/ This introductory course focuses on one central question: What difference does gender make? By examining a variety of texts (articles, novels, film, popular culture), we learn not only how to analyze issues of power, gender and identity, but we also relate those issues to the wider world around us. Specific thematic units include socialization, violence, work, the female body, language, sexuality, motherhood and the family, race, globalization, and voices from the third wave of feminism
What does it mean to “Man up!” or “Be A Man!”? Do these expressions have consequences for men and women? Why do men occupy the majority of positions in government leadership and CEO positions in Fortune 500 CEO companies? Is any of this changing? When people say that, “men aren’t what they used to be!” do these people have a firm grasp of history, and what point in history are they referring to? This course will explore these questions and more through an introduction to the sociology of masculinity. While typically, conversations about gender have focused on women, this course will focus on men, their relationships with one another, their relationships with women, and their position in the gendered order. As a women’s and gender studies course, this course will explore systems of inequality that advantage some, and disadvantage others because of their identities. In addition to gender, we will also consider the construction of masculinities along with other identity categories like race, class, religion, dis/ability, age, and sexuality. This course will introduce students to major themes in social justice movements, women’s and gender studies, feminist studies, and sexuality studies within the United States and around the world.
This course is an introduction to the study of race and ethnicity in the lives of U.S. women, providing students with a conceptual vocabulary for investigating questions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class, and an analytical framework within which they can extend their critical thinking on these and related topics. We will explore the ways these intersecting factors of identity have been understood in U.S. culture, fostering both division and unity. We will examine how social institutions such as motherhood, family, the beauty industry, advertising, and education perceive women who identify themselves from various ethnic and racial groups, and how such women construct themselves through language and other means of “talking back” to the institutions in which they live and work. Ultimately, the course analyzes the ways that institutions can be the means of both oppression and empowerment for women, and imagines the opportunities for resisting oppression and organizing for social change. Course materials are interdisciplinary—drawing on sociological, historical, and literary readings, as well as films and music, to reflect a range of cultural experiences.
This course explores queer storytelling in a range of genres and media, including fiction, memoir, poetry, performance, and film. As we investigate how literature shapes the way we understand our relationship to sex, desire, and embodiment, we also engage with a growing body of queer and transgender scholarship in order to think about how our experiences of our bodies are conditioned by our position in the social/political world.
This course explores the meaning and significance of sexuality and sex for human fulfillment. It examines the ethics of intimate and sexual relationships in light of Christian theological and scriptural traditions as well as reason (including social and scientific sources) and contemporary human experience. Specific topics under examination include the “hookup culture” on contemporary college campuses, the social construction of gender and sexual expression, unmarried sexuality, same-sex relations, contraception, abortion, and sexual violence. Students engage with various theological, philosophical, natural and social science sources, including imagery in the popular media, traditional Roman Catholic teaching, “revisionist” theological perspectives, and feminist insights regarding the body, sex and human relationships more generally.
A study of a single topic of special interest to students. When the course is offered, the topic is listed in the timetable of courses.
This course examines race and ethnicity in American-Indian, Latino, African-American and Asian-American texts in the contemporary United States (1960s to present). The course investigates recurrent issues like immigration, memory and identity, and the legacy of slavery as we understand the political and cultural underpinnings of the texts. Writers include Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, Junot Diaz, Sandra Cisneros, Toni Morrison, Walter Mosley, Gish Jen and Don Lee. This course meets the literature and cultural diversity requirement for English majors with secondary-education certification. Spring semester.
Through exploring literary texts by women, this course analyzes how the construction of “woman,” sex and gender has changed over time and investigates how it intersects with issues of race, class, sexuality and nation. By using feminist literary theory, the course engages the most pressing issues in the field from ideas of women’s literary voice to claims that challenge female authorship altogether. Special topics may include contemporary women writers, gender and 19th century novel, and ethnic women writers. Authors may include Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Gloria Anzaldua, Margaret Atwood, Bharati Mukherjee, Leslie Feinberg, Edwidge Danticat or Marjane Satrapi.
This course introduces students to feminist theology as a theology of liberation, examines its foundations in feminist theory and Christian revisionist sources, and explores its contributions to the Christian, especially the Catholic, faith tradition.
This course uncovers the untold and often troubling stories about women in the world of biblical literature. The material provokes thought and dialogue regarding the biblical writers’ perspectives on gender, sexuality and personhood. Students are encouraged to think honestly and courageously about their own assumptions regarding authority and identity and participation in unjust social systems. Students learn new methodologies to analyze gender and sexuality in order to rethink long-held social norms. Throughout the course, students regularly reflect on how biblical representations impact the roles of women and men in contemporary society.
