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Course Description
Course Format
Course Objectives
Course Requirements
Grading Scale
Required Texts
Reading Assignments and Course Schedule
Traditional approaches to the study of world politics have neglected gender as an explanatory variable. These traditional approaches typically have identified either state interests or economic factors as the dominant influences shaping international relations. In recent years, a growing number of scholars, especially feminist scholars, have challenged the traditional approaches to the study of world politics. According to these scholars, gender, conceived of as socially constructed notions of masculinity and femininity, fundamentally shapes world politics. Moreover, many scholars contend that men and women participate in international relations in different ways and that issues and events in world politics have divergent effects on men and women. In this course, we will examine a variety of topics, including women's movements in world politics, war, human rights, and economic development, through a "gender perspective" and will consider the ways in which this perspective is useful in broadening our understanding of world politics.
The format for our web course is as follows. I have divided the course into four sections, each dealing with a different topic related to Gender and World Politics. There is a reading assignment for each part of the course except for Part I. I also have written a "virtual lecture" for each part of the course. These virtual lectures provide background information, definitions, and explanations of the reading assignments. The virtual lectures also provide a set of discussion questions. You will be required to post responses to these questions in an online discussion forum. You will read the posted responses of all of the students who are taking this class and then will post reactions to these postings. Review the section on course requirements below for additional detail on your participation in the discussion forum. The deadlines for posted responses and reactions are listed in the course schedule below. Note: you do NOT have to wait until the deadline to post your material in the discussion forum. Moreover, you do not need to end the discussion of one topic simply because that section of the course has ended. Indeed, I hope that you interact in the forum early and often. The discussion questions I provide are intended to create some structure and to help you get started. In general, the purpose of the forum is to encourage active engagement with the course material and interaction with other students. Also, please note that the course homepage includes a tab for a virtual chatroom. Although I will not require students to participate in this chatroom, the function remains availabe for students who want to continue class discussions in "real time." The course homepage has a folder with the e-mail addresses of all students participating in the class so that you may make arrangements for dicussions in the virtual classroom and so that you are able to continue your discussions more informally via e-mail if there are topics in which you are particularly interested. Finally, I also encourage you to e-mail me with any questions or comments you have. We will not be able to interact to the same degree that I encourage in traditional classroom settings, but my hope is to foster active student involvement in this course via the forum and e-mail discussion.
The Department of Politics and International Relations seeks to induct students into the community of liberally educated individuals who are capable of understanding government and politics in terms of the theories, concepts, and tools of sophisticated political analysis which characterize the discipline of political science. The liberal-arts dimension of our mission stems from our belief that all people are embedded in a political environment which acts upon them in ways they must understand if they are to function effectively as active participants in a democratic society. Our goal, therefore, is not to train professional political scientists, but rather to produce the liberally educated citizen who is fluent in the language of politics and political analysis and thereby has a foundation for both citizenship in a democratic society and successful training in a job, in a graduate school, or in a professional school. Such a person has the capacity to recognize and evaluate assumptions, implications, and causal relationships pertaining to government and politics and, by extension, to other realms of human experience. Go to the home page of the Department of Politics and International Relations for more information on the basic objectives of the general program and upper-level courses in the department.
Additional course-specific objectives include the following:
1. To develop a solid understanding of the concept of gender and how it can be applied to an analysis of important issues in world politics.
2. To gain an understanding of the complex and diverse ways in which women participate in and are affected by world politics.
3. To foster creative, critical thinking about issues and problems in world politics.
1. TWO EXAMS (60%): Students will be required to complete both a midterm and a final exam. Each exam will consist of one or two essay questions which will require students to think analytically about the course material and to integrate information from the readings, virtual lectures, and forum discussions. Though the final exam questions will focus largely on the course material covered since the midterm, they also will require students to build upon the cumulative knowledge they have gained throughout the course. Each exam will be worth 30% of the final course grade. Exams will be graded for content, grammar, and style. I also will expect you to incorporate explicit references to the required readings. I will distribute exam questions to you via e-mail. You will have approximately 4 days to complete the essays and to return your answers to my e-mail address by a specified deadline. Note: my e-mail program documents the date and time that a message was received, and I will not accept exams that are received after the deadline without a valid excuse, such as a serious illness (colds don't count!) or family emergency. Because of the nature of web courses, which will prevent us from meeting face to face to discuss problems, I will ask for documentation of any illness or emergency that prevents you from turning in an exam on time. This requirement will delay your receipt of the final grade for this course and, as such, is designed to discourage you from turning in late work for any invalid reasons.
2. PARTICIPATION IN DISCUSSION FORUM (40%): Participation in the discussion forum will be a vital part of this course. The subject matter and reading material for this course should be thought-provoking. Because we cannot engage in face-to-face deliberation over issues raised by the course material, I will promote the exchange of ideas through a web-based discussion forum.
I will provide discussion questions in the "virtual lecture" for each part of the course. Students are required to post their own responses to these questions in the forum for that section. I also would encourage students to raise their own questions in the forum. After the deadline for posting intitial responses, students are required to read all of the other student written responses. Then, each student will be required to post an additional reaction paper in which you comment on other student responses. The course homepage includes a tab labelled "discussion board." Click on this tab to find the online discussion forums for each section of the course. You should post your responses in the folder labelled for the appropriate course section. The forum pages provide further guidelines for participation. If you have any problems, please let me know.
