Women's & Gender Studies (WS)

Students will learn about histories of feminist resistance and how feminist, gender, and sexuality studies are a part of those histories. Topics may include: histories of both dominant and insurgent feminist activism in New York City, Pleasantville, and the surrounding area, the U.S., or North America/Turtle Island; debates among feminist scholars and activists in articulating feminist studies and practice; and the role of so-called “western” feminisms in shaping and being shaped by the concept of the “west".

This class is an introduction to gender studies, using both historical and contemporary material, and transnational contexts. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to gender, studying the topic from the perspectives of science and technology; citizenship and the state; and cultural representations and consumption. The course draws on a variety of disciplines, including history, literary criticism, sociology, economics, and anthropology. Students will complete at least 20 hours of community service over the course of the semester, in an organization that serves women and/or children, or the LGBTQ community. Students may NOT take both WS 115C and WS 115 for credit, since these courses are substantially similar.

The U.S. Black feminist framework of intersectionality is crucial for understanding the interlocking nature of social constructs such as gender, race, class, and more, as well as how marginalized communities name and confront how systems of oppression interact. Students will learn about this framework and well as its potential applications throughout the world, which may include: examining the legacies of various empires and colonial rule (such as British, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, etc.); comparative case studies of particular types of oppression; and/or, how gender, race, class, and other constructs matter in the context of global phenomena (such as climate change, neoliberalism, humanitarianism, etc.)

This course examines the interdependence of the categories gender, race and class in world history and literature, in recent cultural theory, and in contemporary lives. It considers both cultural and political conflicts that arise from the postcolonial global landscape and the oppression of marginalized peoples and analyzes how gender, race, and class roles are constructed, negotiated, and manipulated through literature and other media.

This course incorporates history, sociology, political science, economics, psychology, geography, and theory in order to understand and appreciate the queer experience. The course begins with an overview of important historical periods from Ancient Greece through the Stonewall Uprisings (1969) to the modern movements and issues. We will explore the theoretical positions of sexologists, scientists, physicians, and psychologists and their attempts to define gender and sexual variation. Other topics include same-sex marriage and families, the creation of local communities, political propositions, "outing," religious identities, and homo-economics. Methodology includes lectures, films, class discussion, and visits to archives, the LGBT Center and points of historical interest.

This course explores the practices, strategies, and tactics in which nonprofit organizations and social movements engage to create and sustain social justice efforts in varied, diverse communities. Students will study the function of nonprofit governance, philanthropy and fundraising, marketing and the role of social media messaging, strategic planning and volunteer recruitment in the practice and professionalization of social justice efforts. Based on critical feminist studies of nonprofits, students will consider how socio-cultural, economic, and political structures of power intersect with notions of ‘doing good’ in public life. Topics will include: nonprofit industrial complex; institutional racism and nonprofits; the white savior complex in fundraising and philanthropy; BIPOC organizations and leadership; feminist politics in the nonprofit world; decolonizing wealth; gender and global development; representational politics and voice; forms of organized resistance; and building transformative visions of justice, among others. This class counts for the Nonprofit Studies undergraduate minor and will prepare students for advanced courses in WS, PJS, and other disciplines including graduate work in the Public Administration program. All references to pre-professional skills are approached from feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial perspectives, and will not include nonprofit management.

This course explores the connections between science fiction, gender, race, sexuality, and feminisms. We will examine these connections not only as they are represented in science fiction stories, TV shows, and films, but also as they are embodied in the fan communities that have developed alongside science fiction, as it grew as a genre. Both science fiction entertainments and science fiction fan communities existed and developed inside broader national cultures, and they participated in and were influenced by political, technological, and social change. This course will explore how this fictional genre and fan community changed over the last century. In particular, we will examine how second wave feminism and other social justice movements after 1970 were reflected in the work of feminist science fiction authors and fans, and how the development of the Internet after 1990 transformed both the genre and the fan communities that surround science fiction entertainments. Our exploration of the genre and community will include science fiction written by BIPOC authors, and the experience of fans of color within science fiction fandom.

