Gender Studies

Elizabeth Markovits, Co-chair

Jacquelyn Luce, Co-chair

Bridget Barrett, Academic Department Coordinator


109 Shattuck Hall
413-538-2257
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/academics/find-your-program/gender-studies

Overview and Contact Information

Gender studies majors cultivate the habit of asking how gender—through its connections with other forms of power—shapes bodies, lives, texts, institutions, and worlds. Gender studies is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural in its approaches. The goal is to provide students with multiple angles of vision that enrich their learning in and beyond the major.

At Mount Holyoke, gender studies grew out of women’s studies, with its commitment to uncovering the realities of women’s lives, understanding the nature of women’s oppression, and charting paths to significant social change. Building on this foundation, gender studies encompasses investigations into the very nature of gender; its intersection with other forms of difference and power such as class, race, nation, sexuality, and species; and its intimate connection with myriad forms of knowledge and social practice, from scientific investigation to artistic creation and performance.

Majors are introduced to the foundations of the field in courses on women and gender, feminist theory, and methodology. Drawing on courses offered across the Mount Holyoke curriculum and in the Five Colleges, majors then explore topics such as women’s literary and artistic production; gender in imperial and postcolonial contexts; feminist antiracism; women’s health; women and labor; violence against women; feminist science studies; queer studies; men and masculinity; transgender politics; U.S. women of color politics; women immigrants and refugees; transnational feminisms.

A field-study seminar, taken in the junior or senior year; and a senior capstone course bring majors together to think through connections among the diverse intellectual and creative approaches they have encountered as well as between scholarship and social action.

Learning Goals

1. Identify and denaturalize core assumptions embedded in the social construction of gender, race, and sexuality.

2. Understand and employ intersectional and interdisciplinary methodologies to interrogate normative and binary definitions of gender, race, and sexuality.

3. Develop a familiarity with major theoretical perspectives and concepts of feminist theory and praxis, including but not limited to Black feminisms, women of color feminisms, Latina(x) feminisms, transnational feminisms, and feminist science and technology studies.

4. Understand queer, trans*, and feminist interventions in work on poverty, immigration, policing and imprisonment, disability justice, health care and reproductive rights, science and technology governance, militarization, and imperialism.

5. Demonstrate through oral and written presentations how theoretical frameworks shape the politics of knowledge.

Faculty

This area of study is administered by the Department of Gender Studies:

Karen Remmler, Mary Lyon Professor of Humanities

Christian Gundermann, Associate Professor of Gender Studies

Ren-yo Hwang, Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Critical Social Thought

Sarah Smith, Assistant Professor of Gender Studies

Jacquelyne Luce, Directorship of the Five College Women's Studies Research Center; Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies

Sandra Russell, Visiting Lecturer in Gender Studies

Niamh Timmons, Visiting Lecturer in Gender Studies

Requirements for the Major

A minimum of 36 credits:

GNDST-101Introduction to Gender Studies4
GNDST-201Methods and Practices in Feminist Scholarship4
GNDST-221Feminist and Queer Theory 14
GNDST-290Field Placement 24
or an alternative course with a significant community based learning component and a focus on women, gender, and/or sexuality 2
Two GNDST-333 Advanced Seminar topics8
GNDST-392Senior Seminar4
The remaining 8 credits may be chosen from gender studies courses at Mount Holyoke or elsewhere in the Five Colleges, or courses approved by the department8
Total Credits36
1

Topics and approaches emphasized in GNDST-221 (Feminist and Queer Theory) vary from semester to semester. Also, other courses may be substituted for this requirement, where indicated, but note that this will neither reduce the number of credits required for the major nor lead to a waiver of prerequisites for GNDST-333.

2

 Permission to have a course other than GNDST-290 fulfill the field placement/community-based learning requirement is given by the department chair. This course may be taken outside the gender studies department. The requirement may not be fulfilled by an internship or an independent study.

Additional Specifications

  •  12 credits of the major must be taken at the 300 level

Requirements for the Minor

A minimum of 20 credits:

GNDST-101Introduction to Gender Studies4
GNDST-201Methods and Practices in Feminist Scholarship4
or GNDST-221 Feminist and Queer Theory
8 credits above the 100 level; may be chosen from gender studies courses or courses approved by the department8
4 credits at the 300 level; may be chosen from gender studies courses or courses approved by the department4
Total Credits20

Course Offerings

GNDST-101 Introduction to Gender Studies

Fall and Spring. Credits: 4

This course is designed to introduce students to social, cultural, historical, and political perspectives on gender and its construction. Through discussion and writing, we will explore the intersections among gender, race, class, and sexuality in multiple settings and contexts. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to a variety of questions, we will consider the distinctions between sex and gender, women's economic status, the making of masculinity, sexual violence, queer movements, racism, and the challenges of feminist activism across nations, and possibilities for change. We will also examine the development of feminist theory, including its promises and challenges.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive
S. Russell, S. Smith, N. Timmons

GNDST-201 Methods and Practices in Feminist Scholarship

Spring. Credits: 4

This is a class about doing research as a feminist. We will explore questions such as: What makes feminist research feminist? What makes it research? What are the proper objects of feminist research? Who can do feminist research? What can feminist research do? Are there feminist ways of doing research? Why and how do the stories we tell in our research matter? Some of the key issues and themes we will address include: accountability, location, citational practices and politics, identifying stakes and stakeholders, intersectionality, inter/disciplinarity, choosing and describing our topics and methods, and research as storytelling. The class will be writing intensive and will culminate in each student producing a research portfolio.

Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences
J. Luce
Prereq: GNDST-101.

GNDST-204 Women and Gender in the Study of Culture

GNDST-204AE Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Women and the Informal Economy in Africa'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course examines the relationship between women's sexuality and the economy in Africa. The participation of African women in the economy is determined by their sexuality as reproducing bodies that give birth and nurture offspring. The women engage in production and exchange to meet their own livelihood needs as well as the needs of their offspring. Their production and exchange activities take place on the farm and in African markets. This class shall examine the nexus between African women's sexuality and economy; perspectives on African women and the economy; the logic of African women participating in the economy; African women's forms of economic organization; how African women deploy surplus; and the economic models of African women in relation to the global economy.

Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
M. Kinyanjui
Restrictions: Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors

GNDST-204CP Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Trap Doors and Glittering Closets: Queer/Trans* of Color Visual Cultures of Resistance'

Fall. Credits: 4

In 2014, Time magazine declared the "Transgender Tipping Point" as a popular moment of transgender people's arrival into the mainstream. Using a queer and trans* of color critique, this course will unpack the political discourses and seeming binaries surrounding visibility/invisibility, recognition/misrecognition, legibility/illegibility, belonging/unbelonging and aesthetics/utility. How might we grapple with the contradictions of the trapdoors, pitfalls, dark corners and glittering closets that structure and normalize violence for some while safeguarding violence for others? This course will center the 2017 anthology Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility.

Crosslisted as: CST-249CP
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive
R. Hwang
Prereq: One course in Gender Studies or Critical Social Thought.

GNDST-204CW Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Androgyny and Gender Negotiation in Contemporary Chinese Women's Theater'

Fall. Credits: 4

Yue Opera, an all-female art that flourished in Shanghai in 1923, resulted from China's social changes and the women's movement. Combining traditional with modern forms and Chinese with Western cultures, Yue Opera today attracts loyal and enthusiastic audiences despite pop arts crazes. We will focus on how audiences, particularly women, are fascinated by gender renegotiations as well as by the all-female cast. The class will read and watch classics of this theater, including Romance of the Western Bower, Peony Pavilion, and Butterfly Lovers. Students will also learn the basics of traditional Chinese opera.

Crosslisted as: ASIAN-215, FMT-230CW
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Y. Wang
Notes: Taught in English

GNDST-204DA Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Queer and Trans Histories of Disability'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course investigates the historical imbrication of modern concepts of "disability," "queer," and "trans." First, we trace the circulation of ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and disability within institutional medicine in the late 19th and early 20th century. Following this, we explore the individual experiences and political movements of people hailed under the categories of "disabled," "queer," or "trans" from the 20th century to the present. In resisting a reification of disability, queer, and trans as discrete fields of study, this course asks how we understand these categories in the present, while leaving room to imagine otherwise.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive
R. Corbman
Prereq: GNDST-101.

GNDST-204FT Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Feminist, Queer, Trans Disability Studies'

Spring. Credits: 4

This course introduces Disability Studies concepts and discussion from a feminist, queer, and trans perspectives, specifically centering on Black, Indigenous, People of Color disabled people. Through this, we'll see the differences in disabled communities, the tensions within the field, and learn to center the most marginalized. Here, the focus is on scholarship, activism, and arts that center disabled people, their histories, struggles, and dreams. We'll also discuss the differences between the Disability Rights and Disability Justice movements and how they represent the demands and needs of disabled communities.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive
N. Timmons
Prereq: GNDST-101.

GNDST-204GQ Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Global Queer Narratives'

Fall. Credits: 4

This course explores contemporary transnational representations of LGBTQ+ identities in literature, film, and digital media and cultures. We will examine the role of storytelling in not only reflecting queer lived experiences, but also the possibilities of narrative as a corrective, restorative project for imagining alternative worlds and futures. In considering global contexts, this course does not assume singular definitions of LGBTQ+ identities, but rather uses the transnational to decenter Eurocentric definitions of gender and sexuality as well as intersecting categories of race and ability. Authors may include Audre Lorde, Samra Habib, Frieda Ekotto, and Pajtim Statovci.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
S. Russell

GNDST-204GV Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Gendered Violence from Medieval to Contemporary Spain'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This survey course will review the complex interaction of gender and violence as a personal and institutional issue in Spain from Medieval times to the present. What are the ideological and sociocultural constructs that sustain and perpetuate violence against women? What are the forms of resistance women have put into play? Among the texts, we will study short stories by Lucanor (thirteenth century) and María de Zayas (seventeenth century), song by Bebé and movie by Boya&iacuten (twentieth century), contemporary news (twenty-first century), and laws (from the thirteenth century to the present).

Crosslisted as: SPAN-230GV
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Language
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
N. Romero-Díaz
Prereq: SPAN-212.
Notes: Taught in Spanish.

GNDST-204HM Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'The Hormone Industrial Complex'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

Around 1900, in parallel with structural social innovations in communication and transportation (e.g. railway, telegraph), bioscientists encountered chemical substances in bodies, later called hormones. These encounters conceptually transformed bodies into biocommunication centers. This course focuses on scientific innovations around "messenger molecules" in the context of their uptake into capitalist structures of profit maximization, demonstrating how a "hormone industrial complex" emerges by mid-20th century, which builds on existing connections between gender, race, sexuality, species, and empire, to fundamentally transform modern settler-coloniality into techno-pharmaco subjectivity.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
C. Gundermann
Prereq: GNDST-101 or GNDST-221, CST-200, or any 8 credits in critical social thought, environmental studies, or anthropology.

GNDST-204NB Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Nonbinary Romanticism: Genders, Sexes, and Beings in the Age of Revolution'

Fall. Credits: 4

With the onslaught of American, French, Haitian, and South American revolts and revolutions, the Atlantic world, much of Europe, and its colonial/industrial empire were thrown into a period of refiguring the concept of the raced, national, and gendered subject. This course considers what new forms of gender, sex, sexuality, and being were created, practiced, or thought, however momentarily, in this tumultuous age. Specific attention is given to conceptions of nonbinary being (of all varieties). Authors may include E. Darwin, Equiano, Wollstonecraft, Lister, M. Shelley, Byron, Jacobs.

Crosslisted as: ENGL-233
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
K. Singer
Restrictions: Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors
Notes: This course is a second part of a two-course sequence with ENGL-232/GNDST-204ET, but each may be taken separately.

GNDST-204QT Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Queer and Trans Writing'

Spring. Credits: 4

What do we mean when we say "queer writing" or "trans writing"? Are we talking about writing by queer and/or trans authors? Writing about queer or trans practices, identities, experience? Writing that subverts conventional forms? All of the above? In this course, we will engage these questions not theoretically but through praxis. We will read fiction, poetry, comics, creative nonfiction, and hybrid forms. Expect to encounter work that challenges you in terms of form and content. Some writers we may read include Ryka Aoki, James Baldwin, Tom Cho, Samuel R. Delany, kari edwards, Elisha Lim, Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, Eileen Myles, and David Wojnarowicz.

