WMST 270 Women and Film

This course uses film to explore the human search for meaning, through examining films written and/or directed by women, featuring women, and focusing on women’s experiences. Engaging a wide variety of worldviews, the focus is on the creative and risk-taking strategies women choose in order to navigate systems of race, class, gender, and sexuality, while pursuing meaningful lives for themselves, their families and communities. The course draws on the arts, media, and popular culture to analyze the worldwide impact of gender expectations in shaping and limiting societal roles, as well as women’s innovative strategies for expanding and enhancing them.

Credits

3

Prerequisite

Eligible to enroll in ENGL 121

Hours Weekly

3

Course Objectives

1. Identify the power of gender constructs facing female film characters and organize understanding around the strategies they invent to skillfully navigate the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and sexuality while pursuing meaningful lives for themselves, their families, and communities.
2. Analyze and evaluate whether a film portrays female characters as subjects–agents of their own lives, able to act on their own behalf and craft their own destiny–or objects–passive recipients of dramatic action.
3. Consider the range and diversity of roles available to women of color and with varying sexual and gender identities, as well as the roles available to female characters during a range of historical time periods and in a variety of cultures; examine why there are relatively few of these roles.
4. Apply ideas to an examination of the role of the female director and her power to broaden and deepen the portrayal of female characters; explore several female film directors in the role of auteur.

Course Objectives

1. Identify the power of gender constructs facing female film characters and organize understanding around the strategies they invent to skillfully navigate the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and sexuality while pursuing meaningful lives for themselves, their families, and communities.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Analytic paper one

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT1
2. Analyze and evaluate whether a film portrays female characters as subjects–agents of their own lives, able to act on their own behalf and craft their own destiny–or objects–passive recipients of dramatic action.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Analytic paper one

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT3
3. Consider the range and diversity of roles available to women of color and with varying sexual and gender identities, as well as the roles available to female characters during a range of historical time periods and in a variety of cultures; examine why there are relatively few of these roles.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Analytic paper two

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT2
4. Apply ideas to an examination of the role of the female director and her power to broaden and deepen the portrayal of female characters; explore several female film directors in the role of auteur.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Analytic paper three

   Critical Thinking

   • CT4