As finals draw closer with each passing day, students are nose deep in books and professors are assigning and grading final papers.
Some students try to take a short break and remember to breathe again as well as taking in the surroundings of Park campus. Their eyes are drawn to the bulletin boards around school and on those boards, a flyer that has “Barbie and Ken” models stare back at them.
A upon closer look, the poster is prompting a class for next semester. The class is PH327: Philosophy, Gender and Feminism. The class will cover issues connected to philosophy and gender, which include feminist, queer and transgender theories.
Adrian Switzer, a new lecturer for the philosophy department, will be the instructor for PH327. When thinking about gender studies, feminism the first topic that comes to mind.
“Traditionally the field of sexual or sexuality studies are slanted into just feminism,” said Switzer.
However, sexuality studies is not just about women wanting to burn their bras in a bonfire or how women are able to work any job a man can do but still get paid less.
“The idea is to broaden the pallet from just thinking how women have been displaced or alienated or set a side in our society to how have homosexuals, transsexuals, and transgender people have been overlooked,” Switzer said.
Besides the traditional feminist questions, the class will also address newer questions.
“(We will) start thinking about the situation for gays, and lesbians and transsexuals, cross-dressers, the kings and the queens do in society,” said Switzer.
As to why Switzer decided to use the two models, who underwent numerous plastic surgeries to look like the iconic “Barbie and Ken” dolls, for his promotional poster was that they intrigued and frighten him a little.
“I find them interesting, because one of the developments that happened in contemporary gender studies is to move away from gender, that gender is rooted in our sexuality,” Switzer said. “That the actual biological make-up of our bodies, and think of it more like it is akin to a kind of performance that we engage in.”
The class is set to take place next semester, Spring 2014, from 12 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday. For more information on the class, contact Switzer at [email protected].
