Support the CenterThe Humanities Center
at Miami University
Graduate Courses in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Fall 2011 Humanities Graduate Course Offerings [PDF]
MPC = Miami Plan Capstone course
MPT = Miami Plan Thematic Sequence course
The graduate concentration in Women’s Studies is a 12-14 hour program available to Masters and Doctoral candidates in any field of study across the university. Its purpose is to enhance a disciplinary graduate degree with specialization in Women’s Studies. Using a multi- or inter-disciplinary approach, students in this program will explore the influence of gender and other social differences on the production and dissemination of knowledge within disciplines. The program provides intensive study of a variety of feminist theories and methodologies. Courses stress interaction between theory and practice and the connections between academic work and public life.
[View the Miami Bulletin, Graduate Edition.]
- WMS 510Z - Indigenous Peoples/Sacred Land
(3) - Physical landmarks such as mountains and rivers hold essential spiritual meaning for many indigenous peoples. The integration of their belief systems into public policy and planning arenas can yield a greater understanding for their diverse social values and cultural differences. This class will examine U.S. and international policies on indigenous peoples, ethics in planning, case studies, literature, and documentary film, to better understand the importance of policy and planning decisions that are responsive to the needs of indigenous peoples in their efforts to protect their sacred lands.
- WMS 535 - Queer Theory
(3) - Over the past several decades, a growing body of theoretical scholarship on gender and sexuality has enriched our understanding of cultural texts and contexts. This course seeks to acquaint students with both classic texts and recent developments in the field of queer studies. Some of the questions we will ask include: How do cultural representations (in literature, film, and other media) replicate or challenge dominant discourses about sexuality and gender? How do our attitudes about pleasure influence our beliefs about "productive" citizenship, "healthy" psychology, and/or "normal" subjectivity? And how do ideologies of citizenship, selfhood, and subjectivity influence our understanding of the functions of pleasure, sex, and gender in culture? What is the connection between aesthetic representation and sexuality? How does gender influence the production and reception of texts? We will analyze a selection of novels and films, and students will be encouraged to use the theoretical insights taken from the class to further their own thinking about how discourses of gender and sexuality function within a variety of historical, cultural, and/or aesthetic traditions.
- WMS 536 - Women, Gender, and the Environment
(3) - Seminar discussing literature on the role of women in their relationships with natural resources as advocates, practitioners, and scholars. Ideas on ecofeminism will be introduced from more-developed "north" and developing "south" perspectives, and then directed toward the study of gender and development, and participatory tools in gender analysis.
- WMS 551 - Family Violence
(3) - Analysis of research and theory on family violence, physical abuse of children, sexual abuse, neglect, premarital abuse, wife abuse, gay/lesbian battering, elder abuse, prevention and intervention. Historical, social, and patriarchal contexts will be examined.
- WMS 563 - Gender and Aging
(3) - Examination of how gender constructions shape the aging process, with particular focus on how various social, psychological, physical, and cultural factors affect men, women, and transgendered persons differently as they grow older.
- WMS 601 - Introduction to Women’s Studies
(3) - This graduate seminar focuses on Women’s Studies as an academic project and a force for social change in the U.S., tracing its historical development and identifying some of its central issues. Reading, discussion, and assignments will help students understand the impact of Women’s Studies upon academia and upon their own lives.
- WMS 602 - Feminist Theory and Methodology
(3) - Study of the fundamental perspectives in literary criticism and their application to literary texts.This graduate seminar investigates major research methods (empirical studies, case studies, ethnographies, rhetorical analysis, textual, and historical studies) as they are theorized and practiced within contemporary feminism. As an interdisciplinary project, feminist academic research includes work from psychology, sociology, literary studies, language, the arts, anthropology, philosophy, education, mathematics, political science, law, and the sciences. The seminar will highlight new ways in which research methodology and theories are informed by feminist analyses of institutional power, social difference, and the position of the researcher.