This is a listing of courses offered in the Curriculum in Women's Studies. Cross-listed courses are listed in sequential order. Click here to see a listing of these courses grouped by the cross-listing department.
In interdisciplinary exploration of women and men in American society. Topics explored include: family and work; secuality and sexual identity; gender roles and images in language, literature, religion, art and science; and the impact of the contemporar y feminist movement. Course readings are drawn from the humanities and the social sciences.
Topics are announced in advance and reflect the interest of the particular instructor. Each course will concern itself with a study in depth of some problem or issue in Women's Studies.
Introduction to research methods in women's studies leading to the completion of an Honors essay. (Fall, Spring)
Supervised internships designed to provide experience working in organizations concerned with women's issues. Prerequisite: WMST 50 or WMST 169. Written paper required. Either of these courses may be taken concurrently with WMST 190. 2-4 credit hours . Interested students should contact Denise Currin, Administrative Assistant, Women's Studies, 962-3908, prior to the beginning of the semester. Permission required.
Intensive reading and research in a student's chosen area of interest under faculty supervision. Results in a written report. Open to Women's Studies majors and other qualified undergraduate and graduate students. Permission of the Director and faculty member required.
An examination of the social differentiation between men and women. Attention to the extent, causes and consequences of sexual inequality, and to changes in sex roles and their impact on interpersonal relations.
Exploration of gender constructs, what it meant to be a woman or a man in antiquity, as they are revealed in literary, historical and archaeological sources. Readings from Homer, Euripides, Plato, Ovid, Virgil, Juvenal, Petronius, and toher ancient autho rs.
Works by French women authors read in translation along with pertinent throretical texts. Course content will vary each semester, incorporating text from different periods and genres.
Introduction to feminist aesthetics and film by the examination of the representation of women in German cinema from Expressionism to the present; subtitled films. English is the language of instruction.
Moral issues of equal rights and justice; sex role steeotypes; equal opportunity and reverse discrimination; abortion; philosophers' theories of feminism.
Examines multiple relationships between communication and gender. Emphasize how communication creates gender and power roles and how communicative patterns reflect, sustain and alter social conceptions of gender.
Examines the images and realities of women's lives in pre-industrial Europe. Our focus will stretch from prehistoric societies up to the beginnings of industrialization inthe eighteenth century.
When he first factories opened in England int he late eighteenth centruy, they inqugurated a process of economic chnage that has radically transformed the human experience. In this class, we will study how these changes have affected the lives of europea n women.
Introduction to recent literature, theoretcial questions and methodological issues concerning the study of women in Africa. Topics include women in traditional society, impact of colonial experience and modernization on African women.
Using a variety of sources including monographs, diaries, autobiographies, fiction, and filem, we will explore the publica nd private lives of American women of different class, racial, ethnc, and religious backgrounds from the colonial period to the pres ent. Our goal is to understnad women's role in AMerican life and the ways they have shaped our society, cluture and politics.
The changing level of women's involvement in sports and the socio-historical perceptions of this phenomenon, examines how women's participation in sports has been impacted by their racial, economic, and regional status.
This course will analyze the representation of women in Western Art, placing special emphasis on works made by women.
An examination of the individual and collective experiences of Black women in America from slavery to the present and the evolution of feminist consciousness.
A comparison of men and women as political actors at the mass and elite levels in America. Topics include the "gender gap", the women's movement, abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment.
Women and gender in Latin American history; examines the experiences of women and gender relations in Latin American Societies from pre-Columbian times to the present.
This course is a study of major American women authors from the seventeenth century into the twentieth century.
Southern Women Writers examines thematic and stylistic aspects in the fiction, drama, and poetry of major authors, and explores recurrent motifs in works by lesser known writers, particularly those from North Carolina.
Examines the importance of feminist theory across the curriculum. Topics include language and linguistics; psychoanalysis; anthropology, and myth; women's labor, production, and reproduction; history, political science, and religious studies; and literat ure, predominantly French and English.
An economic history of women, an economic analysis of women's time allocation patterns, and an application of economic techniques to contemporary policy issues.
Explores the possibilities, problems, and limitations of work for women during the Victorian period.
Interdisciplinary study of western views concerning love between the sexes, focusing on courtly love in the Middle Ages and Romantic love in the Victorian era. Literary, historical and art historical materials.
An analysis of literary techniques in the works of such writers as Jane Austen, George Sand, George Elliot, Kate Chopin, Isak Dinesen, Colette, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Anais Nin, Marguerite Duras and Nathalie Sarraute.
Implications of the relationship between women and leisure from a lifestyle perspective. Analysis of the changing role of women and changing leisure concepts from a feminist perspective.
The course describes the basic anatomy and physiology of the male and female reproductive organs and discusses methods of contraception to suppress normal fertility. The course also presents the subfertile or infertile causes and treatments. A major por tion of the course is in the discussion of pregnancy physiology and complications, including clinical management and newborn care, with a visit to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in North Carolina Memorial Hospital. The course is designed to make nonhea lth professionals as thoroughly familiar with the concepts and language of reproduction and its clinical concerns as physicians and nurses.
