Gender Studies

Explores and compares the diverse ways in which sexuality and gender are practiced, experienced, and regulated in different communities around the world. Particular attention is paid to how sexual identities and practices have influenced, and been influenced by, global political, economic, and cultural movements, including colonialism, capitalism, feminism, queer activism, and the spread of world religions.

Credits: 3

An introduction to women artists from the Renaissance era through the Enlightenment, including Anguissola, Gentileschi, Vigée-Lebrun, and Kauffmann. Topics include access to professions, constructions of sexuality and gender, and attitudes toward the body in representation.

Credits: 4

Focuses on women artists and their place within the art-historical narrative of the 20th century. Students examine both the diverse practices of women artists and the reception of their work by critics, dealers, and collectors.

Credits: 4

Emerging queer cinema is explored in its historical contexts and its relation to contemporary theories of gender, sexuality, and their intersection with race, class, and nationality. The course focuses on the “queering of the gaze,” interrogating conventional notions of representation, desire, identification, filmmaking, and spectatorship. Featured directors: Warhol, Fassbinder, Haynes, Von Trotta, Akerman, Rozema, La Bruce, Araki, Denis, Jarman.

Credits: 4

This course covers three areas of gender economics. The first examines basic facts and trends regarding women’s distinct economic experiences, particularly the gender gap in education, wages, occupations, and labor supply. The second examines the impact of marriage market forces and reproductive constraints on women’s socio-economic choices. The third provides a historical and international overview of women’s rights.

Credits: 4

An introductory and foundational course on the key concepts, themes, and theories of studies of gender and sexuality. Students engage with materials that are social, scientific, historical, literary, autobiographical, artistic, and/or philosophical in examinations of themes of human gender, sexual relationships, and the intersection of gender and sexual identity.

Credits: 4

Survey of the interdisciplinary field of transgender studies. Students learn how trans embodiment is inflected by race, class, location, and ability. Course coverage includes: concepts and methods in transgender studies; major debates within the field; multiple meanings of “trans”; and the intersection between trans studies and other disciplines such as gender studies, black studies, latinx studies, history, and sociology.

Credits: 4

Interdisciplinary overview of sex and gender in sports. Students learn histories of women and gender nonconformity in sports; past and current LGBTQ activism; race and gender segregation; sex and gender testing; racial and gendered politics of “fairness;” and trans and intersex athletic embodiment.

Credits: 4

Covers the experience of American women from colonial times to the 20th century, from political, social, religious, cultural, and economic points of view.

Credits: 4

An exploration of the relationships between orthodox religions and heretical sects in the medieval West and how heterodoxy evolved into the witch-craze of the early modern period. Questions of gender, spirituality, repression, and interpretation are examined in light of their effects on society and established religion. Focuses are on Islamic, Jewish, and Christian relations in medieval Europe; the development and perception of certain heretical sects; the discernment of saints and spirits; Protestant and Catholic Reformations; and the persecution of witches.

Credits: 4

Examines how war changed gender relations in 20th-century Europe. For instance, how did mobilization reinforce or undermine masculine and feminine norms? How did total wars that blurred the line between fighting front and home front challenge notions of chivalry and turn noncombatants into warriors of sorts? Did new job opportunities outweigh the trauma and grief suffered by women during wartime?

Credits: 4

Examines the new historiography on gender and sexuality in Latin America. It is organized around the themes of changing gender roles and shifting constructions of masculinity, femininity, and honor, with particular attention to issues of sexuality, sexual preferences, constraints, and transgressions.

Credits: 4

Explores the place of women in Western society, from ancient Greece to the 17th century. The roles covered range from the prescribed (wife and mother) to the actual (intellectual and worker). Lectures are supplemented by discussion of primary sources.

Credits: 4

Examines the relationship between the media and social constructions of race, gender, and class, both in the U.S. and within a global context. Topics include biases and assumptions in print and visual media; representations of masculinity and femininity; and the media’s role in creating and reinforcing ideas, symbols, and ideologies within cultures. Text analysis includes newspapers, magazine articles, cartoons, television, movies, and advertising.

Credits: 4

This course both surveys representative works of modern Chinese women writers and examines general problems such as equality and liberation, desire and subjectivity.

Credits: 4

A writing-intensive course in which students study the poetry of queer-identified writers through the lenses of sexuality, culture, identity, history, and poetic technique.

Credits: 4

We will examine Baldwin’s moving fictional and nonfictional works to understand his enduring legacy up through our contemporary moment. Students read Baldwin’s work through the lens of literary history, civil rights, transnational black activism, the arts, and queer theory. Major texts include The Fire Next Time, Another Country, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Giovanni’s Room.

Credits: 4

Considers the intersections of sexual difference and cinema. Topics include theories of enunciation and sexual difference, female authorship and the idea of “women’s cinema,” gender and genre, woman as spectacle, the female spectator, and feminist film theory. Representations of sexual difference in films by selected male directors are studied as a means of examining the institution(s) of cinematic expression. The bulk of the course is devoted to studying women directors as they attempt to work within and against that institution.

