This course is being
conducted for last fifteen years or so as a part-time introductory/
basic course in Women’s Studies for building critical lens to engage
with gender issues. It is unique in its composition of students.
Students from diverse locations and with diverse orientations/agenda
pursue this course:
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Professionals – media
and development practitioners – and social activists seeking to
develop their abilities to address gender issues
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PG and research
students seeking to address gender in their academic quest or as an
added qualification
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Women with a gap in
education wanting to address gender concerns in their everyday
lives.
Their uneven academic
backgrounds and different imaginations of what a Women’s Studies course
would offer make teaching and learning a difficult but enriching
experience.
In order to work towards its objectives, the course has integrated the
following:
Internal Assignments - Each module consists of 50% of internal
evaluation. This has a twin aim of developing academic and practice
oriented skills among its participants and encouraging the participants
to focus – read and think in concentrated manner - in areas of their own
interest or work. The assignments promote serious reading in Women’s
Studies defying the assumption about Women’s Studies being a site of
debate of opinions.
The internal assignments try to enable participants
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To engage with and
analyze diverse materials of Women’s Studies - movement literature,
state documents, journalistic writings, popular texts along with
academic writing
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To present their
arguments in different forms- essay, news piece, report etc.
Some of the assignments
include film analysis, book introduction, letter to editor, reading
statistical tables, seminar presentation, poster reading etc.
Field Work- The module on fieldwork gives basic training in conducting
field work of different kinds- research or campaign building. It
constitutes field visits to a women’s organization working in diverse
fields and conducting field work.
Some of the field visits have been to ‘Bhimthadi Jatra’ (annual fair of
SHGs all over Maharashtra) or to Yuvak-Yuvati Mela (a gender
sensitization fun cum learning fair for young men and women organized by
Akshara, Mumbai). The field work has been organized with micro-credit
programme of women on the campus (preparing their profile) or with SWACH
(waste- pickers’ organization) activists working on the campus. An
attempt is made to network with communities on the campus of University
of Pune, to document their experiences and concerns as a baseline
document for planning future extension activities on the campus.
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