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Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality StudiesCOURSES by CORE FACULTY Introductory Courses 101 FEMINIST SEX WARS This course examines the challenges that sexuality and sexual practice brings to feminism, by exploring feminisms' involvement in so-called anti-sex/pro-sex debates. We explore the stance of second-wave feminism, lesbian feminism, radical feminism, and queer theory and activism on issues like prostitution and sex work, pornography, butch/femme aesthetics, gender performativity, non-monogramies, sadomasochism, bisexuality, and transgenderism and transsexuality. Throughout, we study the divide between sexual agency and sexual exploitation, which emerges when thinking about the complexities of sex and desire. Alternate years. (4 credits) 102 GENDER AND SPORT This course views sport as a social institution and a microcosm of the longer social processes that stage, reinforce, and perpetuate myriad inequalities in society. In this course we analyze the gendered aspects of sport, and relationhisp among gender, sexuality, and sport. We consider the ways that sport reinforces, and potentially undermines, heteronormality, as well as hegemonic notions of masculinity and femininity. Alternate years. (4 credits) 105 TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER, RACE, CLASS, AND SEXUALITY Through an interdisciplinary and comparative study of selected countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, this course creates the basis for an understanding of the ways in which gender roles are established, and how these affect the individual in the realms of education, media, politics, work, sexuality, and family. On the basis of texts drawn from political science, psychology, art, film, history, music, and literature, it analyzes theories of femininity and masculinity as constructed in specific national, racial, cultural, socio-economic, and political situations. The course discusses the impact of these theories on lifestyles (both traditional and alternative) and on re-constructions of identities on equity-based, anti-racist, anti-sexist terms. Alternate years. (4 credits) 110 INTRODUCTION TO LGBTQ STUDIES (Same as American Studies 112) This course introduces the fields of LGBT and queer studies by examining how sexuality, race, and nation relate in the lives of people in the United States, which we read in relation to histories of colonialism and globalization. Course materials foreground scholarship, testimony, activist art, and social movements by LGBT, two-spirited, queer people of color, and by white anti-racist LGBT and queer people. Their stories offer a template through which all students may examine how everyday life is shaped by sexuality, race, and nation—both as power relations, and as spaces for creating new identity and action. Every year. (4 credits) Intermediate Courses Intermediate level courses require sophomore standing or permission of the instructor, and at least one introductory-level women’s, gender, and sexuality studies core course. 200 FEMINIST/QUEER THEORIES AND METHODOLOGIES This course is a historical survey of theories and methodologies used in feminist and queer studies. Course material highlights the unique and intertwined knowledges feminist and queer scholars have produced; these include the re-makings of liberal, Marxian, antiracist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial theories, and their uses in humanities and social science methods. The course centrally examines how feminist and queer studies transform societies and are transformed through struggle over their gender/sexual identities, racial formations, and global/transnational locations. The course considers how feminist and queer studies have arisen in close relationships—of union, tension, and antagonism—and how feminist and queer work today may link. Prerequisite: see paragraph above. Every year. (4 credits) 201 HISTORY OF U.S. FEMINISMS Study of feminist movements and thinking from the 19th and 20th century, including the involvement of women's activism with the abolition of slavery, the Temperance movement, the struggle to gain voting rights, labor movements, second-wave feminism, the early decades of gay and lesbian movements. 210 20TH CENTURY ANGLOPHONE WOMEN WRITERS The term “Anglophone Literature” refers to writings in English from countries connected to Britain by imperial rule or by the presence of British immigrants, yet does not include England itself. This course variously studies India, the Caribbean, South Africa, the United States, and England as locations of Anglophone Literature produced by their natives, immigrants, and cosmopolitans. Writers include Virginia Woolf, Una Marson, Anita Desai, Doris Lessing, Suniti Namjoshi, Angela Carter, Ravinder Randhawa, Bharati Mukherjee, and Zadie Smith, among others. We will explore how concepts of nation, race, citizenship, gender, ownership of the language, and English/British literary canons are constructed, in written and visual media. Prerequisite: see paragraph above. Alternate years. (4 credits) 220 ICONS, IDEAS, INSTRUMENTS: FEMINIST RE-CONSTRUCTIONS Karl Marx is an