Women's and Gender Studies

This course explores the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality within society; it examines how identity has been a key site for generating knowledge and political action. Students will learn the histories and nuances of topics such as intersectionality, privilege, allyship, and cultural appropriation. Finally, the course will examine how concepts such as 'diversity' are mobilized in relation to different institutions, such as the law and education. This is a writing intensive course.

This course is an interdisciplinary study of LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) experiences. It introduces students to personal, cultural, and political aspects of queer life while examining social forces such as heteronormativity, the social construction of gender, and homophobia and their impact on queer lives.

This course provides a historical sampling of queer literary voices in the U.S. Students explore fiction, poetry, drama, and visual literary forms through the lens of queer theory. Students investigate the ways in which queer authors and subjects have been excluded from the traditional canon and how readers, academics, critics, and authors of anthologies have ignored or obscured queer possibilities and homoeroticism in literary works. Students also explore the benefits of thinking of queer literary works as queer literatures (in the plural sense rather than the singular Queer Literature) and attempt to answer the question, is there such a thing as Queer Literature?

A study of selected topics in Queer Studies. These courses are usually interdisciplinary and align with faculty teaching and research strengths.

This course will examine feminist approaches to the subject of sexuality in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The course examines theorizations of sexuality, such a radical, critical race, and transnational feminisms, queer theory, and trans studies. Key questions will be: how have feminists theorized sexualities? What does sexuality have to do with feminist studies or practices? How do other identities, such as race and class, inform sexuality?

This course will examine feminist and queer theories, specifically intersectional, transnational, and radical perspectives. It explores how feminist and queer scholars approach research, writing, and knowledge production, and applies these insights to students' own interests. The course analyzes how feminist and queer scholars have written about storytelling, the body, and desire, and links these discussions to how to produce positive social change in our world. This course is fundamentally interdisciplinary; students are encouraged to make connections between the course materials, their research interests, and other fields of study. This is a writing intensive course.

Advanced seminars on selected topics. The subject matters is usually interdisciplinary and aligns with faculty teaching and research strengths.

An introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, drawing on materials from the humanities and social sciences. Topics include the social construction of gender, cross-cultural variations in women's lives, media representations, work, health, women's roles in politics and sexuality.

A special honors version of WGS 201S open only to students in the Honors College.

This course is designed to develop students' skills in writing, critical reading, research, and argument while examining topics in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The course also covers the history of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies as a discipline and current opportunities for majors and minors.

This course explores the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality within society; it examines how identity has been a key site for generating knowledge and political action. Students will learn the histories and nuances of topics such as intersectionality, privilege, allyship, and cultural appropriation. Finally, the course will examine how concepts such as 'diversity' are mobilized in relation to different institutions, such as the law and education. This is a writing intensive course.

This course is an interdisciplinary study of LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) experiences. It introduces students to personal, cultural, and political aspects of queer life while examining social forces such as heteronormativity, the social construction of gender, and homophobia and their impact on queer lives.

This course introduces students to feminist methods of analyzing media, with a focus on gender and sexuality in film. Key questions include: How do films influence and reflect our social locations? What are the points that they raise about the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality? Students will interrogate if, and in what ways, film can be a tool to effect social change.

This course provides a historical sampling of queer literary voices in the U.S. Students explore fiction, poetry, drama, and visual literary forms through the lens of queer theory. Students investigate the ways in which queer authors and subjects have been excluded from the traditional canon and how readers, academics, critics, and authors of anthologies have ignored or obscured queer possibilities and homoeroticism in literary works. Students also explore the benefits of thinking of queer literary works as queer literatures (in the plural sense rather than the singular Queer Literature) and attempt to answer the question, is there such a thing as Queer Literature?

This course will examine ways that women have been actively involved in environmental issues from earliest history through today. Students will assess their own connection to place and examine and access ecofeminist theory and national and global environmental justice movements, along with briefly reviewing gender and farming practices. Finally, the course will examine how climate change issues are affecting lives around the globe, including ours, and question how gender-, race-, and class-sensitive responses to the environmental challenges facing our planet can be created.