This course is intended to provide a broad array of information from both academic and popular sources on a variety of hot-button sexuality issues, and to critique them using the concepts of intersectionality, i.e., how inequitable cultural forces interact to discriminate or oppress, and social construction, i.e., how social realities and institutions are created and perpetuated, how they operate in the social landscape, and how we as individuals can work to maintain the status quo or to influence change. In this pursuit we will examine the social construction of gender, male and class privilege, women’s sexual agency, facets of sexual identity, the sexualization of girls and young women, feminist sexuality activism, the social construction of the physical body, sex work and sex trafficking, the politics of abortion, rape and consent, pornography and the pornification of culture, the commercialization and medicalization of sexuality, and various economies of sex. Sexuality is a complex, intriguing, life affirming, disconcerting, and often very complicated facet of our lives. You may find some of the topics that we interrogate in this course to be enlightening, liberating, or somewhat, even very uncomfortable to think about and discuss, especially when deeply held personal experiences or religious beliefs may be challenged. It’s important that we allow for the spectrum of viewpoints in class discussions, and give each person the respect that we expect for ourselves. If you find any topic for discussion particularly difficult or problematic for any reason, please see me after class or in my office to discuss your feelings.

Reading literary and historical works from many cultures, students will gain a better understanding of how artistic endeavors connect to the everyday lives of women and men. Students will also continue to work on their writing skills.

This course examines a range of literatures written by or about women in the Middle Ages. The study of literature will be complemented by readings from historical analyses of medieval women, along with slide lectures on medieval art history on three themes: medieval women at work, women as readers, and women as saints.

According to the United Nations, children and youth constitute a high percent of the world’s population. This 3-credit course examines key issues in the lives of girl children including, international rights, gender development, gender stereotypes, globalizations, child trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, girls affected by armed conflict, education and schooling, child labor, gender-based violence, female genital mutilation, health and health care. Through an analysis of the ways that gender, race and class intersect, students will have the opportunity to examine the multitude of ways that access to different levels of the social hierarchy allows them to differently negotiate culture, thus increasing or decreasing among other things, their happiness, stress safety, health, and psychological well being. This course is approved for AOK3 and AOK5.

This course focuses on the past three centuries in North America and Western Europe in order to understand the ways in which the historical cultures of those regions developed particular anxieties which drove the creation of new norms, stereotypes and roles related to gender and sexuality. We will also investigate the ways in which queer identities and sub-cultures grew from the many points of resistance to such norms. Few cultures have developed as many penal, medical, and popular bodies of knowledge and techniques to police the gender and desire of individuals. The course begins with a brief survey of classical Mediterranean sexualities in order to understand the historical distinctions between concepts of homoeroticism and gender ambiguity in antiquity and modern times. We then turn to an examination of the 18th century in order to examine the growth of urban subcultures of gender deviance, along with attempts by Europeans to come to terms with gender and sexual differences in the cultures they encountered in the colonial world. The course will cover the emergence of sexual discourses in the human sciences and bohemian and “free love” cultures that emerged during the nineteenth century, and survey the queer sub-cultures, communities, and politics that surfaced in the urban industrial economies of cosmopolitan centers like London, San Francisco, and Berlin during the early twentieth century. The Second World War and the surrounding historical circumstances proved a significant event, with sometimes tragic consequences, for queer people. The course then turns to an examination of the post-war era, centering on the international Homophile Movement as well as the more radical Gay Liberation Movement influenced by New Left Radicalism, Women’s Liberation, and Post-Colonial Nationalist Movements that convulsed much of the world in the 1960s and 1970s. The course concludes with a discussion of the effects of the devastating HIV/AIDS Pandemic of the 1980s and 1990s.

This course examines how our consumption impacts the commonly-held core values of our society. We will focus on issues of sex and sexuality and look at them through lens of women's and gender theory and basic principles of economics. The course will focus on changes in supply and demand, income distribution, consumer behavior and other economic factors and address how our consumption impacts what we believe about sexuality, pornography, gender, our bodies, and our health.

