2020 was unprecedented for four simultaneous "super-disruptors" - economic recession, mass protests, election instability, and a pandemic. In other words, "civilization" isn't all it's cracked up to be. This course will examine the rising discourse of "rewilding" in ecological, social and feminist contexts, exploring attempts to reduce the damaging effects of global capitalism as we strive for environmental justice in a more sustainable world.

This course will be an exploration, analysis, and discussion of what meaning we attach to the images of gendered, racial, and sexualized representations to cultural, political, social, "icons." What are the historical and contemporaneous definitions of an icon? How has gender, race, and sexuality been historically and continues to be reconstructed through media representations, images, as well as in our imaginations. Nicole Fleetwood examines the currency of these images and how we "signify" racial icons.

How have the figures of the Chinese bachelor, the geisha, the war bride, the hermaphrodite, the orphan, the tiger mother, the Asian nerd, the rice king, the rice queen, and the trafficked woman shaped understandings of Asian Americans, and how have these representations been critiqued by Asian American feminist scholars and writers? Is there a body of work that constitutes "Asian American feminism(s)" and what are its distinctive contributions to the field of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies?

This class will serve as a collaborative workshop on the problem of sexual violence, informed by transformative justice. We will start with a recap of how the problem of sexual violence on campus has been understood and framed by various constituents here at UMass. We will then explore the problem from a variety of academic and activist angles, gathering insight through individual and collective research. Questions we will explore include: What are we talking about when we talk about "sexual violence"? Who is impacted by sexual violence and how?

Fulfills Junior Year Writing requirement for majors. Modes of writing and argumentation useful for research, creative, and professional work in a variety of fields. Analysis of texts, organization of knowledge, and uses of evidence to articulate ideas to diverse audiences. Includes materials appropriate for popular and scholarly journal writing. Popular culture reviews, responses to public arguments, monographs, first-person narratives and grant proposals, and a section on archival and bibliographic resources in Women's Studies. May include writing for the Internet.

Not available at this time

Contact department for description.

Contact department for description.

Contact department for description.

Contact department for description.