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Our last week of class! I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. By the time you return to class on Monday, please read "The New Momism" by Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels and start thinking about what you might be interested in writing about for your final exam. We'll discuss both in class. Your final reading response is also due on Monday, as well as printouts of any you have yet to turn in.

We'll spend Wednesday and Friday returning to some of the discussions we started the semester with, especially questions about what it means to be a feminist and why critical study of the mass media is important.

For Wednesday:

Please read, "Fear of Feminism: Why Young Women Get the Willies," and "Real Men Join the Movement."
Also, please look back at your notes, your syllabus, your writing for the semester, and make a list of themes that jump out at you, themes you'd like to see in your essay question on the final exam. Bring your ideas to class, and we'll make a collective list together, and I'll draw your exam questions from that list.
Lastly, bring a pencil: we'll fill out course evaluations for the semester.

For Friday, come for one final discussion of the "F word" and other themes that have run throughout our discussions in preparation for writing your final exam (you'll pick up the questions in class on Friday.), as well as a preliminary look at the website. Also, remember that your description and reflection on your group assignment is due (if you don't know what I'm talking about, look back at your assignment sheet for the group project).

**TAKE-HOME EXAM IS DUE, TYPED, AT 10 A.M., THUR., DEC. 11.**

Monday, November 17 - Friday, November 22

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Group stuff is due to the Design/Layout team one week from Monday.
Next week, you should respond to the blog post by the Words group (by Friday, as they request).
And, there are TWO more chances for reading responses, one next week, and one for Thanksgiving week (it will be due the Monday we return).

For Monday: Read chapter 3 in Douglas, "Sex and the Single Teenager," pages 61-81.

For Wednesday: Read Rickie Solinger, "Introduction" to Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics

For Friday: Read "Double Life" by Lisa Morocoli Latham and "Mother Inferior" by Monica Nolan

Monday, November 10 - Friday, November 14

For Monday: I've assigned you to a musical artist based on your last name. Read the profile of your artist below, and watch at least one music video by that artist (feel free to choose your own; I have suggestions linked below). Come to class prepared to help your group talk to the rest of the class about the artist's image as a performer:

Salt-N-Pepa (Hover, Tillman, Kauders, Catyb, Geter); Video, "Let's Talk About Sex"
Queen Latifah (Petro, Howland, Reagor, Duhon, Henderson); Video, "U.N.I.T.Y."
Lauryn Hill (Slocum, Brauner, Arabie, Johnson, Evans); Video, "That Thing"
Erykah Badu (Vance, Flynt, Mejia, Patrick, Budden); Live performance of "Call Tyrone"
Mary J. Blige (Rodrigue, Velazquez, Spinosa, Ditoro, Taylor); Video, "No More Drama"
Missy (Normand, Raniolo, Landis, Armentor, Rodriguez); Video, "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)"
Eve (Guzzetta, Cobb, Fandal, Butler, Hoyt); Video, "Love Is Blind"
Alicia Keys (Leon, Dicharry, Russ, Bennett, Greenwood); Video, "Superwoman"

For Wednesday: Read Evelynn M. Hammonds, "Towards a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic of Silence."

For Friday: Read Audre Lorde, "The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power" and come prepared to talk about Something New.

Monday, November 3 - Friday, November 7

For Monday, watch the 1974 version of The Stepford Wives if you didn't make it to the screening, and read "Devil in a Pantsuit, or the Demonization of Hillary Clinton" by Julia Keller.

If you're also interested in talking about Sarah Palin and gender, there's tons of stuff online to read; feel free to do your own searching, or here's a few articles I thought were interesting (but aren't required reading):

From Seneca Falls to Sarah Palin by Julia Baird in Newsweek

Sarah Palin's Retrograde Gender Politics by Courtney E. Martin in The American Prospect

Special Issue of FlowTV on Sarah Palin

For Wednesday: Read "Why the Shirelles Mattered" in Douglas, 83-98.

For Friday: Make sure you've read "Why the Shirelles Mattered" in Douglas (83-98), and also read "From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos" by Joan Morgan.

Screening from 2:30 - 4:30 in our classroom, Something New.

Monday, October 27 - Friday, October 31

This week, we'll start talking about the disparities between the way women have been represented on television and the ways they were experiencing life in America during particular decades.

For Wednesday: read Douglas, "Mama Said," 43-60.

For Friday: read Douglas, "Genies and Witches," 123-38.

Screening Thursday: The Stepford Wives (original version)

Monday, October 19 - Friday, October 24

Next week: I'll ask you to read chapter 2, "Mama Said," and chapter 6, "Genies and Witches" in Where the Girls Are. A response prompt is posted on the blog, due by Monday if you're interested in writing it.

