Class Schedules

This course will deal with aspects of human anatomy and physiology of special interest to women and/or those who identify as women, especially relating to sexuality and reproduction. Biological topics covered will include menstruation and menopause, sexuality, conception, contraception, infertility, abortion, pregnancy, cancer, and AIDS. Advances in assisted reproductive technologies, hormone therapies, and genetic engineering technologies will be discussed. Three lecture hours each week.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Natural science and mathematics

Course Materials

Akujo, or bad woman, has been a constant presence in cultural texts throughout history, and Japan is no exception. And they are bad, indeed. A woman burns her lover alive after turning into a serpent, another woman changes men into animals for no apparent reason, and yet another woman blows her breath onto men and freezes them to death. Beyond the evil acts and dastardly powers, however, it is the transgression of socially constructed gender boundaries that work to vilify these women from the start. In this course, we will investigate female villains from medieval folklore to anime, paying close attention to how these characters are portrayed, and what their portrayals reveal. By closely examining the traits that make these women “bad,” we will investigate to whom these characters pose a threat and what is really at stake. No prior knowledge of Japanese is necessary.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course introduces students to debates, methods, and conceptual frameworks in race and gender, as represented in performance. It engages students in an interdisciplinary exploration of key terms - such as corporeality, embodiment, intersectionality, and performativity - that remain central to the fields of gender and sexuality, critical race theory, and performance. Through drafts and revisions of written work, critical dialogues and oral presentations in small groups, peer feedback, and analytical reading, students will engage in questions around identity formation, structural inequality, and the politics of citizenship.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

In this course we will examine the roles, identities, and representations of women in the Tanakh/ Old Testament, New Testament, and Jewish and Christian apocrypha.  We will explore how biblical writers used women "to think with," and we will consider how gender is co-constructed alongside religious, social, and sexual identities.  We will ask the following sorts of questions: What opportunities for social advancement and leadership were open to women in ancient Israelite, early Jewish, and early Christian communities, and how did these opportunities differ from those open to women in other religious formations in the ancient Mediterranean?  How did biblical regulations of bodies, sexuality, marriage, and family life shape women's lives? What are the social and material effects of biblical representations of women? And how might current feminist theories inform our interpretation of biblical texts about women?

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This seminar-style class examines the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality in the history of medicine and health in the U.S. Our diverse topics for study include eugenics, sexuality, midwifery, cultural/spiritual healing methods, pandemics, race- and gender-based ailments and medical experiments (such as the science and politics of the birth control pill and the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment), gender reassignment surgery, and sex-testing in the Olympics. This wide range of topics will prepare students to explore a research topic of their own choosing for a final paper.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This class is an introduction to feminist psychological theory and research dedicated to understanding and critiquing biological, psychological, social, and cultural meanings and implications of gender and its intersections with class, race, physical ability, sexual orientation, etc. Examples of research and theory will come from a wide variety of areas in psychology and related disciplines, and will address such issues as socialization and social development, stereotypes, bodies and body image, social relationships, identity, language, violence, sexuality and sexual behavior, well-being, work, etc. We will also learn about the historical, cultural, and epistemological underpinnings of psychological research on gender. Counts as a UP3 course. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100 or permission of the instructor.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

The advancement of LGBTQ rights in the United States has experienced unprecedented success over the last twenty years, shifting both public attitude towards and legal protection for LGBTQ Americans. This course will provide an in-depth analysis of current LGBTQ policy achievements in the United States, including the recognition of marriage equality in all 50- states, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and increased anti-discrimination protections. Emphasis will be placed on how these victories were achieved, including background on the strategies and tactics used to generate results. We will also take a critical look at such milestones and examine what they mean for the entire LGBTQ population, including queer people of color, transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, the disabled, and economically disadvantaged. Incorporated into this analysis will be readings from queer liberation scholars to help us evaluate the pros and cons of existing LGBTQ policy gains. The course will explore what full equality might look like for LGBTQ people in the United States with an examination of what can and cannot be achieved through policy. Practical application on how policy is made will be intertwined throughout the course. Topics to be covered include the meaning and measurement of LGBTQ identity; estimates of those who identify as LGBTQ; the measurement of Americans’ attitudes on LGBTQ issues and how these attitudes have changed over the past few decades; assessment of changes in law and policies at the national, state and local levels; and the implications of these changes for the lived experience of LGBTQ people and their families, including health, well-being, stigma and discrimination.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

