国际妇女之声有几个目标。 它透过来自亚洲、非洲、中东、拉丁美洲和北美洲的当代妇女作家向学生介绍多种作品。 重点放在非西方作家的作品。 之所以会选择这些作品，主要是想鼓励学生透过阅读这些作品，去思考这些作品如何反映出其不同的文化遗产，而且就某种程度上而言，我们得以发现一种超越民族文化的女性之声。 藉由课堂授课和阅读，学生了解这些作者描述的每个国家的历史和文化。 这门课程的主题，是研究每位作家如何受到殖民主义、宗教、国家形成和语言的影响。 另外，学生也研究女性在父系文化内的社会化模式；以及作者她们在那些想象世界中，如何消弥或理清她们所虚拟的角色人物在爱情、职业、身份、性别、角色、婚姻和政治……等领域中交错的关系。
International Women’s Voices has several objectives. It introduces students to a variety of works by contemporary women writers from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and North America. The emphasis is on non-western writers. The readings are chosen to encourage students to think about how each author’s work reflects a distinct cultural heritage and to what extent, if any, we can identify a female voice that transcends national cultures. In lectures and readings distributed in class, students learn about the history and culture of each of the countries these authors represent. The way in which colonialism, religion, nation formation and language influence each writer is a major concern of this course. In addition, students examine the patterns of socialization of women in patriarchal cultures, and how, in the imaginary world, authors resolve or understand the relationship of the characters to love, work, identity, sex roles, marriage, and politics.
