Course Archive
2021-2022 Courses
2020-2021 Courses
3000 Level Courses
WS 3153F BAD GIRLS: DISSIDENT WOMEN AND POPULAR CULTURE
This course examines our fascination with the figure of the “bad girl” in popular culture. We will concentrate on theoretical work which informs the relationship between popular culture and dissident sexuality in order to look more closely at how adolescent and young adult female bodies are created, controlled and contested. Prerequisites: Women's Studies 2253E or 2273E or 2220E or special permission of the department.
| Fall | 3153F | Laura Cayen | Synchronous online course Wed 10:30 am-1:30pm |
WS 3163G CONTEMPORARY QUEER TOPICS
This course investigates topics in contemporary queer life, including same-sex marriage, gay and queer radicalism and the fight for sexual liberation, the growth of assimilatory politics and its consequences, homonationalism and pink-washing, homophobia and bullying, the role of religion, and the globalization of LGBT human rights rhetoric and politics. Prerequisite(s): Women's Studies 2273E or Women's Studies 2220E or permission of the department.
| Winter | 3163G | Wendy Pearson | Synchronous online course Thurs 10:30 - 1:30pm |
WS 3311F/ ENG 3369F - TOPICS IN 19TH CENTURY LITERATURE: JANE AUSTEN
This course will be broad enough to provide an introduction to this historical period. It may concentrate on a shorter historical span, a particular genre, or use some other principle of selection. 3 hours, 0.5 course
| Fall | 3311F | Online | MH McMurran | Syllabus  |
WS 3315G RESPONDING TO VIOLENCE AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF GENDER, SEXUALITY AND SETTLER COLONIALISM
This course is designed as a kind of response to this report, as well as other Indigenous activists, scholars, and allies who are seeking both justice for and the prevention of future violence against Indigenous women and girls. To accomplish this, with me students will engage in a learning (or unlearning) of Canada’s settler-colonial policies and agendas that have contributed to the marginalization of many Indigenous people and communities. From that foundational knowledge, the rest of the course will be spent investigating and understanding the specific problem of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada, with special attention to the kinds of work being done to raise awareness about and ultimately prevent more forced disappearances and murders.
| Winter | WS 3315G | Kascie Shewan | Synchronous online course Wed 10:30-1:30pm |
WS 3316G WOMEN AND OTHER DEVIANTS.....UNDER COMMUNISM AND CAPITALISM - NEW COURSE!
The point of this course is to examine how major politico-economic systems produce different notions of gender, and how they produce different sexual citizens. To this end, in this class, we explore the main tenets of real (past and present) communism and capitalism, as both political and economic systems; we trace how they produce their ‘ideal’ citizen & worker; and we investigate how those citizens & workers implicate notions of gender and sexuality.
| Winter | WS 3316G | Kate Korycki | Synchronous online course Thur 1:30-4:30 pm |
WS 3321F ADVANCED TOPICS IN FEMINIST THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES (Required 3rd yr. theory course)
This course applies a wide range of feminist theories and critical practices, including postmodern and queer theories, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial studies, to a diverse array of artistic practices, including literature, film, and the performing and visual arts.
3 hours, 0.5 course. Prerequisite(s): Women's Studies 2220E, or permission of the Department.
Previous course outline
| Fall | 3321F | Helen Fielding | Synchronous online course Wed 1:30 - 4:30 pm |
WS 3322G ADVANCED TOPICS IN FEMINIST THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SOCIAL SCIENCES
(Required 3rd yr. theory course)
This course is an advanced examination of the application of feminist theories and practices to topics in the social sciences. Focus will include epistemological and methodological questions raised in feminist engagement across the various social science disciplines. Topics addressed may include a range of social-economic, cultural, political, and policy issues. 3 hours, 0.5 course Prerequisite(s): Women's Studies 2220E, or permission of the Department. New course outline.
| Winter | 3322G | Erica Lawson | Synchronous online course Wed 1:30 - 4:30 pm |
WS 3324G CONTEMPORARY TOPICS IN CRITICAL RACE STUDIES
Focussing on the changing meanings of race and racism in the twenty-first century, this course discusses and analyzes conceptual frameworks for understanding the multi-faceted and intersectional dimensions of race and racism, and examines how these inform social justice movements and other initiatives that seek to challenge institutional racism and racial violence. Antirequisite(s): Women's Studies 3331F/G if taught in Fall 2015. Prerequisite(s): Women's Studies 2220E or Women's Studies 2273E. New course outline.
