Course Description
Examining the phenomenon of sexuality historically opens up rich questions about the motors of change over time, the nature of power, the limits of social variation, and even about knowledge itself. We use this subject matter to consider historical method and to analyze, research, communicate and persuade in written work.
Athena Title
HISTORY OF SEX
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in WMST 4690/6690
Non-Traditional Format
This version of the course will be taught as writing intensive, which means that the course will include substantial and ongoing writing assignments that a) relate clearly to course learning; b) teach the communication values of a discipline- for example, its practices of argument, evidence, credibility, and format; and c) prepare students for further writing in their academic work, in graduate school, and in professional life. The written assignments will result in a significant and diverse body of written work (the equivalent of 6000 words or 25 pages). The instructor and/or the teaching assistant assigned to the course will be closely involved in student writing, providing opportunities for feedback and substantive revision.
Prerequisite
WMST 4010 or permission of department
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
"To open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledges, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, (and) eloquent expression..." (Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of a University, 1852). As with all liberal arts education, in other words, the objective is to help students learn to think, read, and write; beyond that, I do not presume to predict their conclusions.
Topical Outline
Some topics to be covered in historical perspective include Enlightenment libertinism; the sexual economy of slavery; the evolution of the legal institution of marriage and its relationship to citizenship, racialization, immigration, and economic rights; the experiences of dissident Christian sexual communities (e.g., Shakers, Mormons); the "white slaving" scare of the Progressive Era; the sexualized racial terrorism under Jim Crow; censorship and mass media; sterilization and eugenics; the rise of compassionate marriage and the emergence of heterosexuality and homosexuality as distinct categories; the McCarthyite lavendar scare; the evolving status of non- reproductive sex; and the rise of family values. Throughout the semester, students in this writing intensive course will apply themselves to both low-stakes and high-stakes writing assignments. Examples of these assignments include written outlines of each course reading, drafts of four five-page papers, and final drafts of four five-page papers.