HIST 321: From Mystics to Feminists – Women’s History in Europe from 1600 to the Present

From Mystics to Feminists - Women's History in Europe from 1600 to the Present 
 

Through the analysis of historical problems and questions in class discussions, quizzes, assignments, and the final analytical paper students will address the topic of gender and sex from a cultural and social angle, studying how the history of women and gender can challenge us to re-valuate concepts like “civilization” and “progress.” This is an intense eight-week course with weekly reading of primary sources and weekly small assignments of two-three pages in length that will culminate in a larger paper (of nine pages) at the end of our course. Ultimately, we want to explore how much cultural and social norms have shaped expectations of what women could or could not do while also offering them tools to reshape and reinvent gender notions in their own historical context.

This course satisfies goal 1.1 of the KU Core.