Overview of Course

How are women in Asia, Africa, and Europe taking action to improve their lives and the world around them? IE 272 will tackle this question by examining the experience, status, and activism of women in the port cities and nations we visit. Students will study the circumstances of women’s lives in ten distinct nations while learning to place women’s varied experiences and activism in comparative, transnational, and historical perspective. IE 272 will be organized thematically, examining women’s experience, status, and activism in relation to law and family structure, governance and civil society, religion and culture, education and employment, health and environment, domestic and societal violence, war, and other issues. Students will examine materials generated by international entities such as the United Nations, World Health Organization, and World Bank that reveal challenges and opportunities for women in global, regional, and national contexts. They will study women in relation to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, while simultaneously evaluating how well the SDGs foster understanding of women’s lived experience. Students will learn about women in the ports and nations we visit by studying visual and textual materials they have produced to advance their interests and improve the societies in which they live. The field class for IE 272 will offer students a rich opportunity to meet with local women in a school, workplace setting, government office or NGO. Students in IE 272 will be inspired as they learn that women around the globe are devising imaginative and bold responses to urgent contemporary problems.