G603 : Contemporary Debates in Feminist Theory (3 credits)

The course analyzes current feminist debates within and sometimes against numerous intellectual movements, including but not limited to poststructuralism, ethnic studies, critical race theory, and cultural studies. Most assuredly NOT a review of "2nd wave feminism," this course instead assumes prior study of the major schools of feminist thought and pushes students to wrestle with critical issues that have emerged out of that earlier scholarship.

Lecture: 3:00pm-5:30pm - R - Instructor: Maher, J
(section: 13268) MME 131

G695: Graduate Readings and Research in Gender Studies (1-3 credits per semester)

Requires course authorization from Gender Studies (for authorization e-mail: gender@indiana.edu).

This course provides for graduate students intensive independent study of specific topics. Study is supervised by an appropriate core or affiliated faculty member whose research expertise matches the student's area of interest. These student projects are developed in consultation with this faculty member and the Director of Graduate Studies. Obtain permission form from the Gender Studies Office and have it signed by the faculty member agreeing to work with you.

(section: 7639) Arr.

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G696: Research Colloquium in Gender Studies
(1-3 credits per semester)

Requires course authorization from Gender Studies (for authorization e-mail: gender@indiana.edu ).

Introduces students to the problems, interpretations, theories, and research trends in all areas related to gender and sexuality studies. Colloquia also cover themes in Gender Studies professional development (identification of funding sources, resume and job interview preparation, etc). Topics vary throughout the semester. Course may be repeated more than once for credit.

Lecture: 1:00pm-2:30pm - R - Instructor: Arr.
(section: 14601 & 15460) MME 131

 

G701/498: Graduate Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Gender & Graphic Novels

 

Graphic novels have recently emerged as an increasingly visible and respected art form. Graphic novels are distinguished by the combination and intercalation of both visual and verbal languages along with a length and sophistication that take them beyond the traditional reputation of comics.

This course will examine graphic novels by both male and female authors/artists and will deal with topics that include the male body and the female body, sexuality, aids and the medicalized body, and gender and marginality.

Since this course will include all new material, it can be taken for credit by students who have taken my earlier courses on Gender and Comic Strips.

Lecture: 8:45am-10:45am - T - Instructor: Malti-Douglas, F
(section: 15361) MME 131

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G701: Graduate Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Stigma: Culture, Deviance & Identity

 

Cultural value systems in every society rely on sets of mutually defining terms -- for example, normal/abnormal, able-bodied/disabled, heterosexual/homosexual, white/non-white -- that largely determine local attitudes of acceptance or ostracism regarding particular categories of persons. Focusing on social stigma allows us to understand how specific cultural value systems affect our most intimate senses of self, contribute to our very notions of personhood, and inform the way we communicate and engage with others in the world.

 

Stigma theory speaks broadly to the nature of the social relationships that create marked categories of persons, regardless of which particular attributes are devalued. In this class we look both at theory and at particular cases of stigmatized persons and groups, as attention to the particularities of a given stigma keys us in to the cultural values that create and support it. Since stigmas do change over time, identifying strategies that have been effective in creating such change is a primary focus of the course.

The theoretical centerpiece of this course is Erving Goffman's 1963 study Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. We will read this text closely to appreciate Goffman's insights, and attempt throughout the semester to update them, and the language he uses to convey his points, by applying his model to more recent historical and ethnographic case studies of stigmatized persons and groups. Our focus will be on the range and efficacy of the various strategies available for managing and/or defying stigma.

 

The role of the expressive arts -- including novels, short stories, films, and performance art -- in the life trajectories of stigmatized persons and groups will be explored as one popular defiant strategy. We focus in particular on artists and activists whose work addresses contemporary cases of stigma. Weekly screenings of landmark films in the fields of disability studies, black studies, queer studies, gender studies, and India studies supplement regular class meetings; viewing these films is a critical part of the course.

 

Lecture: 1:00pm-3:30pm - R - Instructor: Seizer, S
(section: 11723) C2 272

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G701: Graduate Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Race & Science in America

This course examines the role of science and medicine in the construction of race in America's past and present. Students will interrogate the development of scientific authority over race as well as contestation and challenges to racial science. Other themes include health disparities, the racial coding of disease, and the implications of recent trends in genetic science. Throughout the course, particular attention will be paid to the intersection of race with other categories of human difference, such as gender, sexuality, and class, in American science.

Lecture: 2:00pm-4:30pm - W - Instructor: Stein, M
(section: 13269) MM131

G701: Graduate Topics in Gender Studies (4 credits)
Topic: Gender in Latin American History

Lecture: 3:35pm-5:30pm - M- Instructor: Diaz, A
(section: 26345) WH108

G701: Graduate Topics in Gender Studies (4 credits)
Topic: Modern Europe thru Lens of Gender

Lecture: 4:00pm-6:00pm- T- Instructor: Roos, J
(section: 26813) WH204

G701: Graduate Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Gender, Media & the Politics of Celebrity

This course will critically examine the role of the media – as expressed through print, electronic, and filmic formats -- in enabling, facilitating, or challenging the social construction of gender and sexuality in a Western context.  The course will take as a given that “gender” automatically references multiple identity locations – both about femininity and masculinity – as well as about race, class, sexuality, and sexual identity.  We will thus use bell hooks’ more comprehensive definition for thinking about feminist scholarship as the kind of engagements and provocations that interrogate and seek to expose entrenched power differentials.  The course will be interdisciplinary in approach, drawing from scholarly materials that range across film studies, cultural studies, media anthropology, and social history.  We will turn the second half of the semester to a more concentrated analysis of celebrity, including readings from “canonical” celebrity theorists like Richard Dyer and Joshua Gamson as well as new contributions to the field from scholars such as Su Holmes and Amelie Hastie.  Notions of fame indicate the ways in which certain narratives and identities conform to or depart from a set of normative values.

Since celebrity is both historically specific and culturally produced, our examination of celebrity will move across several modalities.  We will look to historical moments and to transnational phenomena, guided by interdisciplinary discussions that think about media culture, sociology, queer studies, race, and class – all in full discussion with gender theory.

 

Lecture: 5:00pm-7:00pm- T- Instructor: Weber, B
(section: 14603) MM131

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G899: PhD Thesis (3 credits)

Requires course authorization from Gender Studies (for authorization e-mail: gender@indiana.edu).

This course exists to enable Ph.D. Major and Minor students to undertake intensive independent study of topics not usually covered in existing courses. An appropriate faculty member who does research in the student's area of interest supervises study. Students interested in independent study should develop a topic prior to registration and in consultation with a faculty member and the Chair of Gender Studies.

(section: 25595) Arr.

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