Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses (988)

• Instructor: Kyla Schuller
• Course Delivery: W 23 1020 A - 0120

In this capstone to the Gender and Media minor, students will develop, discuss, produce and critique a project related to gender, media, and technology. Students will articulate and present the project in written and oral formats and will have the option to also (1) create an in-depth multimedia component to the project; 2) complete an internship; or 3) complete a service learning experience.

As a 400-level, seminar-style class, this course involves a great deal of participation, independent and self-directed work, and a large-scale project that is built throughout the semester. The capstone project will address a major problem, question, or issue of interest related to gender, media, and technology, preferably one rooted in the student's major discipline. We will workshop these products together and share internship and service learning experiences during class. All internship and service learning placements must be approved by the program’s internship coordinator by the end of Week Two, or the student must do the multimedia project option for the course.

This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the emergence and development of fiction written by Arab women. Emphasis will be laid on differences and similarities between Western and Arab feminist theories and identity issues as reflected in their literature. The course will provide a general understanding of modernist Arabic poetics, and the emergence and development of new literary genres of Arabic writing in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students will become familiar with the development and transformation of literary language, structures and imagery as embodied in selected texts by leading authors. Students will explore processes of change and the search for personal and cultural identity on the literary level in relation to the political and social spheres.

This course explores the intersection of religion and reproduction in the United States. During the semester we will focus primarily on pronatalism and abortion as two key aspects of reproduction. For each of these issues we will focus on how Jews and Christians, as well as Judaism and Christianity, in the US understand these issues, and wrestle with them internally. A few themes will continually arise: how religious ideas about kinship, women’s sexuality, and concern for demographic continuance are applied through forms of reproduction and reproductive interruption. Gender and religion will form the two primary modes of analysis for the study of reproduction. At the end of the semester we will also consider how class and race shape reproductive ideas and practices in the US.

The best of opinion writing compels the reader to reconsider deeply held notions and it moves audiences toward agitating for social change. Now, more than ever, those of us who write for the public must direct our energies to advocating for what we believe to be good and right. We must also consider the ethical implications of the work we do. It is not all that hard to write persuasively, but it is—as it should be—challenging to write persuasively without manipulating, misleading or misinforming your audience(s).

We are living in challenging times. We are not the first generations to do so but many of the problems we are dealing with are unique to the 21st century. Democracy is facing unprecedented threats and an ever-growing political divide has created a contentious political climate that is incredibly fraught for marginalized communities. Global warming is altering the way and where we live, faster and more severely than we ever thought possible while a shocking number of people deny global warming even exists. Advocating for civil rights is branded as “identity politics,” by an entire political class that seeks to rule by theocratic and a very selective populism. The very idea of truth is being willfully eroded by those who are best served by falsehoods. Now, more than ever, we have to write toward social change, ensuring that as many people as possible are allowed to live freely, in unlegislated bodies. This is to say, that writing for social change is a creative act. It is a political act. It is a necessary act.

In this writing workshop we will explore what it means to write for social change, how to do so ethically and effectively, how to write with nuance about complex issues, how to reach multiple audiences, and how to write in ways that acknowledge multiple, divergent viewpoints. This is a reading and writing intensive course and will be taught in a hybrid format, sometimes in person, on campus and sometimes online, via Zoom.