Courses
GWS 100. Introduction to Gender and Women’s Studies (3)
Interdisciplinary study of women in American society, including such topics as social conditions, laws, symbols, values, communication and power. (Available for General Education, C2 Humanities or F Comparative Cultural Studies.)
GWS 110. Women, Work, and Family (3)
Focuses on historical and contemporary relationship between home and community work and the marketplace within which women perform. Examines the differences in experience of work and family as these are shaped by race, class, gender and sexuality. (Available for General Education, D1 Social Sciences or F Comparative Cultural Studies.)
GWS 220. Men, Masculinity and Patriarchy (3)
Recommended Preparatory: GWS 100. This course provides a multidisciplinary investigation of ways in which masculinity is constructed in the context of fatherhood, media, sports, fraternities, law, militarization, racialization, state violence and men’s movements. The course evaluates and critically analyzes how male identities are created, negotiated and explicated in theories of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race and class. Of particular interest is the way social institutions sustain and elaborate how masculinity is organized and what it has come to mean. (Available for General Education, D1 Social Sciences.)
GWS 222. Gender, Sexuality, and American Indian Communities (3)
Recommended Preparatory: AIS 101, GWS 100. A survey course that examines the concepts of gender and sexuality as they are politically, economically, socially and culturally constructed in American Indian communities. Special attention is given to the role settler colonialism plays in shaping these constructions. Explores the degree to which Indigenous articulations of gender and sexuality make possible a world in which all genders and sexualities are valued fully. Not available for credit in addition to AIS 222. (Available for General Education, D1 Social Sciences.)
GWS 230. Women and Entertainment (3)
Preparatory: GWS 100. Women and Entertainment is a broad, introductory examination of women’s experience and interface with the entertainment arena, including but not limited to, film, music, and other popular cultural sites of knowledge production, from a uniquely feminist lens that focuses on the intersectionality of gender, race, class and sexuality. The course explores women’s roles in entertainment as producers, participants as well as consumers of various media. (Available for General Education, C2 Humanities.)
GWS 300. Women as Agents of Change (3)
Prerequisite: Completion of the lower division writing requirement. Preparatory: GWS 100 or GWS 110, or consent of instructor. New definitions and options for women within the family, community and society. Students study and report on women’s resources and organizations for change within the local community, as well as on the national and international scene. (Available for General Education, D1 Social Sciences or F Comparative Cultural Studies.) (IC)
GWS 301. Feminist Theories (3)
Prerequisite: GWS 100, or GWS 110 or GWS 300 or instructor consent. This required course for Gender and Women Studies majors and minors concentrates on the multitude of feminist theories, from the early feminist theories to the more contemporary and complex theories by a diversity of theorists, within the U.S. and globally.
GWS 302. Feminist Methods (3)
Prerequisite: GWS 100 or GWS 110 or GWS 300 or instructor consent. In this course, students will be introduced to qualitative and quantitative research methods. The course will provide an overview of some of the critical concepts in the history of feminist research (e.g., feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint, inclusion of difference) and debates surrounding epistemology and methodology. The course will examine and evaluate interdisciplinary feminist research that have been proposed as uniquely suited for gender and women’s studies, as well as its proposed elements, goals and politics.
GWS 305/CS. Gender and Women’s Studies Community Service (1/2)
Prerequisite: Completion of the lower division writing requirement. Students work in a variety of community settings—educational, political and/or social service agencies—to apply theoretical understanding of gender and women’s studies to practical and concrete community situations that affect women’s daily lives. Includes regular class meetings. Offers a community service opportunity with activities relating to concepts and theories presented. (Available for General Education, E Lifelong Learning.)
GWS 315. Gender, Sexuality and Islam in the U.S. (3)
This interdisciplinary course examines the gender dimension of social contours of Islamic communities in North America, with an emphasis on the U.S. After a brief review of the geopolitics and historical background, immigration trends and acculturation process of communities, the course will explore what it means to be a Muslim person in the U.S. today. Special attention will be paid to social activism and feminist discourse among the diaspora Muslims and their cross-polination or transnational impacts on the processes of globalization, reformation and democratization in the Muslim-majority countries.
GWS 320. Women and Urban Life/Urban Space (3)
Prerequisite: Completion of the lower division writing requirement. Examines the gendered use of space and how women have balanced and crossed public and private spheres. Examines women and urban issues from the micro-level (community-based organizations and grassroots mobilizations) to the macro-level (national and international states and corporate entities). (Available for General Education, D1 Social Sciences.)
GWS 340. Women, Gender and Global Development (3)
Prerequisite: Completion of the lower division writing requirement. Examines women’s roles and concerns in socioeconomic and political development processes. Positive and negative effects of colonization, post-colonial modernization, democratization and capitalist and socialist development strategies on women in the “Third,” “Second,” and “First” World countries are examined. (Available for General Education, D1 Social Sciences.)
