G101: Gender, Culture & Society (3 credits) (A&H)

Gender, Culture & Society provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of gender - the social creation and cultural representation of femininity and masculinity - by examining relevant beliefs, practices, debates and political struggles. Lectures, readings and class discussions consider how people of different races, ethnicities, classes and nationalities in various historical periods have assumed gendered identities. Topics may include: romantic love and marriage; sexuality; parenthood, reproduction, birth control and new reproductive technologies; interpersonal violence; the scientific study of sexual differences; fitness, health, body image, and popular culture; the sexual division of labor and economic development; and feminist movements.

Course #	Section	Instructor	Times/Days	Bldg/Rm
G101	7428	Johnson, C	MWF 9:05-9:55	SB 131
G101	7429	Basiliere	MWF 2:30-3:20	BH 322
G101	13514	Basiliere	MWF 12:20-1:10	SY 001
G101	13518	Shand	MWF 9:05-9:55	SY 103
G101	13519	Shand	MWF 10:10-11:00	SY 103
G101	13516	Leimbach	MWF 2:30-3:20	SY 001
G101	13517	Leimbach	MWF 1:35-2:15	SY 001
G101	13513	Crump	MWF 10:10-11:00	BH 305
G101	13515	Crump	MWF 12:20-1:10	BH 247
G101	15289	Clarkson	MWF 1:25-2:15	SY 003
G101	15290	Clarkson	MWF 3:35-4:25	BH 232

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G102: Sexual Politics (3 credits) (S&H)

Sexual Politics examines the ways in which sex and gender become political - in the U.S. and in other societies. The course examines a range of issues and questions which demonstrate how the analysis of gender broadens our understanding of what counts as 'political', for instance: Why are men expected to be soldiers but, typically, women are not? What happens when governments presume women will physically take care of, and men will materially provide for children? Why and how is it that politics and public life become gendered and sexualized? How does the gendered character of public life affect legislation, public policies, research directions, and everyday existence? Such questions permit alternative visions of political theory and strategies.

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   G104: Topics in the Study of Gender (3 credits)
Topic: Thin Bodies, Fat Bodies: The Gendered Politics of Weight

It’s been said that hating fat people is the last acceptable prejudice. While this statement is debatable it is a fact that there is a Western, if not increasingly global, obsession with weight. This course will explore how feminism has theorized such issues as embodiment, thinness, eating disorders and obesity; how the new Fat Studies literature/movement is attempting to redefine how we talk about obesity, the ways in which media frames how we think about our bodies and the bodies of others, and how weight affects persons of various genders, races, ethnicities, classes and ages differently. More specifically, as a class we will attempt to answer such questions as: Why is weight a feminist concern? Why is such an ostensibly “individual” or “private” concern public fodder? Why was there a rhetorical switch from “fat” to “obesity” and what does it mean to refer to obesity as an epidemic? Why are fat suits humorous? Why is there a recent fascination with weight loss narratives and competitions and what does this say about current conceptions of subjectivity? Can men really get away with being fat? Why don’t we hear more about men with eating disorders? Ultimately, this course is interested in thinking about the relationship between media, medical discourses, weight, and the construction of subjectivity.

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G104: Topics in the Study of Gender (3 credits)
Topic: Latinas in the U.S.

This course focuses on the experiences of Latinas in the United States.  Although many believe that Latinas, women of Latin American heritage in the United States, arrived only recently, in fact thousands of Latinas can trace their ancestry in territories that became part of the United States back to the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, well before the great waves of European and Asian immigrants.  We will examine how Latinas’ experiences and cultural expressions are shaped by intersections of race, gender, and class.  The course would begin with a theoretical framework of the Latina experience.  Thereafter, we will focus on how the institutions of health, education, and work perpetuate inequalities.  Discussions will include the following topics: Exclusion of women of color in feminist theory; Chicana Feminist Discourse; Latinas in Education; Latinas and Health; and Latinas and Work.

