Although the themes of prosperity and opportunity dominate American culture, the United States has higher inequality than any of the other industrialized democracies. What's more, the gap between rich and poor has grown since 1980. The purpose of this class is to examine, through a variety of readings and projects, socioeconomic class as a category of analysis and the ways in which it intersects analyses of gender.
Class is one of the ways in which human societies make distinctions among their members.
Such distinctions often to lead to an inequitable distribution of political power, social well-being, and the resources available to individual members of the society. Through visual processes like photography and documentary film, we will attempt to examine how these processes work within our own community. This course satisfies a requirement in the Women's and Gender Studies Concentration. The course instructor acts merely as a facilitator, so you should plan to be active and assume leadership roles. The class will culminate in a collaborative project which will involve all members of the class.