| source Duke (X) |
level |
department Studies of Sexualities (X) |
This course is an introduction to the field of Sexuality Studies and a gateway to the SXL minor at Duke. The course provides an overview of the wide range of work that understands sexuality to be a social phenomenon  that is, that sexuality, rather than simply being one of the most natural and private of human experiences, is socially constructed and central to public life. The course concentrates on readings that see connections between sexuality and systems of power associated with race, gender, economics, and governments. It reviews key approaches and debates, including conversations about prostitution or sex work and the emergence of queer theory. The approach to the analysis of sexuality in this program emphasizes intersectionality  that is, how sexuality interacts with gender, race, and other social systems. The seminar also reflects on the definition and generation of knowledge about sexuality by paying attention to historical contexts, power dynamics, and methodology.
Score: 13.225567 Details | Listing | Web page
This course uses interdisciplinary methods to analyze the construction of sexualities in the Americas, with a particular focus on the ways that sexualities have been created in a transnational frame from the late fifteenth century through the present. The course shows that transcultural and transnational interactions have driven the creation and re-creation of sexual ideologies, behaviors, and imaginations throughout the entire time span covered. American Sexualities, takes an explicitly transnational approach, emphasizing the ways that sexualities have radiated outward from centers (Europe and the United States) to peripheries, only to have the center/periphery distinctions problematized through the cultural effects of the periphery on the center. Thus the Americas, North, Central, and South, become frames of reference for studying the methods for constructing sexualities.
Score: 13.225567 Details | Listing | Web page
We all grow old (if we are so lucky!). But who wants to be called ÂoldÂ? In womenÂs studies, we investigate markers of social difference and categories of identification like race, gender, sexuality  so why have we not paid more attention to age? In this course, we will consider what it means to label someone as Âyoung or as Âold, especially knowing that these labels exist on the continuum of individual lifetimes, and may have very different meanings for women and men. In particular, we will explore popular culture representations of aging in general, and aging women in particular, asking what assumptions about aging and sex fuel these representations, and what effect do they have? What tools  medical, scientific, cultural, personal, etc.  do women in American culture have on hand with which to make sense of and impact their own experience of aging?
Score: 13.225567 Details | Listing | Web page
It is indubitable that in contemporary US public culture, certain versions of family, love, and relationships are considered more legitimate, desirable, and significant than others. Dominant notions of mature adulthood, honorable manhood and fulfilled womanhood remain deeply tied to the achievement of life-long monogamous reproductive coupledom. At the same time, historically oppressed communities  such as queers, immigrants, African Americans, and impoverished and working-class folks  are regularly stigmatized for their supposedly Âbackward kinship networks, Âpromiscuous sex practices, and/or Âirresponsible parenting.
Score: 13.225567 Details | Listing | Web page
The social position of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people (LGBT) can affect both an individualÂs and families' psychological well-being; it can also affect the clinical care of LGBT clients. This course provides an introduction to LGBT issues in the mental-health fields. Beginning with an examination of the historical treatment of the LGBT population in psychological practice, the course then considers how mental-health care for LGBT people has changed over the last 50 years. We discuss relevant policies, experiences, and debates in mental-health fields and review the "best practices" proposed by the American Psychological Association and other mental health disciplines. The course also examines the mental health and psychological effects of social norms on LGBT individuals, couples, and families, addressing such topics as non-pathologizing, heterosexual bias, genderism, self -identification, coming out, multiple-minority identities, parenting, and couple dynamics. Readings are drawn from across the mental-health field and from LGBT Studies to provide both an historical perspective and a current overview. The class will be discussion based; assignments include response papers to current debates in the field, case conceptualizations related to clinical vignettes, and a final paper. Prior coursework in Psychology or Sexuality Studies is recommended but not required.
Score: 13.225567 Details | Listing | Web page
An exploration of how Francophone Canadian playwrights deal with gender difference and sexuality. The corpus to be studied will include plays by feminist, gay, and immigrant playwrights. French-language theatre in Canada reflects the political, social, and demographic changes of the last forty years. This course will examine the theatricalization of feminist politics, how performance reveals gender construction, and how immigrant playwrights dramatize different social and religious attitudes toward sex and gender.
Score: 13.225567 Details | Listing | Web page
This course examines interdisciplinary scholarship on gender and sexual cultures globally, with temporal emphasis on contemporary world and topical emphasis on alternative/non-normative manifestations of gender and sexuality. The course considers interdisciplinary literature on gender and sexual systems in various cultural locations, including the USA, Europe, Melanesia, East Asia, and Africa. To supplement the academic readings, film screenings will be offered, as will excerpts from NGO and activist publications.
Score: 13.225567 Details | Listing | Web page