WOMEN'S STUDIES (AS) {WSTD}

Courses in the Women's Studies Program are offered under GSOC - Gender, Culture & Society.

Gender, Culture and Society (GSOC)

002. Gender and Society. (C) Society Sector. All classes. Lundeen. Requirement for Women's Studies majors. This course examines the impact of sex and gender roles on contemporary American society. Differentiation by sex is the central organizing principle of nearly every human society. How can we understand the relationship between biological sex and socially constructed gender? How do maleness and femaleness affect the balance of power and resources in our society? How much has changed since the beginning of the Women's Movement of the 1960's? The course will examine key issues of gender difference and inequality including family family life, paid work, economic status, violence, body image, sexuality, and reproduction. The course will examine men's roles and women's roles, treating gender as an interactive and dynamic concept.

L/R 004. (SOCI004) The Family. (C) Society Sector. All classes. Furstenburg, Harknett. Historical and cultural development of the family, analysis of sexual codes; discussion of role difference between men and women; factors involved in mate selection and marital adjustment; analysis of family disorganization with both individual and societal implications.

007. (SOCI007) Population and Society. (C) Society Sector. All classes. Harknett, Kohler, Zuberi. The course covers selected aspects of population and the study of demography, including social, economic, and political issues: population explosion, baby bust, population aging, abortion, teenage pregnancy, illegal aliens, racial classification and population and development.

L/R 008. (BIOL008) Biology of Human Reproduction and Sex Differences Human Reproduction and Sex Differences. (A) Living World Sector. All classes. Waldron. May not be used in Biology Major. Students who have completed Biol 006 or Biol 102 are not eligible to take Biol 008. This course will discuss human reproduction, including anatomy, physiology, hormonal control, genetics, development, infertility, contraception, sexual behavior, sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS, and relevant basic molecular and cellular biology. In addition, this course will discuss sex differences and similarities in health and mortality, including relevant basic biology of the cardiovascular system and cancer.

SM 009. Critical Writing Seminar In Women's Studies. (C) Staff. This is a critical writing seminar. It fulfills the writing requirement for all undergraduates. As a discipline-based writing seminar, the course introduces students to a topic within its discipline but throughout emphasizes the development of critical thinking, analytical, and writing skills. For current listings and descriptions, visit the Critical Writing Program's website at www.writing.upenn.edu/critical.

SM 016. (AFRC016, CINE016, ENGL016) Topics in Literature. (C) Staff. Freshman Seminar. Freshman Seminars under the title "Topics in Literature." When the course content includes women, gender and sexuality this course will be cross listed with Women's Studies. Freshman seminar under this title will afford the entering student the opportunity to explore a particular and limited subject with a professor whose current work lies in that area. Small class-size will insure all students the opportunity to participate in lively discussions. Students may expect frequent and extensive writing assignments, but these seminars are not writing courses; rather, they are intensive introductions to the serious study of literature. Consult Program for detailed descriptions.

SM 028. (COML028, PHIL028) Introduction to Feminist Philosophy. (M) Distribution Course in Society.

Class of 2009 & prior only. M. Meyer. Feminist theory grows out of women's experiences. In this course we will investigate how some contemporary feminist thinkers' consideration of women's experience has caused them to criticize society and philosophy. Traditional philosophical areas addressed may include ethics, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, and epistemology.

SM 041. (SOCI041) Topics in Sociology. (C) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Bosk, Hannum, Jacobs. Freshman Seminars. Topics vary from semester to semester. Past offerings include Society and History; The 1960's: Preludes and Postludes; Mistakes, Errors, Accidents & Disasters; Urban Analysis with Computers; Race and Public Policy; Perspectives on Inequality; Homelessness and the Urban Crisis.

045. (ENGL045) 18th-Century Novel. (C) Staff. This survey of the novel addresses key questions about the novel's "rise" in the eighteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as attending to the cultural conditions that attended this new literary from. How did the concurrent "rise" of the middle classes and the emergence of an increasingly female reading public affect the form and preoccupations of early novels? What role did the institutions like literary reviews, libraries, and the church play in the novel's early reception? While reading will vary from course to course, students should expect to read such authors as Austen, Behn, Brockden Brown, Burney, Defoe, Fielding, Richardson, Rowlandson, Rowson, Scott, and Smollett. This course will be cross-listed with GSOC when the course content includes women, gender and sexuality.

055. (COML055, ENGL055) Nineteenth-Century Novel. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Auerbach/Laws. Fulfills Arts & Letters Distribution. During the nineteenth century the novel became the dominant literary form of its day, supplanting poetry and drama on both sides of the Atlantic. In this introduction to the novelists of the period, we will read the writers who secured the novel's cultural respectability and economic prominence. Likely authors will include Austen, the Brontes, Collins, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, Thackeray, Scott, and Stowe. The course will explore the themes, techniques, and styles of the nineteeth-century novel. It will focus not only on the large structural and thematic patterns and problems within each novel but also on the act of reading as a historically specific cultural ritual in itself.

060. (ENGL070, LALS060) Intro to Latina/o Literature: Beginnings to 1898. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Padilla. A survey of cultural productions by Latinas/os (i.e. people of Latin American descent who have been raised in the U.S.) that usually will focus on the twentieth century, but might at times examine earlier periods instead. The course will take a culturally and historically informed approach to a wide range of novels, poems, plays, and films, and will sometimes include visual art and music. Writers and artists might include Am_rico Paredes, Piri Thomas, Cherrie Moraga, Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Junot Diaz, Cristina Garcia, El Teatro Campesino, John Leguizamo, Carmen Lomas Garza, the Hernandez Brothers, and Los Tigres del Norte.

075. (FOLK075, MUSC075) Jazz Style and History. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Ramsey. This course examines jazz performance as a twentieth century American musical discourse, one that covers and critiques the standard textbook/mediated narratives of jazz history. One goal of the course is to think about how our knowledge of jazz might be reshaped by including women musicians and gender in the narrative. Another is to begin to think about jazz as a musical language that reaches far beyond the borders of the United States, largely through the networks of the entertainment industry.

SM 082. (FOLK082) Ritual in American Life. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Paxton. Freshman Seminar. Starting with birth and working chronologically through a series of case studies, this course invites students to examine the centrality of rituals that celebrate the human lifecycle as well as overtly competitve sporting and political rituals. We will explore rituals that unfold at the local level as well as those that most Americans experience only via the media. Rituals under examination include birthday parties, Bat Mitzvahs, Halloween, Quinceaneras, Proms, graduations, rodeos, Homecomings, weddings, Greek initiations, beauty pageants, reunions, and funerals. Students will be encouraged to critically examine their own ritual beliefs and practices and to consider these and other theoretical questions: What is the status of ritual in post-industrial culture? What distinguishes popular culture from official ritual and secular from religious ritual? How do sociological variables such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and religion shape people's understanding of, and participation in, modern famliy life? How do contemporary rituals bond Americans at the local and/or national level? All students will be expected to conduct original research on a ritual of their own.

090. (AFRC090, COML090, ENGL090) Women and Literature. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Focusing on literature by and/or about women, this course examines women as readers, writers, and subjects of literature. Works studied vary considerably from semester to semester and may include a wide range of works from various countries and in various genres, often selected to allow for examination of theoretical issues such as feminist humor, feminist literary theory, women and popular culture, and the place of women in the literary mainstream. Often special attention is paid to the experience of minority women.

093. (AFRC093, AFST093, COML093, ENGL093) Topic: Introduction to Postcolonial Literature. (M)Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. English is a global language with a distinctly imperial history, and this course serves as an essential introduction to literary works produced in or about the former European colonies. The focus will be poetry, film, fiction and nonfiction and at least two geographic areas spanning the Americas, South Asia, the Caribbean and Africa as they reflect the impact of colonial rule on the cultural representations of identity, nationalism, race, class and gender.

096. (COML096, ENGL096) Theories of Gender and Sexuality. (M) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Love. What makes men and women different? What is the nature of desire? This course introduces students to a long history of speculation about the meaning and nature of gender and sexuality -- a history fundamental to literary representation and the business of making meaning. We will consider theories from Aristophanes speech in Platos Symposium to recent feminist and queer theory. Authors treated might include: Plato, Shakespeare, J. S. Mill, Mary Wollstonecraft, Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Michel Foucault, Gayle Rubin, Catherine MacKinnon, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, bell hooks, Leo Bersani, Gloria Anzaldua, David Halperin, Cherr_e Moraga, Donna Haraway, Gayatri Spivak, Diana Fuss, Rosemary Hennesy, Chandra Tadpole Mohanty, and Susan Stryker.