Credits: 4

An investigation of the formation of the literary canon and the women who were written out of it. Students become familiar with the novel form as well as genres such as amatory fiction and the Jacobin novel, and read a selection of the most influential women writers of the long eighteenth century.

Credits: 4

An exploration of Toni Morrison’s generous literary career as a playwright, fiction writer, and essayist. Students read a collection of Morrison’s most popular works (Bluest Eye, Sula, Beloved) alongside her more recent publications (A Mercy, God Help the Child). Discussions place Morrison in conversation with her literary interlocutors (Hurston, Woolf, Faulkner) and some of her most cherished contemporaries (James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara).

Credits: 4

Study LGBTQ identities via novels, short fiction, and films, by queer-identified authors who interrogate heteropatriarchy within a postcolonial framework. Texts include Queer Africa (eds. Martin and Xaba), Leche by R. Zamora Linmark, Walking with Shadows by Jude Bidia, Fire (film by Deepa Mehta), Same-Sex Love in India (eds. Vanita and Kidwai), and Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo.

Credits: 4

How does embodiment reveal shifting notions of race, gender, sexuality, and ability? Students read performance theory and explore contemporary representations of bodies as sites of display, resistance, and re-construction in literature, performance, and everyday practices in transnational and intersectional contexts. Authors include Ntozake Shange, NourbeSe Philip, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Branden Jacob-Jenkins, and David Henry Hwang.

Credits: 4

An examination of the novels, short stories, and essays of Virginia Woolf.

Credits: 4

Examines several texts written by American women, including works by Radstreet, Wheatley, Rowson, Stowe, Dickinson, Jewett, Cather, Wharton, Hurston, Bishop, and Naylor. The question of whether there is a traceable female tradition during the past 350 years is addressed. Readings include feminist literary criticism and theory.

Credits: 4

An examination of the novels of Jane Austen. Topics include gender and authorship; irony, sympathy, and point of view; the marriage plot; and filmic adaptation.

Credits: 4

Examines Hurston’s novels, short stories, plays, and essays alongside archival recordings and visual media. Discussions cover Hurston’s influential role in shaping conversations around race, class, and gender in the 20th century and her impact on other writers, including Langston Hughes, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison.

Credits: 4

Media convergence refers to large-scale changes in the ownership and production of media content, as well as the role that audiences and consumers have in its development. This course examines media convergence from the perspectives of queer theory and history, and asks how queer identities, sensibilities, styles, and practices both shape and are shaped by media convergence.

Credits: 4

Focuses the politics and aesthetics of drag. Engage classic and contemporary work in gender theory, and also learn how to do drag through a series of practice-based workshops.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: MSA1050

What is gender? What is power? What tools do we have for understanding and addressing gender injustice? This course employs philosophical, feminist, and queer theory to address these and related questions.

Credits: 4

An investigation of classical, modern, and contemporary theories of desire and sexuality, with an emphasis on the relationship between familial and other social institutions and on the formation of individual identities. Readings include works by Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Freud, Foucault, and contemporary feminist and queer theorists.

Credits: 4

Theoretical, historical, and empirical analyses of the relationship between women’s private roles and socialization, and their integration into politics. Topics include changes in the laws affecting women, the impact of feminism on the quality of political discourse and political action, and the vexing problem of the “gender gap."

Credits: 4

Focusing on South Asia and the Middle East, this course examines how postcolonial Islamic states currently use “Islamic laws” to negotiate power and control with their citizens. Examples include Hudood, Zina, and blasphemy laws, which result in fatwas (religious decrees) that sometimes lead to extrajudicial killings.

Credits: 4

In Islamic societies, heresy charges against women and men are leveled for different reasons, including Islamists’ opposition to democracy, modernity, and women’s education and their employment. Instances of heresy leveled by Muslims against Muslims are studied.

Credits: 4

Although health is typically treated as a biological issue, health, illness, and wellness are social and political conditions. The politics of health policy as it is experienced, administered, and made accessible to men, women, and gender non-conforming healthcare seekers, and the activism that leads to more equitable treatment from medical professionals, insurance providers, and government service providers, regulators, and legislators is examined. Access to the health care system, poverty, Medicaid/Medicare, managed care, breast cancer, reproductive justice, sexual assault, HIV/AIDS, transgender care, disability, and medical research are investigated from an intersectional feminist perspective that foregrounds issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Credits: 4

Women make up roughly one half of the world’s population, yet globally despite the quest for equality; women’s experiences are fraught with the realities of patriarchy, domination, marginalization, and exclusion. This course will examine the complexity of forces that shape, maintain and challenge the role and place of women in societies around the world. It is designed to give students an understanding of the intricate interplay between the politics and culture that undergird Women’s experiences across borders. It introduces students to issues and research about women in different cultural and political context.

