FALL 2013
Gateway Courses
GSFS courses designated as “gateway” are also “electives.”
- CAST 100 - Introduction to Comparative American Studies
The course will introduce students to the complexity of American social and cultural formations, with particular emphases on sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and gender, and to various methodologies of comparative analysis. Instructor: W. Kozol - CAST 240 - How to Win a Beauty Pageant: Race, Gender, Culture, and U.S. National Identity
This course examines US beauty pageants from the 1920s to the present. Our aim will be to analyze pageantry as a unique site for the interplay of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation. We will learn about cultural studies methodology, including close reading, cultural history, critical discourse analysis, and ethnography, and use those methods to understand the changing identity of the US over time. This course includes a field visit to a pageant in Ohio. Instructor: A. Ofori-Mensa - ENGL 265 - Anglophone Postcolonial Literatures
An introduction to Anglophone literatures of Africa, South Asia and their diasporas, this course addresses (and historicizes) the politics of their production and reception, focusing particularly on their engagement with the politics of (i) gender and sexuality; (ii) regional and national socio-cultural formations and their ideologies; (iii) resistance and/or conformity with western canons of taste, styles/genres. Postcolonial and feminist theories regarding ‘marginality’/ ‘location,’ ‘identity’/ ‘experience,’ and ‘alterity’/ ‘difference’ constitute important analytic lenses for examining these literatures. Diversity, Post-1900. Instructor: A. Needham
Feminist Research Methodologies
Feminist Research Methodologies also counts as an elective course.
- GSFS 305. Feminist Research Methodologies
This course traces the historical and dialectical impact of feminist epistemologies on disciplines of the social sciences and humanities. We will explore feminist approaches to research practices including oral history, case studies, archival research, visual and literary criticism, survey/content analysis, and fieldwork. Throughout the semester, each student works on an individual research proposal that incorporates interdisciplinary methods and includes a literature review. Instructor: M. Kamitsuka
Capstone Courses
GSFS courses designated as “capstone” are also “electives.”
- HIST 312 - Seminar: Gender and Sexuality in Modern South Asia
This seminar investigates constructions of gender, sexual relations as power relations, and perceptions of sexuality from ancient India to the modern period, as they were influenced by political, social, and economic developments. It will use a vast array of historical and literary primary source materials, and films and documentaries, to examine themes such as: conceptions of family, politics of intimacy, ideas of the sexed body, same-sex desire, women and law, and movements for women’s rights. Instructor: S. Waheed - HIST 398 - Seminar: Archiving Sex: Researching America's Sexual Pasts
The main goal of this course is to produce a 20-25 page research paper on some aspect of the history of American sexualities. Students will identify a paper topic, survey relevant secondary material, and conduct basic primary research. The course will emphasize research methods, effective writing strategies for long papers, peer critique and support, and oral presentations skills. Instructor: P. Mitchell
Elective Courses
- AAST 101 - Introduction to the Black Experience
An interdisciplinary exploration of key aspects of Black history, culture, and life in Africa and the Americas. The course attempts to provide students with a fundamental intellectual understanding of the universal Black experience as it has been described and interpreted by humanists and social scientists. Included in the course will be such topics as: the Africana Studies movement, the African heritage of Afro-Americans, Pan-African relations, racism and sexism, the family, the role of religion in Black life, class structure and class relations, the political economy of African American life, and Black political power. Instructor: C. Jackson-Smith - ANTH 101 - Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
An introduction to cultural anthropology through an examination of basic concepts, methods, and theories that anthropologists employ in order to understand the unity and diversity of human thought and action cross-culturally. Language and culture, kinship and the family, politics and conflict, religion and belief, and the impact of social change and globalization on traditional institutions are some of the topics to be considered in a range of ethnographic contexts. Instructor: ONLY THE SESSION TAUGHT BY C. BIRUK - CAST 201 - Latinas/os in Comparative Perspective
This course analyzes the varied experiences of Latinas/os in the United States. Using ethnography, literature, film, and history, this course will explore questions of immigration/transnationalism; culture and political economy; racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual identities among Latinas/os; the struggle for place in American cities; as well as the intersections of gender, work and family. Instructor: Staff - CAST 260 - Asian American History