icon. Socialism is an idea. A labor union is an instrument. How have feminisms interpreted such figures, concepts, and tools to propose new ways of thinking and acting? This course studies how various feminisms have been informed by and have responded to both prominent and marginalized 20th century thinkers and movements. It focuses on icons such as Antonio Gramsci, Emma Goldman, Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, Arundhati Roy, and Paolo Freire, among others. It analyzes the implications of ideas such as hegemony, anarchism, racialism, gender-transgression, colonialism, and pedagogy, to name a few. It evaluates the past, current, and future force of political instruments such as the nation-state, civil society, armed repression and revolt, and cultural instruments such as memoirs, pamphlets, novels, films, and art. Prerequisite: see paragraph above. Alternate years. (4 credits) Advanced Courses Advanced level courses requires junior standing or permission of the instructor, and at least one intermediate-level women’s, gender, and sexuality studies core course. 300 ADVANCED FEMINIST/QUEER THEORIES AND METHODOLOGIES This course is an in-depth study of some specific theories and methodologies on which contemporary feminist and queer thinkers have based their analysis, critique, and reconstruction of men’s and women’s roles. Some guiding questions are: What is a Nation? Who are its citizens? How do language and gender roles shape the ways we imagine our roles as men and women? Do sexuality or economy affect how we subscribe to or resist political ideologies? In previous offerings, the course has explored the intersection of Postcolonialism (gendered critiques of colonizing sociopolitical and economic structures) with Postmodernism (gendered critiques of language, sexuality, culture, and nation). The course will include film, photography, music, and the writings of Butler, Foucault, Chodorow, Kristeva, hooks, Spivak, and Trinh, among others. It offers ways to create links with local community and social-work organizations. Prerequisite: see paragraph above. Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 200 highly recommended as prerequisite. Alternate years. (4 credits) 305 RACE, SEX, AND WORK IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY (Same as American Studies 305) This seminar presents feminist and queer studies of global capitalism, which examine power relations under contemporary globalization in terms of the racial and sexual dynamics of labor, citizenship, and migration. Course material considers the local and transnational dynamics of free trade, labor fragmentation, and structural adjustment, as these shape industrial and informal labor, and community organizing around gender, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS. The material foregrounds ethnographic analyses of the everyday conditions of people situated in struggles with the effects of global capitalism. Prerequisite: see paragraph above. Alternate years. (4 credits) 310 GENDERED, FEMINIST, AND WOMANIST WRITINGS (Same as English 362) This course foregrounds how gender constructions and politics inform the writing of a period and place; how various genres use gender-saturated discourses; how the gendered body is represented; images of masculinity and femininity; the status of women as writers, readers, and purveyors of the written word. Examples range from feminist thought in mediaeval women’s writing to gender differences in expatriate Black cultural modernism to transnational women’s literature on utopia. The course will always emphasize gender as a category of critical analysis, and the ways that reading and writing with an eye to gender can transform the futures of texts and their readers. Instructor and focus will vary. Prerequisite: see paragraph above. Alternate years. (4 credits) 315 COMPARATIVE (NEO/POST) MODERNITIES This course aims to clarify the vocabularies of modernism, modernity, and modernization and their neo- as well as post-formations through an in-depth study of major movements in the 20th century. Ideologies such as fascism and imperialism, which have shaped the definitions of (wo)man, race, class, sexuality, culture, and politics, form the basis for this exploration. We will juxtapose the speeches, writings, and art of dominant and minoritized politicians, activists, and cultural creators like Benito Mussolini, Jean Rhys, Djuna Barnes, Cornelia Sorabji, and Una Marson. We will study issues such as citizenship, progress, democracy, individuality, and the end of history to re-define for ourselves what modernity and postmodernity signify today and will mean in the future. Prerequisite: see paragraph above. Alternate years. (4 credits) Capstone Courses 400 SENIOR SEMINAR: LINKING THEORY AND PRACTICE The relationship between academic theorizing and community organizing for positive social and political change is a vital, complex, and an ever-changing source of feminist inquiry. This course builds on that relationship by juxtaposing activist social work with theoretical writings on globalization, gender, race, class-relations, sexuality, community, democracy, and civil society, and exploring how these