Crosslisted as: ENGL-219QT
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive
A. Lawlor
Prereq: ENGL-201 and 4 credits in Gender Studies

GNDST-204RP Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Race, Racism, and Power'

Spring. Credits: 4

This course analyzes the concepts of race and racism from an interdisciplinary perspective, with focus on Latinas/os/x in the United States. It explores the sociocultural, political, economic, and historical forces that interact with each other in the production of racial categories. We will focus on structural, systemic, and institutional racism and processes of racialization. The course examines racial inequality from a historical perspective and investigates how racial categories evolve and form across contexts. The analysis that develops will ultimately allow us to think rigorously about social inequality, transformation, and liberation.

Crosslisted as: LATST-250RP, CST-249RP
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
V. Rosa

GNDST-204RV Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Perspectives on Revolutionary Parenting'

Spring. Credits: 4

In this space, we center the radical potentials of mothering/parenting alongside reproductive justice. We'll discuss how mothering/parenting operates in relation to the state, medical structures, borders, and other apparatuses. This course also considers what practices make mothering/parenting and reproductive justice as a space of potential liberation. What and who constitutes a mother/parent? How can the practice of parenting and reproductive justice be a liberatory practice? We'll look at texts such as Revolutionary Mothering and the history of community mothering spaces such as STAR House.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive
N. Timmons
Prereq: GNDST-101.

GNDST-204SJ Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Art, Public Space, and Social Justice Activism'

Spring. Credits: 4

What are some ways that art can disrupt oppressive structures of power? This course explores the ways in which contemporary artists centuries have responded to the call for political change and social justice, particularly with regards to issues of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability. Drawing from interdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives, we will examine the role of visual and performance art within public spaces in shaping and furthering social movements and protest. Some possible themes and issues include public memory, artistic citizenship, counterpublics, "material" and "immaterial" artistic forms, and the collective impact of art activism on the social imagination.

Crosslisted as: ARTST-280SJ
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
S. Russell
Prereq: 4 credits in Gender Studies or Art Studio.

GNDST-204TJ Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Transforming Justice and Practicing Truth to Power: Critical Methodologies and Methods in Community Participatory Action Research and Accountability'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course will offer an overview of select methodologies and methods from Community-based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR), Participatory Action Research (PAR), collaborative ethnography and other social justice research interventions such as radical oral history, grassroots research collectives, experimental digital archives, research and data justice networks and organizations. We will center on questions of "accountability"; that is, to whom, for whom, and to what end do processes of accountability serve those already in power? Moreover, we will investigate the chasms between academia and activism in order to explore the possibility of unlikely collaborative research alliances.

Crosslisted as: CST-249TJ
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Community-Based Learning
R. Hwang
Prereq: 4 credits in Gender Studies or Critical Social Thought.

GNDST-206 Women and Gender in History

GNDST-206CG Women and Gender in History: 'Women and Gender in China'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This 200-level seminar introduces students to gender relations in the history of China. It offers students a broad historical narrative of women's lives from early China through the imperial period, and concludes with the power dynamics of gender relations in modern China in the twentieth century. The course is organized chronologically with thematic focus on the politics of marriage and reproduction; the state's shifting perspectives on women's social roles; and how women interpreted and responded to the changing cultural landscape.

Crosslisted as: HIST-296CG
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
L. Wu
Notes: All readings are in English.

GNDST-206MA Women and Gender in History: 'Mary Lyon's World and the History of Mount Holyoke'

Fall. Credits: 4

What world gave rise to Mary Lyon's vision for Mount Holyoke and enabled her to carry her plans to success? Has her vision persisted or been overturned? We will examine the conditions, assumptions, and exclusions that formed Mount Holyoke and the arrangements of power and struggles for justice that shaped it during and after Lyon's lifetime. Topics include settler colonialism and missionary projects; northern racism and abolitionism; industrial capitalism and the evolution of social classes; debates over women's education, gender, and body politics; religious diversity; and efforts to achieve a just and inclusive campus. Includes research based on primary sources.

Crosslisted as: HIST-259
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
M. Renda
Restrictions: Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors
Prereq: Either 8 credits in history or 4 credits in history and 4 credits in either gender studies or critical social thought. All other interested students may apply with an email to the instructor.
Notes: Available for 300-level credit

GNDST-206US Women and Gender in the Study of History: 'U.S. Women's History since 1890'

Spring. Credits: 4

This course considers the historical evolution of women's private lives, public presence, and political engagement within and beyond the borders of the United States, from the 1890s to the present. How have U.S. racism, consumer capitalism, immigration, and changing forms of state power shaped women's experiences and possibilities? How have regimes of gender, sexuality, bodily comportment, and reproduction evolved in relation to national and global changes? Emphasis will be placed on the experiences and perspectives of working-class women, women of color, and colonized women.

Crosslisted as: HIST-276, CST-249US
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
M. Renda

GNDST-209 Sex and Gender in the Black Diaspora

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course explores, in global perspective, concepts of blackness and its relationship to feminist, women-led, queer and gender-based political movements that have shaped complex discourses on the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nationality. We begin with an introductory examination of the ways in which "race" has been historically theorized in U.S. sociological and anthropological discourse. The course integrates a survey of ethnographies and ethnographically informed studies of the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nationality and concludes with a student-led ethnographic project. Students should leave the course having simultaneously explored sociological and anthropological conceptualizations of the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nationality, their political implications, and how these issues resonate within broader fields of identity formation, globalization, public discourse and political movements.

Crosslisted as: ANTHR-216BD
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences
R. Barnes

GNDST-210 Women and Gender in Philosophy and Religion

GNDST-210BD Women and Gender in Philosophy and Religion: 'Women and Gender in Buddhism'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

Can women become Buddhas? Why is the Buddha called a "mother"? Who gets to ordain? Why would anyone choose celibacy? Who engages in religious sexual practices and why? This course examines the centrality of gender to Buddhist texts, practices, and institutions. We pay particular attention to the challenges and opportunities Buddhist traditions have offered women in different historical and cultural contexts. Throughout the course we consider various strategies of empowerment, including feminist, postcolonial, queer, trans*, and womanist.