Credits: 4

The legal and political dimensions of race and sex discrimination are examined beginning with the 14th (1868) and 19th (1920) amendments to the US Constitution, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as well as landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Plessey v. Ferguson (1896), Brown v. the BOE (1954), Roe v. Wade (1973), and Rajender v. University of Minnesota (1982). The way law is shaped by the politics of race and gender is considered. Topics discussed include the intersection of white supremacy, misogyny, capitalism, and the law from perspectives offered by legal studies, critical race theory, and feminism.

Credits: 4

An examination of how notions of gender and sexuality are defined in the postcolonial Islamic state. Laws, customs, and cultural practices that enforce control are investigated in South Asian and Middle Eastern contexts.

Credits: 4

A critical examination of social, psychological, and biological factors governing female behavior and experience. Within the context of a life-span model (infancy to old age), topics include gender development, puberty, school performance, sexuality, the body, depression, relationships, and communication styles.

Credits: 3

Students explore the psychology of men from evolutionary, social, developmental, and cognitive perspectives. Topics include the development of sex and gender, individual differences in sex and gender, evolutionary approaches to sex differences, relationships, aggression, risk-taking, testosterone, work, fatherhood, and mental health. Students engage in seminar-style discussions of assigned short readings, as well as a group-based book review project.

Credits: 4

Examines the processes involved in the development of gender during childhood, emphasizing the interaction between biology, socialization, and cognition. Students read primary source articles that examine the influence of hormones, parenting, knowledge, friendships, and media on children’s beliefs about their gender and on sex differences.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: PSY1530

An overview of biological, psychological, and sociological approaches to understanding human sexual behavior. Topics include values in sexuality, sexuality through the life span, sexual dysfunction and therapy, sex and disability, sexual preferences, atypical sexualities, and sex and the law.

Credits: 3

An examination of the impact of feminist thinking on the visual and performing arts. Emphasis is placed on the historical absence of women in art worlds and the creation of work that critiques dominant modes of cultural production. A plurality of feminisms and attention to the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality inform investigations of craft, performance, and collaboration.

Credits: 4

An exploration of different sociological renderings of birth and death in contemporary societies. Understanding the concepts from a sociological perspective offers an opportunity to explore the intersections of race, class, gender, spirituality, and age. This course also focuses on recent biomedical technological innovations and their implications for birth and death representations. Students conduct an independent field trip and do extensive reading and writing.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500 Or ANT1500 Or GND1200

Given the ethnic complexity of society, major social institutions—including education, criminal justice, health care, social services, and business—face many challenges. This course explores the past, present, and future of race and ethnicity in American society, and how immigration, culture, religion, education, and income play parts in prejudice, discrimination, and racial inequalities.

Credits: 4

People’s everyday lives are monitored on multiple levels through mechanisms they take for granted. Surveillance systems and technologies provide knowledge about people through identification, monitoring, and analysis of individuals, groups, data, or systems. These systems are examined as social entities that organize and shape cultural values and norms. Issues of identity, security, fear, control, and vulnerability are also explored.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Considers experiences and images of men in U.S. society. Recent feminist theory and research concerning men are studied, with attention to the various meanings of masculinity in American culture. This course provides a sociological understanding of gender and society, with attention to race, class, and other aspects of identity that shape men’s lives, including media representations of masculinity.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: SOC1500

Sexuality is grounded in bodily experience, but meanings of both body and experience are socially constructed. This advanced seminar examines contemporary sexual constructions and their cultural and historical roots.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: GND1200 Or SOC2020 Or ANT3750 Or GND2020

Offers an in-depth focus on a specific sociological issue, which varies each semester. Includes research, readings, and writings on a topic related to the particular expertise of the faculty member.

Credits: 4

This course considers 20th- and 21st-century performance work by women in dance, theatre, and the visual art world (performance art) from a historical and theoretical perspective. Critical and theoretical feminist essays and other writings are assigned. Students read original texts, view documentation, and analyze contemporary works by women writers, choreographers, performance artists, and theatre directors.

Credits: 4

Virginia Woolf captures sensory detail and internal thought like few other writers. This dramatization of perception makes her work ripe for adaptation. Students will read selections of Woolf's essays, short stories, and novels, and study theatrical adaptations of her work. Students will explore translating Woolf’s iconic vision into theatrical shape by creating immersive stage adaptations of her work

Credits: 4

Explores how LGBTQ identities and issues are represented in diverse dramatic forms, performance styles, and cultural venues. Through discussions, presentations, and writing assignments, students analyze queer theatre in relation to production history, theories of sexuality, and cultural and political contexts (both past and present).

Credits: 4

Students analyze film, television and stage performances that depict Black gay men. Students synthesize historical and political context, artistic perspectives, and the unique intersectional realities of Black and gay identity towards a deeper understanding of these artistic and cultural perspectives. Works studied include both mainstream hits that permeate the zeitgeist, and niche, yet culturally significant works that shift the narrative.

Credits: 4

Examines queer performance beyond traditional drama and theatre including drag shows, stand-up comedy, and live music. Students critically analyze and explore the ways in which queer performance engages with current struggles surrounding issues of queer identity, community, and representation. Assignments include both creative and writing projects.

Credits: 4