The Department of Gender and Race Studies (called Women's Studies until November 2009) offers a course of study leading to the Master of Arts degree in women's studies. The MA in women's studies is designed to support feminist research. The program emphasizes interdisciplinary and cross-cultural methodology. It provides a conceptual framework, analytical training, and bibliography and research tools for feminist studies. The program is designed for students from a variety of humanities and social science backgrounds with interest in gender studies and the status and roles of women in society, past and present.
Faculty
Chair
- Dr. Utz McKnight
Graduate Director
- Dr. Utz McKnight
Professor
- Dr. Utz McKnight
Associate professors
- Dr. Jennifer Purvis
- Dr. Hilary Green
Assistant professors
- Dr. Gwenetta Curry
- Dr. Sara-Maria Sorentino
Courses
An examination of selected African American topics.
This course explores pedagogical theories and practices advanced by feminist and cultural studies scholars and teachers. Students read pedagogical works, attend sections of WS 200 and AAST 201, develop teaching modules and pedagogical philosophies, perform teaching demonstrations, and construct syllabi for courses. Meetings with other discussion leaders and supervisors are required in addition to written work.
Course Description: This interdisciplinary graduate seminar explores the ways in which memory and the past construct political identities and the interplay of race, class, gender, and ethnicity in its social construction through readings, discussion, and student research. Reading selections include core theoretical texts on memory studies and specific case studies on topics, including not but exclusive to the American Civil War memory, U.S. South, slavery, and Reconstruction. Issues and questions are: how memories are constructed, translated into identities and political action; bases of shared memories and contested memories; political memorialization and the effects of collective amnesia; and how “communities of memory” are developed, sustained, and dissolved.