Crosslisted as: RELIG-241
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
S. Mrozik

GNDST-210JD Women and Gender in Philosophy and Religion: 'Women and Gender in Judaism'

Fall. Credits: 4

This course examines gender as a key category in Jewish thought and practice. We will examine different theoretical models of gender, concepts of gender in a range of Jewish sources, and feminist Jewish responses to those sources.

Crosslisted as: JWST-234, RELIG-234
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
M. Benjamin

GNDST-210NR Women and Gender in Philosophy and Religion: 'Reimagining American Religious History: Race, Gender, and Alterity'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course invites its participants to place critical race and gender studies perspectives in dialogue with the emergence of new religious movements in the United States. Course participants rely on the presupposition that only through a thorough examination of religious traditions on the 'margin' can we fully understand the textured meaning of American religious history as a sub-discipline. Privileging the founding stories and institutionalization of minoritized American religious groups, the course considers how subaltern voices have shaped and transformed American religious life.

Crosslisted as: RELIG-225NR, CST-249NR
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
M. Coleman-Tobias

GNDST-210SL Women and Gender in Philosophy and Religion: 'Women and Gender in Islam'

Spring. Credits: 4

This course will examine a range of ways in which Islam has constructed women--and women have constructed Islam. We will study concepts of gender as they are reflected in classical Islamic texts, as well as different aspects of the social, economic, political, and ritual lives of women in various Islamic societies.

Crosslisted as: RELIG-207
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
A. Steinfels

GNDST-210WR Women and Gender in Philosophy and Religion: ''Womanist Religious Thought'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

As a conceptual framework which reconsiders the rituals, scriptures, and allegiances of religious black women, womanist thought has expanded the interdisciplinary canon of black and feminist religious studies. This course is a survey of womanist religious scholars from multiple religious traditions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Yoruba-Ifa -- as well as theorists who understand womanism as a "spiritual but not religious" orientation. Course participants will use the interpretive touchstones of cross-culturalism, erotics, earthcare, and health -- among others -- to examine contemporary womanist religious thought.

Crosslisted as: RELIG-246, AFCNA-246
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
M. Coleman-Tobias

GNDST-210YD The Gender of Yiddish

Fall. Credits: 4

Yiddish and questions of gender have a long history. The language was called "mame-loshn" (mother tongue); it was associated with home and family. Jewish women were the primary intended readers of Yiddish, beginning with religious literature for those who could not read Hebrew and developing into a modern, secular, often moralizing literature. Despite the strong connections between Yiddish and women, women writers have been marginalized and underestimated. This course will explore the gendered history of Yiddish, including through the lens of queer theory. We will also read English translations of literature by modern Yiddish women writers who are being rediscovered today through new translations and scholarly attention.

Crosslisted as: JWST-213, GRMST-213
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
M. Cohen
Notes: Taught in English.

GNDST-212 Women and Gender in Social Sciences

GNDST-212BW Women and Gender in Social Sciences: 'Black Women and the Politics of Survival'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

Contemporary Black women in Africa and the Diaspora are concerned with the sea of economic and political troubles facing their communities, and grappling with how to affirm their own identities while transforming societal notions of gender and family. In this course, we will explore the "intersectionality" of race, gender, sexuality, class, transnational identity; reproductive health; homophobia and heteronormativity, along with the effects of racism, unequal forms of economic development, and globalization on Black communities. The overall aim of this course is to link contemporary Black women's theory and practice to a history and tradition of survival and resistance.

Crosslisted as: CST-249BW
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
R. Barnes

GNDST-221 Feminist and Queer Theory

GNDST-221QF Feminist and Queer Theory: 'Feminist and Queer Theory'

Fall. Credits: 4

We will read a number of key feminist texts that theorize sexual difference, and challenge the oppression of women. We will then address queer theory, an offshoot and expansion of feminist theory, and study how it is both embedded in, and redefines, the feminist paradigms. This redefinition occurs roughly at the same time (1980s/90s) when race emerges as one of feminism's prominent blind spots. The postcolonial critique of feminism is a fourth vector we will examine, as well as anti-racist and postcolonial intersections with queerness. We will also study trans-theory and its challenge to the queer paradigm.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
C. Gundermann
Prereq: GNDST-101.

GNDST-241 Women and Gender in Science

GNDST-241HP Women and Gender in Science: 'Feminist Health Politics'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

Health is about bodies, selves and politics. We will explore a series of health topics from feminist perspectives. How do gender, sexuality, class, disability, and age influence the ways in which one perceives and experiences health and the access one has to health information and health care? Are heteronormativity, cissexism, or one's place of living related to one's health status or one's health risk? By paying close attention to the relationships between community-based narratives, activities of health networks and organizations and theory, we will develop a solid understanding of the historical, political and cultural specificities of health issues, practices, services and movements.

Crosslisted as: ANTHR-216HP
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences
J. Luce
Prereq: 4 credits in gender studies.

GNDST-241HR Women and Gender in Science: 'Feminist Engagements with Hormones'

Fall. Credits: 4

This course takes a transdisciplinary and multi-sited approach to explore the social, political, biocultural, and legal complexities of hormones. Hormones "appear" in many discussions about reproductive and environmental justice, identity, health and chronicity. But what are hormones? What are their social, political and cultural histories? Where are they located? How do they act? The course will foster active learning, centering feminist pedagogies of collaborative inquiry. Examples of topics to be explored are: transnational/transcultural knowledge production about hormones; hormonal relations to sexgender, natureculture, bodymind; and hormone-centered actions and activism.

Crosslisted as: ANTHR-216HM
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences
J. Luce
Prereq: 4 credits in gender studies.

GNDST-290 Field Placement

Spring. Credits: 4

This course presents an opportunity for students to apply gender theory to practice and synthesize their work in gender studies. Connections between the academy and the community, scholarship and social action will be emphasized. Students will arrange for a placement at a non-profit organization, business, or institution that incorporates a gender focus. A weekly seminar with other students provides a structured reflection forum to analyze experience and methods.

Applies to requirement(s): Meets No Distribution Requirement
Other Attribute(s): Community-Based Learning, Speaking-Intensive
C. Gundermann
Prereq: GNDST-101 and either GNDST-201 or GNDST-221.

