Syllabus Library

Investigation of some specific topic in gender and women's studies related to gender, women and the humanities. Subject differs each semester.

Investigates how gender and race were socially constructed in cultural encounters between Europeans and "other" peoples in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Investigation of some specific topic in gender and women's studies related to gender, women and society.

Uses an interdisciplinary framework to examine the key assumptions, debates, and silences in contemporary black feminist thought.

Topics in feminist study of LGBTQ sexualities, considering race, nationality, and time.

This course centralizes the intersection of LGBTQ identities and dis/ability through various queer bodies which are also inflected by race, class, geographical and national locations. Approaches may include critical theory about queer bodies and personal narratives. Students will learn a variety of ways to think critically and creatively about the politics of bodily experience, including how those politics have shaped their own embodied lives.

Investigation of some specific topic in gender and women's studies related to gender and literature. Topic differs each semester.

Examines the social, cultural, political, and symbolic constructions of the intersecting categories of gender and disability.

Interdisciplinary analysis of the films about disability, stigmatized bodies, and their gendered constructions using feminist and disability studies methods.

Explores gender identity and sexuality among disabled people using historical and theoretical articles to discuss and analyze films, memoirs, and poetry by people with disabilities. Provides a brief introduction to disability studies and intersectionality before delving into academic discussions and artistic representations of the intersections of disability, gender, and sexuality.

Explores topics in gender and visual culture, including artistic practice, political and creative expression, and cultural phenomena.

Explores the social, cultural, and political construction of the female/feminine body. Considers specifically the bodies of women and girls, transgender women, non-binary people that embody the feminine, female masculinities, and bodies that identify and are identified as female, as bodies that have historically and traditionally been sites of political contention, of societal meaning making, of cultural symbolism, and active resistance. Seeks to challenge what we think we know about bodies, challenging tacit knowledge and investigating how normative discourses of the female/feminine body are formed across cultures, around the world. Considers the impacts of phenomena such as globalization, neoliberalism, "global" feminism, imperialism, capitalism, and human rights movements on cultural conceptions of health, ability, beauty, representation, and the "value" of female/feminine bodies.

Examines the relationship between dominant images of women and men and their self-images, as they emerge in expressive culture in various societies.

Explores the intertwined relationship between gender and politics in contemporary Middle East and North Africa. Situates the region's historical, socio-political, and cultural context that have particularly contributed to shaping the current discourse on gender in the Arab World. Explores - both theoretically and empirically - the role of Arab women in influencing the political processes across the Middle East. Examines real-world examples of Middle Eastern women from different parts of the region who have succeeded to challenge the status quo and push for genuine change.

Contemporary theoretical positions and debates about feminisms in the humanities and social sciences. Enroll Info: 3 credits of GEN&WS and sophomore standing.

Explores a broad range of contemporary theories concerned with bodies and power. Intersections with gender, race, class, dis / ability, sexuality and nation.

An examination of the emergent theoretical field of queer of color critique, a mode of analysis grounded in the struggles and world-making of LGBTQ people of color. Activists, artists, and theorists have mobilized queer of color critique to interrogate the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, nation, and diaspora as a response to the inherent whiteness of mainstream queer theory and persistent heterosexism in ethnic studies. Examines the development of queer of color critique (primarily in the United States) through both academic and activist domains; consider what queer theory has to say about empire, citizenship, prisons, welfare, neoliberalism, and terrorism; and articulate the role of queer of color analysis in a vision for racial, gender, sexual, and economic justice.

Investigation of specific theorists, themes, problems, or eras in feminism and social theory. Subject differs each semester.

Major texts by Asian American women writers.

A history of sexuality approach to a period of major social, economic, and political change in US history, 1880-1930; medical, legal, and popular discourses shaping urbanization, reform, nationalism and colonialism.

Examination of theories and research on the psychology of women and gender. Explores topics such as sex bias in psychological research; psychological aspects of female sexuality and reproduction; gender-based violence; female achievement and power; lifestyle choices of women; women and mental health; and psychological research with transgender individuals.

Explores various aspects of identity politics and body politics such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, and citizenship status as they relate to and intersect with body size and constructions of fatness. Situates how fatness has been conceptualized over time, the formation of the gendered body ideals, and the proliferation of obesity rhetoric. Investigates how fat individuals experience the social world, in particular related to arenas such as the American health care system, and other societal institutions such as education, social welfare, immigration, and media. Interrogates how the "obesity epidemic" came to be, how it is framed in the United States, and how it intersects with other systems like big pharma, the food industry, beauty industry, globalization, neoliberalism, and consumerism. Deploys a critical approach in understanding fatness and body size as dimensions of difference that inform experiences of privilege and oppression.

Women as patients and as health professionals in America from the colonial period to the present.

This course demonstrates that human bodies have social and cultural histories. It will highlight the social values placed on different bodies, the changing social expectations bodies create, and the role of science and medicine in creating the cultural meanings of bodies.

This interdisciplinary course focuses on scientific approaches to studying sexuality.