 

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G104: Topics in the Study of Gender (3 credits)
Topic: Titanic to Twilight: A Decade of Girl-Powered Media Production, Consumption, and Text

One of the most notable media phenomena of the past year has been the presence of Twilight – at the box office, in bookstores (and clothing stores), on the internet, in countless magazines and newspapers, and on television. At the forefront of discourse surrounding the book series and film adaptation were claims of astonishment that a media product targeted at, and consumed primarily by, teen girls and young women could be so successful. Yet, people in the know – researchers, media critics, and audiences who remembered that Titanic was raised to blockbuster status by young women and girls – repeatedly contended that the only people surprised by the success of Twilight were male media producers and critics who continue to ignore or discount girl culture.

 

This course is designed to take an in-depth examination of Twilight as a starting point from which to explore contemporary media targeted at girls and to examine the culture of girl-produced media through the lens of Girl Studies, an area of interdisciplinary research that has grown steadily over the last decade. We will read articles and books that critically examine girls as producers and consumers, as well as analyze media texts that are targeted at girls. Immersion in Girl Studies also calls for reading articles in popular magazines and newspapers in order to understand the public discourse that critiques, discusses, and often dismisses girls. As you will see in the outline of topics below, we will address girl culture as a multi-media phenomenon, covering music, film, books, internet, and print media.

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G104: Topics in the Study of Gender (3 credits)
Topic: Gendering Erotics: Pleasure and Desire

In this class, we will rethink the role of gender in our lives. We will spend the majority of our time looking at some of the ways in which gender enriches our lives, and shapes both pleasure and desire. What are the politics of pleasure? Of desire? Where do gender, pleasure, and desire intersect? We will ponder these questions collectively (and individually) over the course of the semester. The tentative readings list includes: bell hook’s Communion, Laura Kipnis’ Against Love, Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Sexual Politics.

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 G205: Themes in the Study of Gender (3 credits)
Topic: Sex, Love and Politics in the Sixties

Course Description: To Be Announced

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G205: Themes in the Study of Gender (3 credits)
Topic: Making Waves: Third Wave Feminism and “Post-Feminism” at the turn of the 21st Century

In Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and The Future (2000), Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards describe the workings of late twentieth and early twenty-first century feminism by writing, “We're not doing feminism the same way that the seventies feminists did it; being liberated doesn't mean copying what came before but finding one's own way—a way that is genuine to one's own generation."

Investigating this claim and others like it, this course will evaluate the state of feminism in the U.S. today.  After doing some brief historical work to develop a common understanding of how First Wave feminism and Second Wave feminism changed the social and political landscape for U.S. women and men, we will investigate whether a Third Wave of feminism does, in fact, exist.  Turning to personal testimonials and internet blogs, we will ask how Third Wave feminists understand and define themselves.  And, turning to popular culture and academic analysis, we will ask how Third Wave feminists are represented by others.  Finally, we will assess the arguments of various “Post Feminist” authors who argue that, having met its political aims, Feminism should now be over.

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G225: Gender, Sexuality & Popular Culture (3 credits) (A&H, CS)

Gender, Sexuality & Popular Culture surveys the making and meaning of masculinity, femininity and sexuality in popular culture. Emphasizing ways in which the form and technology of popular culture have changed during the twentieth century, the course explores gender/sexuality in such contexts as: fiction, theater, cinema, music, television, journalism and other mass media. Issues interrogated may include: gender and the power of the image; sex and spectatorship; melodrama, film noir and "the women's film"; rock music women and MTV; race, age and representation; masculinity and femininity; and violence and pornography.

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G290: History of Feminist Thought & Practice (3 credits) (A&H)

Introduction to historical and contemporary feminists. Critical focus is placed on criteria by which attributes of identifiable feminist discourses and their contexts may be evaluated. Disputes among feminist theorists with regard to the pertinence of differences ordained by sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, and other political and philosophical adherence emerge as central themes for appraisal.

           

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G300: Gender Studies: Core Concepts and Key Debates (3 credits) (Intensive Writing Class)

Examination of the field of Gender Studies.  Students will explore a series of themes through which gender is discussed, analyzed, and defined. Conceptual frameworks of gender, theories of sexuality, and the cultural and historical construction of the body are emphasized.  Examination of gender as a contested, category ranging across categories of race, ethnicity, class and nationality.