How did gender beliefs influence the development of modern science? How did science construct social conceptions of gender and sexuality? How did women shape modern science? This course explores the intersection of gender and science from the early modern period to the late twentieth century. It focuses on the Western scientific tradition, with special attention to Russian and Soviet experiences. In this course, we will examine the following topics: early modern beliefs about nature, science, and gender; women’s participation in early modern sciences; 18-20th-century scientific writings on the “nature” of men, women, and other genders; the development of modern scientific institutions; and biographies of women participating in the sciences.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will delve into the roles and the many role models, of recognized and unrecognized identities that are learned, projected, imagined, scripted, and performed from the late 19th century to the present in various cultures in the West and East, including the southern hemispheres. These roles include, but are in no way are limited: to the familial roles such as mother, daughter, sister; to occupational roles such as housewife, maid, and dominatrix; to fictional or imaginative -- but also aspirational – roles, such as are found in myths and fairytales, fashion, fetish, and other imagined or fictional modes of existence. We will study visual and textual images from three positions: 1) Discursive: using visual and narrative “texts” of roles – such as Lolita or New Woman -- of both “real” and fictional source —such as advertising, magazines and art; 2) Performative: in particular, the performative cultures of fetish, cosplay, fashion, and other fanbased costume communities; and finally, 3) Intersectionality: using categories of sexual and gendered identities in examining sexual, gendered, racial, and class distinctions through of women through the violence, isolation, religious demands, and rape cultures – identity politics under contemporary critical investigation; through the tactics of visual analysis, textual research, and individual and community discussion. We will also use interviews with women from various countries and cultures as key tactics to inform our exploration.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

In this course, students will explore how gender is constructed in a variety of American and European musical styles and contexts, with an emphasis on popular genres. Learning objectives include for students to: (1) better understand the intersectional ways in which gender relates to and is informed by other aspects of identity formation, including class, race, and sexuality, (2) investigate issues that have affected women's participation in musical life, such as musical canons, gendered musical discourse, and gender stereotypes, (3) explore contributions of trans and non-binary musicians, as well as issues that affect their musical lives, (4) interrogate constructions of gender, masculinity, and femininity as they relate to music, and (5) to develop reading comprehension, critical thinking skills, and argumentative writing skills.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

This course explores the history and politics of, and theoretical approaches to, gender and sexuality in relation to the racial politics of mass incarceration, or what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls the "carceral geography" of the United States. By engaging recent work in queer and trans studies, feminist studies, and critical prison studies, we will consider how prisons and policing have shaped the making and remaking of race, gender, and sexuality from slavery and conquest to the contemporary period. We will examine how police and prisons have regulated the body, identity, and populations, and the larger social, political, and cultural changes connected to these processes. While we will focus on the carceral system itself, we will also think of policing in a more expansive way by analyzing the racialized regulation of gender and sexuality on the plantation, in the colony, at the border, in the welfare office, and in the hospital, among other spaces, historical periods, and places.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

What is "disability" and what does an understanding of disability tell us about human experience more generally? What is a "disability identity" and what implications might claiming that identity have for psychological well-being and social change? How do stereotypes of disabled people and expectations of "normality" affect everyone's lives (not just those with disabilities)? Why don't many Deaf people consider themselves "disabled?" What might we learn from shifting the "problem" of disability from the individual person to the social environment? How do sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression influence how different bodies are viewed, treated, educated, and experienced? This course will explore questions that emerge from thinking about the experience of disability (and its intersection with identities based on gender, race, class, and sexuality). Our work together will be grounded in critical disability and Deaf studies frameworks that are themselves informed by and in conversation with feminist, queer, and critical race theories and perspectives. Through a consideration of the socially, culturally, linguistically, and historically constructed meanings of physical, sensory, and cognitive "impairments," the course will rely on theoretical and empirical readings from psychology and related disciplines, personal essays, film/video, and guest visitors as we explore the social and psychological meanings of disability. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100; and PSYC 201 or STAT 155

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Much about mainstream narratives of queerness and gender transgression are determined by powerful, cis-dominated institutions, still even to this day: the media, schools, police, the law, doctors and psychiatrists. These are institutions structured by a racialized, heteronormative gender binary, and for whom trans people pose a problem to be managed. Oral history offers possibility for queer and trans people to tell their own stories, and, in doing so, give more nuanced, complex analysis of identity, activism, and of the intersectional operations of systems of power. Oral history also makes room for the complex interplay of joy, playfulness, grief, anxiety, and connection that makes queer and trans life so valuable. In this course, students will have hands on experience building an archive of queer and trans oral histories in the context of the pandemic and uprisings for racial justice. Working closely with the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota as well as with the Aliveness Project, a local HIV/AIDS organization, we will learn about oral history methodology, interview techniques, and then have the opportunity to conduct oral history interviews and contribute to an online archive of queer and trans oral history.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

