College Schools, Departments & Programs

Gender Studies

Course Descriptions
  • GNDR-G 101 Gender, Culture, and Society (3 cr.) Examination of the international emergence of the field of women’s studies; the achievements and limitations of scholarly work exploring oppression and discrimination based on sex and sex differences; the development of the category “gender” and its uses and abuses; and the relevance of changing understandings of the term “culture” for the study of women, gender, and/or sexuality across diverse historical periods, regions, nations, and societies. Exploration of a series of case studies. Particular attention devoted to the ways in which “gender” as practice, performance, and representation has differed for women and men according to race, class, and other divisions.
  • GNDR-G 102 Sexual Politics (3 cr.) Investigation of cross-cultural meaning for the term “sexual politics,” from Kate Millet’s classic 1970 text to those offered by historians, social scientists, and other critics analyzing political structures, processes and mobilizations around sex, sex differences and sexual practices and statuses, including the inextricable links between sexual politics and “other/ mainstream” politics.
  • GNDR-G 104 Topics in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.) Analysis of selected ideas, trends, and problems in the study of gender across academic disciplines. Explores a particular theme or themes and also provides critical introduction to the challenges of analyzing gender within the framework of different disciplines of knowledge. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-G 105 Sex, Gender and the Body (3 cr.) Examines the diverse and historically varying relationships forged between biological sex, culturally formulated discourses of masculinity and femininity, and the sexed body. With variable title and themes, the course may employ a range of different approaches, depending on the instructor. May be repeated once with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-G 205 Themes in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.) Exploration of a theme or series of themes arising from the study of gender, generally from within a particular discipline or subfield. The course will provide some critical reflection upon the challenges of analyzing gender within the framework of different disciplines of knowledge. Focus on specific instances, topics, or case studies, depending on the instructor. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-G 206 Gay Histories, Queer Cultures (3 cr.) Examines the social, cultural, and political history of same-sex relationships and desires in the United States and abroad, emphasizing the historical emergence of certain American sexual subcultures, such as the modern lesbian and gay “movement” or “community.” The course also highlights particular formations such as race, class, and regional difference that interrupt unified, universal narratives of lesbian and gay history.
  • GNDR-G 215 Sex and Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (3 cr.) Investigation of forms in which gender, gender markings, gender meanings, and gender relations are arranged in different cultures of the world. Assessment of debates concerning the global salience of feminist claims about women’s “oppression,” political mobilization around gender, body rituals marking masculinity and femininity, indigenous women, and resistance to gender formations beyond Euro-American borders.
  • GNDR-G 225 Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture (3 cr.) Examination of popular cultural “makings” of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality through typical representation of gender within fiction, theater, cinema, radio, music, television, journalism, and other secular mass media. Analysis of the developing international telecommunications “superhighway” and struggles to secure increased representation of women and of feminist perspectives within existing culture industries.
  • GNDR-G 230 Gendered Relations (3 cr.) Examines the gendered dynamics of social relations. Explores how gender and sexuality are imagined, constructed, and lived within a diverse set of institutions and cultural locations, such as the military, the antebellum slave plantation, the global sex market, the hospital, and the contemporary workplace.
  • GNDR-G 235 Scientific Understandings of Sex and Gender (3 cr.) Interrogates the evolution of scientific approaches to, and conceptualizations of, the terminology of sex and gender from the perspective of the behavioral, medical, and social sciences. Topics may include: femininity, masculinity, and androgyny; femaleness, maleness, intersex, and transgender; heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality.
  • GNDR-G 250 Race, Sexuality, and Culture (Intersections) (3 cr.) Examines the construction of sexuality and sexuality studies while analyzing the intersection of race and ethnicity in the production of knowledge and particular social categories that shape racial communities and sexual cultures. May employ a range of different approaches, depending on the instructor.
  • GNDR-G 290 History of Feminist Thought and Practice (3 cr.) Introduction to historical and contemporary feminists. Critical focus is placed on criteria by which attributes of identifiable feminist discourses and their contexts may be evaluated. Disputes among feminist theorists with regard to the pertinence of differences ordained by sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, and other political and philosophical adherence emerge as central themes for appraisal.