| Winter | 3324G | Jason Sunder | Synchronous online course Mon 4:30-7:30pm |
NEW COURSE
WS 3345G GLOBAL AND HISTORICAL CASES OF HOMOPHOBIA AND RESISTANCE
Homophobia - or a hostility towards persons not conforming to heterosexual norms - is old and new, global and local, and its apparent demise in some places and times is never assured. In this class, we will explore all these aspects of production, maintenance and resistance and we will do it by paying attention to both history and contemporary cases. We will investigate how homophobia was and is implicated in disciplining of gender, how it was and is a tool of orientalism; how it helped build nations and grow religious orders, how it aided Cold War; and how it now organizes the notions of terrorism. We will also explore how it adapted and responded to ongoing resistance and how the resistance changed through time. Our class discussions will be anchored around the cases of France, Iran, USA, Uganda and Poland, and they will explore how the cases affect each other. Other cases of interest to students are welcome!
| Winter | 3345G | Kate Korycki | Synchronous online course Wed 1:30 - 4:30 pm |
WS 3350F FEMINISM ACROSS BORDERS
Is an inclusive feminism possible? Is a feminism that transcends borders and embraces a
broader, more global spectrum of feminist voices than ever before feasible? Reading feminist
authors from a diversity of backgrounds, we examine the attractions and challenges of a global
feminism. Prerequisite(s): Women's Studies 2220E, or permission of the Department. Previous course outline
| Fall | 3350F | Shuchi Karim | Synchronous online course Thur 1:30 - 4:30 pm |
WS 3355E FEMINIST ACTIVISM
This course examines a variety of issues and interventions to understand what feminist action can accomplish. Some of the questions we engage include: What tools do various feminist activists take up, for what specific kinds of aims, and with what successes and why? What can we learn from the failures or exclusions of feminist activisms? What are the relationships between past or historical movements and contemporary contexts, individual and collective action, community organizing and institutions, local and global solidarities? How can feminist protest genuinely avoid divide-and-conquer politics to be the ethical, intersectional, accountable work we require of feminism in the 21st century? It is the commitment of this course that, in addition to studying feminist activism in the classroom, students engage in a Community Engagement Learning (CEL) project sustained over the course with a community organization or other partners to encourage students’ implementation of their learning -- beyond the borders of the classroom. Please note that the course is currently capped at twenty-two students for CEL group projects. As of July 21st, registration will open to students wishing to take it with an alternate assignment rather than working with, and completing a project for, community partners.
| Fall/Winter | WS 3355E | Erica Lawson and Kim Verwaayen | Synchronous online course Mon 1:30-4:30pm |
WS 3357G/ FILM 3352G - QUEER CINEMA: BEFORE STONEWALL- QUEER CINEMA AND AMERICAN CULTURE FROM WWII TO GAY LIBERATION
Examining the conventions and the gradual undoing of what Vito Russo famously called “the celluloid closet,” this course will explore key shifts in queer representation in American cinema of the postwar era. We will analyze the queer typology (sad young men, dangerous dykes, queer killers, etc.) of a variety of Hollywood genres (horror, noir, melodrama) as well as the often subversive work of figures like Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, and Alfred Hitchcock in the context of Cold War homophobia and gender normativity. We will then frame the eventual breakdown of Production Code restrictions on “sexual perversion” in relation to the development of queer alternatives via avant-garde, underground, and documentary cinema. The final section of the course will concentrate on a group of films from the Stonewall era that will allow us to grapple with the aesthetic, cultural, and political consequences of the shift from silence and oppression to an era of presumed liberation. What’s gained—and perhaps lost—for queer subjects in the transition from invisibility to visibility, from subculture to mainstream, and how has this key historical moment shaped our contemporary notions of queer culture and identity?
