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• WOS 303: Intro to LGBTQ+ Sexualities & Activism in the U.S.

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  The past several decades have seen an unprecedented shift in attitudes in the United States toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, yet many in LGBTQ communities still face extreme levels of discrimination and oppression. Simultaneously, there have never been more LGBTQ people and issues in the news, movies, books, and on TV. In this class, students will consider how LGBTQ experiences are influenced by these representations, as well as how systems of privilege and oppression shape the experience of LGBTQ people in the U.S. They will question the ethics of various approaches to LGBTQ justice and liberation as they examine both historical and contemporary constructions of gender and sexuality. Students will also consider what ethical approaches might look like when engaging with legal, medical, and activist discourses in relation to LGBTQ communities. Throughout this work, they will attend to the ways in which LGBTQ identities exist at the intersections of race, class, citizenship, and disability.
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• WOS 305: Intellectual Roots of Western Feminism

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  The course examines the major issues and themes that have historically been included in feminist theorizing about women's situation and experiences, including: ethical foundations, the origins of patriarchy, feminist epistemology, education, body issues, issues of difference, religion, civil rights, and psychological development. Chronologically, the course covers from the enlightenment (Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women) through Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.
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• WOS 306: Transnational Feminisms

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  This course critically engages a range of transnational feminist theories, movements, and praxis to analyze structures of power shaping people's lives in global contexts. The course seeks to decenter a body of feminist scholarship that often assumes shared visions of gender equality. Such studies conceptualize gender issues and concerns through a Eurocentric/colonial viewpoint by overlooking differences among people with respect to race, class, sexuality, and nationality. Course readings explore the ethics of cross-cultural knowledge production, activism, warfare, commodification of women's bodies, sexualities, and local resources. The main goals of the course are to expose students to a broad range of feminist thought and action and locate transnational feminist theories in relation to colonial and post-colonial narratives. It urges students to examine their own positions within global systems that connect the (often uneven) exchange of persons, capital, and ways of knowing.
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• WOS 310: Feminist Activism

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  Although often misrepresented or ignored, women were and continue to be active in a wide range of social justice movements. This course focuses specifically upon women activists in the United States and their resistance to structural inequalities based upon gender. In addition to social justice movements focused on sexism, this course uses intersectional theory to recognize the feminist value of women who work against racial, economic, sexual, and other oppressions.
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• WOS 320: Independent Study

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  Independent research and study for upper-division students. Topic to be approved by supervising faculty member. Prerequisite:    WOS 320 requires prerequisite of WOS 225
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• WOS 325: Special Topics

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  Selected (and changing) topics, e.g., Ethnic Women; Women and Work; Love and Sexuality. Offered as projected enrollments warrant.
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• WOS 326: Women and Witchcraft in Africa

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  This course utilizes witchcraft belief and accusation as a lens through which to examine the oppression of women in sub-Saharan Africa. It examines historical and contemporary beliefs and manifestations of witchcraft, and analyzes the centrality of women (and children) as victims. It also examines the impact of witchcraft accusation on women's social and economic development.
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• WOS 329: Gender and Peace

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  An examination of the ways in which social constructions of gender intersect with perceptions and the experience of war.
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• WOS 335: Gender, Race and Science

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  Is race biological Do men and women really have different brains This course examines the way these and other questions have been taken up in scientific discourse. Students will approach race, gender, and sexuality as biosocial constructs. This course will ask students to question what they "know" about science and the scientific process. They will problematize scientific "objectivity" and "truth" and question foundational scientific ideas about race, sex, and gender. Students will engage feminist theories to pay close attention to the processes through which knowledge is produced, to science as a practice and an institution, and to the question of who gets to "do science" and how this affects the knowledge produced.
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• WOS 350: Lesbian Studies

  3.00 Credits

  West Chester University of Pennsylvania

  
  This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to lesbian studies that focuses on the historical and contemporary diversity of lesbian genders and sexualities, especially as shaped by race, class, culture, and nation. Special attention will be placed upon lesbian activism as well as contestations within lesbian communities about racism, classism, and cissexism.
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