LKamm
Office Hours: I,
373; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday by appointment.
Email:
lkamm
Phone: x8352
Goals: This course seeks to probe the secret of the individual's relationship to self and society with a particular emphasis on women's points of view. We will use the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights as foundational texts, complemented by the PBS documentary, "Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony," and three films, Closet Land, If These Walls Could Talk, and Rain Without Thunder. Our focus will be on
a) the artist whose creativity represents a threat to "acceptable" social stability
b) whether there can be moral responsibility without political engagement, and
c) interrelationships of advances in science, the law, the arts, and social & individual morality as revealed in the three means of inquiry (politics, film, literature).
We will relate author (director)-text (film)-reader (viewer) to the individual as free citizen &/or social prisoner. Students will thus be exposed to integrated aspects of creative and analytical processes in film, literature, and politics on practical and experiential levels. Weekly journal-sharing and oral presentations will promote development of your written and oral skills, independent thinking, and group discussion. A final paper, to be developed from the journals and presentations, will challenge you to relate your various responses to the intellectual content of the issues raised.
Films:
Grades: based on class participation and weekly essays (approximately 70 %) and final paper (approximately 30 %)
Week 1 -- Introduction, explanation of writing component, expectations and
responsibilities, tutorial in the use of the World Wide Web and software
designed for this class
"Not For Ourselves Alone," Part I
Week 2 -- The limits of freedom
Declaration of
Independence
Bill of Rights
Declaration of Sentiments
"Not For Ourselves Alone," part II
Week 3 -- The Limits of freedom (continued)
Emma Goldman's "Defense" (p. 509);
Emma Goldman Web Site
Closet Land
Week 4 -- Freedom and gender
You are responsible for searching for and reading
about two Supreme Court decisions--Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut--as well as Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Solitude of Self" and information/selected writings of Margaret Sanger, M. Carey Thomas, and Susan B. Anthony.
If These Walls Could Talk
Week 5 -- Freedom & (sexual) identity
Wolf,
Promiscuities
Week 6 -- Freedom of choice
Kate Chopin, "The Storm"; Rain
Without Thunder
Week 7 -- Freedom & Others
Sophocles, Antigone
Ibsen, A Doll's House
Sartre, No Exit
Week 8 -- Freedom & Community (& Identity)
Fox-Genovese, Feminism
Without Illusions, Introduction, Chapters 2 & 7
Week 9 -- Stereotypes, oppression, self-portraits & politics, realities &
abstractions
Poetry of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop,
Sandra Cisneros, Lucille Clifton, Catherine Davis, Carolyn Forche, Katherine McAlpine, Denise Levertov,
Kathleen Howd Machan, Sharon Olds, Molly
Peacock, Marge Piercy, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Adrienne Rich
Week 10 -- Roles & Regrets (or lack thereof) v-a-v economics, education, poverty, democracy, political
struggles, and moral lessons
Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan
Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People"; Toni
Bambara, "The Lesson"; Sandra Cisneros, "The House on Mango Street"; Bessie Head, "Looking for a Rain God";
Ursula LeGuin, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"; Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"; Virginia Woolf, "What If Shakespeare Had
Had a Sister?"; Alice Walker, "Everyday Use"; Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"; Joan Didion, "On Morality"
Week 11 -- Freedom and Life Compositions
Bateson, Composing a
Life
Week 12 -- Home On The Range: The Real, The Legend, The Rhinestone
Savage, Cowgirls
Week 13 -- Truth, Justice, & the American Way
O'Brien, In the Lake
of the Woods
Week 14 -- Research Papers by Noon
This course requires each of you to submit a 400-700
word essay for each week's assignment and to read everyone else's essays for the
week prior to coming to class. The three-fold purpose of this sharing is to
The selection process below allows you to submit your own essays and to read those submitted by classmates. Simply click the appropriate choice.
Note: this process functions only for students who are registered for this course and have been assigned a course password.
Usually, my evaluative comments about these essays will be addressed on an individual basis, thus safeguarding privacy and student sensitivity while also allowing the individual to forward those comments to classmates as (s)he sees fit. However, when I believe that my comments to an individual will be helpful to all students, I will post them to the entire class.
Your term paper (7-10 pages) requires examination and research of your role models and out-group experiences. It also requires that you discuss your understanding of how this examination contributes to recognition of a multi-faceted you.
This assignment is based upon the chapter, "Opening to the World," in Mary Catherine Bateson's COMPOSING A LIFE.
To be acceptable, your paper must address the following questions in a thoughtful and articulate manner and incorporate course readings in a substantive and meaningful way.
1. Using course readings to enrich your discussion, identify your role model(s) and describe them. Explain how your role model(s) might serve to limit your perspective on life and how they might work to broaden that perspective. If you determine that your role models actually limit you more than originally thought, brainstorm ways to find models to broaden your perspective.
2. Discuss your experiences with two "out-groups." Out-groups could be people from another culture, students from another region of the U.S., or perhaps students having a different experience at UMass Dartmouth than you (e.g., athlete/non-athlete, traditional/non-traditional, liberal arts major/non-liberal arts major, and so forth). Clearly identify the out-groups you discuss. As you discuss your experience with these groups, reflect on how interaction with them has impacted you. Have these interactions made you more open to considering life's possibilities? If yes, how? If no, what type of interaction do you need to seek to expand your perspective of life's possibilities? Again, be sure to incorporate literary examples from the course to enrich your discussion.
3. How does examination of your role models and out-groups experiences position you to move beyond the expectation of continuity in life? How does moving beyond the expectation of continuity position you to take advantage of the lessons and/or themes of this course?
It bears repeating that this paper requires the incorporation of course readings in a substantial way. A personal essay that fails to do so will not be acceptable. Additionally, I expect a total of 3 sources to be listed in the bibliography of the research paper (in addition to course-assigned readings). Two of these must be traditional academic sources; the third may be a web site, but I urge you to choose and evaluate such sites very carefully. The bibliography of these 3 items must be annotated: a brief description and evaluation of each item's interest/helpfulness/quality.
Papers will be graded on intent, content, reasoning, language, neatness, effort, accuracy. Five points to keep in mind or adapt as appropriate: 1) develop a thesis statement, 2) discuss the main points covered in readings and in class discussions and make connections with the thesis, 3) incorporate relevant evidence to prove thesis, 4) make connections among related concepts, ideas, and events, 5) reach a conclusion based on the analysis of the evidence.
A word about plagiarism and academic (dis)honesty: university policy is clearly stated in the UMass Dartmouth catalogue. I urge you to familiarize yourself with this policy. Stated briefly, if you cheat or pass off another person's work as your own, you will fail the course. Always acknowledge how and where the work of others has helped to shape your own thinking.
Women's Studies on the Internet
Related Supreme Court Decisions
University of Maryland Women's Studies
National Women's History Project
Women's Law Journal of Legal Theory and Practice
Cybergrrl Webstation/Women on the Web
This HTML document created by: Lew Kamm
On: February 12, 1996. Last
Revised: 09/15/05