This paired learning community explores violence and issues of violence as they relate to women and women's bodies. The courses would define "violence" as it pertains to mental, emotional, and physical acts of violence towards women in the U.S. and abroad, focusing on such prevailing issues as domestic violence, rape, pornography, and global violence against women, as well as movements towards fighting the patriarchal hegemony that allows such atrocities. We will incorporate films and guest speakers, along with visits to institutions and / or attendance at lectures or events that empower and / or support women.

This course examines the interdependence of the categories gender, race and class in world history and literature, in recent cultural theory, and in contemporary lives. It considers both cultural and political conflicts that arise from the postcolonial global landscape and the oppression of marginalized peoples and analyzes how gender, race, and class roles are constructed, negotiated, and manipulated through literature and other media.

This Learning Community examines the interdependence of the categories gender, race and class in a variety of literary genres, media, and in the contemporary lives. Through written assignments and class discussion, students will examine how gender, race, and class roles are constructed, negotiated, and manipulated through literature and other media.

This paired learning community is geared for those whose majors do not require a specific math class and who would like to explore cultural issues in depth. These courses will examine stereotypes of gender, race, and class from ancient to modern times through the lens of mathematical studies. We will examine how these three categories intersect and become intertwined in social reality. How can math be used to describe and analyze those realities?

This learning community covers the subjects of women's economic inequality, women's economic contribution and how globalization impacts women around the globe. The class first focuses on traditional women's roles within the family, the age of women entering into the workforce, and areas where women are leaders. Other topics are the working conditions and wages women are paid compared to men, and possible means to improve the status of women in the economy. Examples come from the United States, as well as countries around the globe.

This Learning Community examines current and historical differences in pay and employment experience between women and men, and between whites and ethnic and racial minorities. It explores the interdependencies of gender, race,and class in world history, literature, and cultural theory in post-colonial culture. Explanations of the differentials and trends are surveyed; in particular, a variety of economic and cultural theories of discrimination are explored. Students examine definitions of class, data on class differences, and how gender, race, and class roles are constructed, negotiated, and reproduced.

This course examines motherhood as a social, historical, and literary construct. We will discuss how motherhood was defined in a variety of historical cultures: the work assigned to or expected of mothers; the ideal of the "good mother;" the relationship between mothers and fathers; and the legal position of mothers. At the same time, we will examine motherhood and mothers in a variety of literary texts from the same periods, discussing motherhood as metaphor. Students will also design their own Web pages on a maternal figure or topic.

What does it mean to "be a man"? This course examines men and masculinity in the light of contemporary gender theories and will discuss men's relations to violence, culture, the family, sexuality, the women's movement, and each other.

This course introduces students to a broad range of lesbian-identified literature and film. Because of difficulties in defining what constitutes lesbianism prior to 1860, the course will take a social constructionist perspective and will focus on literature written after 1900. Structured historically, the course will cover many genres-- novels, short story, plays, films, popular culture, and poetry.

People think of anyone else’s life in terms of their own experiences; the same is true of how one imagines the gay male experience. The prevailing imagine of gay men is usually that of a young, urban, middle-class, university-educated, thin, able-bodied, cis-gendered, white male. Yet no one image of a gay man can represent that of all gay men. In this class, we will examine the limited ways the gay male experience continues to be portrayed. The course takes a sociological approach to exploring past and present representations of male homosexuality and the communities and lives that gay men have created and navigated.

The legends of King Arthur, Guinevere, Morgan le Fay and the Holy Grail have held our imaginations for more than eight centuries. From brief mention in chronicles and old songs, poets and writers have fashioned one of the greatest epics in all literature, stories so real that we still wonder whether Arthur's court actually existed. This course will examine a range of writings about the women of King Arthur's court from the earliest chronicles to the twelfth-century romances of Chrétien de Troyes and the later stories told by Chaucer and Malory. Modern interpretations of the legends will be explored through several films including: Ladyhawke (1985) Tristan & Isolde (2006), Excalibur (1981), The Sword of Lancelot (alt., Lancelot and Guinevere, 1963), and King Arthur (2004), with clips from Camelot, Lovespell, and the Mists of Avalon

This course is designed for Women's and Gender Studies majors and minors, but is open to all students. Students will work eight hours or more per week in an internship placement. The weekly class meeting will focus on readings and discussions about gender, race, class and labor history, conditions of the contemporary workforce, sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, and the feminization of poverty. Credit Badge: Immigration Advocacy and Policy.