This course provides an opportunity to gain experience working in organizations and government agencies. Students' work should engage with women's issues at the local, regional, national, and/or global levels. Students must work for at least 50 hours per course credit.

An exploration of women as designers and users of technology and of the impact of technology on women's lives across the world. Variations in women's experiences by race, class, culture, and sexuality will be stressed, along with particular focus on global developments that shape the context of people's lives.

A study of selected topics in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. These courses are usually interdisciplinary and align with faculty teaching and research strengths.

A study of selected topics in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. These courses are usually interdisciplinary and align with faculty teaching and research strengths.

This course historicizes U.S. women's social, political, and rhetorical activism over the last 200 years, tracing their entry into and shaping force upon public life. The course examines the development of women's activism in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century women's (or feminist) movement, and its current status, particularly in relation to postfeminism and a 'third' wave.

An analysis of the global forces that impact women's lives throughout the world. Particular emphasis is placed on the status of women in the developing world, international institutions that protect women's rights, and efforts to promote gender equality worldwide. This is a writing intensive course.

This course will examine feminist approaches to the subject of sexuality in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The course examines theorizations of sexuality, such as radical, critical race, and transnational feminisms, queer theory, and trans studies. Key questions will be: how have feminists theorized sexualities? What does sexuality have to do with feminist studies or practices? How do other identities, such as race and class, inform sexuality?

This course examines media-based sites of knowledge production using a feminist approach, in order to imagine new and more complex ways to think about media rhetorics; celebrity culture; digital media; and the politics of representation. Key questions will be: What roles do media play in shaping social movements? What are the promises and pitfalls of activist interventions in the realm of commercial culture? In what ways might we complicate narratives of co-optation or selling out? The class explores these questions using an intersectional lens attentive to the complex interconnections of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Case studies will include national, international, and transnational media events.

This interdisciplinary class explores the body as a canvas for both history and the future of our concept of individualism. Students will have the opportunity to reflect not only on their own understanding of the body but also that of the body across a variety of experiences. Students will complete auto-ethnographic essays and a course paper on the body relating to her/his/their academic research interests.

This course will explore the spectrum of what it means when we consider humans to exist in a gendered and sexed world. Students will critique their own preconceived notions of sex, probe issues of equality and social justice, and discuss what these questions mean both in the United States and globally. The course will culminate with a restructuring of how we understand the ways in which we define sex, sexuality, and sexual practice, taking into consideration how our own identities are impacted by culture and society.

This course explores the international context of refugees and migrants from a humanitarian perspective. Global conditions that lead to forced migration are analyzed to inform a larger understanding of human displacement. The course works directly with refugee resettlement organizations at the national and local levels.

This course will examine feminist and queer theories, specifically intersectional, transnational, and radical perspectives. It explores how feminist and queer scholars approach research, writing, and knowledge production, and applies these insights to students' own interests. The course analyzes how feminist and queer scholars have written about storytelling, the body, and desire, and links these discussions to how to produce positive social change in our world. This course is fundamentally interdisciplinary; students are encouraged to make connections between the course materials, their research interests, and other fields of study. This is a writing intensive course.

The course explores the ethics, practice, and multiple forms of conducting feminist research. Narrative research methods are practiced through hands-on oral herstory assignments. Throughout the course, the process of knowledge construction is interrogated from a feminist perspective.

Advanced seminars on selected topics. The subject matter is usually interdisciplinary and aligns with faculty teaching and research strengths.

Advanced seminars on selected topics. The subject matter is usually interdisciplinary and aligns with faculty teaching and research strengths.

Independent study of an interdisciplinary topic in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, or a reading plus internship project to be selected under the direction of a faculty member. Conferences and papers as appropriate.

Independent study of an interdisciplinary topic in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, or a reading plus internship project to be selected under the direction of a faculty member. Conferences and papers as appropriate.