perceptions of social injustice.
Students engage in writing two major pieces for the course: an intellectual
autobiography around an idea that compels them through the readings, and a
short fictional story written from a situated perspective in the midst of
conditions of injustice (perspective of privilege, intersectionality, etc.).
Readings bridge across critical theory, feminist theory, queer theory and
critical race theory. Conversation with the instructor preferred prior to
enrollment.
WSCP 81000
Home, Homelessness and Homeland
GC W 2:00-4:00 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Leanne Rivlin [45766]
[Cross listed with Psych 80103]
The focus of this
seminar is on people's connections to places, particularly to their homes,
their homelands and the implications of their loss. We will begin with an
analysis of theories of home, its meanings and functions, its changes over time
and its roles in people's lives. We then will consider the implications of the
loss of home and explanations for the increases in contemporary homelessness.
Finally, we will address homelands, raising questions regarding contestations
over territories, and the significance of homelands in light of increasing
global concerns. Through readings on history, theory and research, exploration
of the interests of class members, as well as the work of outside guests who
have studied theses issues, we will try to clarify the implications of place
meanings and place attachments.
WSCP 81000
Stress/Coping/Trauma/Resilience
GC M 2:00-4:00 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Tracey Revenson [45767]
[Cross listed with Psych 80103]
In 1962, a seminal,
observational study of adjustment to chronic disease appeared in the Archives
of General Psychiatry (Visotsky, Hamburg, Goss, & Lebovits, 1962). Its
authors posed questions regarding adjustment to polio that continue to
stimulate research today: "How is it possible to deal with such powerful,
pervasive, and enduring stresses as are involved in severe polio? What are the
types of coping behavior that contribute to favorable outcomes?" (p. 28).
Four decades later, theoretical and empirical consideration of these questions
have produced multifaceted conceptualizations of adjustment, theoretical
frameworks for understanding determinants of adjustment, and empirical evidence
regarding factors that contribute to untoward or favorable outcomes. The
seminar focuses on the intersections among the constructs of stress, coping,
trauma, and resilience (or positive adaptational outcomes)-- in particular,
those theories that provide clues on those factors that enhance adaptation. We
will explore how stress affects psychological functioning and physical health,
and the interpersonal and environmental resources that individuals and
communities draw upon to cope with stress/trauma. Historically, in psychology,
we have focused almost on negative health and mental health consequences of
stress and trauma. But what factors allow individuals, communities, and
societies to flourish in the face of stress/trauma? To answer these questions,
we will read the literature while focusing on several areas -- the terrorist
events of 9-11, the experience of cancer, and loss and bereavement. Although
this is not a clinical course, our study will include some research on
psychosocial interventions designed to minimize the impact of trauma.
WSCP 81000
Social Inequality: Race, Class and Gender
GC R 2:00-4:00 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Philip Kasinitz [45768]
[Cross listed with Soc. 75800]
This course will
provide a comparative overview of structured social inequality in modern
societies. The main concern will be the unequal distribution of life chances in
modern societies and how that fact changes over time. The issues taken up will
include: classical and contemporary views of social class, the changing nature
of class relations, the origins of the modern notion of “race,” how race and
ethnicity come into play in contemporary systems of social stratification,
gender as a mode of social stratification and the extent to which traditional
sociological tools for understanding stratification can or can not be applied
to inequality based on gender. Requirements will include three short papers in
response of readings and one independent research project.
WSCP 81000
Social Construction of Identity
GC T 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Cynthia Epstein [45769]
[Cross listed with Soc. 86800]
There are various
theories about the ways in which individuals' identities are formed.
Psychodynamic, psychological, sociological and evolutionary perspectives are
among the theories that attempt to explain the phenomenon. This course focuses
on the social determinants of identity formation . It explores
identity as a dynamic process and a political process. While not dismissing
other models, the focus of the course will frame self, culture and society as
interactive. Using research work across disciplines and literary sources we
will consider how the "public" world of social institutions such as
the family, religion, work organizations, the political sphere and the media
connects with individuals' notion of "who they are" and what they may
become. Variations by gender, class, race, nationality and ethnicity, will be
considered; as well as mechanisms of social control from the most subtle to the
most obvious and coersive. In the course we will acknowledge the multiplicity
of selves women and men may have in post-industrial society. We will study the
personal and master narratives they tell and hear. We will consider how
powerful "others" determine the minds, hearts and psyches of
individuals; and also look at individuals' resistance and agency in determining
and preserving their identities. Included in the course will be sections on
theories of the self, the sociology of emotion, the sociology of culture, case
studies of organizations' specific practices devoted to molding the identities
of individuals, the impact of social movements and organizational change on
personality, and the influences on the crafting of selves from literature and
popular culture.
WSCP 81000
Social Welfare Policy and Planning I
Hunter College T 2:00-4:00 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. Mimi Abramovitz [45770]
[Cross listed with SSW 71000]
Permission of the instructor required.
Social welfare
policy represents solutions to social problems. This advanced introduction to
social welfare policy in the United States reviews the history of the US welfare
state; contemporary social welfare policies; social, economic and political
forces contributing to the expansion and contraction of the welfare state, and
alternative welfare state models. With a view toward developing framework for
analyzing social welfare policy and the skills for critical analysis, the
course examines social welfare policy through the filters of history, welfare
state theories, political ideologies and social change. Special attention is
paid to dynamics of race, gender and class and to Feminist theories of the
welfare state. In a final paper, students conduct policy analysis using the
frameworks developed in class.
SEE ALSO
Psych 80101
Research Seminar: The Study of Lives
GC T 4:15-6:15 p.m., 0,1 credit
Prof. Suzanne Ouellette
Psych 80103
Proseminar in Psychology and Law
GC W 4:15-6:15 p.m., 3 credits
Prof. David Bearison