The word “queer” implies that the vast range of stigmatized sexualities and gender identifications, far from being marginal, are central to the construction of modern subjectivity. One premise of this course is that cinema does not merely “reflect” but actually produces disparate-normative and queer-constructions of sexuality and gender through specific cinematic structures and conventions. Therefore, a key concern of the class will be to explore issues important to both queer theory and the study of film, including questions of desire, identification, representation, spectatorship, cultural appropriation, and performativity. A second premise is that identity categories do not function in isolation. Therefore, another central concern of the course will be to explore to what extent the project of queer theory engages in dialogue with other politically motivated inquiries such as the African American rhetorical tradition of Signifying (g) or post-colonial mimicry.

This course provides an introduction to the variety of issues involved in study of women in film. The class focuses both on representations of women in film and films made by women. Each two-week segment of the course will pair two films from different historical eras: these films will be discussed in relationship to changing issues in feminist film theory and the changes in representation over time. Themes to be discussed include: the fetishization of the female image, female directors in the Hollywood industry, the relationship between representations of race and gender, the female action hero, and the “femme fatale”.

This course considers gender and power as they are represented in science fiction stories, novels and films. In particular, we will analyze the social and ideological functions of works such as “Frankenstein”, “Star Wars”, “The Left hand of Darkness”, and “Alien”, addressing them not only in their original cultural context but as present day texts. Students will complete a series of formal essays and produce one short story or film.

This course examines transnational feminist theories in order to better understand contemporary global feminist campaigns. We will do a transnational feminist reading of Audre Lorde's work and examine key thinkers regarding (post-/neo-/de-) colonialism, militarization, racial and gender violence, queer disabilities, political economy, humanitarianism, peace activism, and development. We will use methods such as role play, performance art, social experiments, and global case studies to examine how transnational feminists theories can articulate the pitfalls and possibilities of global activism. In order to address the politics of how we learn, all course readings are by nonwestern feminists, feminists with marginalized religious identities, or feminists of color and include both "classic" feminist texts and lesser known emerging feminist scholarship. We will challenge ourselves and each other to both learn and practice transnational feminist theory. Counts for WS theory requirement; POL theory requirement; PJS elective.

Transgender Studies charts a dynamic yet underexplored field within the history and culture of the LGBTQ "trans': androgyny and genderqueer; cross-dressing and drag; two-spirit or third gender concepts; transsexualism feminism; race, ethnicity; class, and dis/ability; representations of the body in legal and medical discourse; and gender queer theory, psychoanalysis, history, anthropology, and sociology; and documentary and narrative film.

This class explores the phenomenon of "girl culture" as it has been represented in recent mainstream cinema in the United States. It examines the unlikely feminist heroines of "fin de millenium" popular film, paying particular attention to issues of race, class, ethnicity, education, sexuality, psychology, and geography. The course analyzes the notion of "Third Wave" feminist popular cultural production, in order to empower students to question dominant stereotypes, and to critique prevailing conceptions of feminist agency and political efficacy.

This course examines the exercise of power by women in America today - with an emphasis on women in public life. Students will study major figures in women's political history, looking for pathways to power for ordinary citizens as well as national leaders. They will examine myths and facts about gender performance and debate why issues like Title 9 and an Equal Rights Amendment still stir controversy. Students will conduct classroom exercises on making the system work, from the neighborhood level to President of the United States. In addition to class meetings, students will also complete 25 hours of volunteer work and research on their communities over the course of the semester.

