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 and off-campus locations.
Meeting place is determined within each group. Women in Popular Culture. This minicourse will examine how gender roles and behaviors are represented in popular culture, as well as the extent to which these representations vary by race and class. The subject matter of the course may include film, advertising, music, popular fiction, magazines, or television, or it may combine a number of these media. A major goal of the course will be to integrate theory with practice, primarily by describing and analyzing issues of gender that manifest themselves subtly but pervasively in mass-market materials.