Women's Studies (WMNST)

Exploration of feminist issues in a global perspective, including debates in history, ethics, and political feminism.

This course will explore key intellectual traditions, theoretical concepts, research methods, and axiological elements that inform research in feminist media studies. Course readings will be inter/trans/ disciplinary so that students may gain a sense of the field of feminist media studies, its influences, and its possibilities. Readings and assignments may relate media studies with: feminist histories; transnational feminism; feminist political organizing and activism; queer studies; feminist approaches to masculinity, race, ethnicity, labor and production; sexual violence and harassment; relationships between feminist scholarship and other critical studies of culture, audience and reception studies, science and technology studies, rhetoric, political economy, and history.

Development of feminist theory and its relationship to history in terms of critique of family, sexuality, and gender stratification.

The objective of this course is to examine feminist approaches to traditional research methodologies. The objective of this course is to examine feminist critiques of traditional research. The course will examine the animated and contentious debates among feminist scholars about what constitutes a feminist method. Although there is no single feminist method, this diverse academic community is searching for techniques consistent with their convictions as feminists. For this reason, the course will distinguish between methods, as tools for research, and methodology, as theory about the research process. The course reviews methods such as ethnography, interviewing, oral history, discourse analysis, visual analysis, and mixed method approaches. Cross Listings : GEOG 508 will be added as a cross-listed course.

This interdisciplinary graduate seminar gives students an overview of the theoretical, epistemological, and methodological foundations of feminist pedagogy. We will examine theoretical frameworks of teaching and learning that promote justice and social change (i.e. praxis), as well as feminist pedagogical strategies that can be utilized within and beyond the classroom (i.e. practice). Students can expect to engage with various critical and liberatory pedagogies, pedagogies of identity and difference, and signature pedagogies. They will learn how feminist epistemologies shape (and are shaped by) ethical classroom practice, focusing on specific ways in which to cultivate and nurture feminist teaching and learning. In addition, students will also learn how to develop a syllabus and teaching philosophy.

A critical analysis of gender and theories of gender in selected American historical contexts.

This course will explore the historical background and various expressions of contemporary Black feminist thought around the globe.

Impact of Western nationalism and colonialism on the organization of gender roles from the 18th century to the present.

This course offers students an interdisciplinary overview of the complex topics of gender and sexuality. Employing various theoretical and disciplinary perspectives including feminist and queer theory, historical and sociological perspectives, visual culture, and post-colonial discourse, this course gives students a broad understanding of key historical and contemporary issues in the arena of gender and sexuality. This course engages the following themes: gender and sexual identities; the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, race, and class; discourses of heteronormitivity & homonormativity; the body, body politics, and bodily violence; contemporary movements for gender and sexual justice; racial, gender and sexual politics; performances and representations of gender and sexuality; health and medicalization; global LGBTA human rights issues; the (re)production of gender and sexual difference; labors of gender and sexuality; and the relationship between gender, sexuality and the State. Students in this course will develop a keen understanding of how these themes operate in the discourse of gender and sexuality. Throughout this course students will examine a variety of diverse texts 'theoretical, historical ethnographic, literary, visual, and sonic' to gain a comprehensive introduction to the topic of gender and sexuality. This graduate seminar emphasizes discussion, writing, and research.

The course will provide students with an analytic framework for understanding how social inequalities in race, class, and gender shape experiences in families and the workplace. WMNST (HRER) 523 Seminar in Work-Life Dilemmas, Practices, and Policies (3) This course investigates many of the invisible challenges people face in the 21st century labor market including: what happens when a worker's child is sick; whether mothers are discriminated against in the labor market; what happens to men at work when they have children; whether a person's health is influenced by their work; and if the division of labor at home benefits some people more than others. This course will provide answers to these questions and more through an in-depth investigation of the institutions that structure work-family life in 21st century America. First, the class will consider how work and families have changed in the last 50 years. Second, the students will investigate how inequalities based on gender, race, class, and family structure manifest at work. Third, the course will investigate how work responsibilities impact home life and how this differs according to race, gender, class and family structure. Finally, the course will ask what solutions may fix some of today's most pressing work-life dilemmas.