War and peace gendered concepts; specifically, peace is considered "feminine" and war is thought to be "masculine." This course investigates both the validity and ramifications of such assumptions. We will discuss the impact of war on women as civilians, victims, refugees, widows, and combatants.

This course will delve into the social construction of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, GBLT identities with a diverse array of sources. Ranging from Gloria Anzaldua's "Borderlands/La Frontera" to the works of Michael Foucault and Robert Stoller, this course encapsulates the experiences that are insular to GBLT people but also differences among groups within this community. Of particular interest is how gay identity is created by language and the use of certain symbols to deconstruct what formerly appears to be fixed, a prioratic categories for understanding gender. Course work will consist of a series of short papers culminating in a (15 - 20) page thesis paper, the latter developed over the course of the semester with the Instructor.

Throughout the ages women have been assigned the role of "Other." This course looks closely at the ways through which this "otherness" has been constructed and institutionalized. It explores some of the methods used to marginalize and control women, and examines how patriarchies have socially, politically, culturally, and economically attacked those who rebelled against their own marginalization and oppression. It looks at the treatment of witches, feminist radicals, scientists, intellectuals, and women in the arts. This course is where students examine through history, art, literature, film and sociology the lives women who have challenged and helped destabilize male hegemony. This course is especially recommended for Sociology/Anthropology and Women's & Gender studies majors. It is restricted from online registration. Please email Dr. Nancy Reagin at nreagin@pace.edu, if you want to register for this course.

This course explores anti-feminist bias in the media. The student will write a series of short papers on how various media represent women's issues and then complete a lengthier article on the subject to be submitted to an academic journal.

This course will examine film representations of gender and race. We will explore the politics of representation in these films, in both formal and thematic terms. We will further ask how gender and race are made visible in popular culture, and how/when film can be a tool of resistance for women and minorities.

This class will examine dramatic, poetic, and printed representation of desire and sexuality in early modern Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. In particular, it will seek to define the particular, historical interplay between various early modern models of relation, sexual energy, and sexual identity. Modern sexuality can seem especially binary; this class works to expand our field of investigation and provide a more dynamic and nuanced study of the operation and formation of sexualized categories.

Melodrama is a mode of heightened emotion that typically sees the world as divided into clear good and evil. We will look at the history and theory of the genre paying particular attention to how gender, race, and class function within melodrama, as well as some of the ways that this can shed light on certain ways of looking at contemporary issues, such as racial conflict and terrorism.

This course will provide students with foundational knowledge of LGBTQ culture and history in America, while challenging preconceived notions and "norms" brought to the class, with the goal of creating more aware and engaged citizens.

Drawing on examples from antiquity to the present day, this course examines Asian and Asian American women as symbols of power and as figures of resistance in the realms of kinship and sexuality, literacy and the literary arts, politics and activism, and a range of performance cultures.

This course offers a sex-positive approach to the study of sexuality and society. It explores the sociocultural context of sexuality; considers the social norms that govern sexual behavior; interrogates the sexual attributes and practices we take for granted; examines how social factors (race/ethnicity, religion , education, economics status, among others) influence sexual activity and its meaning; and looks into how sexuality is shaped by social institutions such as law, politics, media and medicine. The course wrestles with the tension between the social construction and control of sexuality, and examines the resistance to both.

This course is designed to introduce students to the practices of social change through a feminist lens. Students will experience the interfaces of empirical knowledge and activist practice by researching, identifying, organizing, and implementing a community-engaged class activism project. They will learn essential leadership skills and then apply those leadership abilities to contemporary issues of concern while simultaneously learning to work as a team. As students look to “change the world”, they will utilize acquired strategies and activist tactics from the course to influence social, political, cultural and/or economic change.

This course explores the geographies of girlhood in transnational and global contexts with special consideration given to the socio-cultural and geopolitical construction of girlhood. Drawing from a range of disciplines, girlhood studies centers girls' voices and perspectives while simultaneously recognizing the ways in which girlhoods are shaped by ever-changing economic, political, cultural, familial, national and global systems of power. In this course, we will trace the production and consumption of 'the girl' in diverse geopolitical locations. This exercise in mapping the geographies of transnational girlhood allows us to reconsider what it is that we think we know about girls' lives in the Global South (and subsequently the Global North), generating new perspectives, understandings, and opportunities for relational solidarity and growth.

