Black Women in America is an upper-division elective course for students majoring in African American or women's studies at California State University Fullerton (CSUF). The author has taught this course at CSUF at least once a year since 2002 and have changed the course readings, lectures, and assignments on a regular basis. In April 2007,…

In the winter of 2012, the students in the author's fourth-year seminar, The Politics of the Canadian Women's Movement, undertook the project of editing, updating, and expanding a number of Wikipedia articles, including the page on "Feminism in Canada." Though it often serves as a first point of reference for research on Canadian feminism, this…

Whether teaching undergraduate or graduate classes, the author integrates lesser-known women poets as part of the inquiry, not as curiosities, but as opportunities to discover something in the "raw" as contemporaries might have done. That the author's courses focus on or include in a substantial way the work of women is important, but does not by…

Some years ago, the author had her first opportunity to teach an undergraduate American Romanticism course, which meant she had a chance to teach "Moby-Dick" the way she thought it should be taught. Meeting two days a week, her course was set up so that students read about thirty pages of "Moby-Dick" for one class meeting a week paired with…

Intersectionality takes into account how inequalities of race, gender, class, and sexuality "intersect," or work in combined ways, in the lives of Black women and other women of color. As a holistic teaching approach, it also has relevance for all people, male and female, straight and gay, rich and poor, and along the various continuums between…

In 2001, Clif Bar & Company, makers of LUNA: The Whole Nutrition Bar for Women, debuted LUNAFEST[R], an international touring film festival that showcases short narrative and documentary work of female filmmakers and raises money for the Breast Cancer Fund and other nonprofit women's organizations. A pre-packaged film festival with clear and easy…

The affective realm--including sorrow, pain, ecstasy, vulnerability, joy, and rage--is a central component of feminist teaching and learning. Feminist classrooms are spaces where strong feelings are raised, paradigms shift, and ruptures are created. Coming to feminist consciousness may involve grief, anger, and sadness for students. Speaking about…

There is a widespread awareness in the American culture that women do not pursue careers in mathematics-related fields in equal numbers to men. Efforts to address this disparity by reforming mathematics education have met with some success; recent research shows that girls' achievements in mathematics stay on par with those of boys through…

Most of the students who are taking the author's sport sociology courses can easily identify the problematic ways in which women's athletic events and bodies are covered within the sports sections of newspapers, magazines, Web sites, and television shows. These students are less able to understand how the heterosexual male sporting experience…

In this article, the author describes an upper-level, special topics English course she designed as a "workshop" in "wreading" contemporary women's innovative poetries. She was inspired to "wreading" by Charles Bernstein's essay "Creative Wreading: A Primer," in which he offers interactive and reactive responses to assigned texts as the grounds…

Many psychology instructors approach the topic of gender with considerable resistance and apprehension. Some professors may be reluctant to incorporate gender issues into their psychology courses due to their fear of altering their teaching practices. Others may be unable to present their views on gender in an unbiased way, so they avoid…

A common (although not universal) goal of feminist teachers is to create a "safe environment" in the classroom. The meaning of that term, however, varies considerably--some hope students will feel they can share personal feelings and experiences without fear of judgment, some that students will feel they can state their opinions without fear of…

In recent years, "pre-code" films have been re-discovered and applauded by film scholars and feminists. The term refers to the period between 1929 and 1934 when many Hollywood studios openly disregarded the censorship restrictions of the Hays Code. Named after censorship czar William H. Hays, the Code forbade nudity, cursing, sexual innuendo,…

This article documents the authors' efforts over the last several years to move themselves as well as their undergraduate women's studies students beyond the constraints of the Marxist legacy, in which class immediately registers as working class. In the process of teaching Women and Class, they discovered that class was largely invisible to their…

In this article, the authors describe a classroom exercise designed to put women (and children and men) back at the center of the abortion debate, avoiding the standard rhetoric and engaging reflection on how everyone might find common political goals among the so-called pro-life and pro-choice sides. The exercise the authors offer in this article…