GWS 351. Gender, Race, Class and Sexuality (3)
Prerequisite: Completion of the lower division writing requirement. Examines historical and contemporary issues surrounding the diversity of women living in the U.S. and other cultures. Gender, race, socioeconomic class and sexuality are presented as central theoretical concepts and as conditions of experience that affect all women and men, as well as being primary categories of social relations for us all cross-culturally. (Available for General Education, C2 Humanities or D1 Social Sciences or F Comparative Cultural Studies.)
GWS 370. Women and Violence (3)
Prerequisite: Completion of the lower division writing requirement. This course focuses on dimensions of violence women experience in the U.S. and internationally. It provides an overview of sexual violence, including rape in intimate partnerships, childhood sexual assault, sexual harassment, sex trafficking and violence against women under foreign occupation. Varied feminist scholarship around three broad areas will be covered: Sexual Violence Against Women; Physical Violence Against Women; and Perpetrators of Violence Against Women. The course includes an examination of case studies that illumine domestic abuse, judicial abuse and war rape among others. (Available for General Education, D1 Social Sciences.)
GWS 380. Sexual and Reproductive Health (3)
The course employs a gender-based analysis of the global problem of sexual health and examines the cultural, social and economic variables associated with sexual and reproductive health disparities in the U.S. and abroad. The course provides a feminist approach to understanding issues pertaining to the nature of women’s and men’s social roles; women’s symbolic meaning in society; and inequality of power in sexual relationships. In addition, the course has a community service component, which involves a project on public health activism in the local community (20 percent of the course grade).
GWS 396A-Z. Experimental Topics Courses (3)
Experimental Topics
GWS 400. Senior Seminar in Gender and Women’s Studies (3)
Prerequisite: GWS 301. This course is a culmination (capstone) of the students’ undergraduate studies and will not necessarily introduce new topics. Instead, students reflect on and review important women’s studies theories, key principles and questions. Each student conducts a research project applying feminist methodology and writes a research paper on a topic within the discipline. The purpose of this course is to review the cross-cultural and international literature in women’s studies/feminist studies as well as to equip students for graduate school and/or the work setting. Available for graduate credit.
GWS 410. Sex, Lies and Media (3)
In this course, students employ critical perspectives to examine narrow definitions of gender/sexuality constructed in media representations. Students deconstruct norms of masculinity and femininity generated by industries such as television, film and advertising that perpetuate and naturalize the commodification of women’s bodies. Special attention is paid to bodies and modes of sexuality that transgress (representations of the queer body, for example). Students also construct alternative imagery and generate new ideas about gender and sexuality through discussion and various projects. Available for graduate credit.
GWS 420. Women and Gender in Islamic Societies (3)
This interdisciplinary and cross-cultural course explores how religious authorities, and scriptural and legal sources have contributed to the status and legal rights of women and to the construction of theories, laws and practices concerning gender roles and sexuality in the Islamic tradition. Students study how these constructed gender roles, sexual norms and attitudes have reflected, resisted or changed in response to modern cultural, social, economic and political changes. The course examines how Muslim women themselves have sought to articulate and define their roles and identities. What has been the impact of modernity, modernization, colonialism, nationalism, democratization and globalization, especially the global feminist movements, on the status of Muslim women and gender relations? What is the impact of the recent waves of Islamist movements (“fundamentalism”), the identity politics, and politics of the veil on women and the gender arrangement in Muslim societies? Available for graduate credit.
GWS 430. Global Sexualities (3)
Neoliberal globalization is as fundamental to understanding contemporary discourses of sexuality as sexuality is key to understanding global issues. The course will foreground a wide range of theoretical perspectives of feminist, queer and globalization theories that help students understand how the emergence of sexuality as an intellectual and social arena is concurrent with specific characteristics of the globalization process and how the new theories of sexuality advance and challenge the feminist agenda for global social and gender justice. Available for graduate credit.
GWS 440. Latin American Feminisms (3)
Recommended Preparatory Courses: GWS 100 or GWS 110. Students study the situation of women and the different types of feminisms that have emerged in Latin America in contemporary times. The course examines how feminism and the status of women in Latin America have been impacted by factors such as colonialism, imperialism, modernization, democratization, Latin American social revolutions (e.g., in Cuba and Nicaragua), and 21st century socialism. Available for graduate credit.
GWS 495A-Z. Selected Topics in Gender and Women’s Studies (3)
Intensive study of selected themes or figures in Gender and Women’s Studies. Topics change from semester to semester.
GWS 499A-C. Independent Study (1-3)
Independent Study