Potential screenings include: Queen Christina, Rope, Tea and Sympathy, Caged, Johnny Guitar, Glen or Glenda?, The Children’s Hour, Fireworks, Un Chant d’Amour, My Hustler, Chained Girls, Olivia, Flaming Creatures, A Florida Enchantment, Portrait of Jason, The Queen, CBS Reports: The Homosexuals, Reflections in a Golden Eye, The Killing of Sister George, and others.
| Winter 2021 | 3352G / 001 | Online | J. Wlodarz | Syllabus |
WS 3358G FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN CANADA
Gender-based violence was one of the earliest issues identified by feminists as a focus for grass-roots organization and continues today to be an important subject for community work, research and political struggle. This seminar will provide an overview of both the theory and practice of feminist anti-violence work locally and globally. This course will also examine key aspects of these debates in Canada and the United States, as well as in other parts of the world. These theoretical issues will also be connected with practice, that is, with the front-line work that is undertaken in the community to counter violence against women and their children. New course outline
| Winter | 3358G | Katherine McKenna | Synchronous online course Thur 1:30-4:30pm |
NEW COURSE
WS 3359G/VA 3362G RACE AND GENDER IN THE PRE-MODERN WORLD
This course explores the influence of women artists, patrons, collectors, subjects, etc. on the Early Modern art world. In approaching this topic, we begin by contextualizing early feminist art historical interventions that established the initial processes of recovery of female artistic voices as we examine important women artists and female contributors to the art market in Europe during the Early Modern era. Informed by contemporary theories and methodologies concerning gender and race, our discussion of Early Modern art will move beyond Europe into the Americas and the Middle East to consider the significance of female artists, patrons, and personas. This course both surveys Early Modern women artists and patrons and examines the academic discourse on Renaissance and Baroque Art History.
| Winter | 3359G | Cody Barteet | online |
2019-2020 Courses
2018-2019 Courses
2017-2018 Courses
2016-2017 Courses
WS 1020E INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S STUDIES
Instructors: Kim Verwaayen (sec 001) & Laura Cayen (sec 002)
Email: kjverwaa@uwo.ca, lcayen@uwo.ca
An introductory and interdisciplinary survey of the status of women in contemporary, historical, and cross-cultural perspective, this course explores how gender and other differences are established or challenged through various institutional and individual practices. With a focus on feminist resistance to sexual, socio-cultural, economic, racial, and political oppression worldwide, we will appraise the implications of these practices for women's everyday lives. 2 lecture hours plus one hour tutorial, 1.0 course. Previous course outline
WS 1021F INTRODUCTION TO SEXUALITY STUDIES
Instructor: Chris Roulston
Email: croulsto@uwo.ca
Class times: Wednesdays 1:30 - 3:30 pm plus one hour tutorial
We will be introducing students to current social and political issues in sexuality studies, with a focus on contemporary issues around sexuality, including formation of sexual identities, sexual practices and politics, policing of sexuality, questions of sexual diversity, and the historical and global nature of ideas and controversies around sexuality. 2 hours plus a one hour tutorial, 0.5 course. Course outline
WS 1022G GENDER, JUSTICE AND CHANGE
Instructor: Bipasha Baruah
Email: bbaruah@uwo.ca
Class times: Wednesdays 1:30 - 3:30 pm plus one hour tutorial
The 21st century is a period of accelerating change focused around issues of gender, justice and activism. This course will introduce students to the ways in which movements for justice and change are informed by and take up gender issues in matters of education, health, poverty, globalization, the environment, etc. 2 hours plus a one hour tutorial, 0.5 course. Course outline
WS 1024F INTRO TO EQUITY,DIVERSITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Instructor: Erica Lawson
Email: elawso3@uwo.ca
Class times: Tuesdays 1:30 - 3:30 pm plus one hour tutorial
This course surveys theory and practice in the fields of equity, diversity, and human rights as they are taken up in institutional domains such as social work, education, and law and in schools of thought such as critical race studies, feminism and gender studies, sexuality studies, and disability studies, 0.5 course. Course outline
WS 2159B THE ART OF SEX: DEPICTIONS OF SEX AND SEXUALITY IN WESTERN ART
Instructor: Sonia Halpern
Email: shalpern@uwo.ca
Class times: Thursdays 1:30 - 4:30pm
This course will explore the ways in which various aspects of sexuality get depicted in historical and contemporary art. Sexuality has been associated with art since pre-historic times, as demonstrated by the appearance of fertility figures, and became a pervasive subject in the centuries that followed, intersecting with heteronormative religious, medical, legal, and psychiatric discourses, as well as with covert and overt acts and movements of resistance. The art works under discussion reflect the concept that attitudes around sex and sexuality, along with integrated ideologies of masculinity and femininity, are crucial to our understanding of both art and society. Painting, sculptures, photography, and digital art will all be examined in the form of lectures and accompanying PowerPoint illustrations. Course outline
