HGS EVENTS FOR 2024-2025
Among Women Across Worlds North Korea in Global Cold War
The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal
History of Gender & Sexuality: Graduate Student Workshop
Zoom link for virtual participation:
tinyurl.com/historygenderandsexuality
HGS EVENTS FOR 2022-2023
The History of Gender & Sexuality Workshop
Thursday, May 11, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Location: 6275 Bunche Hall
A graduate student workshop sponsored by the Gender and Sexuality Group, Depatment of History, UCLA
Sakhia’s Gift: Intimate Economies in Transition in Twentieth-Century Zanzibar by Prof. Hollian Wint
Wednesday, May 25. 12:30 PM to 1:50 PM
Location: 6275 Bunche Hall
Wint’s presentation describes regional and familial credit networks that streched around the Indian Ocean.
HGS EVENTS FOR 2021-2022
The History of Gender & Sexuality Workshop
Thursday, May 5, 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM
Location: 6275 Bunche Hall
A graduate student workshop sponsored by the Gender and Sexuality Group, Depatment of History, UCLA
Graduate Student Meeting with Professor Christina Firpo (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo)
Wednesday, May 25. 9:30 AM to 11 AM
Location: 5288 Bunche Hall
Join this informal chat with Professor Firpo over coffee and pastries!
HGS EVENTS FOR 2020-2021
Marissa Jenrich
“Like a Crow on Carrion”: Black Women’s Resistance to Police Power in New York City, 1861-1880.
Friday, November 13, 12:00 PM
Location: Via Zoom
Marissa’s article highlights the complex relationship between black women and New York City police in the years between the founding of the municipal force in 1845 and the officer-driven race riot that punctuated the turn of the twentieth century. It considers how shifts in police power, departmental structure, and jurisdiction altered the lives of women of color at a time when the city itself was undergoing tremendous change. In particular, this article examines the diverse ways women resisted the incursions of law enforcement by engaging in strategies of denial, registration, and direct protest. By doing so, this article hopes to not only shed light on the period in question, but also to deepen our understanding of the Progressive-Era brand of policing that, for many New Yorkers, resulted in a ”condemnation of blackness,” itself.
— Please note that there is a pre-circulated paper that will be sent out a week before this event. Please contact Rebeca Martinez at rmartnz165@g.ucla.edu for further information on the zoom link and paper. —
Rebekka Michaelsen
“The Notorious Mrs. Nobles: Jim Crow Gender and “Insanity” in Late Nineteenth-Century Georgia”.
Wednesday, February 10, 11:30 AM
Location: Via Zoom
This article-in-progress recovers the case of Elizabeth Nobles, an elderly, poor white woman who conspired with her Black farm hand to murder her husband in rural Georgia in 1895. While other historians have demonstrated the importance of race and gender to the Jim Crow South, this paper shows how notions of disability, in this case “insanity,” reinforced Jim Crow. While, for Mrs. Nobles, “insanity” became a reputable legal defense to save her life as well as a rhetorical apology for her transgression of Jim Crow racial and gender hierarchies, “insanity” could simultaneously serve as way of “othering” and “defeminizing” Black women.
— Please note that there is a pre-circulated paper that will be sent out a week before this event. Please contact Rebeca Martinez at rmartnz165@g.ucla.edu for further information on the zoom link and paper. —
Jiacheng Liu
“The Game of Love and the Performance of Masculinity: Courting Actresses in Republican China”
Monday, April 12, 7:00 PM
Location: Via Zoom
Jiacheng Liu, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Northern Colorado, will be giving a talk based on her article “The Game of Love and the Performance of Masculinity: Courting Actresses in Republican China.”
— Please note that participants are encouraged but not required to read the article in advance. Please contact Rebeca Martinez at rmartnz165@g.ucla.edu by April 5th for further information on the zoom link and article. —
Y. Yvon Wang
“Sexology Sells: Licentiousness & Sexual Science on fin-de-siècle Beijing Markets”
Monday, April 26, 6:00 PM
Location: Via Zoom
Y. Yvon Wang, Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto, will be giving a talk entitled “Sexology Sells: Licentiousness & Sexual Science on fin-de-siècle Beijing Markets.”
— Please note that participants are encouraged but not required to read sections from Wang’s book Reinventing Licentiousness: Pornography and Modern China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021) and other readings which will be made available to participants who RSVP to the meeting. Please contact Rebeca Martinez at rmartnz165@g.ucla.edu by April 19th for further information on the zoom link and readings. —
Madison Felman-Panagotacos
Wednesday, May 12, 2:00PM
Location: Via Zoom
Madison Felman-Panagotacos, PhD Candidate from the Spanish and Portuguese department, will be presenting her research on “La Difunta Correa.”
