Construction of Masculinity in Caribbean Literature/Discourse: “The harder they come, the
harder they fall one and all.” This course examines how Caribbean literature/discourse uses
sexual imagery of "hard and weak" bodies to affirm a West-Indian national identity in the face of
cultural imperialism. Students will explore the masculinist literary treatment that contemporary
male authors from the Caribbean have devised to respond to the Western feminization of their
countries. Often, their writings underline the masculine and the heterosexual characteristic of their
national identity. Students will study this construction of masculinity in various former colonies of
England, Spain and France. Colonialism and postcolonialism, cultural movements such as
Negritude, Antillanité and Créolité as well as the appropriation of Victorian discourses of
manhood and nationhood, will also be discussed. Instructor: Jacqueline Couti, MW 5:00-
6:15pm. This course will count toward requirements for the Graduate Certificate and other
degrees as appropriate.
GWS 595-401 Issues in GWS: Women and Film-Motherhood: Motherhood is not just the
second oldest profession (in the words of the genius Erma Bombeck); culturally speaking, it is the
culmination of all female experience and a major consideration in movies by and about women.
Films under consideration for our study include: Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945), Imitation of
Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959), Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), Chocolat (Claire Denis, 1988),
Daughters of the Dust (Julie Dash, 1991), Raise the Red Lantern (Yimou Zhang, 1991),
Indochine (Regis Wargnier, 1992), The Joy Luck Club (Ang Lee, 1993), Juno (Jason Reitman,
2007), The Secret Life of Bees (Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2008), and The Kids Are All Right (Lisa
Cholodenko, 2010). Students will write two papers, one shorter (5-6 pages) and one longer (10-
12 pages). In addition, a short presentation, class participation, and peer review will figure
prominently in the course. Instructor: Jan Oaks, W 5:30-8:00pm. This course will count
toward requirements for the Graduate Certificate and other degrees as appropriate.
GWS 650-401 Feminist Theory: In this course, we explore the complex and contradictory
discourses that fall within the broad category of “feminist theory.” This is an advanced readings
course in Gender & Women's Studies, aimed at familiarizing you with feminist analyses: feminist
conceptualizations of the notion of gender and the construction of the feminine, the salience of
political / social structures in understanding inequities, and the ways in which frameworks like law,
science, sex and popular culture help one think through these debates. Mainly, we will be reading
a selection of core theoretical essays, examining the historical development of theories, their
political connotations, and their analytical strengths and weaknesses. Alongside this, we will also
evaluate the theories by exploring some ethnographic and journalistic and film texts. The
objectives are for you to become comfortable with identifying and applying these theoretical
approaches to a wide range of materials, to recognize the diversity among feminist theorists, to
critique and reformulate these arguments thoroughly, and to develop an understanding of the
ways in which this work can be useful to your particular research interests. Instructor: Srimati
Basu, M 5:30-8:00pm. This course will count toward requirements for the Graduate
Certificate and other degrees as appropriate.
GWS 690-001 Graduate Research in Gender and Women’s Studies: Independent Study:
This course requires students to work out a project with GWS affiliated faculty and fill out the
necessary independent study contract. Prior to enrollment in the course, the student and faculty
need to sign the contract and submit it to the GWS office. Contracts can be obtained on the GWS
webpage (www.as.uky.edu/gws) or at the GWS office, 112 Breckinridge Hall. Instructor: Patricia
Cooper. This course will count toward requirements for the Graduate Certificate and other
degrees as appropriate.
GRADUATE ELECTIVES
EPE 773 Global Education and Popular Culture: This seminar will consider the convergence of
popular culture, mass media, consumerism, globalization, education, and neo-liberal pedagogies
for makeover, self-governance, assimilation, mobility, and self-enterprise. We will examine how
popular culture and media pedagogies help to shape gendered identities, otherness, collectivities,
and desires. It will also explore the impacts of these forces on formal educational and practices,
self-help and informal educational spaces, teaching and life-long learning and peer cultures. This
course will highlight the production, consumption, and diffusion of various forms of popular culture
including films, television programming including Reality TV shows, magazines, toys, and the
internet. We will analyze the ways these forms of popular culture mediate femininities,
masculinities, class, ethnicities, race, sexualities, distinction, citizenship and belonging,
embodiment, empowerment, self-enterprise and makeover, consumerism, and celebrity. The
objectives of this course include enhancing our understandings of transnational patterns of
gendered education, normalization, cultural flows and diffusion, and technologies of
governmentality, as well as the consumption and reception of popular culture and media
pedagogies. Multidisciplinary readings will draw from education, cultural studies, gender studies,
media studies, and other fields of inquiry. Instructor: Karen Tice, M 7:00-9:30. This course will
count toward requirements for the Graduate Certificate and other degrees as appropriate.
GEO 712: International Political Economy and Ethnographic Imagination: Fetishization
represents an identification with commodities and commoditization – including the body and
social relations – as a reflection of exchange relations that erase and social relations of distinction
attached to gender, race, and class. This course will depart from Marx’s bemusement at
fetishism's ‘social hieroglyphics’ to examine performativity, alienation, and other social processes
that play a role in the shaping of subjectivities. After a review of political economy classics
including Marx's Capital, Foucault's Birth of the Clinic, and Benjamin's Paris, we will explore
fetishization, alienation, and difference via ethnographic readings such as Karaoke Fascism
(Monique Skidmore), Secretaries Talk (Rosemary Pringle), Fast Food, Fast Talk (Robin Leidner),
Fraternal Capital (Sharad Chari), and Companion Species (Donna Haraway) among others. As
the inclusion of Haraway indicates, a significant portion of the course will be given over to
readings on nature-society relations that will examine our embodied natures through the optics
noted above. Instructor: Tad Mutersbaugh, Meeting dates/times TBA. This course will
count toward requirements for the Graduate Certificate and other degrees as appropriate.