L/R 101. (CINE115, ENGL101) Study of an Author. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Staff. This is an introduction to literary study through the works of a single author--often Shakespeare, but some versions of this course will feature other writers. (For offerings in a given semester, please see the on-line coursecal descriptions on the English Department website.) We will read several works and approach them--both in discussion and in writing-from a range of critical perspectives. The author's relation to his or her time, to literary history generally, and to the problems of performance, are likely to be emphasized. This course is designed for the General Requirement; it is also intended to serve as a first or second course for prospective English majors.

103. (AFRC104, ENGL103) The American Short Story. (C) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. An introduction to literary study through a genre, either the short story or poetry. Some versions of this course will vary widely in the selection of stories or poems, including a sampling of works in translation. Others will focus exclusive on modern and contemporary American short fiction or poetry. Others will focus exclusively on modern and contemporary American short fiction or poetry. This course is designed for the General Requirement, and is ideal for the students wishing to take an English course but not necessarily intending to major.

104. (SOCI104) Sociology of Sex: Comparative Approach. (M) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Collins. Social scientists have argued that sexuality is not an unchanging biological reality or universal natural force, but a cultural construct, shaped by economical, social, and political processes and therefore, like society itself, historical, that is, variable in both time and space. This seminar follows this approcach by exploring cultural construction of sexuality as it evolved from Greek antiquity to contemporary U.S.A., and its relationship to gender, class, political hierarchies, religion, ideology, and science. How have the meanings of sexualtiy, codes of sexual regulation and sexual politics have varied over time with changing circumstances?

SM 108. (HSOC109, SAST286) Women and Health in South Asia. (L) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kulkarni. Women's health experience in South Asia presents a biological anomaly. This alone makes it a worthy subject for study. Drawing upon theoretical and empirical evidences, the course argues for a socio-medical approach for understanding health status and behavior of women in South Asia. Within this context, it aims to show (1) how and why gender is a crucial explanatory variable of women's survival experience, burden of disease, nutritional status and access and utilization of health services in South Asia and (2) the category of women itself needs to be problematized in order to arrive at a better understanding of women's health issues. This is an introductory level course that is a semester long. Given these two features, it has all the defects of a sampling error. The topics and the readings suggested are an attempt to combine the theoretical and empirical work, place women's health issues within broader concerns of gender studies and suggest fruitful area research. Though it shouldn't certainly mean that this is only what women's health comprises. However, the lectures, discussions, and assignments will give you a broad idea about what the area of women's health in South Asia constitutes.

L/R 109. (FOLK029, RELS005) Women and Religion. (C) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Staff. This course will investigate women's religious practices and beliefs in a number of established religions. We will pay attention to such topics as theological explanations of women's role in creation, the relationship between women and evil, the position of women in religious hierarchies, and the impact of social change on women's roles in established religions. Traditional religions considered will include Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Issues raised will include the impact of the women's movement and feminist thought on women and religion, and the development of contemporary woman-oriented spiritual movements and religious practices.

SM 113. (JWST113, RELS113) Major Western Religious Thinkers. (M) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course is crosslisted with RELS 113, a topics course, when the subject matter is appropriate to Women's Studies. See current timetable. Introduction to the writings of one or two significant western religious thinkers, designed for those who have no background in religious thought. Possible thinkers to be studied: Augustine, Maimonides, Spinoza, Luther, Teresa of Avila, Edwards, Mendelssohn, Kierkegaard, DuBois, Bonhoeffer, King.

114. (AFRC112, SOCI112, URBS114) Discrimination: Sexual and Racial Conflict. (M) Society Sector. All classes. Madden. This course is concerned with the structure, the causes and correlates, and the government policies to alleviate discrimination in the United States. The central focus of the course is on employment discrimination by race and gender. After a comprehensive overview of the structures of labor markets and of nondiscriminatory reasons for the existence of group differentials in employment and wages, various theories of the sources of discrimination are reviewed and evaluated. Actual governmental policies and alternatives policies are evaluated in light of both the empirical evidence on group differences and the alternative theories of discrimination.

117. (SOCI117) Sociology of Work. (M) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Leidner. The material world is shaped and maintained through work, but so is the social world. How work is organized, allocated, and rewarded determines the opportunities people have for developing their own capacities, the kinds of ties they will have with others, and how much control they will have over their own lives. We will consider various sociological perspectives on work and compare alternative ways of organizing work, with a focus on the contemporary United States.

118. (CINE118, COML118, GSOC418, NELC118) Iranian Cinema: Gender, Politics and Religion. (M)Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Minuchehr. Post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema has gained exceptional international reception in the past two decades. In most major national and international festivals, Iranian films have taken numerous prizes for their outstanding representation of life and society, and their courage in defying censorship barriers. In this course, we will examine the distinct characteristics of the post-revolutionary Iranian cinema. Discussion will revolve around themes such as gender politics, family relationships and women's social, economic and political roles, as well as the levels of representation and criticism of modern Iran's political and religious structure within the current boundaries. There will be a total of 12 films shown and will include works by Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf, Beizai, Milani, Bani-Etemad and Panahi, among others.

SM 120. (CLST121) Sex and Gender in Ancient Greek Culture. (M) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. An interdisciplinary study of ancient Greek attitudes to gender as reflected in the legal, social, and religious roles of women; conceptions of the family and its place in the city; biological and evolutionary speculation about sexual difference; the representation of sexuality and gender relations in mythology, lyric poetry, and drama.

122. (SOCI122) The Sociology of Gender. (C) Society Sector. All classes. Leidner. The assignment of gender roles and the creation of gender identities has profound consequences for women and men at every level of society: from their intimate relations, how they manage and participate in the institutions of society, their place in society's stratification systems. This course examines four aspects of gender relations: historical and cross-cultural examples of gender roles; gender relations in contemporary American institutions; theories of sex differences and gender inequality; and movements and policies for gender equality. Some specific topics to be covered are: Women and the economy, women and the professions, working class women, minority women, violence against women, changing male identities, the nature of male power, and women's liberation movement.

125. (CINE125, COML127, RUSS125) The Adultery Novel In and Out of Russia. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Platt. All readings and lectures in English. The object of the course is to analyze a series of 19C and 20C novels (and a few short stories) about adultery. Our reading will teach us about novelistic traditions of the period in question and about the relationship of Russian literature to the European models to which it responded. The course begins with a novel not about families falling apart, but about families coming together - Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. We then will turn to what is arguably the most well-known adultery novel ever written, Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Following this, we investigate a series of Russian revisions of the same thematic territory that range from "great literature" to pulp fiction, including Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and other works by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Leskov, and Nagrodskaia. As something of an epilogue to the course, we will read Milan Kundera's backward glance at this same tradition in nineteenth-century writing, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In our coursework we will apply various critical approaches in order to place adultery into its social and cultural context, including: sociological descriptions of modernity, Marxist examinations of family as a social and economic institution, Freudian/Psychoanalytic interpretations of family life and transgressive sexuality, Feminist work on the construction of gender.

142. (HIST142) Women in American History, 1500-1865. (C) Brown. From the sixteenth century, when Native American populations flourished on the North American continent, to the Civil War, when North and South collided over the question of slavery, women have played a critical role in American society. This course traces the history of women and gender in America during this period with special emphasis on the importance of women's reproductive and economic roles to the emergence of ethnic, racial, regional, and socioeconomic categories in the United States. Slides, lectures, and readings drawn from primary documents introduce students to the conditions of women's lives during the colonial and revolutionary periods and to the rise of women's activism in the nineteenth century. In addition, we will consider how dramatic changes in housework, wage labor, female access to public forms of power, and ideas about female sexuality make it difficult to generalize about what is commonly thought of as women's "traditional" or "natural" role.

143. (HIST143) Women in American History, 1865-Present. (C) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Peiss. This course explores how immigration, industrialization, racial segregation, and the growing authority of science transformed the fundamental conditions of women's lives in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Building on previous effforts by female reformers to perfect society, women at the turn of the century organized large social movements dedicated to improving the lives of women and children and gaining public access to political power. We will examine the fruits of this activism as well as the consequences of subsequent events for the rise of several important social movements in the latter half of the century -- including civil rights, women's liberation, and gay rights -- in which women played a vital role. The course concludes with an assessment of feminism in the present day, with special emphasis on the responses of younger women to its legacy.

SM 146. (AFRC146, ANTH146) Writing Multiculturalism. (M) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Sanday. Diversity is a fact of life, characteristic not only of the US national culture but of the global culture as well. This course introduces anthropological theories of culture and multiculturalism and the method of ethnography. Students will read and report on selected classic readings. After learning the basic concepts, students will be introduced to the method of ethnography. The core of the course will revolve around "doing ethnography" by writing ethnographic fieldnotes on participant/observation of multiculturalism. Students can use their life experience, home communities, or Penn as their field of observation. The goal of the course is to introduce beginning students to public interest anthropology. No background in anthropology is required.