This paper traces the tumultuous popularization of the devotion to la Difunta Correa, considering reverence for her in conjunction with changing standards of what constitutes argentinidad and femininity. Examining cultural productions depicting la Difunta Correa that were created ion during moments of political upheaval – modernization, the rise of Peronism, and the military dictatorship – lends insight to the values considered as inherent to Argentine citizenship at those particular moments. Rewritings of the legend of la Difunta Correa are calculated reimaginings of what constitutes citizenship and femininity, highlighting exclusionary practices in nation building that are still present today.
— Please note that there is a pre-circulated paper that will be sent out a week before this event. Please contact Rebeca Martinez at rmartnz165@g.ucla.edu for further information on the zoom link and paper. —
Annelise Heinz
“Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture”
Thursday, May 27, 5:00PM
Location: Via Zoom
Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture illustrates how the spaces between tiles and the moments between games have fostered distinct social cultures in the United States. This mass-produced game crossed the Pacific, creating waves of popularity over the twentieth century. Annelise Heinz narrates the history of this game to show how it has created a variety of meanings, among them American modernity, Chinese American heritage, and Jewish American women’s culture.
HWMS EVENTS FOR 2019-2020
Ellen Dubois
Professor emeritus, UCLA
Women’s Voting, Past, Present and Future
Tuesday, February 18, 12:00 PM
6275 Bunche Hall
Cassia Roth
University of Georgia
“From Dissertation to Book: A Recent Grad’s Experience with Publishing”
Tuesday, April 14, 10:00 AM
Padilla Reading Room, Bunche 6265
Cassia Roth
University of Georgia
A Miscarriage of Justice: Women’s Reproductive Lives and the Law in Early Twentieth-Century Brazil
Tuesday, April 14, 4:00 PM
6275 Bunche Hall
Ryan Hilliard
PhD Candidate, UCLA
Sharing a Home, Sharing a Life: Single Women’s Domestic Alliances in Early Modern Paris
Tuesday, May 7, 12:00 PM
6275 Bunche Hall
2019-2020 Course Offerings
| Quarter | Course Number | Course Name | Professor/Lecturer | Day/Time | Location | Course Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2019 | HIST 201L-1 | Gender and Sexuality in China Early Modern and Modern China | Andrea Goldman | Th 1-3:50 | Public Affairs 1323 | This course examines the methods that historians have used since the 1970s to understand the history of the modern Middle East. Among the topics considered: Orientalism, the study of religion, social history, cultural history, gender, political economy, and the influence of Weber, Marx, Gramsci, Hobsbawm, E.P. Thompson, and others. |
| Fall 2019 | HIST 96W-3 | Tech Culture in California | Peter Chesney | W 12-3 | TBA | This course occupies the borderlands between histories of technology and gender/sexuality. New gadgets, from cars to computers, have played powerful roles in making and remaking societies marked by gender inequality and sexual normativity. In this class, we begin with provocations from the likes of Audre Lorde, Donna Haraway, and Rebecca Solnit. Then we will proceed to deconstruct both the utopian and dystopian futures new tech’s boosters and detractors posited, and tried to impose, especially futures relevant to the history of a State (California) during a period (the war that lasted, for the U.S.A., from 1941-1991). |
| Fall 2019 | HIST M147D | History of Women in the U.S., 1860-1980 | Katherine Marino | MWF 11AM-11:50AM | Dodd Hall 121 | This course surveys the history of women and gender in the United States. A major goal of the course is to present women’s history both as an integral part of U.S. history and as a unique subject of historical investigation. What can be learned about other areas of American history—immigration, citizenship, racialization, formal politics—by examining women and gender? How does an examination of women and gender in history alter the historical questions we ask? Students will learn to think critically about historical arguments as well as to understand the difference that gender makes in history and the way that gender interacts with class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. |
| Winter 2020 | HIST 5 | History and Memory (Online Course) | Sarah Stein | N/A | N/A | Lecture, three hours; discussion, two hours. Holocaust, murder of six million Jews by Germans in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, is one of crucial events of modern history. Examination of origins of Holocaust, perpetrators and victims, and changing efforts to come to terms with this genocide. Exploration of forces that led to Holocaust, including emergence of scientific racism, anti-Semitism, and machinery of modern state. Consideration of debates about implementation of genocide, including significance of gender and sexuality, relationship between war and genocide, meanings of resistance and culpability, and political and philosophical implications of Holocaust. Exploration of how genocide of European Jewry was intertwined with targeting of other victims of Nazi rule, including Roma, Slavs, black Germans, disabled, homosexuals, and political opponents of National Socialism. P/NP or letter grading. |