GNDST-295 Independent Study

Fall and Spring. Credits: 1 - 4

The department
Instructor permission required.

GNDST-333 Advanced Seminar

GNDST-333AD Advanced Seminar: 'Abolitionist Dreams & Everyday Resistance: Freedom Memoirs, Struggles, and Decolonizing Justice'

Fall. Credits: 4

This seminar will offer close theoretical readings of a variety of anti-colonial, abolitionist, anti-imperialist, insurgent and feminist-of-color memoir, autobiographical and social justice texts. We will read works from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Assata Shakur, Patrisse Cullors, Grace Lee Boggs, Audre Lorde, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarsinna, Leila Khaled, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sarah Ahmed, Lee Maracle, Kai Cheng Thom, Angela Davis, Sojourner Truth, adrienne maree brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Mary Brave Bird, Jamaica Kincaid, Gabby Rivera and Haunani-Kay Trask. We will center the interlinking and capacious concepts of liberation, revolution, freedom, justice and decolonization.

Crosslisted as: CST-349AD
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive
R. Hwang
Prereq: One course in Gender Studies or Critical Social Thought at the 200 level or above.

GNDST-333AE Advanced Seminar: 'Race, Gender and Sexual Aesthetics in the Global Era' Justice'

Fall. Credits: 4

Reading across a spectrum of disciplinary focuses (e.g. philosophies of aesthetics, post-structural feminisms, Black cultural studies, and queer of color critique) this course asks the question what is the nature of aesthetics when it negotiates modes of difference? This course explores the history and debates on aesthetics as it relates to race, gender, and sexuality with particular emphasis on Black diaspora theory and cultural production. Drawing on sensation, exhibitions, active discussion, observation, and experimentation, emphasis will be placed on developing a fine-tuned approach to aesthetic inquiry and appreciation.

Crosslisted as: CST-349AE, ARTST-380AE. AFCNA-341AE
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
S. Smith
Prereq: 8 credits in Gender Studies.

GNDST-333AN Advanced Seminar: 'Love, Sex, and Death in the Anthropocene, or Living Through the Age of Climate Change and Other Disasters'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

The "Anthropocene" has been defined as the era when humans exert change on the earth's climate, but this term has become a dynamo for theories, political discussions, and art about man's anthropocentric relation to the nonhuman world. This course will read theories of the Anthropocene alongside artistic contemplations of the shifting, ethical relations among humans, animals, and other beings of the world. How are we to live, die, and reproduce ourselves in a time when we have egregiously affected the earth? How does the critique of anthropocentrism shift our understanding of sex, gender, race, and the nonhuman? Finally, how does art speak within political conversations of climate change?

Crosslisted as: ENGL-366, CST-249AN
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
K. Singer
Prereq: 8 credits in English or Critical Social Thought.

GNDST-333AR Advanced Seminar: 'Anthropology of Reproduction'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course covers major issues in the anthropology of reproduction, including the relationship between production and reproduction, the gendered division of labor, the state and reproductive policy, embodied metaphors of procreation and parenthood, fertility control and abortion, crosscultural reproductive ethics, and the social implications of new reproductive technologies. We examine the social construction of reproduction in a variety of cultural contexts.

Crosslisted as: ANTHR-306
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
L. Morgan
Prereq: 8 credits in Anthropology or Gender Studies.

GNDST-333BF Advanced Seminar: 'Foundations in Black Feminist Thought'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course offers a foundational investigation of African-American and other African descendant women's contributions to feminist theory as a heterogeneous field of knowledge encompassing multiple streams of gender- and race-cognizant articulation and praxis. While Black feminism's historical development will be sketched, our focus will be on the literature and theory of writers like Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Barbara Smith. We explore these and other foundational texts as representatives of the contexts within which Black Women's Studies emerged along with various subaltern feminisms mobilized by other women of color in the Global North and South.

Crosslisted as: CST-349BF
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive
R. Barnes
Prereq: 8 credits in Gender Studies, Critical Social Thought, Africana Studies, Anthropology, or Sociology.

GNDST-333BW Advanced Seminar: 'De Brujas y Lesbiana and Other "Bad Women" in the Spanish Empire'

Fall. Credits: 4

During the Spanish Empire (16th-18th centuries), witches, prostitutes, transvestite warriors, lesbians, daring noblewomen and nuns violated the social order by failing to uphold the expected sexual morality of the "ideal woman." They were silenced, criticized, punished, and even burned at the stake. Students will study contradictory discourses of good and evil and beauty and ugliness in relation to gender in the Spanish Empire. We will analyze historical and literary texts as well as film versions of so-called "bad" women -- such as the Celestina, Elena/o de Céspedes, Catalina de Erauso and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

Crosslisted as: SPAN-330BW
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Language
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
N. Romero-Díaz
Prereq: Two 200-level Spanish courses above SPAN-212.
Notes: Taught in Spanish.

GNDST-333CF Advanced Seminar: 'Free Them All: Abolition Feminism and Anticarceral Action Research'

Spring. Credits: 4

This course will center the activism, theories and praxis of abolition feminism. We will collectively study how interpersonal violence (gender, racial, sexual, ableist) is intertwined with state violence (from domestic policing to militarism abroad). Through investigating the legal history of the criminalization of survivors alongside mainstream antiviolence research and statistics, we will challenge the use of criminological binaries such as victim/perpetrator and violent/nonviolent. Partnering with coalitions like Survived and Punished National, this course is structured by a series of anti-carceral action research projects such as contributing to active survivor defense campaigns.

Crosslisted as: CST-349CF
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Community-Based Learning, Writing-Intensive
R. Hwang
Prereq: Two courses in Gender Studies or Critical Social Thought at the 200 level or above.

GNDST-333EG Advanced Seminar: 'Eggs and Embryos: Innovations in Reproductive and Genetic Technologies'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This seminar will focus on emerging innovations in the development, use and governance of reproductive and genetic technologies (RGTs). How do novel developments at the interface of fertility treatment and biomedical research raise both new and enduring questions about the'naturalness' of procreation, the politics of queer families, the im/possibilities of disabilities, and transnational citizenship? Who has a say in what can be done and for which purposes? We will engage with ethnographic texts,documentaries, policy statements, citizen science activist projects, and social media in order to closely explore the diversity of perspectives in this field.