SM 149. Law and Social Policy on Sexuality and Reproduction. (C) Tracy. This course will examine how statutory law, court decisions and other forms of social policy encourage or discourage various forms of sexuality, reproduction and parenting. Such issues as contraception, abortion, gay and lesbian rights, reproductive technology, family violence, and welfare and family policies will be covered.

162. (GRMN262, JWST102, NELC154) Women in Jewish Literature. (C) Arts & Letters Sector. All Classes. Hellerstein. This course will introduce Penn students of literature, women's studies, and Jewish studies -- both undergraduates and graduates -- to the long tradition of women as readers, writers, and subjects in Jewish literature (in translation from Yiddish, Hebrew, and in English). By examining the interaction of culture, gender, and religion in a variety of literary works by Jewish authors, from the seventeenth century to the present, the course will argue for the importance of Jewish women's writing. Authors include Glikl of Hameln, Cynthia Ozick, Anzia Yezierska, Kadya Molodowsky, Esther Raab, Anne Frank, and others. "Jewish woman, who knows your life? In darkness you have come, in darkness do you go." J. L. Gordon (1890)

168. (AFST168, NELC168) Women in Ancient Egypt. (M) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Houser. This class will examine the many roles played by women in ancient Egypt. From goddesses and queens, to wives and mothers, women were a visible presence in ancient Egypt. We will study the lives of famous ancient Egyptian women such as Hatshepsut, Nefertiti and Cleopatra. More independent than many of their contemporaries in neighboring areas, Egyptian women enjoyed greater freedoms in matters of economy and law. By examining the evidence left to us in the literature (including literary texts and non-literary texts such as legal documents, administrative texts and letters), the art, and the archaeological record, we will come away with a better understanding of the position of women in this ancient culture.

L/R 170. (AFRC172, HIST170) The American South. (A) History & Tradition Sector. All classes. Staff. Southern culture and history from 1607-1860, from Jamestown to seccession. Traces the rise of slavery and plantation society, the growth of Southern sectionalism and its explosion into Civil War. Midterm, short paper (5-7 pages) and final.

186. (EALC166, EALC566, GSOC586) Gender and Sexuality in Japan. (M) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kano. This seminar deals with issues which such as the cultural and historical constructions of femininity and masculinity; gendered division of education and labor; representation of gender and sexuality in literature, theater, and popular culture; and forms of activism for the rights of women and sexual minorities. This course will use films, videos, and manga, as well as readings from anthropological, historical, literary, and theoretical texts. All readings will be in English, but Japanese materials will be available to those interested.

187. (COML187, EALC017) Possessing Women. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Chance, L. A man from Tennessee writes Memoirs of a Geisha. A Japanese novelist tells the story of the "comfort women" who served the Japanese army. A tenth century courtier poses as woman writing the first woman's diary. Poets from Byron to Robert Lowell, through Ezra Pound to Li Po, have written as though, they were women, decrying their painful situations. Is something wrong with this picture, or is "woman" such a fascinating position from which to speak that writers can hardly help trying it on for size? In this course we will look at male literary impersonators of women, as well as women writers. Our questions will include who speaks in literature for prostitutes--whose bodies are in some sense the property of men--and what happens when women inhabit the bodies of other women via spirit possession. Readings will draw on the Japanese tradition, which is especially rich in such cases, and will also include Western and Chinese literature, anthropological work on possession, legal treatments of prostitution, and film. Participants will keep a reading journal and write a paper of their own choosing.

199. Independent Study. (C)

SM 203. (HIST203, HSOC204) Major Seminar in History: America Before 1800. (M) Staff. This couse is for history majors. This course will be cross-listed with GSOC when the course topic includes women, gender, and sexuality.

SM 206. (HIST206, LALS206) History of Sexuality and Reproduction. (C) Staff. The course will explore the history of sexual and reproductive behavior in the U.S.; the various ways sexuality was constructed; and the role sexuality played in the construction of gender and the deployment of power. Not only will the course address differences between men and women, it will also deal, in particular, with the comparison of sexual behavior and identity across class, racial and ethnic lines.

L/R 213. (CINE215, SAST213, SAST513) Indian Cinema and Society. (B) Distribution Course in Society.

Class of 2009 & prior only. Majithia. This course will meet for three hours to view and discuss a variety of films/videos in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Urdu (with English subtitles), and English, which bring up issues of social, political, and cultural significance. Readings for the course will include articles in various fields ranging from film studies and communication to sociolinguistics and women's studies. Discussions will focus on cinema as a means of expression and as an instrument for social change, examining the various ways in which films both reflect and influence contemporary culture.

SM 214. (HIST214) America after 1800: Advanced Benjamin Franklin Seminar. (M) Staff. This seminar examines the economic, demographic, and spatial transformations of American cities since World War II. Topics for analysis include the impact of deindustrialization and the emergence of an information-service economy, in migration and immigration, ghetto creation, the origin and history of suburbs, and levers of change - politics, policy, social movements, and social reform. Assignments include one book per week, short commentary papers, discussion leadership, and a final essay.

SM 221. (COML222, ENGL222) Topics in Romance. (A) Staff. This seminar explores an aspect of epic or romance intensively; specific course topics will vary from year to year.

SM 223. (COML354, ENGL221) Topics in Medieval Literature. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This seminar explores an aspect of medieval literature intensively; specific course topics will vary from year to year. Topics in the past have included the medieval performance, medieval women, and medieval law and literature. The course will be cross-listed with GSOC when the subject matter includes gender, women, and sexuality.

230. (COMM238) History of Gender in Advertising. (M) Sarch. This course uses advertising to examine the construction of gender from the late 19th century to the present.

SM 234. (CINE208) Topics in Gender and Cinema. (M) Beckman. This topic course explores aspects of Gender in Film intensively. The course will be cross-listed with GSOC when the course contents includes women, gender and sexuality in film. Specific course topics vary from year to year. See the Cinema Studies website at <http://cinemastudies.sas.upenn.edu/> for a description of the current offerings.

235. (EDUC235) Psychology of Women. (C) Staff. Critical analyses of the psychological theories of female development, and introduction to feminist scholarship on gender development and sexuality.

SM 236. Gender and the Body. (A) Lundeen. In this course we will explore the relationship between women's and men's bodies and social norms of gender and sexuality. This course will pose a series of questions including: How do culturally specific norms of gender and sexuality both affect (in the sense of alter) and effect (in the sense of produce our bodies? How do norms of gender intersect with norms of race, ethnicity, class, nationality, sexual preference, and age on our bodies? In what ways do we discipline our bodies, so that our body's shape, its contour, and its movements fit into one or more of these norms? How can we/do we resist embodying these norms? How are standards of gendered bodies produced? How are they transmitted? How can we represent our bodies? Gender theorists have grappled with these questions over the last three decades. In this course, we will examine the affects and effects of gender and sexuality on our bodies by engaging with theory, fiction, film, and performance art. The primary forms of assessment for this class will include writing assignments, class-discussion, and a group-presentation.

SM 240. (HIST240) Gender and Athletics. (M) Miller. Have women started to "play hardball" on a "level playing field" in the American sporting culture? From the commercial successes of the WNBA and World Cup Soccer to new studies that document the positive effects of athletics on girls' self-esteem, women finally seem to be turning the American obsession with sports to their own advantage. This course will examine how physical fitness and organized athletics for men and women have both reflected and helped to create norms of masculinity and femininity over the past one hundred and fifty years.

SM 241. (ASAM241, COML239, ENGL241) Topics in Eighteenth Century Bristish Literature. (M)Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Space will be reserved for English majors. This is a topics course. If the topic is appropriate, the course is cross-listed with ENGL 241. This course explores an aspect of 18th-century literature intensively; specific course topics will vary from year to year.

SM 245. (ENGL245) Images of Women and Men in Contemporary Fiction. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Brodkey. This course focuses on ways in which the Civil Rights movement, the student rebellions, and the women's movement have influenced readers' expectations of a writer's ability to represent gender in fiction.

249. (EDUC576, PHIL249) Philosophy of Education. (M) Detlefsen. This course covers a variety of philosophical questions surrounding education. These may include questions in epistemology, human nature, philosophy of psychology, ethics, and social-political philosophy.

SM 250. (CINE251, COML249, ENGL251) 19th Century Literature. (M) Staff. This course explores an aspect of 19th-century literature intensively; specific course topics will vary from year to year.