This course will explore the complex interaction between sexuality and urban spaces. Our main focus will be the various ways in which metropolitan institutions, structures, and cultures have determined normative rules of gender and sexuality that reflect the intersections of class, race, and sexual orientation. At the same time, we will explore contested spaces that house forbidden sexualities, nonconformist gender practices, and conceals desires. Emphasis will be placed on the shifting relations of power between genders at different moments and in countries of the continent,. That way, we will examine the circulation of gendered meanings, discourses and manifestations that are part of urban life in some important cities of the Americas.

This course will explore how different ideas about race, ethnicity, and gender have greatly influenced Latin American politics, culture, and daily life from the Colonial era to the present. In this class we will study the ways in which race and ethnicity have been defined in Latin American studies, and also how these categories have intersected with ideologies and practices in different countries of the region, and also with other categories of analysis, mainly gender, sexuality, and class. Among the themes we will explore are: scientific racism, nationalism and xenophobia, interracial relationships, social movements, and cultural representations of women and men.

This course is designed as an interdisciplinary specialtopics course focused on contemporary forms of youth resistance in the United States. It introduces students to critical literatures from youlh and childhood studies, gender studies, political science, popular culture, sociology, and digital media studies in order to understand what youth resistance and rebellion means in the 21st century. We will examine how young people become activists driven to change the wor1d and in doing so investigate their involvement with U.S. social movements including the March for Our Lives, Black Lives Matter, Dakota Access Pipeline, Occupy Wallstreet, Carry That Weight, #MeToo and Trans Activism among others. With an emphasis on young people as essential social movement actors, this course makes visible youth activist strategies and practices. We moreover think about the ways in which age matters to activist praxis. From political demonstration and protest to digltal media, podcasts, and hashtag activism, young people not only challenge normative structures of power but also theorize new visions of social justice. In this course we situate contemporary youth resistance among radical feminist, queer, anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist histories and social movements.

While nonsexual lifestyles and nonerotic structures of intimacy are by no means new, the formation of an asexual community in the early 2000s and the attendant construction of asexuality as a viable sexual identity have compelled scholars of gender and sexuality studies to rethink much of what we thought we knew about sex. In this course, we will mobilize asexuality as a new category of analysis to ask, what challenges does asexuality bring to dominant understandings of sexual desire and relationships? And what new ideas does it contribute to feminist and queer studies? Throughout the course, we will approach a growing archive of asexual experience with an intersectional lens attuned to asexuality’s interaction with gender, hetero/sexuality, dis/ability, race/ethnicity, religion, age, and other social categories. We will disentangle pathologized asexuality from desexualization; explore an array of a/nonsexual practices and identities; enter ongoing debates on the politics of sexual refusal; and center nonerotic and non-dyadic structures of intimacy, such as singlehood, romantic friendship, and nonmonogamy. Given the interdisciplinary nature of this field, our readings will span sociology, critical health studies, medical anthropology, disability studies, literary studies, media studies, and queer and feminist theory. This course fulfills the requirements of an AOK2 (Western Heritage) course.