Crosslisted as: ANTHR-316EG
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences
J. Luce
Prereq: 8 credits in gender studies or anthropology.

GNDST-333EM Advanced Seminar: 'Flesh and Blood: Naturecultural Embodiments'

Spring. Credits: 4

What does it mean to be (in?) a body? Who counts as whole, broken or food? How do discipline, punishment, use, reproduction, and illness come into play? What are agency, animacy, knowledge, consciousness in relation to embodiment? Western rationality has produced and disciplined a coherent, bounded, defended, racialized, and gendered bodily Self through medicine, psychiatry, nutrition, education, sexology, thanatology, obstetrics, and other disciplines. We will explore this production and its continual undoing, through topics such as medical diagnosis, disability, death and burial cultures, infection, diet, breastfeeding and dairy, chronic illness, depression, queerness, and hormone replacement.

Crosslisted as: CST-349EM
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
C. Gundermann
Restrictions: Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors
Prereq: GNDST-101 and GNDST-221 or GNDST-201, or CST-200 or CST-248, or 8 credits in Anthropology, Sociology, History, Environmental Studies or Geography.

GNDST-333ER Advanced Seminar: 'Theorizing Eros'

Fall. Credits: 4

The erotic is a rich site of queer feminist thinking about the costs of the imposition of sexuality as an interpretive grid. The course begins with the study of sexuality as a knowledge system, with a focus on racial and colonial histories of sexuality, then moves on to considerations of the erotic. In both Lordean and Foucauldian genealogies, eros operates as a set of possibilities, or capacities -- for pleasure, joy, fulfilment, satisfaction -- that exceed "sexuality" and can inspire ways of rethinking nature, need, and relationality. Lynne Huffer, L.H. Stallings, Adrienne Marie Brown, Sharon Holland, and Ela Przybylo, among others, help us think capaciously about what the erotic can do.

Crosslisted as: CST-349ER
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
A. Willey
Prereq: 8 credits in Gender Studies or Critical Social Thought.

GNDST-333FM Advanced Seminar: 'Latina Feminism(s)'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

In this seminar, we will explore the relationship between Latina feminist theory and knowledge production. We will examine topics related to positionality, inequality, the body, reproductive justice, representation, and community. Our approach in this class will employ an intersectional approach to feminist theory that understands the interconnectedness between multiple forms of oppression, including race, class, sexuality, and ability. Our goal is to develop a robust understanding of how Latina feminist methodologies and epistemologies can be tools for social change.

Crosslisted as: LATST-350FM, CST-349FM
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
V. Rosa
Restrictions: Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors
Prereq: 8 credits in Latina/o Studies, Gender Studies, or Critical Social Thought.

GNDST-333FP Advanced Seminar: 'Women and Writing in French-Speaking Africa'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course explores writings by women in French-speaking Africa from its early beginnings in the late 1970s to the present. Special attention will be given to social, political, gender, and aesthetic issues.

Crosslisted as: FREN-341FS
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
S. Gadjigo
Prereq: 12 credits in French including two courses at the advanced level, or permission of department chair and instructor.

GNDST-333GS Advanced Seminar: 'Gender and Sexual Minority Health'

Spring. Credits: 4

This course is a critical overview and investigation of health as it relates to the experiences of gender and sexual minority people. We will begin with exploring theoretical understandings of health and marginalization, and use those as frameworks to examine various domains of health. Areas of interest will include mental health, sexual and reproductive health, substance use, disability, and issues related to body size and image. We will end by looking at other structural issues that affect gender and sexual minority health, such as access to care, health education, and health policy.

Crosslisted as: PSYCH-319GS
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
C. Flanders
Prereq: PSYCH-200 or PSYCH-204 or GNDST-201.

GNDST-333HH Advanced Seminar: 'Love, Gender-Crossing, and Women's Supremacy: A Reading of The Story of the Stone'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

A seminar on the eighteenth-century Chinese masterpiece The Story of the Stone and selected literary criticism in response to this work. Discussions will focus on love, gender-crossing, and women's supremacy and the paradoxical treatments of these themes in the novel. We will explore multiple aspects of these themes, including the sociopolitical, philosophical, and literary milieus of eighteenth-century China. We will also examine this novel in its relation to Chinese literary tradition in general and the generic conventions of premodern Chinese vernacular fiction in particular.

Crosslisted as: ASIAN-340
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
Y. Wang
Prereq: 8 credits in Asian Studies or Gender Studies.
Advisory: Intended for East Asian Studies majors and Asian Studies minors.

GNDST-333KA Advanced Seminar: 'Korean American Feminist Poetry'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

Poetry by Korean American feminist writers has burgeoned in the 21st century with new generations of poets contributing to life of American letters. Reading works by Theresa Cha, Myung Mi Kim, Don Mee Choi, Mary-Kim Arnold, and others, we will discuss how each writer evokes racial and ethnic identity and intersections with gender and other political concerns, as well as the choices each poet makes regarding form and style. Students will gain insight into a great diversity of approaches to writing poetry and will create a portfolio of their own poems based on our discussions. Most classes will involve group critique of writing; several will involve visits with our authors. All are welcome.

Crosslisted as: ENGL-361KA
Applies to requirement(s): Meets No Distrib. Rqmt; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive
A. Hong
Prereq: ENGL-201.

GNDST-333MC Advanced Seminar: 'Latinas/os/x and Housing: Mi Casa Is Not Su Casa'

Spring. Credits: 4

Housing is closely tied to quality of life and the health of neighborhoods and communities. As a main goal of the "American Dream," homeownership has important significance on an individual and societal level. For immigrants, this goal is often out of reach as a result of racism and discriminatory housing policies. This interdisciplinary seminar explores Latinas/os/x relationship to housing and homeownership by examining the history of exclusionary housing policies in the United States. By exploring a range of topics (affordability, ownership, gentrification, etc), we will develop a sharper understanding of why housing is one of the most pressing issues for Latinas/os/x today.

