May 16, 2024  
2016-2017 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
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2016-2017 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Course Descriptions

 Course Numbering System

001-099 Developmental Courses (Credit Type DV*)
100-299 Lower division courses; may have prerequisites
300-499 Upper division courses
500-599 Foundational graduate courses and Education graduate certification courses
600-699 Graduate courses

*DV - Developmental courses completed at Avila count toward Term hours, Term GPA and Career GPA, but are not counted in Career hours. Developmental courses completed at another institution are counted in Term hours and Term GPA, but are not counted in Career hours or Career GPA.

Catalog Course Information

The number in parentheses after the course title indicates the credit in semester hours.

The letters following the course description indicate the semester in which the course is given. Fall semester course offerings are indicated by FA; spring semester, SP; summer session, SU. Where frequency of course offering is not indicated, the course is given as required.
 

Women’s and Gender Studies
  

  • WS 311 - American Women (3)

    This course explores changing cultural images of women, examines the role of gender in structuring American society, and compares the experiences of American women from a variety of racial and ethnic groups as well as class positions. Additionally, this course includes a discussion of important theoretical and methodological concerns related to women’s and gender history. Meets the upper-division requirement for American History in the history major. 2015 CORE: Social Justice & Civic Life, Contribute.
  

  • WS 318 - Women in Other Cultures (3)

    A cross-cultural study of women’s status and roles in selected ethnic or cultural groups in differing stages of development, including forager, agrarian, industrial, and postindustrial societies. Even years.
  

  • WS 319 - Women, Religion & Community in the U.S. (3)

    This course will examine women and religion and how the interaction of religious and gender ideology helped shape experiences and create women’s communities within a variety of religious traditions in the United States. We will view religious experience through a multicultural lens which includes the perspectives of African-American, Native American, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant women and some women founders of American and international religious groups. PRE-2015 CORE: Level II & III.
  

  • WS 326 - Feminist Theory (3)

    This course provides an overview of the major philosophical issues that have defined feminism as a subject of intellectual inquiry. Although feminism’s historical focus has been on women, an even more fundamental issue for the movement has been now power and oppression are created from and wielded upon various categories of humans. In this light, this course will explore the construction of numerous identities (including “woman,” “man,” and many other ways of understanding the self), how power is negotiated from those identities, and how these translate into issues of subjectivity, rights, politics, aesthetics, sexuality, ethics, and a host of other issues. PRE-2015 CORE: Level II. 2015 CORE: Belief & Reason, Transform.
  

  • WS 331 - Women & Science (3)

    This course introduces students to the complex relationship between women and science, beginning with representations of female biology in Greek texts. Students examine both general nineteenth and twentieth-century patterns and trends and the achievements of individual women scientists. Students analyze persistent barriers to women’s participation and advancement and the methods employed to overcome such barriers. The course includes an analysis of sexist content in the sciences and the impact of feminist critiques. PRE-2015 CORE: Level III.
  

  • WS 333 - Gender Communication (3)

    A critical analysis of the interrelationship between gender, culture, and communication. Gender differences and sex-role stereotypes and their influence on communication and relationships will be explored so that strategies for bridging these differences can be developed. PRE-2015 CORE: Level II & III.
  

  • WS 335 - Legal Rights of Women (3)

    This course is designed to introduce students to feminist jurisprudence and the role of women in the law through an examination of feminist legal and political theory. We explore the ways in which traditional gender roles and expectations have come to shape women’s rights in both criminal and civil law. Students will come to understand and appreciate the history of women’s unequal treatment in law, as well as contemporary issues regarding women and the law. Topics include reproductive rights, statutory rape, domestic violence, pornography and issues involving work outside the home. Attention is paid to the ways in which traditional norms involving race, class, and gender are reinforced in popular culture, which often serves as a barrier to meaningful change.
  

  • WS 370 - Fairy Tales & Culture (3)

    This course is an exploration of the creation, transmission, and implications of culture to power relations (particularly gender) of fairy tales in modern world history since 1450 C.E. in a global context. Meets the upper-division World History requirement in the history major. 2015 CORE: Creativity & Culture, Contribute.
  

  • WS 372 - Being Together: A Global Context (3)

    This interdisciplinary course will introduce the student to thinking about what it means to exist together with other human beings in the midst of a ‘global’ world, especially as that concept is navigated by means of gender, racial, class, and other differences. We will consider both the genesis of these categories and also how best to understand them, and we will do so largely by recognizing that they are influenced or determined by other categories, like, for example, power and desire. In this way, the course will consider both the most basic philosophical issues involved in existing with others (recognition, acknowledgment, and inter-subjectivity, as well as their failures) as well as the more specific ways in which we come to relate to and identify ourselves, and each other (gender, race, class, and others). We will conclude the course by exploring issues of justice in light of a global context and of our explorations throughout the semester. 2015 CORE: Social Justice & Civic Life, Transform, Interdisciplinary Studies, Global Studies.
  

  • WS 380 - Topics in Women’s Studies (1-3)

    Special topics in women’s studies are explored from a variety of academic disciplines. Course topics are determined based on faculty/student interest and program needs. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
  

  • WS 462 - Rhetoric of Women (3)

    Using gender as a category of rhetorical study, this course locates and listens to rhetoric by and about women. Students will study diverse rhetoric produced by women as well as general feminist rhetorics. Prerequisite: EN 213 , EN 279 , or EN 350 . SP, even years.
 

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