This course explores several theoretical lenses, disciplinary approaches, and substantive topical areas relating to reproductive and sexual health. We will begin the course by investigating the development of "sexual health" as a phenomenon in public health research, policy, and programs looking back to feminist responses to population control policies of the 1970s. The subsequent weeks of the semester will cover substantive topical areas in the field (e.g., adolescent sexual development, contraception, and AIDS).

This course will take a human rights approach to global women's health to provide an overview of health issues within the context of a woman's life cycle. It will pay special attention to the socio-cultural and economic factors that play a role in determining women's access to quality basic health care.

Situates sexual health education in historical and contemporary context by tracing its discursive production and envisioning a queering of both content and practice. An examination of what might it mean to queer sex education and what would a queer sex education look like. Utilizing theoretical interventions from critical education studies, queer theory, and trans/gender studies, this course.

Using a reproductive justice framework, analyze contexts, experiences, practices, ideologies, and historiographies of childbirth in the United States from roughly the 17th century to the present, with the heaviest emphasis on the 20th and 21st century. Examines the ways that colonization, genocide, enslavement, racism, capitalism, heterosexism, patriarchy, and ableism have shaped all of these aspects of childbirth. Inquire how key movements and groups resisting some of these forms of oppression have had the power to reshape birth, as well as locating in birth a source of transformational power.

Examination in depth of specific topics in the area of gender and health. Exploration of relevant health issues in social, economic, and cultural contexts, including public health and policy, and how they relate to gender, race, sexuality, disability, and class.

Explores central assumptions, questions, and debates regarding the relationship between feminist theory, pro-feminist theory, and the practice and performance of multiple masculinities. Explores feminist-informed definitions of and debates about masculinity including whether masculinity is primarily a gender-role and/or a form of sexual expression. Further, key tensions related to men's status, or their lack thereof, as subjects of feminist theory will be examined. Examine the practice and performance of specific masculinities including but not limited to African American masculinities, trans masculinities, and faith-informed masculinities.

The aim of this course is to critically examine important issues, questions, and debates regarding intersectionality or the notion that race, gender, and sexuality, and other terrains of difference gain meaning from each other. It is interdisciplinary in its approach. Course materials include texts, films, and other multimedia resources drawn from an array of disciplines including sociology, critical race theory, history, political theory, and cultural studies.

Advanced level investigation of some specific topic in gender and women's studies.

Transdisciplinary approaches to women's studies/gender studies. Emphasizes theoretical and methodological issues, the nature of interdisciplinary work, and the relationship to traditional disciplines, with an international and multicultural focus.

Provides an overview of the field of gender and women’s studies. Surveys the origin of the field and traces its major transformations. Explores and analyzes historical and contemporary debates that have shaped and continue to shape the field. Interrogates the mission of gender and women’s studies. Examines the processes and products of academic professionalization. Investigates the value of graduate training in gender and women’s studies. (TO BE FIRST TAUGHT IN 2023-2024 AND LATER)

Examines assumptions and debates in contemporary theorizing about gender and women including what constitutes "good" gender and women studies' theorizing, how to recognize gender-based oppression when we see it, how gender, race, sexuality, and other hierarchies of power intersect, as well as the merits of transnational theorizing about gender and women. Explores whether gender and women's studies' theorizing is a form of activism, how to teach theory in gender and women's studies' classrooms, the value of cultivating distinct gender and women studies' methods, and other dimensions of putting gender and women's studies' theorizing into practice.

Provides an introduction to theory, as well as hands on experience with pedagogical practices in Gender and Women’s Studies. Offers opportunities to synthesize and deepen understandings of gender-related issues through intensive reading, writing and discussion. Engages with theories, conceptual developments, debates, as well as epistemological and methodological issues, which chart the development of feminist pedagogical thought. Interrogates the different intellectual traditions that have shaped debates and issues within feminist politics and practices. Examines these traditions from an explicitly interdisciplinary perspective, highlighting contributions made by feminist scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds that include: education, anthropology, history, performance studies, arts, literature, health, etc. (TO BE FIRST TAUGHT IN 2023-2024 AND LATER)

Introduces gender and women’s studies as an interdisciplinary area of study and a profession. Reviews the profession, both academic and non-academic. Explores issues both broad (e.g., professional development) and narrow (e.g., obtaining research grants) that are of interest to those building professional careers with a Gender and Women’s Studies Ph.D. Provides an orientation to basic features of scholarly life as well as some professional options outside of academia, and allows students to become acquainted with a variety of our faculty. Explores formation of independent perspectives on gender and women’s studies as an interdisciplinary academic field and profession. (TO BE FIRST TAUGHT IN 2023-2024 AND LATER)

Introduces new graduate students to the breadth of scholarship in Gender and Women's Studies. It also develops particular skills (critical reading, critical writing and basic research) important to graduate level scholarship.

Focuses on how specific schools of feminist thought redefine the political, spanning historical and contemporary feminist political theory.