  • GNDR-G 300 Gender Studies: Core Concepts and Key Debates (3 cr.) P: G101. Examination of the field of gender studies. Students will explore a series of themes through which gender is discussed, analyzed, and defined. Conceptual frameworks of gender, theories of sexuality, and the cultural and historical construction of the body are emphasized. Examination of gender as a contested category ranging across categories of race, ethnicity, class, and nationality.
  • GNDR-G 302 Issues in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.) This topical, variably titled course addresses selected ideas, trends, and problems in the study of gender across academic disciplines. It explores a particular theme or themes and also provides critical reflection upon the challenges of analyzing gender within the framework of different disciplines of knowledge. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-G 303 Knowledge and Sex (3 cr.) Exploration of debates about knowledge as cultural production or representation, implicated in contemporary understandings of gender and sexual difference. Feminist critiques of various disciplines and fields are interrogated, in terms of their justifiability and coherence. Significant differences in interpretations offered by such critics are identified, and their impacts upon areas of knowledge during the twentieth century are assessed.
  • GNDR-G 304 Constructions of Masculinities (3 cr.) An interdisciplinary examination of what constitutes (and has historically constituted) masculinity. Designed to illuminate the contested underpinnings of masculinity.
  • GNDR-G 310 Representation and the Body (3 cr.) Analysis of scholarship concerned with how the body is perceived, represented, and symbolically charged. This course examines concepts that include sexed bodies, desiring bodies, corporeality, body politics, and sociological bodily rituals. Thematically, the course investigates exterior/interior, solid/fluid, and sex/gender distinctions critical to discussions of the body.
  • GNDR-G 325 Technologies of Gender (3 cr.) Investigates “gendered” ways that technological transformations reshape social life, physical space, built environments, or medical research. Familiarizes students with how feminist inquiry remaps such fields as computer technology, urban and development studies, geography, medicine, or health sciences. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-G 330 Looking Like a Feminist: Visual Culture and Critical Theory (3 cr.) Advanced study of feminist film theory which examines gender in popular film from a variety of perspectives. Examines how cinema works as a “technology of gender,” how film constructs subject positions and identities, and what these constructions can tell us about how gender structures our culture.
  • GNDR-G 335 Explaining Sex/Gender Differences (3 cr.) Compares biological, psychological, and social theories regarding the development and maintenance of gender differentiated behavior, gender and sexual identities, and the meaning of sexed bodies. The course scrutinizes the social and cultural forces that magnify, minimize, or subvert the expression of gender differences.
  • GNDR-G 340 Gender, Geography, Sex, and Space (3 cr.) Examines the crucially important role that space and place play in the construction and maintenance of gender norms and sexual practices. Subjects may include the gendered history of the domestic domain, feminist critiques of architecture and urban planning, the modernist art of flaneurie, or the gendered and racial politics of imprisonment in the United States.
  • GNDR-G 350 Queer Theory (3 cr.) Examines queer theory, particularly in relation to other intellectual/political movements (post-structuralism, critical race studies, feminism, gay and lesbian studies) which it both borrowed from and challenged. Focus on the ways in which queer theory articulates a radical transformation of the sex/gender system in opposition to normalizing and essentializing impulses.
  • GNDR-G 386 British Sexual Histories: From Regency Scandals to Sexual Revolution (3 cr.) Examines transformations of sexuality and erotic lives within modern British history, focusing upon popular culture, demographic trends, sensational crimes and scandals (the Queen Caroline Affair, the Profumo Affair), and controversies over the regulation of sexual behaviors and identities. Concludes with analysis of the slate of 1960s "liberal" legislation on divorce, censorship, abortion, and homosexuality. Credit given for only one of G386 or HIST B386.