This course will explore women and gender in American history from colonial America to the present. We will examine how gender norms changed throughout history, and how individuals interacted with those norms. We will analyze how women and notions about gender shaped American politics: through cultural trends like fashion; through family and daily life; and through social movements like suffrage, temperance, and welfare rights. We will ask, when did gender constrict the choices that individuals faced, and when did individuals expand and even disassemble gender norms? Alternate years.
Why are some genres of media labeled as feminine or masculine? How are men and women represented in media? What impacts do these representations have on media viewers? This course will explore these questions and more from multiple scholarly perspectives. Various forms of media such as advertising, television, movies, video games, and news will be considered. Fall semester.
This course provides a survey of topics in contemporary feminist philosophy, and it will be divided into four units: (1) Oppression, Gender, & Misogyny; (2) Objectification & Self-Objectification; (3) Consent & Sexual Violence; and (4) Feminist Epistemologies. In our first unit, we’ll discuss concepts that are fundamental to feminist theory, including oppression, gender, and misogyny; and then we’ll consider how sexist and racist oppression relate to and augment each other. In our second unit, we’ll ask questions like: what does it mean to be objectified? Who/what can be objectified and who/what can objectify? Then, in our third unit we’ll turn our attention to the nature of consent and sexual violence. We’ll ask: what is consent? What role does consent play in an ethical sex life? What is rape? How does rape relate to other sexual wrongs? And, finally, we’ll survey some of the recent literature in feminist epistemology, focusing largely on the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice. Prerequisite: PHIL 120. Fall semester, odd-numbered years.
This course engages in an interdisciplinary and multi-media examination of social inequality, focusing on the complex and intersecting ways that social groups gain advantage over and marginalize others. Students examine topics including race (whiteness), sexuality (heterosexuality), gender (masculinity), class (economic and cultural capital) and nationality (global privilege associated with first-world status). This course integrates perspectives on how privilege is reinforced in day-to-day interactions as well as in larger social structures.
Western women played significant roles in British colonies in Africa and India in the fields of education, public health and missionary work. These women believed that they could improve the lives of non-Western women by acculturating them to middle-class, Western and Christian norms. The course will explore how these women tried to reshape key social institutions in Africa and India such as marriage, parenting, medical practices and religion. This course will also explore how the women and men these individuals came to “civilize” in turn shaped the cross-cultural encounter through their powerful reactions to the often unwelcome acculturating messages they received. Spring semester, alternate years.
This course takes a sociology of knowledge approach to the development of feminist theory from the 18th century to the present. A variety of modern and postmodern feminist theories are placed in social, political and historical context. Primary source examples of each school of thought are read, applied and evaluated. Because feminist thought has been a response to the conditions of women throughout history, women’s oppression at various points in history will be covered. Prerequisite: instructor consent. Alternate years.
While gender and sexuality often appear natural, this course investigates their social roots. Throughout the semester students explore the diverse ways in which gender and sexuality have been conceptualized, embodied, shaped, policed and transformed. Additionally, we examine the relationship between gender, sexuality, inequality and major social institutions including education, media, work and family. Finally, we explore the intersections of gender, sexuality, race and class as they relate to a variety of contemporary issues and controversies, including “hooking up,” marriage laws, gender-reassignment surgery and sex education.
A survey of how artists explore and express personal identity, unique bias and social marginalization, and how contemporary art reflects society’s evolving and changing attitudes toward matters of life, love and death.
A study of a single topic of special interest to students. When the course is offered, the topic is listed in the timetable of courses.
A study of a single topic of special interest to students. When the course is offered, the topic is listed in the timetable of courses.
This course allows staff and students to explore together topics of special interest. Prerequisite: approval of the women’s and gender studies advisory committee.
This internship experience allows students to apply their studies in a supervised work situation. Students benefit from an inside look at different kinds of organizations by having a chance to work in their field of study and by gaining experience with state-of-the-art equipment and practices. Prerequisite: junior or senior standing and instructor’s consent.
This course provides students the opportunity to explore how messages about gender and ethnicity are communicated in the United States via multi-media avenues (e.g., literature, imagery, movies, commercials, art, video games) through the employment of content analysis. The discussion of feminist theory and the intersections of gender, sexuality, ethnicity/race, and socio-economic class throughout this course will assist students in deducing how the multi-media avenues they analyze can effectively (or ineffectively) socially condition people’s attitudes and perceptions at any age.
This course examines the topic of women and work historically, with attention to change over time in the work histories of African and American women. Throughout this course, students will explore women’s working lives in the context of the gendered social norms within which they have lived. Within this general framework, the course will examine types of occupations such as domestic work, prostitution, farming, agricultural work, market trading and professional/managerial work. The course will also explore the intersections of work with marriage and parenting and the effects of race and class upon women’s working lives. Alternate years.