This course is an introduction to the history of peoples of Asian ancestry in the United States and the construction of an Asian American collectivity. Major themes will include the place of Asian Americans in the American imagination, migrations, labor, communities, and responses to social and legal discrimination. The categories of race, ethnicity, gender, class and sexuality will figure prominently as we explore similarities and differences among Asian American experiences. Instructor: Staff - DANC 214 - Moving into Community
What does it mean to engage one’s citizenship as a dancer? This course will introduce students to a variety of movement projects within the Oberlin community. We will look at both historical precedents and contemporary examples of choreographers such as David Dorfman, Liz Lerman, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women in order to explore the issues of social power and cultural work involved in community-based teaching and performance. Instructor: A. Albright, H. Handman - Lopez - ENGL 267 - Ethnic American Literature
This course will cover a survey of contemporary American literature addressing questions of race and ethnicity. What aesthetic strategies have writers used to think about and intervene in different cultural, political, and historical contexts? Within what conditions do these narratives emerge, and what do they (seek to) accomplish? Possible authors include Toni Morrison, Salvador Plascencia, Junot Diaz, Justin Torres, Jessica Hagedorn, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ralph Ellison, William Gay, and Colson Whitehead. American, Diversity, Post-1900. Instructor: H. Suarez - ENGL 358 - Women Writing Modernism: Modernism "When Women are Alone"
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf imagined a novelist exploring the ‘unrecorded gestures’ and unexpected ‘sequences’ that emerge ‘when women are alone.’ This course will consider how ‘Modernism’ looks and sounds differently ‘when women are alone’ in its construction. We will read fiction by Woolf, Wharton, Stein, Rhys, Bowen, Barnes, West, Cather, Hurston, and Mansfield as well as poems by H.D. and Gwendolyn Brooks. Diversity, Post-1900. Instructor: J. Emery-Peck - GERM 350 - Gender and German Cinema
This course examines the gender politics of German cinema from the early days of silent film to the present. Focusing on a variety of theoretical issues raised by pioneering and current works on feminist theory and psychoanalytical film criticism, we will explore the cultural and ideological dimensions involved in the production and reception of films by, for, and about women. Topics include the representation of women, cinematic desire, scopophilic identification, voyeurism, subjectivity, autobiography, and the imaginary. Instructor: Staff - HIST 270 – Latina/o History
What historical forces have brought together diverse groups including Chicanos from Los Angeles, Cubans from Miami, and Dominicans and Puerto Ricans from New York City? From the 16th century to the present, we map the varied terrains of Latina/o history. Major themes include: conquest and resistance, immigration, work, and the creation of racial and sexual differences within and between Latino/a communities. We survey Latina/o writers from Cabeza de Vaca to Jose Marti to Gloria Anzaldua. Instructor: P. Mitchell - JWST/HIST 237 - Gender & Sexuality in Jewish Society, Antiquity to Modernity
Topics in Jewish women’s history and the construction of gender in Jewish society from Graeco-Roman antiquity to the present. Studies `normative’ constructions of women’s roles, idealized constructions of Jewish maleness and femaleness, and realities of gendered behavior. Using rabbinic and communal materials, women’s letters, memoirs and rituals, explores family and power relations between women and men; women’s economic functions and power; gender and religion; transformation of roles in modernity; gendered responses to persecution: Jewish feminism. Instructor: S. Magnus - HIST 444 - Colloquium: Gender, Marriage, and Kinship in China
A colloquium exploring the construction of gender, varieties of marriage, and conceptions of family in China from imperial times to the present. Special attention will be paid to the state’s attempts to shape ideals and enforce norms in these areas, along with the response of various groups in the society to those efforts. Instructor: D. Kelley - POLT 132 - Explaining Social Power: Classical and Contemporary Theories
Politics is about power. However, there is no consensus as to what power is, or about how power operates in society. Drawing on economic, sociological, psychological and feminist approaches, as well as on works of classical and contemporary political theory, the class will discuss the questions: ‘what are the bases of social power’ and ‘how does power operate in society.’ Readings will be drawn from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, Weber, Freud, Foucault and recent feminist work. Instructor: S. Kruks - RELG 250 - Introduction to Judaism
A theoretical introduction to Judaism as a religious system. Special attention will be paid to the historical development of the religion through interpretation of traditional texts and ritual practices. Instructor: Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg only - RELG 262 - Religious Identity in Multicultural Perspective