Your initial written responses should include, at a minimum, approximately 2-3 paragraphs per discussion question. In some cases, you will probably need to write more than a few paragraphs to answer a discussion question adequately. Also, the best responses will include additional paragraphs which explore connections between the various discussion questions and which pose new questions. In essence, your initial written responses are brief reaction papers (a page or so in regular text) to the course material, though it is easier to measure paragraphs than pages on the web. You should post these responses by the date specified in the course schedule listed below. Then, all students should read the posted responses and post written reactions to other students' responses by the date specified in the course schedule below. Your reactions should include a minimum of 2-3 paragraphs total. Note: these are minimum guidelines for participation in the forum. My hope is that many of you will be engaged with the subject matter and will want to participate in the forum more frequently. Your written responses and reactions in the forum will be graded for content, style, & grammar. Please e-mail me if you have questions about my expectations for your participation in the forum.
3. Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated. Plagiarism is the act of trying to pass off someone else's ideas, words, thoughts or inventions as one's own. Plagiarism may be intentional or unintentional, but it is a violation of academic integrity in either case. You must acknowledge your use of other's work when you quote them word for word (you must use quotation marks in the case of direct quotations), paraphrase, borrow ideas, incorporate factual information from someone else's work, or rely on another person's organization of material. You do not need to provide citations for common knowledge, but it is better to err on the side of caution if you have any doubts. See me if you have questions about plagiarism. If I discover a case of plagiarism, I will impose the most serious penalty allowed under university regulations and contingent on the nature of the violation. See the statement on Academic Honesty and Integrity at the Department of Politics and IR homepage for further details. Also, contact me if you still have questions about academic dishonesty.
A 90-100 (Excellent)
B 80-89 (Good)
C 70-79 (Satisfactory)
D 60-69 (Poor)
F 0-59 (Failure)
How to get your books:
You must have the required texts, listed below, before the date the class begins. You can pick up your texts at:
The University Bookstore
3003 Forest Ave.
Des Moines, IA 50311Alternatively, you may:
a. phone, fax, or e-mail The University Bookstore (phone: 1-800-430-9875 or locally at 274-3401; fax: 1-515-274-3407; e-mail: univbook71@aol.com). Tell them what books you need, and they gladly will mail them to you. You may also order your books from the Drake University Bookstore on-line (www.drakebookstore.com). Again, remember to leave enough time to get the books in the mail before the class begins.
b. order your books on the Web from Amazon.Com (www.amazon.com) or Barnes and Noble (www.barnesandnoble.com). Amazon.Com and Barnes and Noble's on-line bookstores are huge but still may not have every book you need, so be sure to check early.
Required texts:
1. Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 1994).
2. Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers (University of California Press, 2000)
3. Joshua Goldstein, War and Gender (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
4. Glen Jeansonne, Women of the Far Right: The Mothers' Movement and World War II (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1996).
5. Martha Nussbaum, Women and Human Development (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
6. Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper, eds., Women's Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (New York, NY: Routledge, 1995).
6. Your understanding of peacebuilding and post-conflict justice issues will be enhanced if you keep abreast of current world politics. I will not require you to subscribe to a specific newspaper. However, you should follow current international events through the media of your choice. Note: certain choices are likely to be wiser than others. National daily newspapers, such as The New York Times or The Christian Science Monitor, provide far more thorough international coverage than local dailes. You also can obtain at least basic information in some weekly newsmagazines or by following CNN. In addition to these examples, most national newspapers and television networks maintain on-line sources of news.
7. If you are interested in researching additional sources on this topic, go to Drake University's online library resources or the Resources and Reference Page of Cowles Library.
READING ASSIGNMENTS AND COURSE SCHEDULE
PART I: The Concept of Gender and the Study of World Politics (January 22-31)
No Reading Assignment
Virtual Lecture 1
Forum: Posting 1 due January 28; Posting 2 due January 31PART II: The Politics of Motherhood and Women's Movements in World Politics (February 1-March 1)
Reading Assignment: Bouvard (whole book), Jeansonne (whole book)
Virtual Lecture 2
Forum: Posting 1 due February 25; Posting 2 due March 1Midterm exam will be distributed by noon on March 1 and is due no later than midnight on March 6. No late exams will be accepted.
PART III: Gender and War (March 7-April 12) Note: Spring Break is March 18-22.
Reading Assignment: Goldstein (whole book); Enloe (whole book); Peters and Wolper, Chpt. 2
Virtual Lecture 3
Forum: Posting 1 due April 8; Posting 2 due April 12PART IV: Gender, Economic Development, and Human Rights (April 13-May 9)
Reading Assignment: Nussbaum (whole book); Peters and Wolper (whole book)
Virtual Lecture 4
Forum: Posting 1 due May 6; Posting 2 due May 9Final exam will be distributed by noon on May 9 and is due no later than noon on May 16. No late exams will be accepted.