Sex, Gender, and Afrofuturism
The explosion of interest in Afrofuturism in the last two decades speaks to an ever more urgent desire to understand how people of color project themselves into narratives of both the future—and the past. Moreover, the work of Afrofuturist intellectuals has been profoundly concerned with matters of gender and sexuality. Indeed, examinations of inter-racial and inter-species “mixing,” alternative family and community structure, and disruptions of gender binaries have been central to Afrofuturist thought. In this course we will examine these ideas both historically and aesthetically, asking how the large interest in Afrofuturism developed from the early part of the twentieth century until now. Focusing primarily on science fiction and fantasy literature, the course will treat a broad range of artists including, W.E.B. DuBois, George Schulyer, Marlon James, Octavia Butler, Andrea Hairston; Nalo Hopkinson; N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, and others.
Psychology of the Gendered Body
Our perceptions of gender—our own and others'—powerfully shape our embodied experiences and behaviors. This course examines the embodiment of gender via the lens of psychological science. We will begin by exploring recent research related to gender and the body, and then study the underlying psychological mechanisms that influence our self-perceptions about gender. Our disciplinary foundation in psychological science will allow us to complicate current understandings of gender and embodiment by considering factors such as sex, race, sexuality, experience, intention, and awareness.
Gender and Language
In this course we examine some key questions about how language and gender work together in the world. What does it mean for language to be gendered? Are there "male" and "female" ways of speaking? Can language reinforce the patriarchy? Is gender something we express or something we build in interaction? How does gender intersect in language with other social identities like ethnicity, race, class, religion, and sexuality? How can we understand gendered language beyond the binary? The course focusses on language as a practice, as well as a system of representation. We consider words, conversations, and embodied interaction and draw on scholarship on language use around the world.
Love's Labors Found: Uncovering Histories of Emotional Labor
How do love, care, and desire influence the value of work, and why is emotional labor – which is vital to child or elder care, domestic labor, nursing, teaching, and sex work – often considered to be something other than work? How and why do the racial and gender identities of workers affect the economic, social, and emotional value of their labor? How do political and social arrangements of labor help produce and reinforce racial categories while solidifying the boundaries separating masculinity and femininity? Through a mix of primary and secondary sources, this seminar explores histories of emotional labor and the power structures that give meaning to often taken-for-granted categories of work. These sometimes hidden histories are key to untangling the gender, sexual, and racial implications of the "intimate industries" that populate today's transnational labor economies.
The Deep: Purity, Danger, and Metamorphosis
Reflecting upon the many supernatural constructions of natural elements in lived religion, this comparative course examines metaphysical, mythical, and ritual responses to the sea, including its multiple and conflicting roles as arena of pilgrimage, catharsis, primordial generation, rebirth, desolation, or apocalypse.
Studying Religion and Media
In contemporary society, most people probably derive most of their knowledge about religion (their own and other people's) from media. Our dependence on media for information about religion creates a need to become critical consumers and to understand how that information is produced. Media deliver information on all topics, not just religion, as commercialized products created in corporate organizations that must be responsible to stockholders and responsive to consumers. Media corporations distinguish themselves for consumers in part through political stances and alliances constituting one aspect of corporate "branding." Thus, a variety of political affiliations color media products, including those concerning religion. The intensification of media's partisanship is associated with social polarization and a perverse disregard for truth, "disinformation campaigns," and "fake news" on a range of topics, including religion. Within the contemporary "media mix," online media and social media constitute a particular challenge to corporate media, since individual users can proliferate information and interpretations concerning their subjects and thus challenge the authority of the corporations. How these new media treatments of religion will develop is a question of great interest. Course readings, in-class activities, and written assignments seek to develop greater critical, interpretive skill in assessing the treatment of religion in the media.