How do factors such as sexuality, gender, race and nationality affect religious identity? This course investigates answers to that question by contemporary scholars from multiple religious traditions (Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Native American), especially in light of sexism, racism, heterosexism and colonialism. Students will gain familiarity with how current critical theories (standpoint, poststructuralist, feminist, queer, postcolonial) are employed to help articulate religious identity in an increasingly complex, globalized world. Instructor: T. Swan Tuite only - RELG 307 - Interpreting the Bible from the Margins
A seminar in biblical hermeneutics, this course discusses biblical texts, methods and theories of interpretation, and revisionist readings from the perspective of feminist, womanist, mujerista, postcolonial, and queer scholars including: Judith Plaskow, Kwok Pui-Lan, Renita Weems, Ivone Gebara, Theodore Jennings, and Catherine Keller. Instructor: T. Swan Tuite - SOCI 338 - Prostitution and Social Control: Governing Loose Women
Prostitution is a site of easy truths and inevitable conflict because of cultural ambiguities about sexuality, gender, ethnicity and citizenship. We probe these intersecting meanings by reviewing the wide range of empirical meanings attributed to prostitution and the ways modern forces have transformed them, especially the state. Taking cues from Michel Foucault, we analyze why recent legal solutions cannot fulfill expectations and discuss how the social control of prostitution might actually cause it. Prerequisite & Notes: Restrictions: Closed to first year students. Fulfills requirements for Law & Society, GSFS, and Sociology majors. Instructor: G. Mattson
SPRING 2014
Gateway Courses
GSFS courses designated as “gateway” are also “electives.”
- CAST 100 - Intro. to Comparative American Studies
The course will introduce students to the complexity of American social and cultural formations, with particular emphases on sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and gender, and to various methodologies of comparative analysis. Instructor: P. Mitchell - CAST 211 - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Identities
This course examines the production of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer identities in the United States as they intersect with important social markers such as race, class, gender, and nation. Situating specific case studies in historical, social, and comparative context, we explore issues such as the intersection of racial and sexual sciences, processes of community formation, the politics of embodiment, social justice movements and queer cultural productions. Instructor: Staff - SOCI 203 – Desire to be Modern: Sociology of Sexuality
Sociologists study the social origins of sexuality: how shared beliefs shape what we desire, what is taboo or what shames us. Historical and cross-cultural research illuminates the way modern sexuality transformed systems of dating, marriage, homosexuality, government, economics and racial classification. Following Freud, Foucault, feminist and queer theorists, learn why sociologists are skeptical of essentialist explanations that rely on biology and favor theories that recognize sexuality as a diverse, ever-changing function of cultural institutions. Instructor: G. Mattson
Capstone Courses
GSFS courses designated as “capstone” are also “electives.”
- AAST 321 - Seminar: Black Feminist Thought: A Historical Perspective
This seminar course will explore and analyze the evolution of intellectual discourse among African-American women from slavery to the present. Particular attention will be given to the interplay of ideas about race and gender and the social and economic position of black women at various time periods. Sources will include autobiographies, novels, historical documents, sociological studies and modern feminist social critiques. Instructor: P. Brooks - HIST 456 - The Politics of Gender in Medieval and Early Modern Europe
This colloquium has a two aims: to examine how medieval and early modern Europeans constructed and performed conceptual binaries such as male/female and mind/body, and also to consider the ways in which gender studies have transformed the doing of history. To this end we will analyze historians, work on the topics of sexuality, spirituality, the family, political authority, economic production and scientific enquiry for the period ranging from 1000 to 1700. Instructor: E. Wurtzel - RELG 367 - Theologies of Abortion
This seminar explores a spectrum of theological approaches on abortion from Roe v. Wade to today. Topics to be studied include: the role of extremist religious groups in abortion clinic violence; how Protestant and Catholic pro-life theologies clash over issues of sex and gendered sexuality; debates about the question of when life begins and ‘fetal personhood’; how race shapes pro-choice and pro-life positions in relation to the bodies of religious women of color. Instructor: M. Kamitsuka
Elective Courses
- AAST 101 - Intro to the Black Experience