Crosslisted as: LATST-350MC, CST-349MC
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive
V. Rosa
Restrictions: This course is open to juniors and seniors

GNDST-333MS Advanced Seminar: 'Multi-Species Justice? Entangled Lives and Human Power'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

How can we change animal exploitation and re-situate the human more equitably with other species? Through animal rights? Justice? Abolition? Dismantle human exceptionalism? Animal emancipation? Companionship? Co-existence? Stewardship? What are the uses and limits of the discourses from which critical animal studies borrows conceptually, for example: antiracism, feminism, disability studies, nationalism, transformative justice, and so on. We will explore different scenarios of human-nonhuman entanglements, such as training, rescue, the animal industrial complex, the politics of extinction, hunting, infection, predation, breeding/reproduction and others.

Crosslisted as: CST-349MS
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
C. Gundermann

GNDST-333MT Advanced Seminar: 'Digital Intimacies'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

Drawing on intersectional feminist theories of gender, sexuality, and affect, this course looks at digital modes of interpersonal communication that inform emerging senses of intimacy. We will examine digital performances of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability and disability, with attention to the technical infrastructures and industrial policies that shape access and engagement in digital worlds. Our study will address digital representations of the body, tensions between anonymity and authenticity, socially networked surveillance, and the personal and political sensibilities that digital intimacies inspire.

Crosslisted as: FMT-330MT
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
L. Cornfeld
Prereq: 8 credits in Film, Media, Theater.

GNDST-333NE Advanced Seminar: 'Women and the Informal Economy in Africa'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course examines the relationship between women's sexuality and the economy in Africa. Women's production and exchange activities take place on the farm and in African markets. Topics include: the nexus between African women's sexuality and economy; perspectives on African women and the economy; the logic of African women participating in the economy; African women's forms of economic organization; how African women deploy surplus; and the economic models of African women in relation to the global economy.

Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
M. Kinyanjui
Prereq: 8 credits in Gender Studies.

GNDST-333PA Advanced Seminar: 'Natural's Not in It: Pedro Almodóvar'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course studies the films of Pedro Almodóvar, European cinema's favorite bad boy turned acclaimed auteur. On the one hand, students learn to situate films within the context of contemporary Spanish history (the transition to democracy, the advent of globalization, etc.) in order to consider the local contours of postmodern aesthetics. On the other hand, the films provide a springboard to reflect on larger theoretical and ethical debates related to gender, sexuality, consumer culture, authenticity, and authorship.

Crosslisted as: SPAN-340PA, CST-349PA, FMT-330PA
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
J. Crumbaugh
Prereq: Two courses in Spanish at the 200-level above SPAN-212.
Notes: Taught in Spanish.

GNDST-333PC Advanced Seminar: 'Pregnancy and the Placenta'

Fall. Credits: 4

Pregnancy is a stunning feat of physiology. It is a conversation between two bodies -- parental and fetal -- whose collective action blurs the very boundaries of the individual. In this course we will explore such questions as: what is pregnancy, and how does the ephemeral, essential organ known as the placenta call pregnancy into being? How is pregnancy sustained? How does it end? We will consider the anatomy of reproductive systems and the hormonal language of reproduction. We will investigate the nature of "sex" hormones, consider racial disparities in pregnancy outcome, and weigh the evidence that the intrauterine environment influences disease susceptibility long after birth.

Crosslisted as: BIOL-321PR
Applies to requirement(s): Math Sciences
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive
S. Bacon
Prereq: 8 credits at the 200 level in Biological Sciences.

GNDST-333PG Advanced Seminar: 'Who's Involved?: Participatory Governance, Emerging Technologies and Feminism'

Spring. Credits: 4

Deep brain stimulation, genome sequencing, regenerative medicine...Exploring practices of 'participatory governance' of emerging technologies, we will examine the formal and informal involvement of citizens, patients, health professionals, scientists and policy makers. What initiatives exist at local, national and transnational levels to foster science literacy? How do lived experiences of nationality, ability, class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality become visible and/or disappear within constructed frameworks of participatory governance? How can feminist ethnographic research and feminist theory contribute to a larger project of democratizing knowledge production and governance?

Crosslisted as: ANTHR-316PG
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences
J. Luce
Prereq: 8 credits in gender studies or anthropology.

GNDST-333PM Advanced Seminar: 'Poetry and Image: Formations of Identity'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

With an emphasis on producing creative texts, the course will examine the parallel and often overlapping impulses of poetry and image-making (photography, painting, and other visual arts). We will explore concepts of identity through the work of artists such as Alice Neel, Mikalene Thomas, Claude Cahun, Cindy Sherman, Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Catherine Opie, Kara Walker, Diane Arbus, Vivian Maier, and Nan Goldin. Writers will include Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Sherwin Bitsui, Robert Seydel, Ari Banias, Safia Elhillo, Gloria Anzalda, Morgan Parker, Layli Longsoldier, Judy Grahn, Audre Lorde, Ronaldo Wilson, Shane McCrae, Adrienne Rich, David Wojnarowisz, Eileen Myles, and others.

Crosslisted as: ENGL-361PM
Applies to requirement(s): Meets No Distrib. Rqmt; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive
S. Ace
Prereq: A 200-level creative writing course.

GNDST-333QF Advanced Seminar: 'Monogamy: Queer Feminism and Critical Relationality' Justice'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

Grounded in queer, feminist, and decolonial concerns with social belonging, this class considers "monogamy" from a range of inter/disciplinary perspectives. From histories of marriage to sciences of mating to politics of polyamory, we will explore monogamy's meanings. Students will become familiar with debates about monogamy, a variety of critical approaches to reading and engaging them, and fields of resistance to a variety of "monogamy stories" within and beyond the academy. We will draw on critical engagements with the nuclear family and queer historicizations of sexuality, foregrounding the racial, national, and settler colonial formations that produce monogamy as we know it.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
A. Willey
Prereq: One course in Gender Studies or Critical Social Thought.

GNDST-333QH Advanced Seminar: 'Queering the Horror: Collective Memory, Political Violence, and Dissident Sexualities in Latin American Narratives'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

The bloody dictatorships that took place in the Southern Cone and the armed conflicts in Colombia, Guatemala and Peru during the 20th century left behind a legacy of political violence and collective trauma. These states themselves became sadistic death machines, where bodies became territories of punishment and discipline as well as of struggle, resistance, and difference. We will analyze how recent cultural production (film, novel, short stories, and theater) along with theoretical texts imagine and represent those "body struggles" through queer and female bodies, and how they replace the masculine icons of the left-wing militants and the state military terrorists.