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G302: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Gender and Motherhood

This course explores the meanings of motherhood as they have been articulated in feminist theory of the second wave onwards.  Long accused of being anti-motherhood, this class will challenge that notion, highlighting a variety of feminist theories on mothering and motherhood.  Topics include but are not limited to: motherhood and essentialism,  surrogacy and reproductive technology, the politics of childbirth, gay and lesbian parenting, psychoanalytic theories of attachment, transnational adoption, and the representation of motherhood in popular culture. 

 

Students will be expected to take a written midterm, produce a final paper of approximately 12 to 15 pages, and to lead class discussion in small groups (group oral presentation). 

 

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G302: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Politics of Gender and Sexuality

Course Description: To Be Announced

 

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G302: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Western Feminism since 1750

Course Description: To Be Announced

 

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G302: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: American Sexual Histories

What can controversies over sexuality reveal about the history of American culture?  How did those contesting sexual behavior, desires, and/or their consequences, narrate their own or others’ sexual histories? This course surveys historical changes in American cultural conflicts about sexuality, especially as shaped by gender, race, ethnic, class, religious, and regional dynamics, through examining some well known historical examples – their genealogies and legacies – providing an introduction to the history of gender and sexuality in the United States. 

 

Many historical instances of sexuality-related conflicts emerged across the past three centuries.  The course may draw some instances from amongst: the 1692 Salem witch panic, eighteenth and nineteenth century “seduction,” illegitimacy, and infanticide, the 1874-75 adultery prosecution of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher for adultery, “spinster” Lizzie Borden’s 1893 trial for the axe-murder of her father and step-mother; Progressive era regulation of prostitution and venereal diseases, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger’s 1915 indictment for obscenity, 1920s and 1930s disputes over rape, lynching, and miscegenation, the 1948 &1953 Kinsey Reports, Christine Jorgenson and transsexualism, the Boston Strangler and other serial killers, the 1960s “Sexual Revolution, the Pill, and censorship challenges the rise of Gay Liberation, the 1973 Roe versus Wade abortion decision, and other 1990s struggles.

 

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G310: Representation & the Body (3 credits) (A&H)

Representation & the Body asks questions such as: "Why have the incidences of anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders - especially among women and girls - increased so dramatically in recent decades?" and "How do competitive sports affect men's images of their bodies?" This course examines a range of bodily practices and cultural codes that mark the body and considers why sex-differentiated body rituals have become so salient in recent times. The course concentrates on the creation and institutionalization of sexual difference through representations of the body and also examines attempts to challenge these representations. Topics addressed include: chronic dieting; sports and fitness; racially and culturally specific body alterations; cross-dressing and transexualism; the commodification of reproduction; and "alternative" sexualities. Scholarly arguments representing the body as a site of social control and political struggle receive critical examination.

           

 

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G330: Looking Like a Feminist: Visual Culture and Critical Theory (3 credits) (A&H)

Advanced study of feminist film theory which examines gender in popular film from a variety of perspectives.  Examines how cinema works as a “technology of gender,” how film constructs subject positions and identities, and what these constructions can tell us about how gender structures our culture.

           

 

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 G335: Explaining Sex/Gender Differences (3 credits) (S&H)

Compares biological, psychological, and social theories regarding the development and maintenance of gender differentiated behavior, gender and sexual identities, and the meaning of sexed bodies.  The course scrutinizes the social and cultural forces that magnify, minimize, or subvert the expression of gender differences.

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G350: Queer Theory (3 credits) (A&H)

Examines queer theory, particularly in relation to other intellectual/political movements (post-structuralism, critical race studies, feminism, gay and lesbian studies) which it both borrowed from and challenged.  Focus on the ways in which queer theory articulates a radical transformation of the sex/gender system in opposition to normalizing and essentializing impulses.