arenas inform and transform each other. The issues in this seminar are related ultimately to the student’s “location,” personally and professionally, at the threshold of the future, in search of a space of her/his own. One substantial research paper and a formal oral presentation on its ideas are the primary assignments. Prerequisites: at least three Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies core courses and senior standing, or permission of the instructor. Preferred: a working relationship with a local women’s or minority organization, established the spring or summer prior to enrollment in the course. Every year. (4 credits) 405 SENIOR SEMINAR: TOPICS (Same as Psychology 488, Senior Seminar: Lives in Context) Capstone or integrative experience centering on a topic that will vary from year to year. The focus will be to develop a deeper understanding of theory and action in relation to women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Prerequisites: at least three women’s, gender, and sexuality studies core courses and senior standing, or permission of the instructor. Offered occasionally. (4 credits) Independent Studies, Internships, and Preceptorships All independent study courses require permission of a women’s, gender, and sexuality studies faculty sponsor. The number of independent studies that can be applied toward the major or minor will be planned with the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies advisors. 614 INDEPENDENT PROJECT Individual projects are supervised by women’s, gender, and sexuality studies faculty. Prerequisites: at least two courses approved for credit in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Every semester. (4 credits) 624 INTERNSHIP Internships, supervised by women’s, gender, and sexuality studies faculty, bring together theoretical and practical concerns that are primarily connected with women or have feminist/queer studies as their central perspective. An internship outline plan will be developed individually between the student and the faculty sponsor. Prerequisites: at least two courses approved for credit in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Every semester. (4 credits) 634 PRECEPTORSHIP (4 credits) 644 HONORS INDEPENDENT Independent research, writing, or other preparation leading to the culmination of the senior honors project. Every semester. (1–4 credits) COURSES by CONTRIBUTING FACULTY In addition to courses offered directly by core faculty of the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies department, some courses by affiliated faculty in other departments have been assigned WGSS numbers. Please check with respective departments about future offerings and prerequisites. 117 WOMEN, HEALTH AND REPRODUCTION (Same as Biology 117) This course will deal with those aspects of human anatomy and physiology which are of special interest to women, especially those relating to sexuality and reproduction. Biological topics covered will include menstruation and menopause, female sexuality, conception, contraception, infertility, abortion, pregnancy, cancer, and AIDS. Advances in assisted reproductive technologies, hormone therapies, and genetic engineering technologies will be discussed. Not open to biology majors. This course fulfills 4 credits in the science distribution requirement and counts toward the biology minor, but not toward the major. No prerequisites. Three lecture hours per week. Offered most semesters. (4 credits) 127 WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY IN ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME (Same as Classics 127) This course investigates contemporary approaches to studying women, gender and sexuality in history, and the particular challenges of studying these issues in antiquity. By reading ancient writings in translation and analyzing art and other material culture, we will address the following questions: How did ancient Greek and Roman societies understand and use the categories of male and female? Into what sexual categories did different cultures group people? How did these gender and sexual categories intersect with notions of slave and free status, citizenship and ethnicity? How should we interpret the actions and representations of women in surviving literature, myth, art, law, philosophy, politics and medicine in this light? Finally, how and why have gendered classical images been re-deployed in the modern U.S. from scholarship to art and poetry? Alternate years. (4 credits) 141 LATIN AMERICA THROUGH WOMEN’S EYES (Same as Latin American Studies 141 and Political Science 141, unless offered through the First Year Program) Latin American women have overcome patriarchal "machismo" to serve as presidents, mayors, guerilla leaders, union organizers, artists, intellectuals, and human rights activists. Through a mix of theoretical, empirical, and testimonial work, we will explore issues such as feminist challenges to military rule in Chile, anti-feminist politics in Nicaragua, the intersection of gender and democratization in Cuba, and women's organizing and civil war in Colombia. Teaching methods include discussion, debates, simulations, analytic papers, partisan