The two terms that name this course — queer and performance — are as concrete as they are elusive. What exactly is queer? Is it an adjective or a verb? Embodied or enacted? What exactly is performance? Is it a practice, an improvisation or a staged production? This interdisciplinary course will introduce students to feminist, queer and trans- studies as they relate to the field of performance studies in order to theorize “queer performance.” Taking gender and sexuality as the lens through which to consider performance and vice versa, this course asks: what can queer performance teach us about aesthetics, politics and the social world? How are gender and sexuality mobilized in and as performance? Students will work with an expansive sense of performance – including performance art, theater, music, dance, new media, writing, activisms and performances of everyday life – to examine the ways in which gender and sexuality are enacted, felt, choreographed, listened to, staged, and improvised. In this course, students will be familiarized with current debates and key concepts in the fields, such as gender performativity, disidentification, embodiment, affect, queer of color critique, etc. They will develop a working vocabulary and theoretical toolbox to interpret and analyze enactments of gender and sexual dissidence. We will ask after the artistic and activist practices that queer and trans of color performance foreground, honoring its legacy to “third-world,” Chicana and Black feminisms. Conceiving theory and praxis together, we will pair our readings with contemporary performances and will explore ethnographic methods for documenting and writing about queer and trans- performance. Our objects of study will comprise a broad array of performances, such as Zoe Leonard’s manifesto “I want a president,” the performances of Xandra Ibarra, the poetry of García Lorca in “A Poet in New York,” the recent single “El corrido de Sylvia Rivera,” and the film Casa Roshell by Camila José Donoso.

A vast array of nonprofit organizations are devoted to or include programs on sexuality policy and research, reproductive rights, abortion, contraception, gay, lesbian, transgender, and intersex issues. This course highlights internship and job opportunities in non-profit organizations that focus on or include sexuality and reproductive justice issues. Course materials from both scholarly and popular sources will broaden students’ knowledge on sexuality, abortion, contraception, and the medicalization of sexuality and will provide them with significant advantages when competing in this vibrant and dynamic job market.

This course invites you into academic and activist conversations about different forms of feminist disability justice, including: how embodied differences are constructed, interpreted, and acted upon in medical, social, educational, and professional contexts; the distribution (and dismantling) of disciplinary power and social control; and the reimagining of embodied resistance, care work, and collective liberation. You’ll be introduced to antiracist, feminist, queer, and trans frameworks to explore how systems of oppression, medicalization, and normalization shape the disabled experience and activism. In doing so, we will center disability as a complex, changing social contruct, rather than a pathologizing deficit-based label, that is context-dependent and examine the role of behaviors often deemed negative—like trickery and complaint—in disabled experience and activism.

This is a NYC travel course: students will attend meetings of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations for two full weeks in March (including Spring Break). It provides an introduction to the evolution of women’s rights and gender equality in the international human rights system coupled with a 10-day intensive learning experience at the annual meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (or CSW), held in New York City. It gives students a foundational understanding of human rights and gender equality mechanisms designed to address systemic inequalities across gender, sexuality race/ethnicity, class, nationality, age, religion, and disability status. Throughout the semester, we will investigate the shifting terrain of human rights thinking and practice giving particular attention to how critical gender analyses and transnational feminist activism has shaped and continues to influence human rights. Students will receive UN delegate passes and will be required to participate fully in ten days of CSW session for two weeks in March.

In this multi-genre course we will study and practice the craft of creative writing, with a focus on what it means to write for social justice. You will be introduced to the elements of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. In each unit, you will complete regular in-class and out-of-class exercises, working toward the development of a short manuscript in each genre (experiments across genres very welcome). Throughout the course, we will be considering arguments about the relationship between writing and social justice, and developing our own. How have we been shaped, personally and politically, by reading and writing? In what ways have systems of power and oppression shaped who and how we read; who and what we write about; how we write and view our writing? What potential impact can we-through what we write-have on communities and institutions? What does it mean to write from an intersectional feminist perspective? How might a queer or trans or crip mode of writing operate? How have conversations about writing for social justice changed over time?

Black Sexualities and Creative Resistance critically investigates the systemic injustices and processes at play that have pathologized the sexuality of African American from the 16th century onwards. Our historical journey will span from the early contact of Europeans with the indigenous populations of Africa to the current death toll of Black transgender women and the marginalization of Black queer families. One important aspect of our scholarly investigations will be the scrutiny of the dissident voices, counter-images, and creative strategies that have undermined dominant powers, and the compelling ways Black communities have negotiated intimacy and fantasies despite adversities. The course also pays a special attention to the work of Black Trans and Queer communities who have pathed the way from the late 1970s onwards toward a radical transformation of sexual cartographies.