SM 251. (AFRC309, COML249, THAR250) Theatre Workshop. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Ingram. This course will examine a specific aspect of theatrical practice, taught by a visiting professional theatre artist. The course, with different topics, may be repeated for credit.

L/R 252. (COML253, GRMN253, HSOC253, STSC253) Freud. (M) Humanities & Social Science Sector. Class of 2010 & beyond. Weissberg. No other person of the twentieth century has probably influenced scientific thought, humanitistic scholarship, medical therapy, and popular culture as much as Sigmund Freud. This seminar will study his work, its cultural background, and its impact on us today.

253. (AFRC253, AFST253, FOLK253, MUSC253) Music and Performance of Africa. (M) Muller. This class provides an overview of the most popular musical styles, and discussion of the cultural and political contexts in which they emerged in contemporary Africa. We will cover sub-Saharan and North Africa, with a strong focus on southern Africa. Learning to perform a limited range of African music/dance will be part of this course. No prior performance experience required, though completion of Music 50 is recommended.

SM 255. (COML261, ENGL255) Topics in the 19th-Century Novel. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course explores an aspect of the 19th-century novel intensively; specific course topics will vary from year to year.

257. (CINE222, COML256, EALC257) Contemporary Fiction and Film in Japan. (M) Kano. This course will explore fiction and film in contemporary Japan, from 1945 to the present. Topics will include literary and cinematic representation of Japan s war experience and post-war reconstruction, negotiation with Japanese classics, confrontation with the state, and changing ideas of gender and sexuality. We will explore these and other questions by analyzing texts of various genres, including film and film scripts, novels, short stories, mangazines, and academic essays. Class sessions will combine lectures, discussion, audio-visual materials, and creative as well as analytical writing exercises. The course is taught in English, although Japanese materials will be made available upon request. No prior coursework in Japanese literature, culture, or film is required or expected; additional secondary materials will be available for students taking the course at the 600 level. Writers and film directors examined may include: Kawabata Yasunari, Hayashi Fumiko, Abe Kobo, Mishima Yukio, Oe Kenzaburo, Yoshimoto Banana, Ozu Yasujiro, Naruse Mikio, Kurosawa Akira, Imamura Shohei, Koreeda Hirokazu, and Beat Takeshi.

SM 260. (AFRC262, AFST260, COML262, ENGL260, LALS260) Advanced Topics in Narrative. (M)Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course explores an aspect of the novel intensively, asking how novels work and what they do to us and for us. Specific course topics will vary from year to year.

265. (ANTH265) Sex and Reproduction in Humans: a Biocultural Approach. (A) Valeggia. Prerequisite(s): ANTH 003. An exploration of human reproduction from an evolutionary and biosocial perspective. Focuses on physiological, ecological, and social aspects of human reproduction with a life cycle approach. Also explores human reproductive strategies in a variety of cultural settings. Topics include cognitive and behavioural differences between men and women and male and female reproductive strategies. Examples are drawn primarily feom traditional and modern human societies; data from studies of non-human primates are also considered.

SM 266. (COML263, ENGL261) Topics in Modern British Novels. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Mahaffey. The course explores an aspect of 20th-century literature intensively; specific course topics will vary from year to year.

268. (AFST268) Women and Human Rights in Africa. (M) Staff. Is violence against women a violation of human rights regardless of whether this occurs in the private or public spheres? Should rape and sexual violence against women and girls in situations of armed conflict be considered as war crimes? As gender issues have become central to the development dialogue, the linkages between human rights, gender and development have become increasingly apparent and especially relevant for the African continent. A primary goal of the course will be to reveal the gendered nature of human rights issues and the ecurrent application of human rights concepts in Africa. It will also illuminate issues affecting women in all facets of life including rape and forced pregnancy during war time and expanding definitions of torture, freedom of expression, violence, internal displacement and refugees as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Class assignments will be designed to craft a vision and application of human rights that are truly relevant to women and men alike.

270. (FOLK270) Folklore and Sexuality. (M) Azzolina. Sexuality is not only a biological act or fact, it also has a creative and aesthetic element. This course examines the folklore elements of sexuality and includes historical readings such as the Bible and the Decameron as well as a contemporary look at topics such as body art and clothing choice. A field-based paper will be required and a final examination will be given on class discussions and readings.

SM 275. (CINE225, THAR275) Advanced Topics in Theatre. (A) Malague, Lafferty. This course will combine an intensive practical and intellectual investigation of some area of the making of theatre: performance techniques, theatrical styles, a particular period of theatre history. One section of 275 in the Spring will include six Theatre Arts students, who will have been selected by the Theatre Arts faculty to participate in the annual "Edinburgh Project," and will form an ensemble to mount a production that will travel to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. Many of the readings and exercises in this course will be geared to preparing the ensemble for rehearsals for this production, which will not formally begin until after the exam period. Students enrolled in the course who are NOT part of the Edinburgh ensemble will be invited to participate in creating the piece that will be taken by the ensemble to Edinburgh.

SM 279. (THAR279) Women in Theatre and Performance. (M) Malague. Theatre began as a form that excluded women entirely. The plays of ancient Greece and Elizabethan England were written and performed only by men, beginning a long tradition of theatre that represented women only from male perspectives. Has that tradition been so dominant for so long that women's voices on stage are still a novelty? This course focuses on a wide range of plays and performances by and about women; the work we read (and view) will evidence artistic attempts to represent women's lives, experiences and perspectives on the stage. Among the issues encountered and examined in these works are the roles of love, sexuality, friendship, career, community, marriage, motherhood, family, and feminism in women's lives - as well as the economic and political position(s) of women in society. The course will also offer contextual background on feminist theatre history, theory, and literature, the diverse (and divergent) creative efforts of female artists to use live performance as a means of creating social and political change.

280. (PSCI280) Feminist Political Thought. (M) Society Sector. All classes. Hirschmann. This course is designed to provide an overview of the variety of ideas, approaches, and subfields within feminist political thought. Readings and divided into three sections: contemporary theorizing about the meaning of "feminism";women in the history of Western political thought; and feminist theoretical approaches to practical political problems and issues, such as abortion and sexual assault.

SM 281. (AFRC281, COML325, ENGL281) Topics in African-American Literature. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course is not open to freshmen. In the past this course has addressed itself to topics as diverse as "Afro-American Autobiography" and "Backgrounds of Afro-American Literature", including examination of oral narratives, Black Christianity, and Afro-American music: and "Black Narratives", beginning with eighteenth-century slave narratives and working toward contemporary literature.

SM 282. (HIST282) Globalization in a Gender Perspective. (M) Staff. This interdisciplinary seminar will explore theories and practices of globalization. The process of globalization raises many questions that scholars are attempting to answer. What are its historical roots? Why has it seen such rapid growth? Is globalization predominantly an economic, cultural or ideological issue? Has it affected women and men equally? The seminar will consider present discussions on globalization, provide tools to analyze this concept critically, and introduce examples taken from the Third World, Europe, and the United States. Students will be expected to write several short papers and take an active part in class discussions. The final exam will consist of an extended essay on topics dealt with in class.

SM 284. (AFRC263, ENGL253) Topics in American Literature. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Focusing on some well-defined aspect of nineteeth-century American literature, this course has included sections on Melville, nineteeth-century American shortfiction and literature and the visual arts.

SM 290. (AFRC290, ENGL290, THAR290) Topics in Women and Literature. (C) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. This course is not open to freshman. The advanced women's studies course in the department, focusing on a particular aspect of literature by and about women. Topics might include: "Victorian Literary Women"; "Women, Politics, and Literature"; "Feminist Literary Theory"; and similar foci.

SM 310. (COML310, ITAL310) The Medieval Reader. (M) May be counted as a General Requirement Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kirkham. All Readings and Lecture in English. Through a range of authors including Augustine, Dante, Petrarch, Galileo, and Umberto Eco, this course will explore the world of the book in the manuscript era. We will consider 1)readers in fiction-male and female, good and bad; 2)books as material objects produced in monasteries and their subsequent role in the rise of the universities; 3)medieval women readers and writers; 4)medieval ideas of the book as a symbol (e.g., the notion of the world as God's book; 5)changes in book culture brought about by printing and electroni media. Lectures with discussion in English, to be supplemented by slide presentations and a field trip to the Rare Book Room in Van Pelt Library. No prerequisites. Readings available either in Italian or English. Satisfies General Requirement in Arts and Letters.

