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Fall 2008 Seminars

Radical Women: Fighting for Equality

Kristin Terwelp, Senior Lecturer

One hundred years ago, women in the United States were excluded from voting booths, most colleges and universities, and all but a few professions. In the 1800s, women were expected to be domestic, submissive, pious, and pure. Now, a woman is one of the front-runners in the United States 2008 Presidential election. How did we get here? Who are the people that paved the way for Hilary Clinton and all the other women living in the United States today? In this course, we will be finding out about these trailblazers, these "radical" women who dreamed of a day when women would have both a public and a political voice. We will read texts written by Margaret Fuller, Ida B. Wells, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Sojourner Truth, and more. We will also watch and analyze two films about the Suffrage movement, Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and A Century of Women: Sexuality and Social Justice. In addition to studying women's fight for equality in the United States, we will also look at ongoing women's movements in several other countries: Iran, China, Argentina, and India to name a few.

This course is designed to help students find and use the many resources available at the university. With this in mind, students will be required to write a 7-8 page research paper which will be due during the second half of the semester. The class will be visiting the library at least once early in the semester to help students in this endeavor. We will also visit the Women's Resource Center, the Peer Mentoring Center, and the Writing Center. Because this is a student-centered course, once the research papers are completed, students will have the opportunity to share their work with the class. In other words, the students' work will become an integral part of the course material.

Kristin Terwelp received her Ph.D. in English from UWM where she has taught creative writing, literature, and introductory composition for the English Department for the past 9 years. She is a poet and has published her poetry in a number of literary journals throughout the country. Her scholarly interests include women's literature, gender studies, nineteenth-century American literature, and Native American literature. As a first-generation college student and a woman from a working-class family, she is particularly interested in the roles working women have played in American literature.

Number: WMNS 192
Credits: 3 HU
Time: TR 2:00pm-3:15pm
Place: MER G16
Class Number: 58696

Check current enrollment information.