What is a feminist economic framework? How does gender(s) shape the global economy and people’s economic experiences, and how does gendered, racialized and sexualized thinking influence the study and methodology of economics itself? The course explores readings from various disciplines/approaches including contemporary as well as contemporary critiques of economics –feminist, critical race, queer, postcolonial, and decolonial. Topics include racial economic inequality; intersectionality; economic coloniality, paid and unpaid work; “women’s” empowerment; care labor; capitalist and postcapitalist politics; family and household, among others. Students will learn how to apply feminist economic approaches to solving problems related to these topics.

Gender is an organizational issue and its affects both how we help women and families in need, and who helps them. Using the perspective of gender equity, the course will explore women’s impact on nonprofit organizations from leadership roles to work on the front lines. We will examine how gender, diversity and leadership are social constructions that can be transformed to maximize women’s contributions to the sector. The course uses a variety of conceptual frameworks which will foster students’ understanding of the factors that influence gender and inclusion in organizations and how these dynamics shape the work of nonprofits. Students will identify and analyze a specific nonprofit that has successfully addressed issues of gender equity internally and externally through its program repertoire. They will also explore several practice areas such as program design and management, planning, fundraising issues and program evaluation for non-profits.

Since 1945, European cultures have experienced waves of migration and population transfers: “guest workers” drawn from the Mediterranean to work in Northern Europe; former colonial subjects who have migrated from Asia or Africa; people relocating between nations within the European Union; and people from Eastern Europe moving west after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This course uses films, novels, and readings from history and political science that incorporate postcolonial theory and draw on feminist transnational studies to examine the ways in which migration and social change have “unsettled” older notions of gender, sexuality, and nationality, resulting in contested understandings about what it means to be "English" or "French," for example. We will explore the shifting intersections of gender and nationality and race as they occur in relationship to European integration, national migration policies, decolonization, the end of the Cold War, and recurring nationalisms. We will also consider how European discourses of race and gender differ from those of the United States.

“Queer” has become a stand-in for the identity category that begins with the letters, “LGBT,” but what does it mean to be queer, in theory? This interdisciplinary course surveys major concepts and schools of thought in the field of Queer Theory in order to explore the meaning of queerness as a category of radical difference that gives LGBT cultures their social distinctiveness as well as their political urgency. We will use a variety of approaches to theoretical framing of gender and sexuality, including an analysis of literature and visual culture; phenomenology and other schools of philosophy; psychoanalysis and other socio-medical discourses; historiography and legal studies; and a focus on pop culture and current events. This course can be used as a substitution for WS 380 for Women and Gender Studies majors and minors.

This course explores the diverse ways that feminist theorists conceptualize gender in society, systems of inequality and the category of "women" itself. Students will gain an understanding of evolving ideas and debates in feminist theory, relate those feminist practice, and develop their own theoretical and analytical writing abilities. The course will address the social construction of gender, the relation between feminist theory and activism, and how feminist have responded to the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in contemporary feminist thinking, as well as in classic feminist texts.

This course examines approaches to research and research methodologies pertaining to the investigation of women, gender, and sexuality. These research methods will focus on how feminist scholars have used methodology and theories in their fields of knowledge.. The course will also provide students with basic tools to apply social science feminist methods in their own research, such as how to incorporate feminist theories, how to develop research questions and hypothesis, the use of a variety of sources, the critical and ethical use of evidence, and the planning and structure of a research project. This course will provide the basis for WS499 WGS Senir Capstone where students will produce elaborated research projects.

Capstone in Women's and Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary, multi-method, student-driven course that challenges WGS students to produce individual research and/or activism-based projects to complete their disciplinary major in Women's & Gender Studies. Under the guidance of the course instructor, students will choose a research topic and/or social justice concern, and draft and implement a research project that applies feminist theories, methodologies, and methods to produce new knowledge within the field. Students will present on their work to WGS faculty at the end of the term, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of their chosen topics as well as submit their final 20-25 page paper.