WS 2160B INTIMATE RELATIONS: SEX, GENDER AND LOVE
Instructors: Katherine McKenna
Email: kmckenna@uwo.ca
Class times: Mondays 4:30 - 7:30pm
Intimate Relations focuses on how expectations of intimacy and relationships rely on particular understandings of love, sex, sexuality and bodies to shape how we experience ourselves as gendered and sexual beings. The course considers how intimacy (sexual, maternal, familial, affectionate) is understood in relation to history, philosophy, health, society and popular culture. No prerequisites 3 hours, 0.5 course. Previous course outline
WS 2161A WOMEN AND POPULAR CULTURE: GARBO TO GAGA
Instructors: Nichole Edwards
email: nedwar7@uwo.ca
Class times: Mondays 4:30 -7:30pm
How are women represented in popular culture? Women's images in the media, from newspaper and magazines to television, film and music videos produce particular notions of what it means to be a woman, be feminine, etc. We will examine both the historical and contemporary roles of women in popular culture. 3 hours, 0.5 course Top of Page WS 2162B THE BODY Instructor: Wendy Pearson and guest lecturer Class times: Mondays 4:30 - 7:30 pm We will examine social and scientific constructions of the body, including concepts of beauty, health, fitness, sexuality, and questions of representation. Among other things, we may examine particular social problems, such as technologies of the body and bodily modification, ideas of health and illness, society’s difficulty with understanding the disabled body as sexual, the cultural obsession with body size, psychiatric and medical responses to people who feel that their bodily sex does not match their gender, changing ideas about beauty and attraction, and artistic conceptions, representations, and alterations of the human body. No prerequisites, 3 hours, 0.5 course. Previous course outline
WS 2162B THE BODY
Instructors: Julianna Beaudoin
Email: jbutler23@uwo.ca
Class times: Wednesdays 4:30 - 7:30pm
We will examine social and scientific constructions of the body, including concepts of beauty, health, fitness, sexuality, and questions of representation. Among other things, we may examine particular social problems, such as technologies of the body and bodily modification, ideas of health and illness, society’s difficulty with understanding the disabled body as sexual, the cultural obsession with body size, psychiatric and medical responses to people who feel that their bodily sex does not match their gender, changing ideas about beauty and attraction, and artistic conceptions, representations, and alterations of the human body. No prerequisites, 3 hours, 0.5 course. Previous course outline
WS 2164A GENDER AND FASHION New Course!
Instructors: Samantha Brennan
Email: sbrennan@uwo.ca
Class times: Wednesdays 4:30 - 7:30pm
This course examines the world of fashion from a critical feminist perspective. Topics covered may include fashion’s role in gender and sexuality identity; the relationship between women’s fashions and women’s liberation; the history, sociology, aesthetics of fashion; the mass production of fashion; and feminist concerns about exploitation and sweatshop labour. 3 hours, 0.5 course. Course outline
WS 2205F MAKING MEN: CRITICAL STUDIES IN MASCULINITY
Instructor: Joshua Morrison
Email: jmorr@uwo.ca
Class times: Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm
This course addresses masculinities as social constructs. It debates the theoretical and practical strongholds competing discourses have had over gender as a construct and specifically masculinities. One overarching goal of this course is to develop critical and analytical frameworks for unsettling and interrogating gender assumptions. Additionally, this course is intended to raise questions that will better enable us to construct and deconstruct what and how we come to understand masculinity, singular, as masculinities, plural. In the everyday public discourse, we are witness to a heightened awareness and growing concern, generally, to “help the boys.” From mainstream media reports, to schools, universities and education more generally, we are inundated with calls for more attention to "the boys." Though largely cloaked by concerns for performance, achievement, and gender equity, at the heart of the debate is a set of deep-seated and long-held understandings and assumptions about gender but specifically masculinity and schooling. This course provides a lens for examining masculinities in the context of media, activist organizations, daily social interactions as well as looking closely at secondary schools as a primary masculinizing institution. Our particular lens of analysis probes masculinities from various points of intersection, namely, the raced, class and gendered lives of boys and young men. No prerequisites, 3 hours, 0.5 course. Previous course outline
WS 2212G GENDER, BODIES, WORK, VALUE New Course!
