Course Description
This interdisciplinary course investigates reform and the changing meaning of gender from the Colonial to Post Modern period. An emphasis upon real rather than ideological politics is the focus of discussions of change and continuity. Other major themes include the meaning of politics and the evolution of women's politics.
Athena Title
US WOMEN POL HIS
Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered every even-numbered year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The seminar will question how power is defined, appropriated, validated and exercised in context interpreted historically by class, race and gender.
Topical Outline
From the early Republic to the Progressive Era white women either represented or achieved moral reform, their agency expressed or subordinated in relation to certain groups of mem and women who sustained power. Immigrant women and women of color faced hegemonic power individually or through institutions designed to control and limit their voice. Examination of the dialogue between and within contending gendered groups also raises the possibilities for further dialogue on the question of gender/race/class and understanding of the ways of intimate and public power. I. The Politics of Gender. II. Early Republic and the Politics of Difference. III. The Market and the Politics of Gender. IV. The Politics of Resistance in the Agrarian South. V. Wages and Power. VI. Suffrage and Reform. VII. The Politics of Modern Feminism.