narratives, lecture, film, poetry, and a biographical essay. This class employs an innovative system of qualitative assessment. Students take the course "S/D/NC with Written Evaluation." This provides a powerful opportunity for students to stretch their limits in a learning community with high expectations, but without a high-pressure atmosphere. This ungraded course has been approved for inclusion on major/minor plans in Political Science, Latin American Studies, and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies. (4 credits) 227 COLONIAL ENCOUNTERS: RELIGION, RACE, AND SEX IN EARLY AMERICA (Same as History 227) Through an examination of primary documents from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth centuries and historical articles and monographs, students will examine and discuss the forces at work on the conflict and exchange between the diverse peoples that populated North America. In this course we will use critical analysis to arrive at our own conclusions about the following questions: Who populated early America? What types of religious and spiritual practices came into contact through these populations? What political function did religion and spirituality have (if any) in this time period? What competing ideas about gender and sex existed in the colonies and the early republic? In what ways did ideas about gender and race intersect? Gender and religion? What are the ways in which the emergence of a United States of America was contingent on conflict and exchange about religion, race and sex? Alternate years. (4 credits) 228 GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN COLONIAL AMERICA AND THE EARLY REPUBLIC (Same as History 228) Since the 1960s historians have revisited early American history to identify populations on the margins and historical actors whose stories and experiences were neglected in the traditional canon of history. Historians of women made some of the first forays into this important work of recovery. Building up the foundations produced by women’s historians, the field of gender and sexuality studies have flourished and enriched the narratives of American history. This course examines American peoples and cultures from the 16th through early 19th centuries to uncover the ways in which gender and sexuality shaped the formation of an early American society. Particular attention will be given to the way that ideologies of gender and sexuality shaped early concepts of race and the development of North American political institutions. Alternate years. (4 credits) 242 ECONOMICS OF GENDER (Same as Economics 242) This course uses economic theory to explore how gender differences lead to different economic outcomes for men and women, both within families and in the marketplace. Topics include applications of economic theory to 1) aspects of family life including marriage, cohabitation, fertility, and divorce, and 2) the interactions of men and women in firms and in markets. The course will combine theory, empirical work, and analysis of economic policies that affect men and women differently. Prerequisite: Economics 119. Offered every year. (4 credits) 252 GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND FEMINIST VISUAL CULTURE (Same as Art 252) This course will examine the ways in which gender and sexuality are understood in modern visual culture and it will survey a wide range of feminist approaches in the 20th and 21st century art. We will explore social constructions of gender and sexualities, their visible and invisible representation, and discuss the impact of feminism and the changing role of women in society on the history, theory and artistic practice. The course will also cover some of the most recent global feminist trends and new directions in the feminist culture since 1990s through the present, including work from Africa, India, Asia and Eastern and Central Europe and various marginalized cultural centers in Western Europe and the United States. Three hours per week. Alternate years. (4 credits) 261 FEMINIST POLITICAL THEORY (Same as Political Science 261) Analysis of contemporary feminist theories regarding gender identity, biological and socio-cultural influences on subjectivity and knowledge, and relations between the personal and the political. Alternate years. (4 credits) 262 PERFORMING FEMINISMS (Same as Theatre and Dance 262) This course focuses on the playwrighting, directing and performance strategies of 20th and 21st century women, in mostly the U.S. context, who have used the stage as a dynamic site of collaboration, contestation and innovation. “Texts” written and performed, conventional and radical by women artists of color are read as historical documents of movements for racial, gender, sexuality and class self-narration; texts by pioneering women in first- and second-wave “feminist” Theatre offer context and counterpoint. Assignments include a research project on a woman artist not represented on the syllabus, and an original collective performance project (no performance experience required!). Prerequisite: sophomore standing or permission of the instructor. Alternate years; next offered Spring 2011. (4 credits) 264 PSYCHOLOGY OF