A history of transgender struggle has fomented intellectual formations that interrogate racial and gendered logics and proffer alternative structures of engagement, but commitment to any conceptualization of trans critique has often fallen back on assumptive ascriptions to non-racial analysis. Gathered at the concomitant study of race, gender, sexuality, class, and socio-spatiality, Trans of Color Critique provides an opportunity to (re)consider the analytical and material possibilities and tensions tendered by the articulation of transgender and non-white. Engaging with trans (and queer) of color theory as a particular approach to the political and as its own mode of knowledge production, we will not only take up the mutual constitution of race and gender, but center how whiteness has come to construct the burgeoning field of trans studies. In this graduate seminar we will consider the ways in which these multiply marginalized knowledges aim a critical challenge at our Western knowledge traditions. The course considers how race as a modality of analysis and trans of color critique as a praxis can in turn amplify, extend, and complicate the framework and analytical interventions offered by trans studies. Rather than attempt to be exhaustive, we will focus on the urgent interventions offered by trans of color critical theory, especially as it relates to foundational disruptions of Western epistemologies, medicalization, humanism, movement and displacement, decolonial critique, carcerality, violence and death, and futurity.

Studies the foundations of feminist science studies as applied to biocultural practices of gender, biology, and reproductive technologies. WMNST 536 Gender and Science (3) This course explores the productive intersection between gender and science. Students will learn to examine scientific culture, technological developments, and popular narratives of science through the concepts and methodologies of feminist science studies. A portion of the course will be devoted to the foundations of science studies, including critical examinations of the production of scientific knowledge and methodologies for examining science as culture. Students will use concepts from feminist science studies to resituate the possibilities of objectivity, materiality, and practice for science. Students will also consider the implications of scientific institutions, practices, and technologies for sex and gender. The course will take up both historical and contemporary technoscientific practices as case studies, including biotechnologies, reproductive technologies, bioart, animal husbandry and reproduction, eugenics, and risk assessment, management and mitigation.

A course about discourses of sexuality and gender in studies of Islam in Africa, with South Africa as a case study.

Critically examines feminist approaches to ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, social/political philosophy, and the history of philosophy. PHIL (WMNST) 538 Feminist Philosophy Seminar (3) This course aims to give students an understanding of the philosophical concepts and problems of feminist philosophy. The course will focus on major topics, such as the history of philosophy, ethics, social/political philosophy, epistemology and philosophy of science, and metaphysics, and figures within 20th century feminist philosophy with the concurrent goal of brining them to bear on contemporary issues involving gender's relationship to race, sexuality, class, disability, nationality and age. This course builds upon PHIL 438 Feminist Philosophy and counts towards the requirements of the dual title degree in Philosophy and Women's Studies. Evaluation methods include preparation for and participation in class meetings, two short discussion papers, and a final term paper. The course will be offered at least once every four semesters with an enrollment goal of 20. Specific course content will vary with instructor.

This seminar explores educational implications in popular texts created for and by girls across time and cultures. CI (WMNST) 542 Girls' Cultures and Popular Cultures (3) The study of girls and their relationship with popular culture lies within the interdisciplinary field of Girlhood Studies which draws on established areas of Women's Studies, Children's/Childhood studies, Cultural Studies and Educational Studies. This seminar explores girls cultures in different textual and material forms including books, toys, magazines, and new media. Students will employ feminist cultural theories to compare historical and contemporary girls cultures in relation to educational research and practice. This will provide a framework to locate girls at the center of research and action in order for graduate students to engage in methodologies that are not simply about girls but "for" "with" and "by" girls. Key topics include the misperception of girls (popular) culture as only a contemporary phenomenon, the role of girls as consumers plus producers of culture, and recurrent issues in girls cultures such as sexualization and hyperfeminity.

African feminisms are deeply rooted in the continent's rich historical traditions and diverse cultural contexts. In this interdisciplinary graduate seminar, students will become familiar with the theoretical frameworks that guide African feminist scholarship, as well as the activist histories from which they emerged. This course will consider the epistemological foundations of African feminist thought and how they differ from feminisms in other parts of the world. This course will also examine key areas of conjuncture - how African feminisms map on to larger transnational movements. Particular emphasis will be placed on the fluidity of African gender systems, the ways in which African women have negotiated politics, religion, militarism, sexuality, and violence, and the role of creativity, art, and beauty in nurturing and sustaining activist momentum. Students in the course can expect to engage with a number of different types of texts: documentaries, feature films, memoirs, novels, newspapers, scholarly books, and articles.

Supervised student activities on research projects identified on an individual or small-group basis.

Supervised off-campus, nongroup instruction, including field experiences, practicums, or internships. Written and oral critique of activity required.

Creative projects, including nonthesis research, which are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.

Formal courses given on a topical or special interest subject which may be offered infrequently.

Supervised experience in teaching and orientation to other selected aspects of the profession at The Pennsylvania State University.