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	300 Steele Building CB# 3504 UNC-Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3504 email: fys@unc.edu phone: (919)843-7773

Women's Studies

WMST/PLAN 051 [006E]: Race, Sex, and Place in America
Social & Behavioral Science/Other (SS) [GC Social Science]
Michele Berger, Thomas Campanella
This first year seminar will expose students to the complex dynamics of race, ethnicity, and gender and how these have shaped the American city since 1945. It will examine both the historical record as well as contemporary works of literature, film and music to probe the ways race, sex, and ethnicity have contributed to the culture of our cities and popular perceptions of urban life in the United States. It will also explore the different ways women and men perceive, understand, occupy and use urban space and the built environment. Drawing upon the scholarship of several disciplines (sociology, political science, urban planning, women's studies, and American history), the seminar will examine a broad spectrum of topics, including ghettoization and the inner city; the Harlem Renaissance and its influence; "redlining" and restrictive covenants; suburbanization, "white flight" and the "urban crisis" of the 1960s; big city mayoral politics; immigration and ethnic enclaving; the rise of urban nightlife; gangs; graffiti and tagging; the multiple meanings of "the hood" and "the ghetto"' hip hop culture and its popular dissemination; the origins and transformation of vice districts such as New York's 42nd Street; the politics of gentrification; and the impacts of globalization on the inner city.

WMST/SLAV 080 [006M]: The Actress: Celebrity and the Woman
Literary Arts (LA) [GC Aesthetic/Literature]
Beth Holmgren
Who is your favorite actress? what do you know about her? What makes you one of her fans? In this seminar we'll reflect on that experience, significance, and influence of the stage and motion picture actress in the modern era - that is, from the late nineteenth century, when such performers as Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse established the actress as international artist and celebrity, up to the present day. We'll analyze a wide array of texts representing the actress's experience and image - actresses' memoirs and correspondence, fan and expose' biographies, articles in the mass media, fan websites, fiction and film. The actress, as she cultivates herself and is packaged by others (agents, studios, the media) not only reflects and sets contemporary standards for beauty and lifestyle, but also often provokes public debate over women's "appropriate" familial, professional, and and public roles. Our seminar readings and discussion will be organized around a series of general topics: 1) the actress as performing artist (her call to act, her professional training and experience, her lifelong maintenance of a highly public artistic career); 2) gender specific issues of the actress's reputation (social judgments of her sexuality, private behavior, motherhood); 3) the actress as celebrity (the powerful, complex relationship between the actress and her fans, her function as symbol and - often - role model for her gender, ethnicity, race, nation, the philanthropic and political activism enabled by her public position).