The Women’s Studies Program examines the cultural and social construction of gender, explores the history, experiences and contributions of women to society, and studies the influences of gender on the lives of women and men.
If you are interested in adding to your critical thinking skills and focusing on a career that intersects multiple perspectives of diversity, our program will be a good addition to your academic plan.
WS 5340.001 Special Topics in Women's Studies: Sexuality in Literature | CRN# 33502 | W 1pm - 3:50pm | Dr. Marjean D. Purinton
What will the class cover?
- “I’ve tried to get you out of my head but I can’t seem to get you out of my flesh. I think about your body day and night. When I try to read it’s you I’m reading. * * * * * *Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime together. . . Reading hands translated me into her own book.” - Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body (1992)
Are our bodies texts upon which we can write sexuality? Are the sexed beings of texts possible in reality or only in imagination? The dialectical relationship between sexuality and literature has been pervasive and intensive since the beginning of the twentieth century.
If the act of writing constitutes formations and reflections of identity, then we can expect expressions of sexualities constructed, challenged, reified, reconstituted in literary and theoretical works. As conceptual category, as performative practice, as regulating marker, as carnivalesque site, sexuality has, throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, been a cultural obsession in for Franco and Anglo-American writers.
In this seminar, we will examine representative texts, fiction, drama, and theory, that present and problematize sexuality in its diverse manifestations: heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, transvestism. We will consider how terms such as sex, gender, femininity, masculinity, androgyny, queer, lesbian, gay, straight, drag have come to be associated with sexuality.
Assignments will include short papers (based on primary texts), an annotated bibliography, a formal research and analytical essay, a presentation, and ample discussion.
To take this course, it is recommended that graduate students have completed WS Foundations. Advanced undergraduates who are WS minors may take the course only by permission of the instructor. The course involves themes and concepts that require intellectual as well as emotional maturity.
- My scholarship and pedagogy are informed by feminist theory, and so come to this seminar prepared to encounter de-centralized authority, an invitation to participate actively in your own discovery process, and a collaborative, supportive learning environment.- Dr. Marjean D. Purinton
What are students saying about our program?
Students Speak Out
Contact the graduate advisor, Dr. Charlotte Dunham, to make an appointment for advising.
For more information or questions about the Women's Studies Program check our web site at http://www.depts.ttu.edu/wstudies or contact (806) 742.4335
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Posted:
7/22/2014
Originator:
Patricia Earl
Email:
patricia.a.earl@ttu.edu
Department:
Women's Studies Program
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