Instructor: Stephen Lin
Email: clin64@uwo.ca
Class times: Tuesdays 4:30 - 7:30pm
Gender is mobilized in both insidious and obvious ways to de/value bodies, appropriate power, profit and wealth from labour, and alienate people. This course mobilizes intersectional, decolonial, feminist, anti-capitalist and liberatory scholarship to organize a deep understanding of value, and builds toward deshaming and reclaiming the humanizing praxis of work, 3 hours, 0.5 course. Antirequisite(s): The former Women’s Studies 2261F/G. Prerequisite(s): Women's Studies 1020E or 1.0 course from Women's Studies 1021F/G, 1022F/G, 1023F/G, 1024F/G.Course outline
WS 2220E FEMINIST THEORY AND PRACTICE ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES (Reqiuired 2nd yr. theory course)
Instructors: Kim Verwaayen and Erica Lawson
Emails: kjverwaa@uwo.ca, elawso3@uwo.ca
Class times: Thursdays 10:30 am - 1:30 pm
An examination of the implications of feminist theories and practices at work in many different disciplines, including arts, media, social sciences, health sciences, science, law. We introduce students to theoretical concepts and ask questions about the ways sex, gender and sexuality are understood and researched from a range of perspectives. Antirequisite(s): Women's Studies 2256E or Women's Studies 2257E Prerequisite(s): WS1020E, or WS1021F/G and WS1022F/G, or permission of the Department. 3 hours, 1.0 course. Previous course outline
WS 2225F - INTRO TO GIRLHOOD STUDIES New Course!
Instructor: Miranda Green-Barteet
Email: mgreenb6@uwo.ca
Class times: Monday 1:30 am - 4:30pm
This course introduces students to the emerging field of Girlhood studies. We consider what it means to be a girl and how the concepts of girl and girlhood have been constructed across a variety of geographic and historical contexts, as well as how the intersections of race, class, gender, and ability have influenced these concepts. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, including literature, and history, we specifically consider girlhood through a feminist lens and examine how definitions of girl and girlhood shape individual experience, historical narratives, cultural representations, and futures, 3 lecture hours, 0.5 course.
Prerequisite(s): Women's Studies 1020E or 1.0 from Women's Studies 1021F/G, 1022F/G, 1023F/Gand 1024F/G. Course outline
WS 2240F FOUNDATION OF FEMINIST THOUGHT
Instructor: Alison Lee
Email: alee@uwo.ca
Class times: Wednesdays 10:30 am - 1:30pm
This course takes up foundational readings in the history of feminist thought from early feminists’ calls for women's equality and rights to postmodern understandings of gender. The course will consider how feminist thought has emerged, developed and evolved in response to various historical, intellectual, social, political and cultural challenges. Antirequisite: WS2250E. No prerequisites. 3 hours, 0.5 course
WS 2244 WOMEN AND HEALTH
Instructor: Andrea Allen
Email: aallen65@uwo.ca
Class times: Thursdays, 4:30 - 7:30pm
This course takes a critical, interdisciplinary approach to understanding women’s health. The course is organized into six modules with each module covering a topic area that is relevant to women and health. The topics covered in this course are:The Medicalization of Women’s Health; Representing Gender and Women’s Health; The Politics of Reproduction; Diversity and Women’s Experiences of Health Care; The Social Determinants of Women’s Health; and Women, Work and Health. Antirequisite: Women’s Studies 2154. No prerequisites. Previous course outline
WS 2263F INTERSECTIONS: RACE, CLASS AND SEXUALITY
Instructor: Andrea Allen
Email: aallen65@uwo.ca
Class times: Tuesdays 4:30 - 7:30pm
One of the main objectives of this course will be to unravel how human beings become categories that expand beyond the seemingly binary divide between “the sexes,” “the races,” and the “haves and have-notes.” Instead, we will consider the real-life experiences of “Muslim women” or “two-spirit people” through an examination of texts from the fields of anthropology, cultural studies, feminist studies, and queer studies, among others. In addition, our examination of products from popular culture, such as films, television shows, music videos, and clips from the internet, will provide thoughtful, and often provocative, examples of the complex representations of race, gender, class, and sexuality in our society. Prerequisite: Women's Studies 1020E or Women’s Studies 1021F/G plus Women's Studies 1022F/G, or permission of the Department. Previous course outline
WS 2270B WOMEN AND LAW
Instructor: Tyler Totten
Email: ttotten@uwo.ca
Class times: Mondays 1:30 - 4:30pm