SM 318. (HSOC341, NURS318) Race, Gender, Class and the History of American Health Care. (C) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Fairman. This multidisciplinary course surveys the history of American health care through the multiple perspectives of race, gender, and class, and grounds the discussions in contemporary health issues. It emphasizes the links between the past and present, using not only primary documents but materials from disciplines such as literature, art, sociology, and feminist studies that relate both closely and tangentially to the health professions and health care issues. Discussions will surround gender, class-based, ethnic, and racial ideas about the construction of disease, health and illness; the development of health care institutions; the interplay between religion and science; the experiences of patients and providers; and the response to disasters and epidemics.

SM 320. Contemporary Feminist Thought. (A) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Kurz. Prerequisite(s): One prior women's studies course. This course covers a broad range of feminist writers, from the pioneer thinkers of the 18th century to current feminists who focus on globalization. After examining how and why feminist thought developed, we will explore how different feminists perspectives explain gender inequality both in the US and in contemporary global contexts. Readings will also focus on how gender issues interact with race, ethnity, sexuality, and social class. We will also focus on how feminist theory informs current social movements for gender equality.

SM 325. (HSOC216) Women and Health. (M) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Health, illness and healing systems are deeply connected to the organization of gender relations. This course introduces students to sociological perspectives on the intersection between gender and health in the nineteenth and twentieth century United States. We will examine sex differences in disease distribution and health service use, the effect of women's poverty on health status, women's roles as health care providers, and the historical development of health issues and medical fields directly relevant to women's health (e.g. menstruation, menopause, birth control, obstetrics, pediatrics, and psychiatry).

SM 330. (STSC329) Gender and Science. (C) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Lindee. This course explores the gendered nature of science as social endeavor, intellectual construct and political resource. We consider the rise of gentlemanly science, masculinity and the arms race, the notion of a "Successor science" grounded in feminist theory, and the historical role of gender in defining who can do science and what counts as scientific data. We also explore how science has interpreted male-femal differences. Our goal is to understand the profound impact of social place in the history of science, and thereby to understand the social nature of scientific knowledge.

SM 338. (HSOC338, NURS338) "Sweet Little Old Ladies and Sandwiched Daughters": Social Images and Issues in our Aging Society. (B) Kagan. This course is an intensive and focused introduction to social gerontology as a trans-disciplinary lens through which to examine aspects of social structure, actions, and consequences in an aging society. A variety of sources are employed to introduce students from any field focused on human behavior and interaction to classical notions of social gerontology and current scholarly inquiry in gerontology. Field work in the tradition of thick description creates a mechanism to engage students in newly gerontological understandings of their life worlds and daily interactions. Weekly field work, observing aspects of age and representations of aging and being old in every day experiences forms, is juxtaposed against close critical readings of classical works in social gerontology and current research literature as well as viewings of film and readings of popular literature as the basis for student analysis. Student participation in the seminar demands careful scrutiny and critical synthesis of disparate intellectual, cultural, and social perspectives using readings and field work and creation of oral and written arguments that extend understandings of the issues at hand in new and substantive ways. Emphasis is placed on analysis of field work and literature through a series of media reports and a final term paper.

344. (EDUC345) Psychology of Personal Growth. (C) Staff. Intellectual, emotional and behavioral development in the college years. Illustrative topics: developing intellectual and social competence; developing personal and career goals; managing interpersonal relationships; values and behavior. Recommended for submatriculation in Psychological Services Master's Degree program.

349. (HIST349) History of Sexuality in the U.S. (C) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. Peiss. This course introduces students to a relatively new field of inquiry, the history of sexuality in the U.S. It explores the past to consider why sexuality has been so central to American identities, culture, and politics. Primary documents and other readings focus on the history of sexual ideology and regulation; popular culture and changing sexual practices; the emergence of distinct sexual identity and communities; the politics of sexuality; and the relationship between sexual and other forms of social difference, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, and class. Topics include many themes with continuing relevance to contemporary public debate: among them, sexual representation and censorship, sexual violence, adolescent sexuality, the politics of reproduction, gay and lesbian sexualities and sexually transmitted diseases.

SM 350. (COML350) Theory of Literature. (M) Staff. This course includes both a general survey of classic writings in Western aesthetics as well as readings on the major trends in literary criticism in the twentieth century. A recurring theme will be the literary canon and how it reflects or influences values and interpretative strategies. Among the topics covered are feminist literary criticism, structuralism and poststructuralism, Marxist criticism, and psychological criticism. Authors include Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Hegel, T.S. Eliot, Bakhtin, Sontag, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Virginia Woolf, de Beauvoir, Showalter, Cixous, Gilbert and Guber, Kolodny, Marx, Benjamin, and Freud.

SM 356. (COML356, FREN356) Early Modern Women's Writing: Italy, England, France. (M) DeJean. We will compare the three powerful traditions of women's writing that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries: in Italy, in England, and in France. We will read works by Franco, Moderata Fonte, Aphra Behn, Margaret Cavendish, Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette, and Madeleine de Scudery. We will concentrate on works in prose and, in particular, on the two genres whose development was shaped by women writers: novels and treatises defending women's rights. We will think about what it meant to be a woman writer in these countries and at this period. We will also try to understand the conditions that made it possible for these traditions to develop. French and Italian works will be read in translation.

SM 360. (FREN360) French Literature of the 18th Century. (M) Staff. Throughout the 18th Century, the novel was consistently chosen by the PHILOSOPHES as a forum in which to present political ideas to a broad audience. French novels of the Enlightenment are therefore often hybrid works in which fictional plots, even love stories, co-exist with philosophical dialogue and with more or less fictionalized discussions of recent political events or debates. We will read novels by all the major intellectual figures of the 18th century -- for example, Montesquieu's LETTRES PERSANES, CONTES by Voltaire, Diderot's LE NEVEU DE RAMEAU -- in order to examine the controversial subject matter they chose to explore in a fictional format and to analyze the effects on novelistic structure of this invasion of the political. We will also read works, most notably Laclos' LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, that today are generally thought to reflect the socio-political climate of the decades that prepared the French Revolution of 1789. In all our discussion, we will be asking ourselves why and how, for the only time in the history of the genre, the novel could have been, in large part and for most of the century, partially diverted from fictional concerns and chosen as a political vehicle.

SM 371. (ENGL356, THAR375) Topics in Drama. (M) Staff. When crosslisted with ENGL 356, this is a Benjamin Franklin Seminar. What is feminist theatre? This course will explore that deceptively simple but hotly debated question by focusing on the creative and political efforts of female playwrights and performers. Our readings will provide background on feminist theatre history and theory, from which we will examine diverse-and divergent-approaches to feminist playwriting, acting, and directing. We will consider a wide range of artists from the Pulitzer prize-winning Wendy Wasserstein to the NEA grant-losing Holly Hughes, we will also examine the recent phenomenon of Eve Ensler's THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES. The course will be conducted in seminar format with heavy emphasis on discussion; readings will be supplemented by shared viewing of live and video performances.

SM 390. (ENGL390) Topics in Women and Literature. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Benjamin Franklin Seminar. Attitudes toward and visions of womanhood and manhood in fiction of the last hundred years. Is a person's gender the most important fact shaping her or his lifetime? Does it have to be?

SM 393. (ENGL393) Topics in Literature and Society. (M) Distribution Course in Arts & Letters. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Benjamin Franklin Seminar. This course is cross-listed with ENGL 393 (Topics in Postcolonial Literature and Society) when the course content is related to women and gender issues. Topics vary. Consult the Program for a detailed course description.

SM 400. Senior Seminar. (E) Kurz. This course is for senior undergraduate Women's Studies majors who will be completing their thesis. The seminar helps students decide on the most appropriate methodologies to use and topics to include in their thesis. Other topics include thesis organization and drawing conclusions from primary and secondary sources of data.

SM 405. (COML405, COML502, ENGL490) Topics in Women and Literature. (M) Shawcross. This course will consider issues relating to the documentation and interpretation of women's lives. Through research in the personal papers of various women who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the class will focus on the following questions: what documents survive and why (and what don't survive and why); how do published texts on the subject compare to unpublished ones and why; and to what extent, if any, did gender inhibit or facilitate the fulfillment of aspirations or vocations of these women and why. Course requirements comprise participation in weekly class sessions on the progress of one's research and difficulties and discoveries therein and a paper of journal-length size relating to a subject in which primary source materials have been extensively consulted. The paper should include a bibliography of published accounts and a critical evaluation of surviving papers. A list of possible subjects compiled by the professor will draw on resources available in several Penn repositories, including the Department of Special Collections, the University Archives and Records Center, and the Center for the Study of History or in other special libraries in the Phildelphia area.

