Proposing Faculty Member: Darryl Heller
Category: Common Core
Component: Literary & Intellectual Traditions
Description: This class will explore significant social movements from the 19th through the 21st Century. Unlike a course in sociology, which tend to look at social movements from a structural and organizational perspective, this course will use the lens of gender as an analytical framework to explore the humanistic tradition that is inherent in social conflict. We will examine social movements that clearly and objectively centered interests that affected women, such as the abolitionist movement to end slavery, the suffrage movement for women’s right to vote, and the fight for reproductive choices. We will also look at other significant social movements that women had key roles in developing, articulating, or advancing, but their voices were either submerged or marginalized, such as was the case in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. In still others, women played clear roles in defining and shaping the movement, such as in the Gay Liberation Movement and Black Lives Matter Movement, but their contributions were at times overshadowed by men’s voices and activity.