Gender Studies Courses

Semester specific course descriptions

Because gender studies is interdisciplinary, the majority of its courses are taught in several academic departments. These courses are approved by the curriculum committee and are listed in the Class Schedule with both gender studies and the relevant department(s). Since approximately 15 departmental courses count toward the minor, students are advised to consult each semester's Class Schedule and secure the listing of genders studies cross-listed elective courses from the program coordinator for complete course descriptions.

103. Gender and Society.
This interdisciplinary course examines how being male or female is translated into the social relationships of gender. It explores the ways gender roles, identities and institutions are constructed in relation to race, ethnicity, class and sexuality.

201. Gender in Global Perspective.
Gender constructs cultural, spiritual and socio-economic relations among women and men across class and racial lines in the Western world. The same is true throughout the rest of the world, although the concepts and structures that define gender roles can and do differ significantly. In this course, we will examine the global constructions of gender through examples chosen from indigenous and diasporic communities in Asia, Africa and the Americas, and discuss the variable impacts that these constructions have had particularly on women’s lives. In addition, we will introduce the theories of transnational feminism that have emerged as women throughout the world seek to define feminism outside of dominant Western categories and thus in ways more appropriate and relevant to the lives of the world’s women. Also offered through Global Studies.

290. Gender and Feminist Theory.
This course examines theoretical explanations of gender, gender difference and gender inequality in society. The course includes introductions to some of the questions that shape contemporary feminist theory, feminist writings in multiple disciplines and feminist movements inside and outside the academy. The course focuses on how an awareness of intersections of race, class, sexuality, gender and ethnicity is vital for disciplinary and interdisciplinary study in feminist theory. Theoretical works are drawn from the humanities, arts and literature and the social sciences. Prerequisite: Gender Studies 103.

301. Studies in Masculinities
This course calls on students to investigate their own lives in relation to historically and locally dominant prescriptions of what men and women “should” be. Combining readings of “great books” with a wide range of material from the burgeoning field of critical studies of masculinity, the course also includes a field research methods component that enables students to design and carry out creative research projects into the local gender systems in which they attempt to forge their own identities.

315. Gender and Science.
This course is an upper-level seminar-style course on the relationships between gender issues and science. Many kinds of questions can be asked about gender and science: questions regarding the social context of science with respect to gender issues; questions regarding the historical development of science and how the changing roles of women in society have affected science; and questions regarding the epistemological and ethical implications of these changing relationships. Two of the most important ongoing issues raised by the study of gender and science are: If there has been gender bias in scientific practice, has this affected the content of scientific knowledge, and if so, in what ways? If there has been gender bias in the practice of science, are there important ethical problems resulting from this bias? By exploring these questions and issues, we will be able to consider how science might better be a method of understanding in a democratic society. Prerequisite: Philosophy 100 or 101 or 102 or 103 or 202 or Gender Studies 103 or permission of instructor. Also offered as Philosophy 315 and Physics 315.

317A. Sexual Citizenship.

Gay/lesbian/bisexual/trangendered (GLBT) people in the United States continue to be denied full citizenship rights. In this course we will explore how GLBT people organize in order to gain full citizenship. We will explore issues that clearly and explicitly affect GLBT people, such as the right to serve in the military, marriage and relationship rights and recognition and employment rights, as well as those issues that have a less apparent, though no less important impact, such as welfare reform, sex education in schools and social security reform.

369. Making Sexualities.
Sexuality culturally operates as a central trope by which we come to “know” ourselves as sexed people (that is female or male) and how we come to understand our desire. In this course we will be unpacking the topic of sexuality from a culturally and gendered perspective, meaning that we will discuss how we have come to know  sexuality  culturally, materially and in our everyday lives. In doing so, we will explore topics such as the invention of modern notions of sexualities, queer identity, love, pornography and sex work. This will be done through reading, writing, artistic expression and research. This course is reading and writing intensive.

460. SYE: Senior Seminar: Feminism and the Construction of Knowledge.
In this capstone course for the gender studies minor, we will explore how feminist perspectives (such as socialist, poststruc-turalist/French, queer, transnational, psychoanalytic, postcolonial) inform both the construction of the interdisciplinary field of gender studies and the work that feminist scholars do as they transform traditional disciplines and disciplinary ways of knowing and thinking. After discussions with a number of gender studies’ faculty about how feminism influences their work, students will be asked to reflect on how their gender studies minor influences the ways by which they approach their academic majors.

479,480. SYE: Internships.
Students are required to spend eight hours per week in an internship at an agency that deals with gender-related issues and problems, such as sexual identity, domestic violence, sexual assault, the feminization of poverty, conceptions of masculinity and femininity among students, etc. In addition to the field placement, students will reflect on their internship experiences in a journal that applies gender studies concepts to these experiences, attend bi-monthly service learning workshops with other campus interns and prepare a research paper related to the gender studies issues relevant to the internship. Prerequisite: Gender Studies 103 and permission of the instructor.

489,490. SYE: Independent Study.
Individual study of a topic, which must be approved by the gender studies advisory board in the semester prior to be undertaken. Independent study may be used to satisfy the sixth course research requirement. Prerequisite: Gender Studies 103 and permission of the instructor.