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. Prerequisite(s): At least three WGSS core courses and senior standing, or permission of instructor.  Preferred: a working relationship with a local women's or minority organization, established the spring or summer prior to enrollment in the course.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This FYC, entitled Intersectional Queer Approaches to Pandemics and Uprisings, introduces key concepts in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies through an analysis of the present: the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Uprisings for racial justice that continue to unfold, and the urgent and existential threat of extractive capitalism and climate change. Exploring the connections between these seemingly disparate issues and developing a conceptual framework that understands them together is the core project of this course. We will analyze the relationship between anti-Blackness, colonialism, sexuality, gender embodiment, and policing, as well as the differential distribution of health and exposure to risk. In this community-engaged course, we will focus on the way these interact in the Twin Cities, and also think about the ways that uprisings like Stonewall and the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot and pandemics like HIV/AIDS offer lessons to help us think through the present moment.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

This course examines the history of childhood and youth in the United States. The historical voices and perspectives of childhood that we study will pay close attention to the significance of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, time periods, and social settings. Some questions we will consider relevant to the study of history: Do children have agency? What is the role of children as subjects in history? How has childhood been socially and historically constructed? Why are children such galvanizing social and political symbols? How is identity shaped in childhood and what impact does this have on adult society at certain historical moments?

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This introductory English course covers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and Two Spirit literature in America. We will examine how American culture and politics have shaped and been shaped by LGBTQ2S+ writing and art. We will look at historical texts that helped to create queer and trans identities in America and appreciate intersections of race, ethnicity, and class as we move into current work. And we'll explore what it means to queer a text, a life and a culture. Requirements include written responses to reading, a journal, a creative project, and a 5-7 page essay. Authors we’ll read include: Charles Brockden Brown, Jewelle Gomez, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Qwo-Li Driskill, Gloria Anzaldúa, Allison Bechdel, Charlie Jane Anders, Malinda Lo, Kai Cheng Thom, Tommy Pico, and Junauda Petrus.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WP
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

From Caitlyn Jenner to Laverne Cox, CeCe MacDonald to Chelsea Manning, Transparent to Pose, trans people are experiencing unprecedented media coverage. In fact, some years ago now Time Magazine declared that we are at the "transgender tipping point." And yet, alongside this positive media coverage, we see a massive wave of legislation across the country seeking to limit trans people's access to public space, to healthcare, and to self-determination. Alongside this, The National Coalition of Antiviolence Projects reports that 2020 saw a record number of murders of transgender individuals, in particular trans women of color. In all of these instances, it's useful to consider how and why the specter of transness is raised. What social and political work does that figure do? This course will examine transness as a practice of gender transgression, rather than solely an identity category, one which is historically and geographically contingent. In this class, we will ask: What has gender non-conformity meant in various historical moments? How do race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability structure trans lives and communities? How have key institutions within the US constructed ideas about gender normativity and policed gender transgression? How has that policing impacted and shaped trans life? What is the relationship between feminism and trans people and trans liberation? How have trans people envisioned and fought for social justice? What space can trans embodiment and politics open up for new ways of living, relating, and imagining otherwise?

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

‘U-topia’ means ‘a place (topos) that doesn’t exist’ and ‘Eu-topia’ means ‘a good place.’ So, a good place that doesn’t exist? How do people of various gender identities envision a better state yet-to-be (utopia) as well as a fear of catastrophe or nightmare (dystopia)? This course investigates how women's literary writing from different parts of the world (Bangladeshi, British, African-American, Canadian, to name a few) produce visions of the present and the future, of the real and the imagined, beliefs about masculinity and femininity, socialist and capitalist philosophies, modernity, the environment (ecotopia), and various technologies including cybergenetics. Texts by Thomas More, Frantz Fanon, Silvia Federici, and Noam Chomsky, and music by The Eagles and A Tribe Called Red are included. We will explore how these texts provide some ways to think about our gendered, racialized, and classed roles, and how we can think about MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Charlottesville, and neoliberal nation-states, along with our own fantasies and realities of sociopolitical change.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

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.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