| Spring 2020 | HIST 201N | Rethinking Biography: Big Women in African History | Ghislaine Lydon | TBA | TBA | Biography is one of the oldest forms of history and until relatively recently, it documented the lives and times of great men. Today, new approaches to writing biography not only include shifts in focus, from exemplary to ordinary lives, from great men to lowly women, but also changes in writing styles and media techniques, from master narratives to idiosyncratic minutiae. In this seminar we will gain expertise in the art of writing biography and associated theories and methodologies, and get a sense of how the field has evolved. We will also examine biographies of notable and remarkable women who changed the course of history in their respective African polities. These include extraordinary women who became queens and even one remarkable outcast who became “king,” to intellectuals, activists and politicians with great legacies. The seminar is designed as a reading seminar with a research component. |
HWMS EVENTS FOR 2014-2015
SPRING 2015
Colloquium: Historicizing Masculinities
Wednesdays 12-2, Bunche 6275
During spring quarter 2015, the History of Women, Men and Sexuality will offer a speakers’ series entitled “Historicizing Masculinities.” Our goal is to expose the UCLA community to the newest branch of gender history: the study of masculinity. The colloquium focuses not on men per se (though they are certainly discussed), but rather on the values, practices, and texts that constitute masculinity as a gender. Topics addressed will include, masculinity under colonialism, the history of the duel, masculinity and pornography, African-American soldiers during the Civil War, the construction of masculinity by the social sciences in the1960s, and the masculinization of the computer industry between 1970 and the present. A graduate course (History 213) will be offered simultaneously. Currently invited speakers include Nathan Ensmenger (University of Indiana), Wilson Chacko Jacob (Concordia University), Erika L. Milam (Princeton University), Robert Nye, (Oregon State University), Maurice Wallace (University of Virginia), and Y. Yvon Wang (University of Toronto). A special mini-conference devoted to masculinity and science co-sponsored by the History of Science field and organized with Professor Mary Terrall will occur on May 20.
HWMS COURSES
The History of Women, Men and Sexuality Emphasis offers courses for both undergraduate and graduates students interested in studying gender and sexuality in the past. For undergraduates, a two quarter upper-division sequence (History 187A & B) provides students with a basic knowledge of the history of gender and sexuality from prehistory to global feminisms in cultures around the world. Upper-division seminars and lecture courses taught within the History department’s geographical fields allow students to pursue their interests in greater detail.
For graduate students, HWMS sponsors the HWMS Graduate Seminar (History 213 A-B) which is offered annually or semi-annually.
Undergraduate Courses
Fall 2014
History 191D-2: Who Cares about Inequality?
Wed 3:00-5:50, Royce 166
Prof. Yeager
This course investigates how, why and when particular inequalities have taken hold in different societies. It identifies four distinctly different epochs of global inequality, stretching from (1) the pre-industrial years to the 1820s (2) the long nineteenth century from the 1820s to WWI, (3) the unstable years between the two World Wars, and (4) the second half of the 20th century. Students will read articles that enable them to identify, situate and evaluate the history of American inequalities within this larger global framework. Students will apply a variety of conceptual tools, including moral philosophy, feminist theories of value, utilitarianism, and the human development index.
Mon & Wed 4:00-6:00, Haines A18
Prof. Megan Gallagher
This course will survey a selection of major works in feminist political theory from the early modern period to the present. As a discipline, political theory concerns itself with questions of authority, fairness, justice, and power (among others); yet historically, women’s interests have been routinely ignored or subordinated to those of men. Feminist political theory challenges women’s absence, or assumed subservience, in political life. It seeks to provide a philosophical foundation for the pursuit of “real world” goals and the improvement of women’s lives––and, often times, men’s as well. In doing so, feminist theory’s primary method has entailed critical engagement with the western canon of political philosophy. Nonetheless, feminism has always been motivated by a concern for inequality and injustices in everyday life.
Yet feminist political theory is not monolithic – there are many diverse and conflicting strands, based in disparate notions of what constitutes “the good life.” Liberal feminism, conservative feminism, radical feminism, marxist feminism, women of color feminism, Chicana feminism, queer feminism, continental feminism, existentialist feminism: these varieties, and others, introduce different concerns into debates over the relationship between the public and the private; the variety of possible relationships between men and women; the complex interplay between sex, gender, and the body; the roles of class and race and how they interact with gender; to say nothing of what unifies and complicates the category of “woman.”
Because feminism understands itself to be fundamentally liberatory (that is, concerned with increasing liberty, specifically of women), our readings will focus on the theme of freedom. Specifically, we will consider 1) what it means to be a free political actor, 2) whether freedom is the highest political good, 3), whether, and how, freedom is compatible with other values, such as equality and justice, and 4) how different forms of government and political structures contribute to, or detract from, attempts to increase freedom.
Winter 2015
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Spring 2015
Tue & Thur 12:30-1:45
Prof. Ellen Dubois
Introduction to major themes in history of American women from abolition of slavery and Civil War to rise and consequences of second-wave feminism.
GRADUATE COURSES
Fall 2014
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