This course is an introduction to various areas of law which affect women in specific ways. It will examine laws relating to sex discrimination, employment, sexual harassment, rape and sexual assault, abortion, marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance, pornography and prostitution. It will explore topical debates in these various areas of law and how law can be used as a strategy for bringing about social change. No prerequisites. 3 hours, half course. Previous course outline
WS 2273E SEXUAL SUBJECTS
Instructor: Jessica Cameron
Email: Jessica.Cameron@uwo.ca
Class times: Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:30pm
This interdisciplinary course focuses on sexuality as a subject of study and considers how sexuality defines individual and social subjectivity. The course will explore sexual subjects within a theoretical context and might include sexology, psychoanalysis, queer theory, feminism, the history of sexual identity, and its representation in cultural production. No prerequisites. 3 hours, 1.0 course. Previous course outline
WS 2274F INTRO TO TRANSGENDER STUDIES
Instructor: Jake Pyne
Class times: Thursdays 1:30 - 4:30pm
This course will focus on trans identities, history, theory and politics from the perspectives of feminist, queer, and emerging trans theory. Topics may include transphobia and oppression of trans people, sex and gender change, transvestism, gender passing, transgender children and their families, and intersectionalities with sexuality, race, class, ability, etc.3 lecture hours, 0.5 course.
WS 2275G HETEROSEXUALITIES
Instructor: Cameron Greensmith
Email: cgreensm@uwo.ca
Class times: Wednesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm
This course is interested in the interdisciplinary study of heterosexualities. Topics covered will include: social and historical productions of (hetero)sexualities; cultural performances of (hetero)sexualities; heterosexual pleasures and dangers; heterosexed pornographies and sex-work; erotic (hetero)sexual power play; and heterosexualities that cross the boundaries of (cis)gender, race, age, ability, class and nation, 3 lecture hours, 0.5 course.
WS 2283G DESIRING WOMEN
Instructor: Andrea Allen
Email: aallen65@uwo.ca
Class times: Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm
This course looks at how female sexuality and subjectivity is experienced, understood, represented and theorized across a range of disciplines; these may include art, literature, media, psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology and medicine. It explores how female sexual desires, practices and identities are shaped in relation to individual, cultural and social meanings of female sexuality. No prerequisites. 3 hours, 0.5 course. Previous course outline
WS 3173G QUEER THEORY
Instructor: Wendy Pearson
Class times: Wednesdays 1:30 - 4:30pm
What is queer theory, where did it come from, how is it changing? Examining key foundational texts in queer theory, the contexts for its emergence, and debates over its contemporary usefulness and direction, students in this course will trace the development of queer theory from Foucault to the present day. Prerequisite: Women's Studies 2273E or permission of the department. 3 hours, 0.5 course. Course outline
WS 3305G GENDER, SEX AND CULTURAL RESISTANCE
Instructor: Laura Cayen
Class times: Tuesdays 4:30 - 7:30pm
While popular culture operates to naturalize and distribute dominant discourses about gender and sexuality, it is also a fertile space through which resistance can be enacted. This course examines; common sense; representations of gender and sexuality within Western popular culture and the ways these representations have been confronted and contested. Antirequisite(s): The former WS 359F. Prerequisites: Women's Studies 2253E or 2273E or 2220E or permission of the Department. 3 hours, 0.5 course. Course outline from previous year
WS 3311F "It's (Not) All in Your Head" and Writing Resistance: Feminist Articulations of Madness
Instructor: Kim Verwaayen
Class times: Thursdays 4:30 - 7:30pm
Why have women, as women, been historically linked with mental deficiency/madness? What social, political, economic, and literary ends have been served by this connection? Most importantly, how have women responded? By reading works (short stories, novels, memoirs) by women from both within and outside the asylum experience, we will focus on how women writers explore, question, and defy their discursive and material imprisonments. Prerequisite(s): Women's Studies 2220E, 2256E or 2257E, or permission of the Department. Course outline
WS 3321F ADVANCED TOPICS IN FEMINIST THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES
Instructor: Helen Fielding
Class times: Thursdays 1:30 - 4:30 pm
This course applies a wide range of feminist theories and critical practices, including postmodern and queer theories, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial studies, to a diverse array of artistic practices, including literature, film, and the performing and visual arts. Prerequisite(s): WS2220E, WS 2256E, or WS2257E, or permission of the department. 3 hours, 0.5 course. Course outline from 2014