 

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 G402: Seminar in Gender Studies (3 credits) (S&H)
Topic: Transnational Body Modification

 

 

 

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G402: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits) (S&H)
Topic: Visibility and Invisibility: Race, Class, and Gender in Visual Culture

This interdisciplinary course will explore how visual culture shapes perceptions and debates concerning social identity categories. Our primary focus will be on the contemporary West, although we will also be exploring visual cultures in non-Western societies. Visual culture is a broad term that includes practices recognized as “high art,” media representations, and scientific images, as well as individual creative expressions such as webpages and personal photographs. The course will ask the following questions: how does visual culture correlate with discourse in framing perceptions of race, class, and gender? How can we understand visual culture as both a vehicle of, and a response to, historical oppression? How do individuals and groups participate creatively in visual culture? We will be drawing from a variety of traditional disciplines in visual culture, including anthropology, art history, cultural history, and sociology.

 

 

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G450: Gender in Transition (3 credits) (S&H)

This course is intended for upper-division students who have a strong foundation in feminist theory, LGBT history, and human sexuality (it is also appropriate for concurrent enrollment by graduate students who will be required to do some additional work). It is designed to offer a thorough grounding in transgender studies: the evolution of the field; key theoretical frameworks; a survey of gender-variant practices, identities, and communities; and focused attention to selected special topics of current interest.

 

 

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G480: Practicum in Gender Studies (3-6 credits per semester, 6 credits max)

Restricted to Junior or Senior Standing and 12 previous credit hours of Gender Studies coursework.
Requires course authorization from Gender Studies (for authorization e-mail: gender@indiana.edu)
In the G480 Practicum, students gain field experience by working in an internship or on a gender-related research project. In an internship, students work in an organization where they apply or gain practical insight into gendered concepts and issues. Students learn by taking on responsible roles as workers in organizations and observing and reflecting on what happens while they are there. Students also produce written work about their experiences, in accordance with their agreement with a faculty sponsor. (section: 7637)                                                                                                     Arr.

 

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G495: Undergraduate Readings & Research in Gender Studies (1-3 credits per semester, 6 credits max)

Requires course authorization from Gender Studies (for authorization e-mail: gender@indiana.edu)
The undergraduate Readings and Research course exists to enable Gender Studies BA and undergraduate minor students to undertake intensive independent study of particular topics not usually covered in existing courses. An appropriate faculty member supervises the work. Students interested in independent study should develop a topic prior to registration in consultation with a faculty member and the Director of Undergraduate Studies.  Consult your academic advisor for additional details. (section: 7638)                                                                                                                                    Arr.

 

 

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G498: Critical Issues in Gender Studies (3 credits)
GS 498:  The Politics of Gay Visibility
 
Examines the explosion of visibility of lesbian and gays from the mid 1980s to the present, focusing on US popular culture (particularly film and television).   This transformation in cultural representations will be examined in the larger context of changing political frameworks and contestations for power.  Focus will be on the political implications of a new cultural world where sexual minorities are increasingly visible and "spectacularized."

Prof. Suzanna Walters

 

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G498: Critical Issues in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Gender, Art & Psychology
How does gender interact with art and psychology?  To what degree does art reflect specific psychological phenomena, and how is this further altered and refined by gender?  How do these relate to the interface of photography and psychology?  Our course will examine issues like these by focusing in depth on selected artists, works, and photographic collections.  

 

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G498: Critical Issues in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Food, Sex & Gender

A headline asks “Is Food the New Sex?” Marketers decide to sell bottled water with pink labels for women and blue labels for men. An artist carves a nude male torso out of butter and then lets it melt in the sun.  What is going on here? Why is food such a deeply moral and political issue in so many cultures? This course will range from cave dwellers to reality TV, New Guinea to New York seeking answers to these questions, exploring the way food is used to reflect and create gender and to promote and express sexuality. Expect some eclectic readings from many disciplines, and maybe some new tastes.

 

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G499: Honors Thesis in Gender Studies (3-6 credits)

P: G495 and consent of faculty mentor and chair. The Honors Thesis is taken after completion of the G495 Readings and Research Course with the Honors Designation.  Note:  This course follows the G495 Honors which should be taken in the fall.  G499 Honors Thesis is typically taken in the spring.  Obtain permission form from the Gender Studies Office and have it signed by the faculty member agreeing to work with you.  May be taken for a maximum of 6 credits. (section: 12474)     Arr.

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