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Women's Studies
Professor
M. Androne, Director
The Women’s Studies Program offers a series
of courses on women, gender, and the family, providing a coherent
grasp of women’s achievements throughout history as well as
a sense of female psychology and socialization. In offering students
a systematic range of women’s studies perspectives and fields,
the program allows them the opportunity to relate the interdisciplinary
study of women’s experience to the content of their major academic
field of study.
More specifically, the program has the following
goals: To develop the leadership potential of women by exposing
them to women’s history and their achievements in various fields;
to offer male students the opportunity to study the history of women’s
contributions in the arts and sciences and to understand fully the
unique nature of women’s experiences; to understand the ways
in which women’s works in art, literature, history, science,
religion and philosophy have been inspired and influenced by a tradition
of women’s works in all creative and academic fields; and to
identify the particular circumstances of working class and minority
women and understand how the forces of gender, race and class shape
their lives and determine their works.
Since its inception in 1989, the Women’s
Studies Program includes a growing number of courses on male gender
roles which reflect the growing body of scholarship centered on
how men are gendered in American society. Although the majority
of Women’s Studies courses emphasize gender in western societies,
one of the goals of this program is to provide a global context
and to offer students courses which will define the roles and issues
of women and men in non-western societies.
Students interested in Women’s Studies may
elect one of two options:
The
Women's Studies Program
The Women’s Studies Program requires one core
interdisciplinary course, either Sex Roles: An Introduction to
Women’s Studies (IDS 303), or Women and Men: Debating the Differences
(IDS 323) and four other Women’s Studies courses. (Students may
also choose to take both Women’s Studies IDS courses and three
other Women’s Studies courses.)
The
Combined Concentration in Women's Studies
The Combined Concentration in Women’s Studies
allows students to combine Women’s Studies with another area
of study. The requirements for a Combined Concentration in Women’s
Studies are: Sex Roles: An Introduction to Women’s Studies
(IDS 303); Women and Men: Debating the Differences (IDS 323);
Seminar in Women’s Studies (WMS 400), and four other Women’s
Studies courses. It is important to understand that students electing
the Combined Concentration in Women’s Studies can not earn
General Studies credit for the courses which are part of their
concentration.
The listings and topics vary from year to year,
but among the courses offered on a regular basis for either the
Program or the Combined Concentration are: Sex Roles: Introduction
to Women’s Studies (IDS 303); Women and Men: Debating the
Differences (IDS 323); Science and Gender (SPI 244); The Feminine
Face of Philosophy (PHI 228); Women and the Bible (REL 244); Goddesses:
East and West (REL 249); Women in Latin America (LAS 340); U.S.
Social History: The American Family 1600-1900 (HIS 311); Sex,
Gender and Culture (ANT 263); Psychology of Gender (PSY 406);
The Family (SOC 261); Family Relations (SOC 312); Women Writing
in America (ENG 235); Black Women Writers (ENG 235); American
Women Playwrights (ENG 235); Women’s Texts (ENG 390); Woman
and Literature: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance (ENG 390).
Courses
WMS
400 |
Seminar in Women’s Studies
Addressing developments in the new scholarship on women and
in feminist theory and methodology, the seminar will focus
on topics from different disciplines and will afford students
the opportunity to present their own scholarly work in the
field. The topics will vary from year to year and will take
advantage of the wide range of expertise of faculty specializing
in Women’s Studies fields. Major focus in this seminar
course is on issues related to past, present, and future constructions
of gender in the United States.
The voices of both women and men representing various viewpoints
and disciplines will be reviewed and studied in order to interpret
and understand the concepts of sex, gender, gender roles,
and gender identity (psychological based theories will be
emphasized). The meanings of these concepts will be examined
critically as a function of changing perspectives associated
with biological determinism, technology, economics politics,
and social construction within the Romantic, Modern, and Postmodern
periods of history. Special topics will be researched. In
addition, part of the focus is on our construction of human
sexuality and the relationship among gender, sex and sexuality.
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