Group service project: this week, we will spend our class time brainstorming, talking, and working on our class project. Come, be prepared to think, offer input, and work with your classmates, and earn a week's worth of participation points. Next week, we'll regroup and get back to analyzing media.

For Wednesday, October 21: Look through the websites posted on the Extras page (the list is at the bottom). Come to class with an idea of what part you'd like to play in the creation of this project.

Friday, October 23: Meet with your group! Draft a project proposal! We won't meet together as a class, so use your class time to work towards the proposal due next Wednesday. Email me with any questions.

FOR MONDAY, OCTOBER 13:

When you return on Monday, I'd like for you to bring a list of three possible terms or quotes from three different sources for identification to appear on the exam. They can come from our readings (stereotype), from what we've watched ("a man's man"), or from class discussion (role model). What you'll do with each item on the exam is to identify where it comes from, explain what it means, and show why it's significant. We'll work on examples in class Monday, but I'll use your suggestions to construct a study guide, and the identification questions on the exam will come from that guide. In other words, this is your chance to write your own questions.

Monday, October 6 - Friday, October 10

Beauty and the Body, Part 2: Barbie and Female Identity

For Mon.: Read the first half of Ann duCille's "Toy Theory," pages 8-30. The showing of THIN that you can attend and write about for extra credit is tonight, 6-8 pm, at The Women's Center.

For Wed.: Read the remaining half of "Toy Theory," pages 31-59.

Friday: No regular class -- catch up on your reading or watching in preparation for the midterm, or write a response -- the last one before midterm is due on Monday. Hard copies of any other responses you'd like graded by midterm are also due Monday.

Monday, September 29 - Friday, October 3

Beauty and the Body: Fashion and Advertising

Screening Thursday, 7:30 pm: What Women Want

For Mon.: Read "Never Just Pictures" by Susan Bordo, Rebecca Traister's piece in Salon about Ugly Betty, (take note that the article is 3 pages -- make sure to print them all) and and make sure you've watched the pilot episodes from Ugly Betty and Mad Men.

For Wed.: Read, "Only Two Percent of Women Describe Themselves as Beautiful" and "Decoding Victoria's Secret: The Marketing of Sexual Beauty and Ambivalence"

For Fri.: Douglas, chapter 11, "Narcissism as Liberation," (245-68)

Monday, September 22 - Friday, September 26

I Want to Be a Princess: Fairy Tales and Female Identity

For Mon.: Read "What's Wrong with Cinderella?" by Peggy Orenstein

For Wed.: Read Henke, Umble, and Smith, "Constructions of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine"

For Fri.: Read chapter 1 in Douglas, "Fractured Fairy Tales" (21-42).

Attend the screening of Ugly Betty and Mad Men, 2:30-4:30 pm, or, before Monday, watch the pilot episodes (episode 1, season 1) of both series.

Monday, September 15

THIS WEEK: How to Read Popular Media: Key Questions and Concepts

For Wed.: Read "The Social Psychology of Stereotypes: Implications for Media Audiences" by Bradley Gorham and "Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture" by Sut Jhally.

For Fri.: Read, "Introduction" to Where the Girls Are by Susan J. Douglas, pages 3-20. (This is the only excerpt from the textbook that will be available digitally. You'll need to read the first chapter for Monday, so make sure you have the actual book in enough time to get that assignment completed).

Friday, September 12

For Monday, please read, "The Social Psychology of Stereotypes: Implications for Media Audiences." Have a safe weekend!

Wednesday, September 10

For Friday, please read, "Laying a Foundation for Studying Race, Gender, and the Media," by Rebecca Ann Lind and look back over your reading assigned before the storm (Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler's "Introduction" and Judith Mayne's "Women, Representation and Culture.") Also remember that your first reading response is due to be posted to the blog before you come to class, AND to bring a hard copy of your response with you on Friday to turn in. Also, work on getting your textbook -- we'll read the introduction from it some time in the next week or so (if you want to order it online, you could do it here, here, or here -- make sure to check for used listings on these sites as well).

Monday, September 8

Welcome back from our break, due to Hurricane Gustav. I hope that you and your families weathered the storm okay. Because there are still problems with Moodle's reliability, I'll post all of our class resources here on this site, which you can always access as long as you have an internet connection. Links to our class information are listed on the left; I'll add to them frequently. I will post announcements and due dates here in this column, so you should get used to checking this page frequently.

For Wednesday: Read "The Gender Blur" by Deborah Blum and "The Social Construction of Gender" by Judith Lorber.

updated summer 2006