WS3322G ADVANCED TOPICS IN FEMINIST THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SOCIAL SCIENCES
Instructor: Erica Lawson
Class times: Thursdays 1:30 - 4:30 pm
This course is an advanced examination of the application of feminist theories and practices to topics in the social sciences. Focus will include epistemological and methodological questions raised in feminist engagement across the various social science disciplines. Topics addressed may include a range of social-economic, cultural, political, and policy issues. Prerequisite(s): WS2220E, WS 2256E, or WS2257E, or permission of the department. 3 hours, 0.5 course. Course outline
WS 3331F CONTEMPORARY TOPICS IN CRITICAL RACE STUDIES
Instructor: Erica Lawson
Class Times: Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm
With a focus on examining the changing meanings of race and racism in the twenty-first century, this course addresses some of the following questions: How is race central to the production of knowledge? How do ‘racializing processes’ occur in social relations? ‘How does racial formation’ take place in conjunction with other identities? How are racial identities contested? What are the gendered dimensions of race? And how do racialized groups and their allies challenge racist practices? These questions will be addressed by looking at how racial knowledge informs public policy, politics, economics, identity, the ‘welfare state,’ multiculturalism, the “War on Terror,” and other aspects of governing practices in everyday life. The purposes of the course are to a) discuss and analyze the conceptual frameworks for understanding the multi-faceted and intersectional dimensions of race and racism, and b) to examine how these inform social justice movements and other initiatives that seek to challenge racial violence. Prerequisites: WS 2256E or 2257E or 2220E or WS 2273E or permission of the Department. Course outline
WS 3343F INTRODUCTIONS TO TRANSGENDER STUDIES
Instructor: TBA
Class Times: Tuesdays 5:30 - 8:30pm
The 1990’s saw the emergence of a separate academic field related to the ‘transgender phenomenon’;this course provides an introductory overview to the relatively young discipline of transgender studies. We begin with a historical look at how the term ‘transgender’ has come to encompass a broad range of diverse gender variant practices and discourses. Of particular interest in this regard will be the focus on trans theory and politics from the point of view of its relations to feminist theory and queer theory. We will also treat trans issues as framed within other disciplines such as legal, medical, and sociological discourses. Our readings and classes will incorporate discussions of transphobia and oppression of trans people, sex and gender change, transvestism, gender passing, transgender children and their families, and of how race and class intersect with being trans. Each session will be introduced by a short lecture on some of the relevant issues to be discussed in the class. During the course of our study, reading material, discussions and audio-visuals will hopefully be supplemented by input from invited guests. Prerequisites: WS2220E or WS 2253E or WS 2256E or WS2257E or WS2273E or permission of the Department. 3 hour, 0.5 course. Course outline
WS 3350G FEMINISM ACROSS BORDERS
Instructor: Shazia Sadaf
Class times: Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm
Rapid globalization and resulting “Third-wave Feminism” has challenged Western feminism’s universalization of women’s experiences as arbitrary and restrictive. A singular depiction of women under patriarchal tyranny without incorporating cultural, historical and religious differences undercuts the complexity of women’s issues which have gained new currency in post 9/11 clash of civilizations, Global War on Terror and rising fear of Islamic fundamentalism. Women’s education and gender inequality in extremist societies, including issues like child marriages, veiling and genital mutilation, have become causes of urgent debate in recent years. In light of these developments, is an inclusive feminism possible, or indeed feasible? This course reads exploratory texts in tandem with critical essays to examine the implications of new feminist discourses arising from issues of relativism, cultural imperialism and terrorism, and whether these changing understandings can help in the internationalization of feminist thought and action. Prerequisites: WS 2220E or WS 2253E or WS 2256E or WS 2257E or WS 2273E or permission of the Department. Course outline
WS 3358F FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Instructor: Prof. Katherine McKenna