  • GNDR-G 393 American Sexual Histories: Salem Witch Craze to the Age of Viagra (3 cr.) Examines interactions between sexualities, culture, and science in America from the late seventeenth to twentieth centuries. Sexual patterns of indigenes, European settlers, and early immigrants underwent significant changes in the later nineteenth century. Specific episodes and trends fueled early twentieth century controversies over erotic practices and identities. These debates gave way to new areas of interest and concern, however, as a result of sex researchers' findings on interwar and postwar Americans' sexual histories, publicized in the Kinsey Reports and successor studies. Credit given for only one of G393 or HIST A393.
  • GNDR-G 399 Regulating Gender (3 cr.) Explores the regulation of gender relations through the institutions of state, church, and/ or civil society, including: public policies; laws and their enforcement; religions; ethical and moral norms; and other social conventions and cultural norms. Strong focus on cross-cultural and transnational comparisons. May be thematically concentrated around case studies.
  • GNDR-G 402 Problems in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.) Topical seminar in gender studies. Analysis of a particular issue or problem that has generated debate within gender-related scholarship in a particular discipline, or across several disciplines/fields of inquiry. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-G 410 International Feminist Debates (3 cr.) Investigation of debates among feminists as to whether aspirations towards global feminism are possible and desirable. The course compares concerns about the global situation of women, as articulated by international bodies such as the United Nations, with concerns articulated by feminists in different parts of the world.
  • GNDR-G 425 Gender and Science: The Sexual Politics of Truth (3 cr.) Examination of interdisciplinary interaction of feminist perspectives on science. Perspectives are diverse and have implications for different scientific disciplines—medical, physical, natural, and social. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-G 430 Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953): Genealogies and Legacies (3 cr.) Examines Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) by undertaking an examination of the text itself, and its scientific, cultural, and sexual politics context, as well as its place in the genealogy of sexology and sex research and its impact and influence after Kinsey’s death in 1956.
  • GNDR-G 435 Health, Sex, and Gender (3 cr.) Examines health as it relates to female and male sexuality and to the roles and status of men and women in society. It explores public policy decisions related to medical research practices. Topics may include research about adult sexuality and personal health, contraception, sexual abuse, gender-specific diseases, and sexually transmitted diseases.
  • GNDR-G 450 Gender in Transition (3 cr.) Examines the emerging field of transgender studies. Surveys the evolution of the field and its key theoretical frameworks. Also offers an overview of gender-variant practices, identities, and communities in the United States and around the world.
  • GNDR-X 474 Internship in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.) P: At least junior standing; 15 credit hours of Gender Studies course work. Selected career-related work in a cooperating institution or business. Evaluation by faculty supervisor and employer. Does not count toward major. S/F grading. May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-X 476 Practicum in Gender Studies (3-6 cr.) P: Junior or senior standing; 12 credit hours of gender studies coursework; consent of faculty advisor and department. Directed study of issues or policies related to gender or sexuality based on a field experience. Directed readings, papers and/or an analytical journal may be required. May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours in X476 and G480.
  • GNDR-G 485 Gender and Discourse (3 cr.) Advanced-level analysis of cultural constitutions of gender in different cultures. Emphasis on understanding how different discourses operate with respect to gender, and how they can have a range of effects, including endorsement, unsettling, and resisting prevailing gender relations. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • GNDR-G 490 Gender, Race, Sexuality, and the Law (3 cr.) Examines the complex ways in which the law structures and is shaped by gender, race, and sexuality.
  • GNDR-X 490 Readings and Research in Gender Studies (1-6 cr.) P: Consent of instructor and department. Individual readings and research available for gender studies major and minor students. May, under unusual circumstances, be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours in X490 and G495.
  • GNDR-G 498 Seminar in Gender Studies (3 cr.) This course will highlight a particular problem, theme, or controversy confronting the interdisciplinary field of gender studies, situated in relation to the development of gender studies since the 1970s and its institutional and discursive setting.
  • GNDR-G 499 Senior Honors Thesis (3-6 cr.) P: Consent of faculty honors thesis advisor and department. Research and preparation of senior honors thesis. May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours.