Courses
2022 - 2023
For this academic year's course catalog, please visit our Academic Catalog site. For courses currently offered, please refer to the Schedule of Classes.

A survey of the legal regulation of sexuality and gender in the 19th and 20th centuries and the emergence of modern civil rights movements of sexual minorities. This course will focus on the history, strategies, conflicts, and issues associated with these political and social movements.

This course introduces students to the many conflicted attitudes and images around men, women, and sexuality found in the Bible, from the very different creations of Adam and Eve to Revelation's representation of the Roman Empire as the "whore" of Babylon; from the assertive and sexually suspicious female figures of Ruth and Rahab to Jesus' uncertain masculinity in accounts of his death. We will ask: does the Bible support heterosexuality and decry homosexuality? In addition to close, historically-oriented study of select biblical texts, students will be acquainted with core readings in contemporary gender theory.
Crosslisting: REL 108, WGST 108.

A general category used only in the evaluation of transfer credit.

As experiences, pain and healing would seem to be straightforward: something is broken or hurting, and is in need of fixing. But what is seen to be “broken” and how to “fix” it are always culturally and historically specific; and they change with time. What’s more, our diagnoses for suffering or illnesses (what we might think of as interruptions) often say as much about the cultural context and historical moment in which people live as they do about any strictly physiological or psychological experience. This course explores a range of themes around bodily wholeness and bodily breakdown in contemporary worlds and in the ancient world (including ancient Christian literature, ancient medical literature, and ancient practices around illness and healing). It asks how ancient people understood their symptoms and their illnesses in relationship to the larger social body and divine beings, comparing these notions with contemporary assumptions and practices. It tracks the way body, psyche and society are not always easily distinguished, and the way religion in the contemporary world figures, sometimes invisibly, in diagnosis and treatment. For example, we will explore depression as a symptom of socio-political life, tracking its history before the modern era, including its associations with “sin”; and we will observe how Christian religious morality framed and exacerbated the AIDS crisis. Lastly, we will engage in self-reflective writing about our own experiences with health, illness, and healing.
Crosslisting: CLAS 208, REL 208, WGST 208.

Through a series of drawing and printmaking projects, this studio art course seeks to explore and creatively express queer culture, aesthetics and GLBT art history, as well as notions of identity, gender, orientation and sexuality. Art students will employ traditions of journalistic comics, collage, screen-printing, photo-copies, community collaborative artistic work (zines) and research presentation projects to not only celebrate queer artistic practices but also reveal the often damaging impact society and politics has on self identity and expression.
Crosslisting: ARTS 213.

This is an upper level photography course that asks students to consider the photograph as a disruptive force with potential energy for re- imagining relationship to self, history, document, and time. Using a specifically BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color), feminist and queer representation of artists and theorists, students will be asked to critically engage with the issues and possibilities of non-dominant story and document. Students will be encouraged and supported to find their own empowered creative and critical voice to speak back to traditionally white hetero-patriarchal power. Students will use digital cameras (DSLR’s) to capture both still images and video. Students will further their knowledge of Lightroom, Photoshop, and learn basics of Adobe Premiere.
Crosslisting: ARTS 217, WGST 217.

Queer Theory is an interdisciplinary course designed to introduce students to historical and theoretical treatments of topics such as the essentialism vs. constructionism debate; intersections of race/gender/class and sexual orientation; science and representation; performativity and normativity; and ethics, politics, and law.

In this class we will examine and evaluate the cultural construction and representation of gender and sexuality in contemporary American mass media, and trace their development throughout the 20th century. We will focus on a variety of mass-produced commercial media texts, surveying television, magazines, advertising, and popular music. Although gender is the primary identity construction examined in the course, we will also pay close attention to other aspects of identity that define American women, such as ethnicity, class, and sexuality. We will investigate representational issues in relation to their political repercussion, and draw from a broad range of academic literature, including feminist television criticism, film theory, cultural studies, communication theory, and popular music criticism.
Crosslisting: COMM 229, WGST 229.

An introductory study of the Black experience in America, this course will survey the field by examining in series, the various social institutions that comprise Black American life. Students will be introduced to fundamental contemporary issues in the study of Black religion, politics, economics and the family. Additionally, this course will serve as an introduction to Afrocentricity, "the emerging paradigm in Black Studies," and to the new scholarship on Blacks in America.

This course explores issues in Queer Studies through weekly discussions, often but not exclusively centered around fiction and documentary films selected and screened by faculty and students, as well as readings and other materials to provoke thought and discussion. One of the purposes of this course is to provide students a venue in which to discuss the meanings of sex, gender identity, gender performance, gender roles, and sexual orientation—both in their relationships to each other and their intersections with race, ethnicity, class, religion, culture, and location. Such relationships are central to the themes of the topics course materials selected each semester. The course further seeks to bring a diverse group of faculty and staff together with students to engage in conversation and to learn collaboratively about concepts and themes in Queer Studies. Students may enroll in Queer Night multiple times since the films screened and materials assigned will be different each semester.

This is a special topics course originating in the Dance Department. This course provides a venue in which to explore topics in Dance that meet the requirements of an elective course in the Queer Studies Concentration. Topics will vary according to the needs and interests of the teaching faculty offering the course. In some cases, this course may be repeated for credit.

This is a special topics course originating in the English Department. This course provides a venue in which to explore topics in English that meet the requirements of an elective course in the Queer Studies Concentration. Topics will vary according to the needs and interests of the teaching faculty offering the course. In some cases, this course may be repeated for credit.

Feminism and philosophy both make the invisible visible, the implicit explicit. Both make us aware of assumptions we make in our everyday lives and challenge us to justify them. This course examines ways in which feminist theory enriches philosophy and vice versa. Feminist criticism probes some of the most fundamental philosophical assumptions about our knowledge of and interaction with the world and other people. How does feminism destabilize philosophy and affect philosophical conceptions of knowledge, reality, metaphysics, agency, or morality? How does philosophy enrich feminist understandings of oppression, privilege, or equality? We will consider a range of forms of oppression and privilege, particularly as they affect women, and conceptions of sex, gender, and race in the context of debates about gender violence, work and family, as well as feminist discussions of epistemology, ethics, and science.
Prerequisite(s): One previous course in Philosophy or Women’s and Gender Studies, or consent.
Crosslisting: PHIL 275, WGST 275 .

This is a special topics course originating in the Religion Department. This course provides a venue in which to explore topics in Religion that meet the requirements of an elective course in the Queer Studies Concentration. Topics will vary according to the needs and interests of the teaching faculty offering the course. In some cases, this course may be repeated for credit.

Theology can be understood as a quarrel with normality. With a transcending disposition, it challenges the ideologies of the age with an alternative consciousness. Issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, environmental deterioration, and the death penalty are confronted. Metaphors for God penetrate and deconstruct.
Crosslisting: REL 101.

An introduction to the field of Women’s and Gender Studies, this interdisciplinary course considers the socio-political meanings and practices of gender in our lives. It examines whether gender is biologically or socially constructed and how notions of femininity and masculinity are (re)produced. Students will analyze the workings of power and the social production of inequality in institutions such as the family, the workplace, and the state, taking into account the intersections among gender, race, class, ethnicity, nationality, and sexuality. Topics will include sexual and gender violence, equal rights, reproductive technologies, body image, and transnational feminist issues. A central aim of the course is to develop critical reading and thinking about the plurality of women’s experiences and about the ways in which women have resisted inequalities and engaged in local/global politics for social transformation and change. This course fulfills the Interdivisional (I), Power and Justice (P), and Oral Communication (R) GE requirement.
Crosslisting: WGST 101.

This course reviews psychological research and theories on women. Topics include sex bias in psychological research, gender differences and similarities in personality and abilities, lifespan development, problems of adjustment and psychotherapy, language and communication, women's health, female sexuality, and violence against women (rape and wife battering).
Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100, PSYC 200, and junior or senior status, or consent of instructor.
Crosslisting: PSYC 301, WGST 301.

This course examines various ways of understanding gender by looking at a variety of feminist theories. Theories studied may include psychoanalytic, feminist theory, cultural materialist feminist theory, etc. Particular consideration will be given to issues raised by multiculturalism, women of color, womanist perspectives, queer theory, class concerns, international and transnational movements. The course will introduce students to a variety of theories to enable them both to recognize and use those theories in their research and social practice. Students will be encouraged to become reflective about their own theoretical stances and to consider how societies can move closer to justice for both women and men.
Prerequisite(s): One Women's and Gender Studies course or consent.

This course offers an introduction to the growing interdisciplinary field of Transgender Studies, focusing on key figures and writings that contributed to its development. Transgender Studies is primarily concerned with directing critical concentration on the diversity and politics of gender, the embodied experience of transgender people, as well as the material conditions and representational strategies that surround, enable, and constrain trans* lives. We will consider relevant selections of scholarship in feminist, queer, and transgender studies; first-person and autobiographical writings by transgender people; and media representations of transgender people and politics that are shaping perspectives of gender within our contemporary cultural moment. Transgender scholarship and perspectives made available by transgender lives provide opportunities to consider and critique the range of apparatuses and systems of regulations that produce the limits and frontiers of embodying sex and gender.
Crosslisting: WGST 323.

