WMST 241 - Topics in the Construction of Gender

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2019/20a: Women and Power from Antiquity to the Present. Women’s relationship to power has been a complicated and changing one from the ancient to the contemporary world. Ancient narratives of Pandora, Eve, and Jezebel offer literary and historical antecedents for limitations placed on women’s roles in the public and political spheres with many of the ancient rhetorical tropes persisting across the centuries. This class begins with foundational mythological narratives of Ancient Greece, Rome, and the Near East, then moves to queens and empresses such as Cleopatra, Boudicca, Helena, and Elizabeth, and concludes with attention to 20^thand 21^stcentury politicians such as Barbara Jordan, Margaret Thatcher, and Hillary Clinton, and to women’s involvement in feminist, nationalist, religious, and justice movements. Throughout, the course examines the challenges facing women in the exercise of political, economic, and social power and how ancient and present tropes inform and challenge each other. Barbara Olsen.

(Same as MEDS 241 )Topic for 2019/20b: Masculinities///Femininities through the Lens of Disney^TM.The Disney industry has had a global impact on the circulation of masculinities and femininities in the post-war Fordist and then post-Fordist late capitalist eras. Generating a proliferation of ideas of gender that contradict and embolden one another, Disney films provide an ideal case study for examining the centrality of gender and sexuality to imperialism and the imbrication of identity and power. While remaining mostly staunchly heteronormative despite other media industries becoming more inclusive of queer relationships, Disney^TM can be read “queerly,” as this course will explore. We examine not only the films themselves, but also at the historical moments in which they were created, and the corporations that shaped them. The goal of the course is to give you ways to approach texts that ask not to be seen critically and also to learn how to mine normative texts for their queer and anti-racist potential. We look at the Disney Corporation’s efforts to portray itself as innocuous and “timeless,” and then use that information to think about the aspects of Disney’s films that have implications for our understanding of the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, class, disability, nation, and imperialism. Elias Krell.

Prerequisite(s): WMST 130 or permission of the instructor.

May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.

Course is by permission of instructor and requires a short application.

Two 75-minute periods.