Mid-semester course offered this fall explores women’s lives in South Asia

Factoid:The class time will be 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays from Oct. 1 through Dec. 10. in room 35 of Pulliam Hall. Optional mid-semester SIUC academic credit is available for $110 per credit hour, with 2 to 3 hours possible. Registration deadline for the course is Monday. To register, contact Susan C. Edgren at the SIUC Division of Continuing Education at 536-7751.

Women’s lives in South Asia will be the focus of a fall workshop offered by SIUC’s Division of Continuing Education and Women’s Studies.

The workshop, WMST 491, Comparative Perspective on Women:Focus on South Asia, is open to the community, but it can also be taken for mid-semester credit. The workshop was offered for the first time last spring semester.

Naseem Ahmed, adjunct faculty in Women’s Studies and international student adviser in international programs and services, will teach the workshop. The course will focus on gender, development and social change in South Asia with a special emphasis on women in Bangladesh and women in Muslim societies.

“Most people don’t have enough knowledge about people in other parts of the world and women,” Ahmed said. “Most people have this stereotyped view of Muslim women as oppressed and clad in veils, but they are not a homogenous people. Their practice of religion is different in different parts of the world.”

Other topics covered in the course are economic, political and social status of women in South Asia. The impact of organizations, media, government and international agencies on the position of women will also be covered.

This is one of the reasons Ahmed titles the course “Unequal Sisters:Learning About Women in South Asia.”

“By taking the class people can get a better understanding of the politically oriented status of women and get to know their lives in under developed countries,” Vinod Kaky said, a graduate student in electrical engineering and former president of Indian Student Association.

“South Asia isn’t a homogenous group of people. They differ in gender, class and ethnicity. There is inequality among men and women and the rich and the poor, ” said Ahmed.

The workshop will complement a couple of two-week travel study programs. The first abroad program is scheduled for this June and is a new multidisciplinary program offered in cooperation with the Office of International Programs of Universidad Veritas in San Jose, Costa Rica. Students will learn about women’ lives in Costa Rica through structured lectures and visits to agencies and organizations working with women.

“There will be field trips and time to enjoy the beautiful time tropical location,” Ahmed said.

The other two-week travel study program is scheduled for December 2003 and will entail the same aspects of the Costa Rica program. “The workshop and travel studies is a way for us to bring it down to a global level of analysis,” Ahmed said.

The class time will be 5:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays from Oct. 1 through Dec. 10 in room 35 of Pulliam Hall. Optional mid-semester SIUC academic credit is available for $110 per credit hour, with 2 to 3 hours possible. Registration deadline for the course is Monday. To register, contact Susan C. Edgren at the SIUC Division of Continuing Education at 536-7751.

Reporter Carrie Roderick can be reached at [email protected]