Historian Joan Wallach Scott once warned that scholars could not simply insert gender into their research as though adding a new room on a house already built; they would have to begin again from the bottom. Considering gender as a cultured way of being in, understanding, and interacting with the world within which we are situated, this seminar queries the conceptualization of gender and sexuality in Buddhism and Buddhist communities across space and time, with particular emphasis on those located in Asia. What does it mean to be a woman, a man, someone of the third sex, or none of the above? What are the Buddhist idea(l)s about femininity, masculinity, and personhood? How do these idea(l)s change with translation and transmission? We will explore together the theories and practices of gender and sexuality proposed by Buddhist communities from its beginnings to the present day. Buddhism’s major conversation partners throughout history – Hinduism, Confucianism, and Daoism – will also be brought into discussion. Previous knowledge of Buddhism is preferred but not required.
Prerequisite(s): No first-year students or by instructor consent.
Crosslisting: REL 328, WGST 328.

This course focuses on (1) the role of interpersonal, social and political communication in the construction of gender expectations in American culture, and (2) how those expectations get communicated/performed, and thus reified, in our daily lives. We will explore the complex interplay between self expectations and social expectations of gender that get expressed, challenged, and ultimately influenced by and within a variety of social and interpersonal contexts: education, the body, organizations, friends and family, romantic relationships, the media, and politics. Crosslisted with: COMM 329, WGST 329.
Prerequisite(s): COMM 280 and COMM 290.

In this seminar students will examine gay and lesbian issues in what is, arguably, the most central social institution in contemporary American culture. We will begin with an introduction to sexuality, drawing upon scientific and historical scholarship, and collectively delineate critical issues regarding sexuality in U.S. schools. We will study Queer Theory as a foundation for the work to follow and read central texts in the queer history of education. We will read major legal documents regarding sexuality in the United States and secondary literature relating to them. In this section our focus will be on students' rights regarding Gay Straight Alliances, safety, and educators' employment rights. We will discuss gay and lesbian issues in a multicultural education framework in terms of issues identified by the class earlier in the semester.

In this course we explore social movements as a primary means of social change. We attempt to understand the conditions which precede, accompany and follow collective action. Particular case studies for analysis will be drawn from the United States and cross-cultural contexts to illustrate that social movements are human products that have both intended and unintended consequences. This course is sometimes taught with a special subtitle: "Social Justice Movements in Communities of Color,".
Prerequisite(s): ANSO 100 or consent.
Crosslisting: BLST 340.

One of the primary ways that social power and control are exercised is through the establishment and enforcement of "norms": gender norms, racial norms, sexuality norms, norms of able-bodiedness, norms of beauty and body size, and more. This course delves deeply into the theoretical literature of normalization, especially the work of Michel Foucault, and applies it to a wide range of topics including sexuality, disability, gender roles, body size, and more.
Prerequisite(s): COMM 280 and COMM 290 or QS 101 or consent of instructor.
Crosslisting: COMM 349.

This is a special topics course originating in the English Department. This course provides a venue in which to explore topics in English that meet the requirements of an elective course in the Queer Studies Concentration. Topics will vary according to the needs and interests of the teaching faculty offering the course. In some cases, this course may be repeated for credit.

Intensive study of drama from 1956 to the present, with an emphasis on British and American playwrights. The course will focus on the issues, problems, techniques, and generic forms particular to contemporary drama, with interest in the emerging drama of minority, female, and gay and lesbian playwrights.
Crosslisting: ENGL 340.

This is a capstone course for the QS concentration during the spring semester, when it may also serve to help students apply Queer Theory to a senior project or honors project in their chosen major.

This course examines the role of language and discourse in constructing, maintaining and transforming identities, publics and politics in late 20th century democracies. Throughout, we will consider the relationship between language use and unequal relations of power. We will begin with an introduction to discourse studies and explore discourse as symbolic power, social practice and ideology. Next, we will examine the role of discourse in constructing and maintaining identities and communities, including those of subaltern and marginalized publics. Finally, we will examine and critique the role of discourse in public sphere(s) from Afrocentric, feminist and queer perspectives.

This course focuses on the historical rhetorics of discontent and transformation. Students will examine the characteristics and functions of persuasive discourse produced by social movements; the ways in which symbolic action sought to shape perceptions of concrete realities. Of particular interest will be the intersection of cultural context, biography, and creative rhetorical strategy.