SM 414. Family Ties: Function and Ideology. (M) Rabberman. Families serve as the basic building blocks of societies. Besides helping to distribute economic resources within a society, families reflect societies' values, norms, tensions and power dynamics through their structure. Furthermore, changes in the family's values, functions and structures mirror changes in women's roles and experiences, both inside and outside the home. Finally, families also serve as the repository for memories from generation to generation.

In this course, we will explore some central debates and issues in the history of the family by focusing on case studies from England, France, Germany, and the United States from the medieval through the modern periods. How are families created and dissolved over time, and how did changes in these practices come about? How did people make the decision to get married, and how important were affective ties and material considerations in this process? How did past societies treat their children, and did love for children increase over time? Which people, inside and outside families, exerted power over family members? How did political and economic developments influence families' structure, function, and ideology? What do the changing structure and purpose of families in the West tell us about changes in the role of the individual and the relationship between public and private in the West? What do recent family histories tell us about the relationship between the past and the present, between individuals and ancestors, at the end of the twentieth century?

Class requirements will include participation in class discussion, in-class presentations, two short papers, and a 1520 page paper based on primary sources. Class readings will draw on works from women' studies, historical anthropology, social history, legal history, material culture, sociology, and literature, and will include both primary and secondary sources.

420. Witchcraft and Gender in the Early Modern World. (M) Rabberman. Master in Liberal Arts course. From the 15th century through the 18th century, social tensions erupted in Europe and the colonies in the witch craze, a period when intense cultural concern over witchcraft was expressed through religious treatises and sermons, popular literature like pamphlets and broadsides, legal accusations, trials, and, in some cases, executions. Although scholars argue vehemently about the total number of people executed during the witch-hunts, their importance in understanding early modern beliefs and responses to social tensions is clear. In this class, we will explore historians' understandings of the causes underlying this cultural phenomenon. With special attention to gender, social position,and religious belief, we will join academic debates about the causes of these persecutions. We will also read some primary sources from the medieval through the early modern periods, including trial transcripts, sermons, and pamphlets. Were women the main target of witchcraft accusations and executions, and if so, was misogyny their most important cause? What role did sexual norms and beliefs have in the way that accusations were framed? Were there different patterns of accusation and executions across time and region, and if so, what social and cultural factors might explain them?

SM 422. History of Sexuality. (M) Rabberman. Master in Liberal Arts course. In this course, we will explore some of the most pressing, controversial, and intriguing questions that historians of sexuality have debated in the past few decades. Rather than simply debating changes in sexual practices over time, we will discuss the ways in which different societies in the past and present constructed sexual norms and understood normality and deviance in sexual terms. We will focus special attention on the following questions: To what extent are sexual identities constructed by different cultures, rather than simply being determined biologically? What influence do social, economic, and political conditions have on social constructions of sexuality? How have different societies used sexual norms to mark "natural" practices from "deviant" ones, and how are these norms connected to societies' power structures? We will explore case studies from Classical Greece through the contemporary United States. Our readings will explore topics such as medieval and modern views of the body, gender, sexuality, and science; prostitutes in medieval and Victorian England; same-sex relationships from classical Greece to medieval Europe to the contemporary United States; expectations for sexuality within and outside marriage; hermaphrodites; and sexual deviants, among others. Students will be expected to participate actively in class discussions, and to complete short response papers and a longer research paper.

SM 425. (PHIL485) Topics in Gender Theory. (M) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Staff. Master in Liberal Arts course. Do, or can, feminist theories have political effects in transforming the social and economic forms of women's subordination? This course will focus on the debate within feminist theory between a politics of claiming identity or essentialism versus a politics of subverting gender norms. We will show how gendered bodies and sexual differences are constructed through various social practices and discourses. We will examine what kinds of resistance can be mounted against the forces that maintain gender oppression. For example, what are the effects of new reproductive technologies on a woman's freedom to control her body or on her continued subordination? Lastly, by claiming sexual differences we will discuss how we will need to revise our concepts of justice, community, and rights.

SM 430. (CINE492, COMM430) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Representation. (A) Staff. Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing or permission of instructor. An examination of the role of cultural institutions in shaping the images and self-images of homosexuals in Western culture. Because of their "invisibility", sexual minorities provide a unique example of the role of cultural stereotypes in socialization and identity shaping and can thus illuminate these basic communicational processes. Definitions and images to be analyzed (within a historical and cross-cultural context) are drawn from religious, medical, and social scientific sources, as well as elite and popular culture.

SM 431. (SOCI425) Women and Political Activism. (M) Distribution Course in Society. Class of 2009 & prior only. Leidner. This seminar explores the conditions under which women become politically active and the relevance of gender to forms of activism, organizational practices, and choice of issues. Contemporary and historical case studies will examine women's activism in feminist and anti-feminist movements and organizations, in single sex-organizations devoted to a broad range of goals, and mixed-gender movements, including civil rights and trade unions.

SM 432. Family Dramas, Family Players. (M) Burnham. Though families have been the subject of literary scrutiny at least since Oedipus Rexm Eugene O'Neil's magisterial Loong Day's Journey Into Night was arguably the first American work to look unflinchingly at the darker side of family life. In this course, we will read twentieth century novels, plays stories and poems (as well as some nonliterary theoretical works on gender) that show the family as a whole, albeit a fragmented whole. We will read stories by the Irish writers William Trevor and Edna O'Brien who show marriage in various stages of decay, as well as two short novels by the American Jane Smiley whose family survives their crises. We'll look at the relationship of neighborhood and family through stories by the African-American writers John Edgar Wideman and Toni Cade Bambara. Arthur Miller's "Death of a Saleman" and poems from Life Studies by Robert Lowell will let us examine family through the lens of America's obsession with success. Finally, we'll look at families with traditional homes, through Barbara Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees" and Marilynne Robinson's "Housekeeping." Several of the works on the list have been made into excellent films, and we will watch at least two. Brief weekly response papers will encourage all to participate in discussion. There will be a final comparative paper, and no exam.

SM 447. (ANTH447) Human Reproductive Ecology. (J) Valeggia. Prerequisite(s): ANTH 003. A seminar-style graduate and advanced undergraduate course designed to provide an overview of the latest advances in human reproductive ecology and the mechanics of writing a proposal. We will discuss readings and exchange ideas on the different directions that this relatively new discipline may take. As a way of reviewing the material and train ourselves to present our ideas to a funding agency, we will write individual research proposals.

SM 449. (ANTH449, LALS449) Globalized Women: Domestic and Factory Workers in the Global

Economy. (M) Diggs-Thompson. On the surface, domestic and factory workers appear to perform radically different tasks. However, if we explore the conditions surrounding their employment, we see that globally, women in these occupations share some very important characteristics. These include similar household status, similar economic motivation and financial goals, and, similar placement on the occupational ladder. Many domestic and factory workers are also migrants, and although they are often better educated than women of previous generations, the vast majority are underemployed. This course examines how new forms of production and the spread of global capitalism have impacted the lives of women. The course will also examine and critique previous and current theoretical constructs that have attempted to describe and explain the phenomenon. By also evaluating women in relation to their country or region of origin, we will compare how global economic, social, and political forces have created new and renewed forms of womens oppression. Through group projects and individual projects, we will research and evaluate the conditions of women engaged in domestic and factory labor, and look at how past, present and future global conditions affect women associated with and employed in these categories of work.

499. Independent Study. (C)

503. MLA: Love, Politics and Myth in Popular Cinema. (M) Mackey-Kallis. Master in Liberal Arts course. Looking at such popular English language films as Titanic, The Piano, Reds, Cold Mountain, Gone with the Wind, and others, this course explores images of romantic love set against the background of often turbulent political times. Using Homer's the Illiad and the Oddysey and Dante's The Divine Comedy as a classical and medieval frame, respectively, for romantic love in a "dangerous time," and the writings of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Carl Kerenyi, Luce Irigary, and others, the course explores the relationships amoung romantic love, spiritual transformation, individuation and cultural and political evolution.

SM 507. (COML507) Feminist Theory. (M) Staff. The course has four foci: I. The French intellectual background of the 1960's and how feminists theory in Europe and America has appropriated, criticized and reinterpreted the prevailing trends of the period. II. The contention that each gender possesses psychological characteristics traditionally considered as the prerogative of the opposite gender. III. The emphasis on a female specificity. IV. The emphasis on cultural determinism, an endeavor which usually involves a criticism of III, whose various manifestations are sometimes hastily lumped together under the term "neoessentialism".

SM 511. (ANTH411) Anthropology of Sex and Gender. (M) Sanday. Prerequisite(s): ANTH 002. This course surveys psychoanalytic and social theories of sex and gender. We begin with the social organization and construction of sexual expression and engendered subjectivity. The social ordering of power through the mechanisms of sexual behavior and engendered subjectivity is considered next. In addition to reading anthropological analyses of sex and gender in specific ethnographic contexts, students will become familiar with relevant theorists such as Belsey, Strathern, de Lauretis, Foucault, Freud and Lacan. Short papers will be assigned in which students apply specific theories to interpret case material. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students are welcome.

