Diverse
cultures throughout history have established women warriors as icons reflecting
attitudes toward gender, militarism, patriotism, and empire. Consider the
significance of women warriors including Athena (Greek warrior goddess of
wisdom), Diana (fleet-footed Roman huntress), Judith (Hebrew killer of great
kings), Boadicea (warrior queen of the ancient British),
Fu Mulan (Chinese slayer of Huns), Bradamante (Italian warrior woman), Britomart
(British female knight of chastity), and others. In the process, we will look
at not only classical, medieval, and early Renaissance representations but
also crossdressing in early modern drama, voyeuristic
scopophilia and the "theorizing of the female
spectator", the "making of female masculinity", talk-stories,
"the carnivalesque", borderlands and disneyfication,
transgressive wit and contemporary utopian/dystopian
representations, the gendered cyborg, cyberpunk,
nokia cinema, fantasy, and video games representations.
These latter aspects will include writers and comedians such as Maxine Hong
Kingston, Margaret Cho, Diane Glancy, and Nalo Hopkinson and cinematic representations
such as Aeon Flux and KILL BILL, volumes I and II.
Along with two formal papers and dialogue journal responses, course participants
will in panel presentations examine female warriors of their choice in order
to study cultural ideologies, female authority, and the roles of heroes in
literary and cinematic tradition. This course will satisfy the Renaissance
period, the Womens Studies' cluster, and the Popular
Culture cluster requirements.