“The Philadelphia Center faculty and staff provided me with the steady support I needed to function in a drastically new environment, while simultaneously pushing me to see the world through a wider lens. The confidence I gained through my experiences in Philadelphia allowed me to overcome my fear of the unknown—opening wide the doors of the world.”
Abigail Stonerook, Kalamazoo College
Fall 2004
Women Organized Against Rape, Crisis Intervention Intern
Electives
Exploring Relationships in Fiction and Film: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality
Mark Andrew Clark
This course examines the ways gender and sexuality play a part in our relations with others. We will use fiction and film as our subject matter, specifically looking at the perspectives an individual writer/director develops around gender and sexual relations. With a critical attention to gender and sexual classifications (heterosexual, bisexual, gay, lesbian, feminist, transgender, queer, etc.), we will discuss such topics as desire, obsession, possession, objectification, voyeurism, the erotic, exploitation, abuse, subjugation, rape, genocide, intimacy, commitment, friendship, and responsibility. The course content is organized around writers and directors from different race, gender, class, and sexual groups. Also, we will consider the role that culture plays in gender and sexual relations. Our exploration of these fiction and film texts attempts to uncover, analyze, and critique our own gender and sexual assumptions, beliefs, and practices in our developing relationships with others.