HIST 5980/8630: Topics in Comparative Women's History: Gender Dynamics and Domestic Life in World History will be taught spring 2012 by Prof. Mary Jo Maynes and Prof. Ann Waltner on Tuesdays from 3:35-5:30pm.
The seminar will center on discussion of sets of comparativereadings about women, gender, sexuality, and domestic life/household dynamicsin world history. The sets of readings areclustered thematically but cross a wide temporal and cultural range. The broadthemes include: gender and sexuality in comparative family/kinship systems;gendering power (political authority, statebuilding, empires); the birth of thegods (gender, sexuality, world religions); and "greed, lust, and gender"(gendering labor and markets). Within each general theme, we will attend toquestions of historical periodization, and typically discuss work frompremodern as well as modern historical eras. We will examine the constructionof gender, sexuality, and family/household dynamics through global-historicalprocesses, and also the domestic/household realm as a site of worldhistory. The comparative andthematically organized discussions will be accompanied by systematic attentionto questions of historiography and world-history pedagogy. Grad students inhistory will write a syllabus for a world history course that incorporates theseminar's themes and problematics. Students from other programs/disciplines candevelop a related project pertinent to their discipline
