Attendance and participation

The college allows you two excused absences per term; ideally, you should try to avoid even that. With different professors, and totally different topics on almost a daily basis, if you miss a class, you really miss out.

To prepare for class, you should do the assigned reading, write in your journal (see below), and come in ready to talk. This is not a class where you can afford to be passive: you will learn best if you ask questions of the instructors, of your classmates, and of yourself. If you don’t understand something, it’s your responsiblility to ask. If someone asks, and you have an inking, it’s your responsibility to answer. If you’re intrigued, troubled, challenged, excited—bring it up. This course is, to a large extent, what you make it.

In addition to daily class attendance, students are expected to attend their choice of four out of the five Women Studies Colloquium events, and either the Margaret Brent lecture or a performance of Vagina Monologues (see dates for all these events on the daily schedule).

Reading Journal

You will be keeping a reading/class journal. For each day of class, write at least 250 words* on the assigned reading(s) before class. After class, write approximately the same amount, focusing on how class events shaped your understanding of what you read and/or of the day’s topic (altered your ideas, clarified them, reaffirmed them, etc.).

This writing is expected to be informal, and may include observations, questions, pithy summings-up of the readings and/or class discussion, etc. Not every day is expected to look alike: do what seems to make sense based on the given set of texts and events.

• While informal, your prose should be reasonably grammatical, and clear enough to convey meaning to a reader other than yourself;


• Your entries should be typed (again, for legibility’s sake);


• Because you’ll need to keep writing while I’m reading what you’ve already written, you should collect your entries in something like a 3-ring binder, which you can remove pages from at will.

Formal essays

You will have two formal essays due over the course of the semester (see schedule for dates). Each should be 2100–2800 words (6–8 pages) in length, and will focus on a group of essays from the Feminist Theory textbook.

Paper 1, due just before spring break, will be on a particular decade of recent feminist theory: you may choose from sections IV, V, VI, or VII of the book. Don’t feel that you have to read and master every selection in your chosen section, but skim through the excerpts enough to pick 3 or 4 you feel represent issues or ideas particularly pertinent to that decade, and write about the ways they work together, speak to similar concerns, perhaps take radically different stances on a timely issue. (Hint: reading the introductions to the sections will probably be helpful to you).

In Paper 2, due at the end of the semester, you’ll be asked instead to look at a particular issue over time. How did theorists address the question of marriage in 1800, 1900, and 2000? Women’s place in the labor market? Child-rearing? Sexuality? Race? How much have things stayed the same, and in what ways have they changed? Again, while wider reading will help you formulate your argument, focus on a small selection of actual essays and writers to analyze and cite.

approx. 20% of grade for each