513. (CINE215, SAST213, SAST513) Indian Cinema & Society. (B) Majithia. This course will meet for three hours to view and discuss a variety of films/videos in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Urdu (with English subtitles), and English, which bring up issues of social, political, and cultural significance. Readings for the course will include articles in various fields ranging from film studies and communication to sociolinguistics and women's studies. Discussions will focus on cinema as a means of expression and as an instrument for social change, examining the various ways in which films both reflect and influence contemporary culture.

SM 516. (ANTH516) Public Interest Workshop. (M) Sanday. This is an interdisciplinary workshop sponsored by Peggy Reeves Sanday (Dept of Anthropology), Michael Delli Carpini (Dean of Annenberg), and Ira Harkavy (Director, Center for Community Partnerships). Open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the workshop is a response to Amy Gutmann's call for interdisciplinary cooperation across the University and to the Dept. of Anthropology's commitment to developing public interest research and practice as a disciplinary theme. The workshop will be run as an open interdisciplinary forum on framing a public interest social science that ties theory and action. Students are encouraged to apply the framing model to a public interest reasearch and action topic of their choice. Examples of public interest topics to be discussed in class and through outside speakers include how education and the media reify public interests, the conflation of race and racism in the public sphere, the role of diversity, community action and service learning in higher education, and the contradictory relationship between individual and ethnic identity.

518. (NURS518) Nursing, Health and Illness in the U.S., 1860-1985. (B) Distribution Course in Hist & Tradition. Class of 2009 & prior only. D'Antonio, Buhler-Wilkerson. Summer Session II. Reviews the main events and ideas influencing health care since the Civil War changing ideas of health, the developing professions of nursing and medicine, institutions, the influence of religion and science, voluntary and tax supported health initiatives.

SM 528. (HSSC528) Gender and Science. (M) Lindee. With a special focus on methods, this course explores the rich literature on gender and technical knowledge.

SM 532. (DEMG541, SOCI541) Gender, the Labor Force and Labor Markets. (M) Madden. Drawing from sociology, economics and demography, this course examines the causes and effects of gender differences in labor force participation, earnings and occupation in the United States and in the rest of the developed developed and developing world. Differences by race and ethnicity areidered. also considered. Theories of labor supply, marriage, human captial andre discrimination are explored as explanations for the observed trends.se reviews Finally, the course reviews current labor market policies and uses thearriage, theories of labor supply, marriage, human capital and discrimination to men. evaluate their effects on women and men.

SM 534. (COML534, ITAL534) Woman in Poetry: From the Troubadours to the Petrarchans. (M)Kirkham. Conducted in English, undergraduates by permission only. The course explores female voices in medieval and early modern literature from Italy and France. We shall begin with the foundations of the "courtly" lyric tradition, reading the "trobairitz" (female troubadours). Next we shall turn to early Italian texts in which woman is the object of a male gaze. We shall consider both the classical "high" style that idolizes woman (Petrarch) and programmatic departures from it (Dante's "Stony Rhymes," satirical dialogues, and humorous misogyny). Our point of arrival will be the Petrarchan poetesses of 16th-century Europe, with an emphasis on the Italians (Vittoria Colonna, Gaspara Stampa, Laura Battiferra degli Ammannati). What were the literary and philosophical traditions that shaped notions of female identity? How do women establish their own textual space when appropriating a genre that had been the vehicle for a masculine first-person voice? How do the images of women as scripted by men, or staged through male cross-voicing, differ from those in poetry written by women? What are problems and issues in constructing a national history of women poets? Course conducted in English, with texts available both in English and in the original. Undergraduates by permission. Requirements: class participation; a final oral presentation on a woman poet of the student's choice, and a term paper of not more than 20 pp. or a take-home final.

SM 537. (COML521, ITAL537) Boccaccio. (M) Kirkham. Boccaccio's life and work in the context of Italian and European culture and society.

SM 540. (ANTH544, FOLK540) Masculinities in Narrative and Performance. (M) Dautcher. In this seminar we will read and discuss fieldwork-centered approaches to understanding the individual and collective lives of men in communities around the world. Through a perspective that emphasizes masculinity as performed and narrated in everyday life, we will seek to integrate concepts of:(1) the self -the experiencing and embodiment of personhood, subjectivity, and emotion; (2) spatiality and power - public and private forms of masculine self- presentation such as bodily disciplines, sporting events, leisure spaces; and (3) the state - relations between gender ideology, governmentality and power in political theatre, media control, warfare and military memorials. Familiarity with theoretical works on performance and narrative approaches to the study of everyday life will be addressed through additional recommended readings.

SM 542. (SOCI542) Work and Gender. (M) Leidner. This seminar examines the relevance of gender to the organization and experience of paid and unpaid work. Combining materialist and social constructuionist approaches, we will consider occupational segregation, the relation of work and family, gender and class solidarity, the construction of gender through work, race and class variation in work experiences, and related topics.

SM 546. (SOCI546) Feminist Theory. (M) Leidner. Feminist activists and academics have posed fundamental challenges to existing approaches to social theory. This seminar explores the development of feminist theory since the 1960s, focusing on approaches that have the most relevance for social science. The relations among feminist theorizing, research, and activism will be emphasized.

SM 550. (COML550, ENGL550) Topics: Women & Literature. (M) Staff. This class explores the cultural context in which the so-called Romantic Movement prospered, paying special attention to the relationship between the most notorious popular genres of the period (gothic fiction and drama) and the poetic production of both canonical and emerging poets.

SM 553. (COML554, ENGL553) British Women Writers. (M) Bowers. A study of British women writers, often focusing on the women authors who came into prominence between 1775 and 1825.

555. (NURS555) Women and Incarceration. (A) Brown, K.; Guidera; Durain. This elective course will afford students the opportunity to participate in service learning and health education in the Philadelphia prison system, in particular to incarcerated women. Students will explore the social and historical framework and trends in the incarceration of women and the health status of incarcerated women. During seminar discussions with experts in the criminal justice system and with staff and inmates at Riverside, the Philadelphia women's jail, students will explore the health, health care and health care needs of incarcerated women and identify specific areas in need of attention, especially with regard to health education. In collaboration with Philadelphia jail staff and female inmates, students will design and implement a health education project.

SM 556. (CINE556, COML557, ENGL556) Topics in Nineteenth Century Literature. (M) Staff. This course covers topics in ninteenth-century literature, their specific emphases varying with instructor.

SM 569. (AFRC569, COML569, ENGL569) Topics in American Literature. (M) Staff. This is a topics course where the primary is English. When the topic is Gay/Lesbian/Queer Studies and 19th Century American Literature or African American and Chicana Feminism, this course will be cross listed with women's studies.

SM 571. (ENGL571) Literary Theory and Gender. (M) Staff. This course is usually offered in the fall as a general introduction to literary and cultural theory, covering a wide range of thinkers and approaches. It is also sometimes offered in the spring as a concentrated exploration of a particular problem or school of thought.

572. (EDUC572) Language and Gender. (B) Pomerantz. A critical investigation of the relationship between language, gender, and social structure which addresses the role of language in reflecting and perpetuating gender divisions. Students' ongoing discourse analytic projects are integral to our exploration of issues related to sexism in and through language. Implications for individual and social change are discussed.

581. (EDUC581) Advanced Psychology of Women. (L) Stanley. Prerequisite(s): A course in general

psychology. A critical analysis of psychological theories about women and sex differences, a thorough examination of "psychology of women" research articles, and class-initiated research. Among the issues to be covered are: sex role socialization; class, race and gender connections; women and work; employment discrimination, assertiveness training; women's responses to injustice: domestic violence, rape, discrimination; the family and the "new right"; perceptions of women; sexuality, disability and objectification; reproductive rights, sex roles, androgyny and new role prescriptions; mental health and aging.

588. (NURS588) The Politics of Women's Health Care. (B) Durain, McCool. This course will utilize a multidisciplinary approach to address the field of women's health care. The constructs of women's health care will be examined from a clinical, as well as sociological, anthropological and political point of view. Topics will reflect the historical movement of women's health care from an an obstetrical/gynecological view to one that encompasses the entire life span and life needs of women. The emphasis of the course will be to undertake a critical exploration of the diversity of women's health care needs and the past and current approaches to this care.

Issues will be addressed from both a national and global perspective, with a particular focus on the relationship between women's equality/inequality status and state of health.

