Open to all undergraduates. This course uses small group discussion and development of supportive group norms to enable students to explore selected topics in women's studies as they apply to their own lives and to contemporary social issues. The course work includes large and small group activities, theoretical presentations, regularly assigned readings, and written assignments. There is strong emphasis on developing analytic tools - taking a critical stance with respect to one's experience, to social issues, and to the assigned readings.
Small groups meet in different campus locations, to be determined within each group.
Section 001 - New Writing by U.S. Lesbians of Color. This course introduces issues of self-representations in the construction of transgressive sexual identities. The course opens with an historical survey of the development of a critical consciousness articulated by African-American, Latina, Asian American, and Native American women. This historical framework will allow us to conceptualize and explore the personal and intellectual trajectories in the most recent writings by lesbians. Other issues we will touch upon include the reconstitution of sexuality, relationships, families, spirituality, and nationality.