WS 2013 Introduction to

Womens Studies
FALL 2014 SEMESTER


Course Description
This course will examine key issues, concepts, practices, and theories in the development and practice of Global Feminisms.
Focusing on intersectionality, construction of gender, construction of race, writing the body (or ecriture feminine), triple-
marginalization, eco-feminisms, women in the military, the criminalization of women, and memory, dis/memberment and embodied
remembrance, we will examine how globally women have reclaimed their subjectivity and corporeality through textuality, activism,
r/evolution, and consciousness raising work.

Contact Information
Professor: Dr. Petra Bowman, Ph.D.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 10:00am to 10:50am
Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:30pm to 3:30pm and by appointment
Office: M.S. 3.01.06
Email: lapetra.bowman@utsa.edu

Required Readings
Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Reys Womens Lives: Multicultural Perspectives (6th Edition)

Grade Distribution
Class Participation: 10%
Daily Reading Quizzes: 20%
Midterm Exam: 30%
Final Exam: 40%

Course Policies
This classroom is a discursive space. You are encouraged to ask questions, draw conclusions, and make intertextual connections
between the texts and documentaries which we study and discuss. You are also encouraged to engage in a dialectic with your
classmates. If you disagree about your classmates opinion, feel free to respectfully say so and to substantiate your claims.
All Readings are due on the date specified in the course schedule and are to be done in preparation for class.
Daily reading quizzes will be given at the start of our class period. Students who are late for class will not have the opportunity
to make-up the quizzes. Students with excused absences (see below) will not be penalized for the missed quizzes.
My office hours are set aside specifically so that I may help you. During the semester, I encourage you to use my office hours to
your advantage. If you are having difficulty understanding something we may have covered in class, feel free to stop by my office
or to email me.
If you have a documented learning disability, please be sure to: 1) register with the Disability Office (located on the 3rd floor of
M.S. building) and 2) meet with me so that we may discuss ways in which you and I may work best to ensure your continued
scholastic success
Please be sure to silence/turn off your cell phones before class begins
Use of cell phones and laptops (electronic devices) during film viewings is strictly prohibited.
During class lecture, you are initially allowed to use your laptop to take notes in class. However, should it be determined that you
are using your laptop for something other than taking notes for class, you will lose this privilege, and will be thusly restricted from
using your laptop in class for the remainder of the semester. (Please see me if you plan on using a laptop during class.)
Attendance is required. You will be allowed a maximum of three unexcused absences and a maximum of three excused
absences for which you will not be penalized (N.B. only students with excused absences are not penalized for missed quizzes).
An absence will be considered an excused absence in the following cases: 1) a doctors appointment, in which case you must
inform me ahead of time (in person, by phone, or by email) and provide me (on the day of your return to class) with official
documentation signed by your physician/clinic, and/or 2) an approved UTSA activity, in which case you must also inform me ahead
of time and provide me (prior to your absence) with official documentation signed by a UTSA sponsor. For every absence there-
after, two (2) points will be deducted from your final grade. You can not expect to pass this course if you repeatedly do not attend
(it is mathematically impossible). Furthermore, whether an absence is excused or not, you are fully responsible for all of the
material presented in class, including announcements about course procedures and/or syllabus changes. (N.B. ultimately, in all
cases, it is up to me to determine whether or not an absence is properly and, therefore, acceptably documented.)