This course will focus on transnational feminist art praxis in conversation with histories of feminist art from the 1970s to the present. We will trace a wide range of practices and processes and study how gender and sexual politics intersect in art with race, class, sovereignty, Indigeneity, citizenship, and migration at particular historical moments and within specific geopolitical contexts. We will begin with an overview of the history of feminism and feminist art in Europe and the United States but quickly extend our study to contemporary examples of feminist art, gender, and sexualities as they have been articulated by artists based in Africa, Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Russia. During the course of this semester, students will develop an understanding that feminism is not an assumed, universal category or identity. Rather it is a constellation of different ideologies that contests heteropatriarchy, transphobia, racism, xenophobia, ableism, ageism, and religious fundamentalism. We will explore how transnational feminist trends and the LGBTQIIA+, nonbinary, genderqueer artists and communities expand our vision for justice and allow us to see the complex demands for political and social change globally.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Fine arts

Course Materials

How are masculinity and femininity defined and transformed in modern and contemporary Chinese culture? How is the culturally constructed gender related to a larger social context? Through a rigorous analysis of the content and structure of modern and contemporary novels and films, this course examines the literary representation of gender and sexuality and its relation to the tumultuous social transformations, and engages with a variety of themes including: May Fourth enlightenment, anti-Japanese war, Socialist construction, the Cultural Revolution, and the liberalization of the post-Mao era. This course seeks to help students develop critical views of Chinese society and culture from gendered perspective, and gain familiarity with major authors, genres, and literary movements. This course assumes no prior knowledge of China or Chinese, and all reading materials are in English.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Humanities

Course Materials

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.

General Education Requirements:

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

This class is an introduction to feminist psychological theory and research dedicated to understanding and critiquing biological, psychological, social, and cultural meanings and implications of gender and its intersections with class, race, physical ability, sexual orientation, etc. Examples of research and theory will come from a wide variety of areas in psychology and related disciplines, and will address such issues as socialization and social development, stereotypes, bodies and body image, social relationships, identity, language, violence, sexuality and sexual behavior, well-being, work, etc. We will also learn about the historical, cultural, and epistemological underpinnings of psychological research on gender. Counts as a UP3 course. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100 or permission of the instructor.

General Education Requirements:
U.S. Identities and Differences

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials

Endarkened Feminist Epistemology (EFE) is an approach to research that honors the wisdom, memory, spirituality, and critical interventions of transnational Black womxn’s ways of knowing (Dillard, 2016). A framework created by scholar Dr. Cynthia Dillard, it articulates how reality is known from the vantage point of transnational Black womxn - transnational recognizing the connections between African descended womxn throughout the diaspora as well as the continent. Through reading key texts, class discussion, and writing, this class will explore EFE’s claims and methodologies, as well as center other transnational Black womxn whose work helps us make connections between history, spirituality, and our collective positionality within academia.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WC

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

Are we living in revolutionary times? How do we know? Ok, we are living in revolutionary times. This course takes a journey through the last 50 years of some large upheavals across the world—in bio-regimes, language, politics, economics, culture, and media—to find some answers of how we are similar and different. It uncovers how and why the struggles, in theories and practices, for power and representation have created the conditions in which we exist today. We travel through all kinds of ‘post’ and ‘neo’—liberalism, humanism, feminism, nationalism, and colonialism—and how they intertwine in our own lived experiences. Some topics: protest against gender, sexual, race, economic, and linguistic bio-regimes, revolts of the colonized and marginalized, and resistant/ liberatory creations in the sciences, the arts, technology, and media. Authors include Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Michel Foucault, Theresa Cha, Silvia Federici, Noam Chomsky, Ta-Nehisi Coates, bell hooks, Chela Sandoval, and Gayatri Spivak, among others. At the end of the course, we will all know a little more about where we stand.

General Education Requirements:
Writing WA
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:

Course Materials

In 2000, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). This resolution acknowledged the inordinate impact of armed conflict on women and girls, as well as the crucial role that women can and do already play in conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts. It urged states and other actors to increase the participation of women - and to incorporate gender perspectives - in all peace and security efforts. Since 2000, there have been nine additional resolutions that together have created the Women, Peace and Security agenda, a global framework for advancing gender equity in all areas of international peace and security. In this course we will explore feminist scholarship on armed conflict, peace and security leading up to the adoption of UNSCR 1325, as well as the 20 years of research, policy and practice on Women, Peace and Security. We will focus on the contributions and limitations of the WPS agenda as well as on new themes and issues that have emerged over time.

General Education Requirements:
Internationalism

Distribution Requirements:
Social science

Course Materials