Class times: Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:30 pm
Gender-based violence was one of the earliest issues identified by feminists as a focus for grass-roots organization and continues today to be an important subject for community work, research and political struggle. This seminar will provide an overview of both the theory and practice of feminist anti-violence work locally and globally. Prerequisites: WS 2220E or WS 2256E or WS 2257E or permission of the Department. Course outline
WS 4460F Special Topics in Women's Studies: Decolonial Interventions and Indigenous Activism
Instructor: Victoria Miceli
Email: vmiceli@uwo.ca
Class Times: Mondays 10:30 - 1:30pm
At this present moment in North America, as well as around the world, we are witnessing an ever-increasing movement toward decolonzing the settler state, with communities calling on politicians and citizens to act on threats to the environment, Indigenous women's bodies, and land theft. Especially in the age of social media, it is becoming increasingly impossible to ignore these issues and the movements that are arising to address them. By examining Indigenous-led activist movements, this course will explore different forms of activism organized by Indigenous persons and communities to combat state and colonial violence within what many of us refer to as Canada. The course will cover issues ranging from Missing and Murdered Indigenous women, to Indigenous motherhood and reproductive justice, land claims and struggles, questions of reconciliation and more in order to understand both changing systems of power, as well as resistance to these oppressive systems. 3 hour, .5 course. Prerequisite(s):Women's Studies 2220E; or permission of the Department. Course outline
WS 4461G Special Topics in Women's Studies: Race and The Social Construction of Motherhood
Instructor: Patricia Hamilton
Email: phamilt8@uwo.ca
Class Times: Mondays 10:30 - 1:30pm
What is a good mother? "Who" is a good mother? How do dominant racial ideologies and practices shape notions of good; motherhood? What effect does this have on the mothering experiences of racialized women? And how have women of colour differently theorized, challenged or incorporated mainstream motherhood theories in feminist scholarship? With a focus on examining motherhood at the intersection of race and other social locations such as class, dis/ability and sexuality, this course seeks to address these, among a number of other questions.
In particular, the course is concerned with the contested parameters that define good motherhood as well as its theoretical foundations in the neoliberal state. Through discussions, readings, films and presentations we will examine the historical and contemporary circumstances that have shaped racialized notions of good motherhood. By considering how different groups of women experience racialized motherhood this course will attend to how mothers disrupt, challenge and/or conform to disciplinary scripts about who mothers should be and what they should do. In our focus on mothers of colour, we begin to shift the center, examining motherhood from the perspective of women situated outside of the boundaries of good motherhood. 3 hour .5 course.Prerequisite(s):Women's Studies 2220E or permission of the Department. Course outline
WS 4464G Special Topics in Women's Studies: Trauma and Testimony (Grad/Undergrad split class)
Instructor: Kim Verwaayen
Email: kjverwaa@uwo.ca
Class Times: Tuesdays 10:30 - 1:30pm
How do feminist interventions in trauma studies trouble conventional understandings of history, memory, experience, violence, rupture, and the everyday and with what effect? What is the critical urgency of speaking trauma and (how) is this possible? How are acts of witnessing sometimes made to serve hegemonic interests -- and how can this co-optation be contested by interventive feminist actions?
Reading various practices across feminist theory, literature, art, film (and, to a much lesser extent, clinical therapy), this course explores feminist understandings of trauma, the uses of testimony, and feminist forms of resistance through political, clinical, and aesthetic actions. Specifically, topics include: feminist understandings of trauma, particularly vis-a-vis relationships between the personal (that is, private or individual experience, memory, testimony) and the public (collective and cultural memory, trauma and its witnessing); decolonization of the conventional western trauma studies canon; conflicts between culturo-historical perspectives on trauma and experience; mislit, fetishism, and trauma spectacle; and, most centrally, feminist responses through often artistic experimental forms of witnessing. 3 hour .5 course.
Prerequisite(s):Women's Studies 2220E or permission of the Department.
