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Women's and Gender Studies at MIT via Open CourseWare

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Women-s-and-Gender-Studies/index.htm

Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Special-Programs/SP-401Spring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm
This course is designed as an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Women's and Gender Studies, an academic area of study focused on the ways that sex and gender manifest themselves in social, cultural, and political contexts. The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with key issues, questions, and debates in Women's Studies scholarship, both historical and contemporary. This semester you will become acquainted with many of the critical questions and concepts feminist scholars have developed as tools for thinking about gendered experience. In addition, we will study the interconnections among systems of oppression (such as sexism, racism, classism, ethnocentrism, homophobia/heterosexism, transphobia, ableism and others). In this course you will learn to "read" and analyze gender, exploring how it impacts our understanding of the world.

Gender and Media Studies: Women and the Media http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Special-Programs/SP-414Fall-2008/CourseHome/index.htm
This course examines representations of race, class, gender, and sexual identity in the media. We will be considering issues of authorship, spectatorship, (audience) and the ways in which various media content (film, television, print journalism, advertising) enables, facilitates, and challenges these social constructions in society. In addition, we will examine how gender and race affects the production of media, and discuss the impact of new media and digital media and how it has transformed access and participation, moving contemporary media users from a traditional position of "readers" to "writers" and/or commentators. Students will analyze gendered and racialized language and embodiment as it is produced online in blogs and vlogs, avatars, and in the construction of cyberidentities. The course provides an introduction to feminist approaches to media studies by drawing from work in feminist film theory, journalism, cultural studies, gender and politics, and cyberfeminism.


Identity and Difference: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-218JIdentity-and-DifferenceFall2002/CourseHome/index.htm
How can the individual be at once cause and consequence of society, a unique agent of social action and also a social product? Why are some people accepted and celebrated for their particular features while other people and behaviors are considered deviant and stigmatized? This course examines theoretical perspectives on human identity, focusing on processes of creating categories of acceptable and deviant identities. We will discuss how identities are formed, how they vary, the forms and possibilities of unique or aggregate identities, how behaviors are labeled deviant, how people enter deviant roles and worlds, responses to differences and strategies of coping with these responses on the individual and group level. Rather than focus on the differences among various forms of deviant identity and behavior, we will consider the usefulness of various theoretical perspectives that attempt to explain patterns across diverse identities and differences. As we explore the meaning and experience of deviance, we will be simultaneously analyzing conformity. Throughout the course, we will use gender and sexuality as an example of frequently stigmatized forms of identity.


Gender, Sexuality & Society: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-231JSpring-2006/CourseHome/index.htm
This course seeks to examine how people experience gender - what it means to be a man or a woman - and sexuality in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. We will explore how gender and sexuality relate to other categories of social identity and difference, such as race and ethnicity, economic and social standing, urban or rural life, etc. One goal of the class is to learn how to critically assess media and other popular representations of gender roles and stereotypes. Another is to gain a greater sense of the diversity of human social practices and beliefs in the United States and around the world.


The Contemporary American Family: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-230JSpring2004/CourseHome/index.htm
We begin by considering briefly the evolution of the family, its cross-cultural variability, and its history in the West. We next examine how the family is currently defined in the U.S., discussing different views about what families should look like. Class and ethnic variability and the effects of changing gender roles are discussed in this section. We next look at sexuality, traditional and non-traditional marriage, parenting, divorce, family violence, family economics, poverty, and family policy. Controversial issues dealt with include day care, welfare policy, and the "Family Values" debate.