An examination of women as media producers, subjects, and audiences with a focus on current practices and possibilities for change.
A study of the inscription of femininity in texts by Spanish and Spanish American authors. Readings will be available in Spanish or in English translation. Lectures will be conducted in English.
An examination and exploration of women's changing roles, onstage and behind the scenes, in the 400-year history of opera; the influence of women on the course of opera.
Conceptualizations of gender, race, and class and how, separately and in combination, they are interpreted by the wider society. Emphasis on how black and working class women make sense of their experiences at work and within the family.
Cross-cultural perspectives on the social uses of gender distinctions. Focus on women's lives outside the U.S. and Europe. Comparison with students' social context.
Explores the social and cultural patterns and practices that differentially influence health and illness among women and men.
This course examines gender differences in the economic development process in the Third World and explores methods of incorporating a gender analysis in the work of development planners and policy makers.
The relationship between the figure of the father and the authority of the law (religious, societal, or familia) studied through such writers as Flaubert, Kafka, and Freud.
The course explores contemporary poetry, feminist discourse, and performance traditions by Latina, Native American and African American women. Study of culture and performance will culminate in the enactment of poetry.
This course will examine the ways women have portrayed their view of the south in fiction and drama. It will consider both the individual concerns of women artists and the cultural contexts which shape their art.
This course will focus on a limited number of topics related to the representation of women and/or the status of women as producers of art.
An interdisciplinary consideration of women's roles, behavior, and ideas in the religious life of Americans from 1636 to 1982.
An overview of women's health emphasizing their specific interest as family and community members, as patients, and as health professionals. Implications for health education practice and research. Permission of instructor.
Explores continuities and discontinuities between feminist and "traditional" political theory, including conceptions of "woman", and how feminists have critically interpreted traditional ideas.
An exploration of the distinctive themes in southern women's lives, using the evidence of history and literature.
Explores the various areas and levels of women's involvement in the political process before and after suffrage.
Permission of one of the instructors. Examines performance as means of interpreting and conveying oral history texts. Performance-centered approach to underscore gender distinctions in the telling and making of history; to enhance students' identificati on with narrators as historical agents; and to promote public presentation and discussion of historical research.
The course will view the population group of women over 50 years of age from several perspectives--sociological, psychological, economic and political--looking at their numbers, their health and their roles in the family, work and community.
Developments in the use of gender as a religious symbol and a religious structure from primal religion to the beginning of philosophical traditions in Asia, Africa and Europe.
Covers theories and research in the areas of constitutional and social learning influences on sex differences in such areas as intellectual accomplishment, achievement, dependency and aggression; sex differences in relation to behavior disorder.
Permission of instructor. Examines women as creators and beneficiaries of science and technology. Considers women as scientists and inventors; gender bias in scientific theories; reproductive, household, child care technologies; feminist approaches to i nquiry.
Explores images of women pictured in the folk imagination and traces those conceptions through created literature. Broadly based in folklore, literature, history and classics. Interdisciplinary approach reveals how writers are influenced by the folk cul tures that surround them.
A study of Russian women's writing after World War II. Includes both fictional and publicistic works analyzed in their socio-political context. An introduction to Russian women's studies.
Seminar in recent developments in feminist philosophy. Topics include feminist critiques of and constructive approaches toward ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, and philosophy of science.
Seminar in selected topics in feminist analysis of social life, with materials drawn from a global range of societies.
Readings in European women's history for graduate students.
Reading in American women's history for graduate students.
Directed readings on selected topics in the history of women in Western Europe and the United States.
This graduate-level reading course will cover selected topics in the history of European women, c. 500-1500. Topics will include: holy virginity and religious life; sexuality; work; courtly love; the different experiences of women of different social str ata (i.e., aristocratic vs. urban vs. peasant); and analysis of changes in women's status over time.
This graduate-level course will provide a rigorous introduction to feminist literary theory, focusing on feminist writings from France and their sources in psychoanalysis and post-structuralism. Anglo-American counterparts and adaptations of French theor ists and the French tradition will also be treated.
Readings in contemporary feminist theory, focused especially on theories that address the construction, writing and general practice of history.
Reviews theory and research on variation in men's and women's gender roles, with emphasis on industrialized societies and women's roles.
This course explores a range of feminist theory and investigates visual images (e.g., paintings, films, rock videos, advertisements) through issues of gender, race, class and sexual identity.
This seminar will deal in depth with the nature of gender cross culturally and the ways social comprehension of gender, gender status, and gender relationships impinge upon the differential experience of health and sickness in men and women from both a contemporary and historical perspective.
Insight and remedies on issues in education; curriculum, counseling and interaction patterns in the classroom; structures and leadership as well as fundamental assumptions can perpetuate racism, sexism and class divisions.
A survey of feminist approaches to politics and political inquiry.
Feminist critiques of organizational and political power structures; readings and discussions leading to individual and group research projects.