590. (EDUC590) Gender and Education (ELD). (B) Schultz; Kuriloff. This course is designed to provide an overview of the major discussions and debates in the area of gender and education. While the intersections of gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality are emphasized throughout this course, the focus of the research we will read is on gender and education in English-speaking countries. We will examine theoretical frameworks of gender and use these to read popular literature, examine teaching practices and teachers with respect to gender, using case studies to investigate the topics.

SM 591. (COML588, ENGL591) Modernism. (M) Staff. This course can take up any issue in modernism, but has usually focused on American modernists. One recent version of the course treated the work of William Carlos Williams; another dealt with the relations between modernism, mass culture, and such quintessentially "modern" experiences as assembly-line production and "urban shock".

SM 592. (COML592, ENGL592, ITAL592) Women in 20th Century Italian Literature. (M) Staff. This seminar, with readings and discussion in English, will bring recent American, French and Italian feminist theories to bear on the literary production of Italian women in this century. Similiarities and disjunctions between and among these feminisms will be explored, and the literary-theoretical directions taken by them will be used to analyze this century's Italian fiction and poetry primarily, although not exclusively by women. Some few male writers whose work speaks to the issue of the "voce feminile/debole" or "weakened" feminine voice will also be studied. Throughout, a balance of theory and practice will be sought, as feminist critical perspectives and literary texts alike are scrutinized.

599. Independent Study. (C) Staff.

SM 610. (COML610, HIST610) Colloquium in American History. (A) Staff. This is a topics course. If the topic is "Differences: Theory and Construction" it will be cross-listed with HIST 610/COML 610 and the following description applies. This course explores differences and theoretical perspectives on difference as related to gender, race, class, and sexuality. We will examine, in addition to the work of historians, historical studies of social diversity in America developed by scholars of race, gender, philosophy, literary theory, black studies and feminist studies.

612. (EDUC612) Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece: Ancient Practices, Modern Constructs. (L)Murnaghan. A study of how sexuality and sexual difference figured in the social practices and representations of the ancient Greek world. Topics for discussion include medical constructions of the male and female bodies, the politics of prostitution, the intersections of gender and slavery, depictions of sexuality in lyric poetry, drama, philosophy, legal discourse, and the novel, and the cultural significance of same-sex sexual realtions. Emphasis will be placed on the role of ancient gender arrangements and sexual practices in contemporary discussions, such as the feminist rediscovery of ancient matriarchies, Foucault's reconstructions of ancient models of the self, and the recent debates about the Colorado Amendment 2 Case. The course is open to interested graduate students in all fields, and no knowledge of Greek is required.

SM 620. (HIST620, JWST620, RELS621) Colloquim in European History. (A) Staff. This course will focus on problems in European political, social, cultural, and economic development from 1750 to the close of the second World War. Readings will include major works in the different fields of European historical scholarship, ranging from family to diplomatic history and covering a wide variety of methodological approaches.

SM 642. (AFRC642, ANTH642) Multiculturalism: Fieldwork and Theory. (M) Sanday. This is primarily a fieldwork, methods, and theory course for students working in multicultural settings or on topics involving the representation of cultural difference in popular culture. This seminar course is built around student projects. Each student will write a final paper for the course based on their fieldwork. Another important component of the course is the theoretical grounding of the fieldwork. Readings will be on multicultural theory and ethnographic methods in multicultural settings. The primary ethnographic site will be on the U.S., but students working in other multicultural settings are invited to enroll.

SM 652. (COML652, FREN652) Women's Writing in Early Modern France. (M) Staff. Topics of discussion will vary from semester to semester. One possible topic is: "The Female Tradition and the Development of the Modern Novel." We will discuss the most important women writers--from Scudery to Lafayette-of the golden age of French women writers. We will be particularly concerned with the ways in which they were responsible for generic innovations and in particular with the ways in which they shaped the development of the modern novel.

SM 676. (COML676, GRMN676) Readings in Feminist Theory. (I) Weissberg. The seminar will provide a survey of recent feminist theories, and a discussion of literary texts focusing on issues of gender, race, and class. The reading list will include essays by French, English, and American theorists as well as novels by Bachmann, Wolf, and Jelinek.

SM 683. (ENGL769, PSCI683) Gender, Power, and Feminist Theory. (M) Hirschmann. This seminar will examine the theme of power as it engages questions of sex and gender. Subsidiary themes that will be developed over the course of the semester include: the modernism/postmodernism debate as it particularly relatesto feminism; the intersectionality of race, gender, sexuality and cla and howfeminists can and do talk about "women"; the relevance of feminist theory to policy issues, and which theoretical approaches are the most appropriate or have the most powerful potential. The readings represent som of the newest scholarship as well as several more familiar texts to provide understanding of how some of the latest developments in feminist theory have come to pass. In the first 5 weeks we will explore general issues of power and then turn to works that attempt to grapple with more specific political issues in which power is expressed.

SM 705. (AFST705, ANTH705, COML715, FOLK715, MUSC705) Seminar in Ethnomusicology. (A) Staff. This seminar will take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of women in jazz performance. We will define "jazz" quite broadly to include contemporary musicians in the world music market, and consider the works of and about women from Africa, Europe, and the U.S. Students will be required to read materials written by and about women in jazz, as well as listen to recordings made by the women studied.

SM 735. (COML637, ENGL735) Shakespeare. (M) Staff. This seminar focuses on some aspect of Shakespeare's work, the context of its production, or its critical reception. A recent version examined Shakespeare's English history plays in the context of the Renaissance revolution in historiography

SM 748. (COML748, ENGL748, FREN660) Eighteenth-Century Literature. (M) Staff. This course varies in its emphases, but in recent years has explored the theory of narrative both from the point of view of eighteenth-century novelists and thinkers as well as from the perspective of contemporary theory. Specific attention is paid to issues of class, gender, and ideology.

SM 750. (ENGL750) Topics: Romantism. (M) Staff. This course is an advanced seminar on writings of the Romantic period, not restricted to English Romanticism. This is a topics course and the content may vary.

SM 751. (ENGL751) British Women Poets. (M) Staff. An advanced seminar in British poetry by women. This course has generally focused on the period from 1770-1830 when more than 300 women published at least one volume of poetry.

SM 769. (COML769, ENGL769) Feminist Theory. (M) Staff. This course is designed as an introduction to theories of subjectivity in post-structuralist analysis and "dissident" sexualities as they have been inscribed in cultural/textural representations from the late 19th century to the present. Feminist critiques of sexual difference, especially as they have been informed by psychoanalysis, will be our primary methodology. We will be especially concerned with the construction of lesbian and gay "identities" and the politics of visibility for subcultural sexual minorities as they intersect historically with class, race, and gender formations.

SM 773. (AFRC773, ENGL773) Feminist Introduction to Literary Modernism. (M) Mahaffey. This is an English topics course. When the title is "Feminist Introduction to Literary Modernism" the course will be cross-listed with Gender Culture and Society (GSOC).

SM 778. (COML778, ENGL778) Twentieth-Century Aesthetics. (M) Steiner. This course explores notions that have conditioned twentieth-century attitudes toward beauty: among them, ornament, form, fetish, and the artifact "women". The moves to twentieth-century fiction, art, manifestos, theory, and such phenomena as beauty contests and art adjudications.

SM 787. (ARTH787) Seminar in Contemporary Art. (C) Staff. Topics vary, when the course description includes women, gender and sexuality the it will be will cross-listed with GSOC.

SM 790. (COML790, ENGL790) Critical Theory. (M) Staff. Course varies with instructor. Recent versions have been "Critical Theory: Legacies of the Frankfurt School" and "Auteurism and Artificiality in Film Studies".

SM 806. (COMM806) Gender, Globalization and Media. (M) Parameswaran. This seminar creates a forum for debate over the ways in which the cultural politics of gender structure the historical, economic and social landscapes of media globalization Media culture, as the course readings seek to show, provides a fertile site to examine how globalized media practices articulate gendered imaginations. Adopting a transnational feminist perspective, the seminar specifically address between and among media technologies, representations, and institutions and the complex scripting of gendered meanings and subject positions in multiple locations in the global public sphere. Course topics include globalization and transnational and postcolonial feminist theories; gender, sexuality, and media; gender and labor in globalized media industries; femininity, consumerism, and global advertising; gender, global media, and morality; tourism, gender, and media economies; and gender, religion, and popular culture. For the major assignment, students will be expected to produce a research paper that focuses on one of the following: a critical review of a set of theories or a body of empirical work in a specific region; textual analysis of media with special attention to influences of globalization; political-economic analysis of media institutions and corporate practices.