An interdisciplinary exploration of key aspects of Black history, culture, and life in Africa and the Americas. The course attempts to provide students with a fundamental intellectual understanding of the universal Black experience as it has been described and interpreted by humanists and social scientists. Included in the course will be such topics as: the Africana Studies movement, the African heritage of Afro-Americans, Pan-African relations, racism and sexism, the family, the role of religion in Black life, class structure and class relations, the political economy of African American life, and Black political power. Instructor: C. Jackson-Smith - ANTH 101 - Intro to Cultural Anthropology
An introduction to cultural anthropology through an examination of basic concepts, methods, and theories that anthropologists employ in order to understand the unity and diversity of human thought and action cross-culturally. Language and culture, kinship and the family, politics and conflict, religion and belief, and the impact of social change and globalization on traditional institutions are some of the topics to be considered in a range of ethnographic contexts. INSTRUCTOR: C. BIRUK ONLY - ENGL 242 - Asian American Literature at the Crossroads
A critical mass of Asian American literature has arrived; that presence, while valuable, also comes with many responsibilities. How does Asian American literature represent its increasingly global constituencies? What narrative forms and literary devices do writers and artists use to give figure to culture? This course explores the aesthetics, theories, and politics of Asian American literature and culture. It will focus especially on questions of diaspora, gender and sexuality, and cultural critique. American, Diversity, Post-1900. Instructor: H. Suarez - ENGL 290 - Shakespearean Comedy
A study of many of Shakespeare’s comedies, from the cross-dressed and festive to the darkly ironic. Themes include love, sex, gender, friendship, marriage, family, magic, transformation, transgression, ingenuity, cruelty, forgiveness, coming of age, and a good dose of wit. Probable plays: Comedy of Errors, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale. British, Pre-1700. Instructor: W. Hyman - ENGL 360 - Globalization and Diaspora
This course will develop critical frameworks for reading and writing about globalization and diaspora in literature. How do writers, artists, and filmmakers conceptualize global capitalism, and how do these aesthetic projects coincide or diverge from economic and scientific narratives? What does it mean to migrate within the global economy? What relation do diasporic texts have with their homeland? Possible authors include JM Coetzee, Jessica Hagedorn, Karen Tei Yamashita, Richard Flanagan, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Shani Mootoo. American, Diversity, Post-1900. Instructor: H. Suarez - ENGL 388 - Selected Authors: Salman Rushdie
Focusing on Salman Rushdie’s oeuvre, this course examines the history, politics, society and cultures of South Asia – his oeuvre’s primary investment – as they are distilled through his perspective as a diasporic writer. The course contextualizes Rushdie’s work through theoretical/cultural concepts – hybridity, cosmopolitanism, national allegory – deriving from postcolonial studies with which his work is associated; and it examines gender ideologies that underwrite Rushdie’s representation of dominant or oppositional worldviews in the cultures he writes about. British, Diversity, Post-1900. Instructor: A. Needham - HIST 334 - African Women in Comparative Perspective
In this course we will widen our appreciation of African Women’s experiences, including history, legal and socio-economic status, religious and political roles, productive and reproductive roles, and the impact of colonialism and post-independence development and representation issues. The course will move across time and space to examine the aforementioned in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Africa. We will begin with the question: What common beliefs/images about African women did/do Euro-Americans share? Instructor: H. Ballah - POLT 271 - Gender, Sexuality and the Law
This course will consider some of the historical, theoretical, and doctrinal issues surrounding sexuality and gender in American law. A previous course on constitutional law is helpful but not required. Topics include sexual privacy, military exclusions and the construction of manhood, gender and sexuality in the workplace and in education, sexual consent, and various topics in family law. Class participation is essential and is a component of each student’s grade. Instructor: H. Hirsch - SOCI 314 - Unequal Educations
This course focuses on education as a social institution and the inequalities structured within it. Using theory and empirical evidence, education in the United States will be examined from pre-school through post-secondary levels. The intersections of education and other institutions, (e.g. political, economic and familial) are analyzed and include discussions of race/ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality. Further, the role of education in social reproduction and social control will be examined. Instructor: D. John