GENDER (Same as Psychology 264) This course provides an examination and a critique of psychological theories, methods, and research about gender. We will explore structural, social, individual, and biological explanations of how gender is experienced and represented, as well as of gender similarities and differences. Examples of research and theory will come from a wide variety of areas in psychology and related disciplines, and will address such issues as social and personality development, bodies and body image, social relationships, cognition, identity, language, violence, moral reasoning, sexuality, sexual orientation, etc. We will explore the intersection of gender with other social identities and will also learn about the historical, cultural, and epistemological underpinnings of psychological research on gender. Culture and Context course. Prerequisite: Psychology 100 or permission of the instructor. Offered occasionally. (4 credits) 306 WOMEN'S VOICES IN POLITICS (Same as Political Science 305) The course examines significant women persuaders as a force in Western history and culture. Concentrates on women's efforts to participate fully in public affairs and the social, political, religious, scientific, and rhetorical obstacles that have restricted women's access to the polis. Fundamental to the course is an analysis of how women have used speaking, writing, and protesting in attempts to overcome such obstacles, influence public policy and/or win elective office. Political Science 170 or 272 recommended. Alternate years. (4 credits) 308 LITERATURE AND SEXUALITY (Same as English 308) This course examines ways in which literary works have represented desire and sexuality. It looks at how constructions of sexuality have defined and classified persons; at how those definitions and classes change; and at how they affect and create literary forms and traditions. Contemporary gay and lesbian writing, and the developing field of queer theory, will always form part, but rarely all, of the course. Poets, novelists, playwrights, memoirists and filmmakers may include Shakespeare, Donne, Tennyson, Whitman, Dickinson, or Henry James; Wilde, Hall, Stein, Lawrence, or Woolf; Nabokov, Tennessee Williams, Frank O’Hara, Baldwin, or Philip Roth; Cukor, Hitchcock, Julien, Frears, or Kureishi; White, Rich, Kushner, Monette, Lorde, Allison, Cruse, Morris, Winterson, Hemphill, or Bidart. Alternate years. (4 credits) 320 FEMINISM/REPRESENTATION/FILM (Same as Media and Cultural Studies 315) Feminist film theory and criticism has been one of the most vital areas of film studies since the 1970s, even as concepts from feminist film studies (e.g., the gaze and psychoanalytic theories of spectatorship) have informed feminist scholarship in other fields. This course explores the history of the contributions of feminist film theory and criticism to studies in representation, from critiques of images of women through psychoanalytic poststructural approaches, cultural studies, and work in antiracist, postcolonial, and queer studies. It analyzes women’s film- and video-making as well as mainstream commercial films directed by women and men. Papers emphasizing close analysis of film texts will be required, with possibilities for work in video-making, along with one test covering basic film terms. Prerequisite: sophomore standing and one of the following: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 100, 105, 110, 200, or permission of instructor. Alternate years. (4 credits) 315 CONSTRUCTIONS OF A FEMALE KILLER (Same as Hispanic Studies and Latin American Studies 446) The rise in femicide across Latin America, most shockingly exhibited in the city of Juarez, Mexico, has resulted in broad discussions of women's relationship with violence. However, what happens when the traditional paradigm is inverted and we explore women as perpetrators, rather than victims, of violence? This class will dialogue with selected Latin American and Latino narratives (including novels, short stories, films, and newspapers) constituting different representations of women who kill. Prerequisite: Hispanic/Latin American Studies 307. Offered alternate years. (4 credits) COURSES APPROVED FOR WOMEN’S, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES In addition to courses offered directly by core faculty of the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies department, and by contributing faculty in other departments whose courses have Women’s and Gender and Sexuality numbers, the following courses are approved for use on women’s, gender, and sexuality studies major and minor plans. Approval is based on specific syllabi and faculty; please consult the department faculty with questions about approval. Consult the department office for approved courses from previous years. Recent approved courses have included: 194 Language and Gender in Japanese Society (Same as Japanese 194 and Linguistics 194) 294 Women and the Bible (Same as Religious Studies 294) 394 Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in American Art (Same as Art 375 and American Studies 394) 394 Family Bonds (Same as Sociology 335)
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