Our Work
I want our classroom to be a space of collaborative community in which we can encounter not only ideas, but each other and ourselves. To really encounter ourselves, I believe that we must read the course material carefully and critically, with both our hearts and our minds fully engaged; we must, in other words, open ourselves to self-reflection, to an examination of old ideas and a consideration of new ideas. To encounter each other, we must come to class ready to listen compassionately, and to speak honestly and passionately but also with respect for the many differences in life experiences, world views, and subject positions from which we engage with each other. Outside of class, you will work on reading, writing, and in groups on projects. In class, we will work on community.

• Written Dialogues (30%):  It is extremely important that you keep up with the class readings.  The readings, which are generally short, provide the catalyst for our thinking and classroom discussion.  To help you think through the points our readings raise and to make sure that you are prepared to participate in class discussion, a short (1 page) response for one of the readings assigned for class is due on the day of class.  These assignments also let me know how you are responding to the issues we address and hence help me direct your research and your final project work.  As the name suggests, an “in-dialogue” piece is an informal writing -- I don't care about spelling, grammar, punctuation, organization, etc. in the in-dialogues.  Rather, these are thinking-in-writing peices, your place to reflect, vent, work out issues and raise questions.
• In Class Presentation/ Discussion (10%): After we have gotten to know each other a bit and you have had a chance to review the text for the class -- Feminist Frontiers, 6th edition, eds. Laurel Richardson, Verta Taylor, & Nancy Whittier -- I'll ask you to form groups of four or five based around common interests. Each group will have one class session in which group members introduce the readings for that day, present key issues/points for discussion, and facilitate class discussion. I will model formats for this during the first third of the semester.
• Midterm (15%):  Your midterm will be a short essay that asks you to reflect on what we have been reading, talking, and thinking about and that helps you define a final project area.  See midterm explanations.
• Final Project (35%):  Your final project reflects what you have accomplished throughout the semester. In broad strokes, I want your project to analyze gender images in our cutlure.  For example, you might analyze gender stereotypes in film, on  television, and in  public discourse (political debates about “family,” welfare or war, for example).  Or, you could analyze gender in your family or social group (church, fraternity, sorority, club).  You have a great deal of flexibility for this project.  Most importantly, I want you to define an aspect of gender in your immediate life/sphere that is important to you and use your final project work to help you think this issue through more carefully.  Think of your final project as the fireworks display that opens or closes big events – New Years, the Fourth of July, the grand finale of a major show. This is your chance to show off, to perform, to produce something that you find personally meaningful and fulfilling.

• Throughout the semester, I will be talking with each of you about what you might do for your final projects – I want you to use your time and energy for these projects in a way that actively accomplishes something for you and your life.
• I want your projects to mean something – to you, your peers, your community – and I want them to draw on your experience, interests, and expertise in ways that meet your current needs.  Most importantly, your final projects need to be something that you can use outside of and beyond this class—they might be material for a professional portfolio (samples of writing, art, web work, poetry, music, etc.), web projects that you publish for the larger world, gifts that you give to friends and loved ones. . . anything that documents, explains, analyzes, critiques, and/or engages in some meaningful way with gender and culture.
• If you are getting ready to go to graduate school or on the job market, you might do a project that researches graduate programs in Women’s and Gender Studies or jobs/professions that allow you to work on behalf of women’s and gender issues. You might do an oral history project (interviewing, for instance a specific group – family, targeted community – about gender issues). If you are an artist, you might produce a work of art – a poetry chapbook, a show of photographs, a play, a movie, a musical score. You can also do collaborative final projects – you might, for instance, work with a group of people to develop, design, produce, and publish a WGST magazine or a class web site; write and perform a play; make a movie; or organize an art show/exhibit or other community event.
• I encourage multi-media projects (projects that combine film, photographs, music, writing, art, the world wide web, oral and transcribed interviews, etc.)
• By the middle of the semester, I will ask for a Final Project Proposal that defines the project you want to work on. Using this proposal as a starting point, I will work closely with you to help you think your project through and to find resources.
• For those of you interested in developing web sites, I will assist you with every aspect of this – web work can be fun and empowering, so I hope that you will take this opportunity to let me work with you to develop a web site.
• 10% Slush Fund:  This course is designed to help you in your life and world, not hurt you. While it is true that we will forge a classroom community of rigorous thinkers, readers, and writers, we will also do this in a collaborative and empowering way. Hence, you may decide which of the things we do throughout the semester is most meaningful to you and apply 10% of your grade to this.  

• Feminist Frontiers. 6th . Edition.  Eds.  Laurel Richardson, Verta Taylor, Nancy Whittier. McGraw Hill, 2004.
• Selected Web sites (see syllabus links)
• Women's Activist Groups http://merlin.alleg.edu/employee/a/acarr/ws/activism.html

Attendance
Do I have to say this? Come to class. I hope to make each class session intrinsically meaningful and explicitly productive.  If you find yourself not coming to class, then we will need to talk.  I don’t want you to be where you don’t want to be, so, if you don’t want to be in the class (as in, attend) then you need to rethink whether or not you want to be in the class (as in: enrolled).  If you want to be in the class (enrolled), then, clearly, you will attend.

Course Overview:
Weeks 1 - 2: Establishing Premises and Methods
Weeks 3 - 5: Gender, Culture, and Society
Weeks 6 - 7: Race Issues
Weeks 7 - 9: Bodies and Sexualities
Weeks 9 - 10: Violence
Weeks 11 - 13: Global Perspectives
Weeks 13 - 15: Final Presentations