COURSE SCHEDULE
FALL 2014 SEMESTER




AUG 27 Introduction to the Course and Introduction to Womens Studies
AUG 29 Lecture: Corporeality, Textuality, and Female Dismemberment
SEP 01 LABOR DAY HOLIDAY NO CLASS
SEP 03 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 1 Untangling the F-word (pages 1-17), Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism,
Declaration of Sentiments
SEP 05 Lecture: Multicultural Feminisms
SEP 08 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 1 A Black Feminist Statement and Multiracial Feminism
SEP 10 Film Documentary: Codes of Gender
SEP 12 CENSUS DATE (5pm): Last day to drop or withdraw without a grade; last day to drop an individual course and receive a 100%
refund. NOTE: If you are enrolled for only one class, or are dropping your last class, this action is NOT considered a drop. It is a
withdrawal and you will be refunded according to the prorated withdrawal refund percentages given on this calendar and the
Fiscal Services Web page. (No refunds given for dropping an individual course after this date.)
SEP 15 Lecture: Fluidity and Construction of Gender
SEP 17 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 2 Theories and Theorizing: Integrative Frameworks for Understanding (pages 51-63) and The Social
Construction of Gender
SEP 19 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 2 Patriarchy, the System and Genealogies of Community, Home, and Nation
SEP 22 Lecture: Fluidity and Construction of Race
SEP 24 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 3 Identities and Social Locations (pages 101-115) and Jews in the U.S.
SEP 26 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 3 Optional Ethnicities, Exploring Representations of Mixed Race Asian Pacific Americans, and We
Are All Works in Progress
SEP 29 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 4 Womens Sexuality (pages 173-183) and Guadalupe the Sex Goddess
OCT 01 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 4 Uses of the Erotic, Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, and On the Complications of
Negotiating Dyke Femininity
OCT 03 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 5 Womens Bodies, Womens Health (pages 209-227) and The Beauty Myth
OCT 06 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 5 Feminist Theory, the Body, and the Disabled Figure, and Three Generations of Native American
Womens Birth Experience
OCT 08 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 5 Reproductive Justice: Vision, Analysis, and Action for a Stronger Movement, Understanding
Positive Womens Realities
OCT 10 Film Documentary: Child Sex Trafficking on the Internet: Selling the Girl Next Door
OCT 13 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 6 Violence Against Women (pages 259-273) and Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
OCT 15 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 6 Radical Pleasure, Engaging Men Against Violence and Territory, Sovereignty, and Crimes of the
Second State
OCT 17 MIDTERM EXAM
OCT 20 Lecture: Chela Sandovals Differential Consciousness
OCT 22 Film Documentary: Moto Pitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy
OCT 24 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 7 Making a Home, Making a Living (pages 307-321) and Shattering Two Molds
OCT 27 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 7 The Mommy Tax and To Whom Much Is given, Much Is Expected: Successful Women, Family, and
Responsibility
OCT 29 Film Documentary: Missing Women
OCT 30 Automatic W Deadline (5pm): Last day for all students to drop an individual course via ASAP, or withdraw*, and receive an
automatic W.
OCT 31 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 8 Living in a Globalizing World (pages 363-381)
NOV 03 Film Documentary: The Day My God Died
NOV 05 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 8 Remotely Sensed: A Topography of the Global Sex Trade, Made in China, and Building Water
Democracy
NOV 07 Film Documentary: Mothers in Prison
NOV 10 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 9 Women, Crime, and Criminalization (pages 417-431) and Barriers to Basic Care
NOV 12 Film Documentary: Autumns Eyes
NOV 14 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 9 Disappearing Parents and Women of Color, Globalization, and the Politics of Incarceration
NOV 17 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 10 Women and the Military, War, and Peace and Empire on Trial
NOV 19 Lecture: Islamic Feminism
NOV 21 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 10 A Bird with One Wing and Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? (from Ch. 2 page 89)
NOV 24 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 11 Women and the Environment (pages 503-515) and Gender, Asthma Politics, and Urban
Environmental Justice Activism
NOV 26 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 11 Reproductive Justice, Not Population Control and Womens Responses to Environmental
Destruction and State Violence in the Niger Delta
NOV 28 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY NO CLASS
DEC 01 Lecture: Gloria Anzalduas Now Let Us Shift The Path to ConocimientoInner works, Public Acts
DEC 03 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 12 Creating Change (pages 561-575) and The Body Politic
DEC 05 Read Womens Lives: Ch. 12 Women Working across Borders for Peace and Genuine Security and The Global Womens
Movement
DEC 08 Last day (5pm) for all students to withdraw from all classes and receive an automatic W; students receiving financial aid, student
athletes, international students, and graduate students who wish to withdraw from the University must submit a paper withdrawal
form to the Enrollment Services Center (ESC) for processing. Except for student athletes and international students, only the
students signature is required on the form. ASAP withdrawal is not available for students receiving financial aid.
DEC 10 End-of-Semester Closing Remarks
DEC 12 STUDENT STUDY DAY NO CLASS
DEC 17 FINAL EXAM: Wednesday 7:00am to 9:30am