Core Course Offerings Spring 2007
Women's and Gender Studies

Each semester, the Women’s and Gender Studies program offers at least two core courses and cross-lists a number of courses from other departments. These courses are available to students enrolled in any WGS program or to those looking for a stimulating elective. Core courses for Fall 2007 appear below. For cross-listed courses, click on Women’s and Gender Studies in the Attributes box on Roosevelt University’s Fall 2007 Coursefinder page.

Every semester, two different sections of Topics in Feminist Theories (WGS 3/404) will be offered. One of these sections will be a graduate students-only seminar, designed for WGS master’s and graduate certificate students, but also open to graduate students in other disciplines.

WGS 3/404 Feminist Theories of Performance                      Gina Buccola    Chicago campus      M 2-4.30 PMStarting with theatrical, biographical, and frankly fictive accounts of the “roaring girl,” Mary Frith, or Moll Cutpurse, charged with repeated counts of transvestism in seventeenth-century London, we will explore how gender is performed in both the theater and in life. We will bring a variety of critical perspectives to bear on our examination of plays, novels, films, and performance art, including feminist theater theory, feminist literary theory, feminist cultural theory and the feminist philosophical musings of Judith Butler.  By the end of the term, students will be able to apply feminist criticism from all of these perspectives to their own written analyses of works in all four genres (drama, film, fiction and performance art). In addition to Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s seventeenth-century play The Roaring Girl, we will also read Ellen Galford’s lesbian historical romance novel Moll Cutpurse: Her True History, Caryl Churchill’s gender-bending, cross-cast play Cloud 9, Eve Ensler’s recent play The Good Body, and the texts of Karen Finley’s performance art pieces collected in Shock Treatment. Finally, we will view and critique the films Boys Don’t Cry and Transamerica. WGS 304: required for new WGS minors; PRE-REQ: RUA. WGS 404 is required for all WGS master’s and certificate students and open to graduate students in all disciplines.

WGS 304 Feminist Theories of Sexuality 
Mary Pflugshaupt    Schaumburg campus           W 2-4.30 PM
In this course, we will read essays, an erotic novel, and several short stories, focusing on how sexuality is defined, constructed, and theorized within the texts and how those interpretations intersect with gender, race, and class.  We will pay particular attention to desire and how social stigmas attached to desire influence the authors’ discourses on sexuality and normativity. In particular, we will examine the idea of normality and how it often stifles the growth of a healthy sexual identity.  In addition, we will discuss how desire and sexual practice often lead to feelings of guilt and alienation, and also open up avenues to  empowerment and self-determination. Finally, we will analyze the novel and short stories in relation to several feminist ideologies.  Although we will engage in frank discussions of course materials, we will do so with attentiveness and sensitivity. WGS 304: required for new WGS minors; fulfills general education elective. PRE-REQ: RUA.
                                                                          

WGS 404 Feminist Theories of the Body
Carrie Brecke   Chicago campus      TH 6-8.30 PM
This course will focus on how women’s bodies have been constructed theoretically through medical, religious, cultural and philosophical discourse, but will explore also how “others’” bodies, e.g., persons of non-Western nationalities, the disabled, gay men, have been constructed in relational ways. Readings will be selected from a variety of disciplines and time periods with the heaviest emphasis being from contemporary feminist works. We will read works by Audre Lorde, Radhika Mohanram, Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, Donna Haraway, Jewell Gomez, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Judith Halberstam and Susan Bordo, but also popular magazines, medical pamphlets, and children’s books. While the class will pursue certain lines of inquiry together, students will delineate, research and present an avenue or issue within “body theory” that interests them. NOTE: THIS IS A GRADUATE STUDENTS-ONLY SEMINAR. WGS 404 is required for all WGS master’s and certificate students. WGS 404 is open to graduate students in all disciplines.

WGS Internship: Feminist and Critical Pedagogy at the Writing CenterCarrie Brecke   Chicago campus      Days/times TBAIn this graduate-level internship, the student works directly with the Writing Center Director to participate in planning and teaching the tutor training course (an advanced course in writing) and assist in administering at the writing center.  Readings in critical and feminist pedagogy and the politics of literacy and community will be supplemented by classroom and writing center observation and participation. The student will help create and foster a community working towards social justice goals—in this case a writing community dedicated to bringing a writing voice to all. Prerequisite: WGS 402 or 404; apply through WGS advisor (Ann Brigham)