American Authors: American Women Authors http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Literature/21L-512American-Authors--American-Women-AuthorsSpring2003/CourseHome/index.htm

This subject, cross-listed in Literature and Women's Studies, examines a range of American women authors from the seventeenth century to the present. It aims to introduce a number of literary genres and styles- the captivity narrative, slave novel, sensational, sentimental, realistic, and postmodern fiction- and also to address significant historical events in American women's history: Puritanism, the American Revolution, industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century, the Harlem Renaissance, World War II, the 60s civil rights movements. A primary focus will be themes studied and understood through the lens of gender: war, violence, and sexual exploitation (Keller, Rowlandson, Rowson); the relationship between women and religion (Rowlandson, Rowson, Stowe); labor, poverty, and working conditions for women (Fern, Davis, Wharton); captivity and slavery (Rowlandson, Jacobs); class struggle (Fern, Davis, Wharton, Larsen); race and identity (Keller, Jacobs, Larsen, Morrison); feminist revisions of history (Stowe, Morrison, Keller); and the myth of the fallen woman (take your pick). Essays and in-class reports will focus more particularly on specific writers and themes and will stress the skills of close reading, annotation, research, and uses of multimedia where appropriate.

Gender and the Law in U.S. History: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-225JFall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm
This subject explores the legal history of the United States as a gendered system. It examines how women have shaped the meanings of American citizenship through pursuit of political rights such as suffrage, jury duty, and military service, how those political struggles have varied for across race, religion, and class, as well as how the legal system has shaped gender relations for both women and men through regulation of such issues as marriage, divorce, work, reproduction, and the family. The course readings will draw from primary and secondary materials in American history, as well as some court cases. However, the focus of the class is on the broader relationship between law and society, and no technical legal knowledge is required or assumed.

Economic History of Work and Family: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/21H-927JSpring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm
This course will explore the relation of women and men in both pre-industrial and modern societies to the changing map of public and private (household) work spaces, examining how that map affected their opportunities for both productive activity and the consumption of goods and leisure. The reproductive strategies of women, either in conjunction with or in opposition to their families, will be the third major theme of the course. We will consider how a place and an ideal of the "domestic" arose in the early modern west, to what extent it was effective in limiting the economic position of women, and how it has been challenged, and with what success, in the post-industrial period. Finally, we will consider some of the policy implications for contemporary societies as they respond to changes in the composition of the paid work force, as well as to radical changes in their national demographic profiles. Although most of the material for the course will focus on western Europe since the Middle Ages and on the United States, we will also consider how these issues have played themselves out in non-western cultures.


Violence, Human Rights, and Justice: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-225JFall-2004/CourseHome/index.htm
This course examines the contemporary problem of political violence and the way that human rights have been conceived as a means to protect and promote freedom, peace and justice for citizens against the abuses of the state.

Dilemmas in Bio-Medical Ethics: Playing God or Doing Good? http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-216JSpring-2005/CourseHome/index.htm
This course is an introduction to the cross-cultural study of bio-medical ethics. It examines moral foundations of the science and practice of western bio-medicine through case studies of abortion, contraception, cloning, organ transplantation, and other issues. It also evaluates challenges that new medical technologies pose to the practice and availability of medical services around the globe, and to cross-cultural ideas of kinship and personhood. It discusses critiques of the bio-medical tradition from anthropological, feminist, legal, religious, and cross-cultural theorists.


Studies in Women's Life Narratives: Feminist Inquiry http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Special-Programs/SP-691Spring-2009/CourseHome/index.htm
Feminist Inquiry starts with questions: What is feminism? What is feminist scholarship? Is feminist scholarship inherently interdisciplinary? Must feminist work interrogate disciplinarity? Must feminists collaborate?

Our aim is to promote the development of feminist theory and methods by providing a forum for sharing, assessing, discussing and debating strategies used by feminist scholars to study topics such as gender and the body; sexualities; color and whiteness; migration, colonialism, and indigeneity.

Brains and Culture: Love, Lies & Neurotransmitters: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Science--Technology--and-Society/STS-066Brains-and-Culture--Love--Lies---NeurotransmittersFall2002/CourseHome/index.htm
Subject examines the brain as a cultural object in contemporary media, science, and society. Explores cultural assumptions about neuroscience by drawing on anthropology, history, semiotics, and the cognitive sciences. Topics include historical views of the brain; digital images of the brain; psychopharmacology; mental illness; neurotransmitters; and the culture of brain science. Class assignments include three brief analytical papers and one oral presentation.