Crosslisted as: SPAN-350QH
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
A. Pitetta
Prereq: Two 200-level Spanish courses above SPAN-212.
Notes: Taught in Spanish.

GNDST-333RT Advanced Seminar: 'Body and Gender in Religious Traditions'

Spring. Credits: 4

Do bodies matter in religious traditions? Whose bodies matter? How do they matter? By studying religious body ideals and practices, we examine the possibilities and problems different kinds of bodies have posed in religious traditions. Topics include religious diet, exercise, and dress; monasticism, celibacy, and sexuality; healing rituals, and slavery and violence. We pay special attention to contemporary challenges to problematic body ideals and practices coming from feminist, disability, postcolonial, queer, and trans theorists and activists.

Crosslisted as: RELIG-352, CST-349RE
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
S. Mrozik
Restrictions: This course is open to juniors and seniors

GNDST-333SE Advanced Seminar: 'Black Sexual Economies'

Spring. Credits: 4

At once viewed as a dysfunction of normative ideas about sexuality, the family, and the nation, Black sexualities are intimately linked to and regulated by political and socioeconomic discourses. Slavery studies scholars remind us of how it has proven foundational for modern notions of race and sex by making explicit links between labor and exploitation. Thus, this course moves through themes such as slavery historicity, intersections between Black feminisms and Black sexualities, sexual labor/work, pleasure, and the erotic, in order to consider the stakes of our current critical approaches to Black sexual economies and interrogate its silences and possibilities.

Crosslisted as: AFCNA-341SE, CST-349SE
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
S. Smith
Prereq: Two courses in Gender Studies or Africana Studies.

GNDST-333SJ Advanced Seminar: 'Art, Public Space, and Social Justice Activism'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

What are some ways that art can disrupt oppressive structures of power? This course explores the ways in which contemporary artists for centuries have responded to the call for political change and social justice, particularly with regards to issues of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability. Drawing from interdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives, we will examine the role of visual and performance art within public spaces in shaping and furthering social movements and protest. Some possible themes and issues include public memory, artistic citizenship, counterpublics, "material" and "immaterial" artistic forms, and the collective impact of art activism on the social imagination.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
S. Russell
Prereq: 8 credits in Gender Studies.

GNDST-333SS Advanced Seminar: 'Gender and Class in the Victorian Novel'

Not Scheduled for This Year. Credits: 4

This course will investigate how gender and class serve as structuring principles in the development of the Victorian novel in Britain, paying attention to the ways in which the form also develops in relation to emerging ideas about sexuality, race, nation, and religion. Novelists include Bronte, Dickens, Eliot, and Gaskell and we will read examples of domestic fiction, detective fiction, social realist novels, and the Victorian gothic.

Crosslisted as: ENGL-323
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
A. Martin
Restrictions: This course is open to juniors and seniors
Prereq: 8 credits in English.
Notes: meets English department 1700-1900 requirement

GNDST-333UU Advanced Seminar: 'Latina/o Immigration'

Spring. Credits: 4

The course provides an historical and topical overview of Latina/o migration to the United States. We will examine the economic, political, and social antecedents to Latin American migration, and the historical impact of the migration process in the U.S. Considering migration from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, we will discuss the social construction of race, the gendered nature of migration, migrant labor struggles, Latin American-U.S. Latino relations, immigration policy, and border life and enforcement. Notions of citizenship, race, class, gender, and sexuality will be central to our understanding of the complexity at work in the migration process.

Crosslisted as: LATST-360, CST-349UU
Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Community-Based Learning
D. Hernández
Restrictions: This course is open to juniors and seniors
Notes: Community-based learning is optional in this class.

GNDST-333VV Advanced Seminar: 'Women Experimental Filmmakers'

Spring. Credits: 4

This seminar examines experimental cinema made by women from the early 1950s, during the earliest years of the movement known as the American Avant-Garde, through the 1990s. While the class will read feminist film theory and see the work of such well-known filmmakers as Yvonne Rainer, Sally Potter, and Chantal Akerman, we will also examine the less familiar but highly influential films of women working in the home movie or diary mode, with particular emphasis on the work of Marie Menken.

Crosslisted as: FMT-330EX
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
R. Blaetz
Prereq: One of the following: FMT-102, FMT-103, FMT-230CN, FLMST-201, FLMST-202, or FLMST-203.

GNDST-333WE Advanced Seminar: 'Weird Feelings: Unsettling Latin American Short Fiction'

Fall. Credits: 4

In this course we will read and discuss a group of short stories written by contemporary female, queer and trans Latin American authors. These stories deal with (among other weird feelings and states) the uncanny, the unsettling and the horror of daily life as well as processes of becoming, embodiment and disidentification. This course considers the intersections of identity and imagination, race, gender, and class. Special attention is given to the way in which these writings depict oppression and resilience and how they reinvent the Latin American short story writing tradition. Authors may include Ivan Monalisa, Guadalupe Nettel, Mariana Enriquez, Camila Sosa, and Claudia Salazar.

Crosslisted as: SPAN-330WE
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive
A. Pitetta
Prereq: Two 200-level Spanish courses above SPAN-212.
Notes: Taught in Spanish.

GNDST-392 Senior Seminar

Fall. Credits: 4

This capstone course brings seniors together to think through relationships among empirical research, theory, activism, and practice in gender studies and critical social thought. Majors with diverse interests, perspectives, and expertise will have the opportunity to reflect on, and share with each other, the significance of their major education in relation to their current and past work, their capstone or senior projects, their academic studies as a whole, and their engagements outside of academia. Course readings and discussion will be shaped by students in collaboration with the instructor.

Crosslisted as: CST-350
Applies to requirement(s): Humanities
Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive
S. Smith
Restrictions: This course is limited to seniors.; This course is limited to CST or Gender Studies majors.

GNDST-395 Independent Study

Fall and Spring. Credits: 1 - 8

The department
Instructor permission required.