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Course Descriptions

(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

WMGS 5a Women and Gender in Culture and Society
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This interdisciplinary course introduces central concepts and topics in the field of women's and gender studies. Explores the position of women in diverse settings and the impact of gender as a social, cultural, and intellectual category in the United States and around the globe. Asks how gendered institutions, behaviors, and representations have been configured in the past and function in the present, and also examines the ways in which gender intersects with many other vectors of identity and circumstance in forming human affairs. Usually offered every fall and spring.
Ms. Lanser or Ms. Singh

WMGS 89a Internship in Women's and Gender Studies: Prevention of Violence against Women and Children
Combines fieldwork in violence prevention programs with a weekly seminar concerning violence against women and children. The seminar examines the tensions and commonalities between "family violence" and "feminist" approaches, with an emphasis on feminist scholarship. Usually offered every fall.
Ms. Hunter

WMGS 92a Internship and Analysis
Usually offered every semester.
Staff

WMGS 98a Independent Study
Independent readings, research, and writing on a subject of the student's interest under the direction of a faculty adviser. Usually offered every year.
Staff

WMGS 98b Independent Study
See WMGS 98a for special notes and course description. Usually offered every year.
Staff

WMGS 99a Senior Research Project
Independent research and writing under faculty direction, for the purpose of completion of the women's and gender studies senior honors thesis. Usually offered every year.
Staff

WMGS 99b Senior Research
See WMGS 99a for special notes and course description. Usually offered every year.
Staff

(100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students

WMGS 105b Feminist Theories in Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective
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Prerequisite: Students are encouraged, though not required, to take WMGS 5a prior to enrolling in this course.
Examines diverse theories of sex and gender within a multicultural framework, considering historical changes in feminist thought, the theoretical underpinnings of various feminist practices, and the implications of diverse and often conflicting theories for both academic inquiry and social change. Usually offered every spring.
Staff

WMGS 106b Women in the Health Care System
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Explores the position and roles of women in the U.S. health care system and how it defines and meets women's health needs. The implications for health care providers, health care management, and health policy are discussed. Usually offered every spring.
Staff

WMGS 120b Women and Gender in Religion
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An analysis of how gender is at the heart of religion and of how women, men, and transgendered persons are transforming religious communities today. The course will include: debates over religious leadership; religious discourse about gendered bodies; sacred texts and religious law; and images of the divine and religious ritual. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Brooten and Ms. Langenberg

WMGS 136a Gender, Race, and Science
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Addresses scientific claims about race and gender from the nineteenth century onward. Investigates the biological sciences as a source of knowledge with profound effects on cultural practices, social struggles, and individual as well as collective identities. Usually offered every year.
Staff

WMGS 140a Diversity of Muslim Women's Experience
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A broad introduction to the multidimensional nature of women's experiences in the Muslim world. As both a cultural and religious element in this vast region, understanding Islam in relation to lives of women has become increasingly imperative. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Shavarini

WMGS 146a Gender, Technology, and the Body
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Explores the ways in which specific technologies are involved in establishing gender as a natural fact or in reshaping it through bodily manipulation. Investigates technologies ranging from photography, film, and anthropometry to bodybuilding and cosmetic surgery. Usually offered every year.
Staff

WMGS 198a Women's and Gender Studies Research Seminar
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Examines theories and practices of feminist scholarship and introduces interdisciplinary methodologies in order to guide students in designing and completing an independent research project. Usually offered every year in the fall.
Ms. Lanser and Ms. Schattschneider

(200 and above) Primarily for Graduate Students

WMGS 205a Graduate Foundational Course in Women's and Gender Studies
An advanced interdisciplinary inquiry into the history, theories, concepts, and practices that have formed women's and gender studies as a scholarly field, with particular attention to current intellectual trends and critical controversies. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Smiley

WMGS 299a Directed Readings in Women's and Gender Studies
Usually offered every year.
Staff

WMGS 299b Directed Readings in Women's and Gender Studies
Usually offered every year.
Staff

Elective Courses

The following courses are approved for the program. Not all are given in any one year. Please consult the Schedule of Classes each semester.

AMST 102a
Women, the Environment, and Social Justice

AMST 127b
Women and American Popular Culture

AMST 139b
Reporting on Gender, Race, and Culture

AMST 142b
Love, Law, and Labor: Asian American Women and Literature

ANTH 127a
Medicine, Body, and Culture

BIOL 160b
Human Reproductive and Developmental Biology

BISC 2a
Human Reproduction, Population Explosion, Global Consequences

COML 108a
Creating New Histories and Identities beyond the Nation: Transnational Female Voices in the U.S.

ECON 69a
The Economics of Race and Gender

ENG 16a
Nineteenth-Century African-American Literature: Texts and Contexts

ENG 87b
Queer Readings: Beyond Stonewall

ENG 121a
Sex and Culture

ENG 127b
Migrating Bodies, Migrating Texts

ENG 128a
Alternative Worlds: Modern Utopian Texts

ENG 131b
Feminist Theory

ENG 138a
Making Modern Subjects: Caribbean/Latin America/U.S.A. 1850-1950

ENG 151a
Queer Studies

ENG 157b
American Women Poets

ENG 181a
Making Sex, Performing Gender

ENG 201a
Gender Studies

ENG 213b
Alternative Worlds: Utopia, Science, and Gender

ENG 230b
Feminist Theory

FA 19b
Lives of the Artists

FA 131b
Center Stage: Women in Contemporary Art

GECS 167a
German Cinema: Vamps and Angels

HIST 179a
Labor, Gender, and Exchange in the Atlantic World, 1600-1850

HIST 206a
Problems in American Women's History

HS 319a
Work and Individual and Social Development

HS 515a
Race/Ethnicity and Gender in Health and Human Services Research

HS 527a
Law and Policy: Gender Equality in Theory and Practice

LGLS 120a
Sex Discrimination and the Law

LGLS 126b
Marriage, Divorce, and Parenthood

NEJS 29a
Feminist Sexual Ethics in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

NEJS 141a
Russian Jewish History, 1917 to the Present

NEJS 165b
Changing Roles of Women in American Jewish Societies

NEJS 166a
Carnal Israel: Exploring Jewish Sexuality from Talmudic Times to the Present

NEJS 172a
Women in American Jewish Literature

NEJS 233a
Gender and Jewish Studies

PHIL 108a
Philosophy and Gender

POL 125a
Women in American Politics

POL 159a
Seminar: The Politics of the Modern Welfare State: Women, Workers, and Social Citizenship

PSYC 160b
Seminar on Sex Differences

SOC 105a
Feminist Critiques of Sexuality and Work in America

SOC 115a
Masculinities

SOC 117a
Sociology of Work

SOC 130a
Families

SOC 131b
Women's Biography and Society

SOC 132b
Social Perspectives on Motherhood and Mothering

SOC 133a
Queering Gender, Gendering Bodies

SOC 169b
Issues in Sexuality

SOC 189a
Sociology of Body and Health

SOC 206b
Advanced Topics in Family Studies

SOC 210b
Gender, Race, and Class

THA 110a
Moving Women/Women Moving

Elective Courses: Historical Focus

AMST 118a
Gender and the Professions

AMST 121a
The American Jewish Woman: 1890-1990s

AMST 123b
Women in American History: 1865 to the Present

AMST 124b
American Love and Marriage

AMST 125a
History of United States Feminisms 

ENG 28b
Queer Readings: Before Stonewall

ENG 46a
Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers

ENG 64b
From Libertinism to Sensibility: Pleasure and Theater, 1660-1800

ENG 66a
Women and Political Power in Nineteenth Century American Fiction