University of Wisconsin Colleges

Women’s Studies program

Course Catalog Description

In this course, we will examine ways women have been portrayed and are currently portrayed in the media, in television and movies, popular music, internet, print sources like magazines, popular fiction, and newspapers, and other cultural artifacts. With readings ranging from critical theory to popular fiction by and about women, we will speculate on the impact of and source for popular portrayals of women and the social construction of gender, race, and other social categories. The course will also encourage students to examine women as agents in the creation and consumption of mass culture. Issues of race, class, sexual orientation, age, and physical ability will be important as we explore and critically examine the forms and functions of women in popular culture—both as consumers and the consumed.

Number of credits, Contact Hours, Degree designation(s), Type of Delivery

Credits____3_____                                                 Contact Hours____3______        

Degree Designation(s) __HU, ES______________________________________       

(AP) Application and Performance, (EL) Elective, (ES) Ethnic Studies, (FA) Fine Arts, (HU) Humanities, (IS) Interdisciplinary Studies, (LS) Laboratory Sciences, (MS) Mathematical Sciences, (NS) Natural Sciences, (SS) Social Sciences,

Type of Course Delivery  __X____lecture ___x___discussion _____lab _____other (please describe)___________________________________________________

Prerequisites (if any)

none

UW Colleges gENERAL eDUCATION Proficiencies For this course

Please identify from the list below the proficiencies that are most closely associated with student success in this course. Please check all that apply. Individual instructors may incorporate additional proficiencies if they choose.

_X_ Analytical Skills

___ Quantitative Skills

_X_ Communication Skills

_X_ Aesthetic Skills

 
                                                                                                                                        WOM 203

Department Learning Objectives for this course

List the objectives addressed in all sections of the course across all campuses of the institution; use as many numbers as appropriate for this particular course.  (Individual instructors may incorporate additional objectives if they choose.)

1.    Define popular culture, and how it is written, talked about, and experienced

2.    Critically analyze multiple forms and media of popular culture and its significance

3.    Become familiar with how women have been represented in popular culture and how they have represented themselves 

4.    Understand the scholarly and theoretical conversations that have been and are currently  happening about cultural studies and women’s place within it

5.    Examine the cultural construct of race, ethnicity, and other social categories in American popular culture

Representative Texts used By UW Colleges Faculty in this course

List the texts that are representative of those currently being used by faculty in the department 

·         Bernardi, Daniel. Star Trek and History: Race-Ing Toward a White Future

·         Caputi, Jane. Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power, and Popular Culture.

·         Coward, Rosalind. Female Desires: How They Are Sought, Bought, and Packaged.

·         Douglas, Susan. Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media

·         Hollows, Joanne and Rachel Moseley. Feminism in Popular Culture.

·         Inness, Sherrie. Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture

·         Inness, Sherrie. Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth-Century American Girls’ Cultures.

·         Inness, Sherrie. Disco Divas: Women and Popular Culture in the 1970s

·         Inness, Sherrie. Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture

·         Inness, Sherrie. Kitchen Culture in America: Popular Representations of Food, Gender, and Race

·         Jhally, Sut. Dreamworlds 1 and 2 (videos)

·         Kaplan, E. Ann. Motherhood and Representation: The Mother in Popular Culture and Melodrama

·         Kilbourne, Jean. Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel.

·         Kilbourne, Jean. Killing us Softly 1-3 (video)

·         McBride, Dwight A. .Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality in America (Sexual Cultures Series) (Paperback)

·         Orlean, Susan. Saturday Night.

·         Pough, Gwendolyn. Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere

·         Rogers, Mary F. Barbie Culture.

·         Storey, John. Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture

·         Walter, Suzanna Danuta. Material Girls: Making Sense of Feminist Cultural Theory

·         Weibel, Kathryn. Mirror Mirror: Images of Women Reflected in Popular Culture

·         Williamson, Judith. Consuming Passions: The Dynamics of Popular Culture

Major Topics covered By UW Colleges Faculty in this course

Please provide an inclusive list as this is important for transfer institutions as they make accurate evaluations of our UW Colleges courses; use as many numbers as appropriate for this particular course. 

1.    What is popular culture? What is cultural studies? What is feminist criticism?

2.    The Visual Spectacle: Television and Film

3.    Popular Music and Music Culture

4.    Print Media: Magazines, Fiction, Newspapers, Comic Books

5.    Material Culture (Toys, Games, Technology, and Other Consumables)

6.    Advertising and Marketing

Course Requirements

Please list the activities required of all students in all sections of the course across the UW Colleges (e.g., field trip, research paper, service learning); use as many numbers as appropriate for this particular course.  Do not include requirements that vary from instructor to instructor.

1.    Class discussion

2.    Reading and writing about women in popular culture

                                                                                                                                        wom 203

TRANSFER RECOMMENDATION

Indicate the department, course name and course number of equivalent courses at as many UW System institutions as appropriate for this course.  Please base your decisions on the catalog descriptions of similar courses at other UW institutions (available on the web sites for those institutions).

UW-Eau Claire ____WOM 317 Women and the Mass Media___________        

UW-Platteville ____WOM 3330 Topics in Women’s Studies___________

UW-River Falls ___WOM 389 Topics in Women’s Studies____________

UW-Stevens Point ___WOM 200 Topics in Women’s Studies_________

UW-Stout ______WOM 311 Topics in Women’s Studies_____________

UW-Parkside ___WOM 290 Special Topics_____________

UW-Green Bay ___WOM 350 Topics in women’s Studies___________                       

UW-La Crosse ___WOM 250 Topics in Women’s Studies ____________

UW-Madison ____ _WOM 421: Constructions of Gender in the Media            

UW-Milwaukee ____WOM 201: Introduction to Women’s Studies: A Humanities

Perspective____                   

UW-Oshkosh ______WOM 225 Images of Women__________              

UW-Superior ____No equivalent____________                           

UW-Whitewater ____WOM 250 Women in American Culture__________

DEPARTMENT CONTACT INFORMATION

Department chair__Holly Hassel__________________________________________

Chair’s e-mail address___holly.hassel@uwc.edu____________________________

Chair’s phone number___715-261-6265___________________________________

Chair’s fax number___715-261-6333_______________________________________

DATE COMPLETED ____September 12, 2008_______________________________