WGS 2100 Intro to Gender & Sexuality Studies

Bonnie Hagerman

An introduction to gender and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) studies, including the fields of women’s studies, feminist studies, & masculinity studies. Students will examine historical movements, theoretical issues, & contemporary debates, especially as they pertain to issues of inequality & to the intersection of gender, race, class, sexuality, & nationalism. Emphasis will vary according to the interdisciplinary expertise & research focus of the instructor.

Special Note: Required for all WGS majors and minors, Intro courses do not count toward concentrations.

WGS 2600 Human Sexualities

Lisa Speidel

Examines human sexuality from psychological, biological, behavioral, social, and historical perspectives. Topics include sexual research and theoretical perspectives, sexual anatomy and physiology, sexual health, intimacy, communication, patterns of sexual response and pleasure and sexual problems and therapies. Course will also include examination of the development of sexuality and the intersections of other identities, gender identity, sexual orientation, sexuality and the law, sexual assault, and other social issues in sexuality.

WGS 2650 Streaming Sexualities

Lisa Speidel

This course will examine the portrayal of sex and sexuality in a variety of shows on television streaming platforms through the lens of media studies and intersectional, feminist and queer theory. The analysis will address the ideologies, narratives, values and ethics the shows impart. Topics include: the interdisciplinary meaning and representation of sexual orientation, queerness, sexual health, sexual harm, and notions of joy and pleasure.

WGS 2700 Men and Masculinities

Lisa Speidel

What is understood as "masculine" has varied throughout time as well as across cultural contexts and distinct social groupings, it is equally true that most historical periods, cultures, groups, etc. believe their own understandings of masculinity to be universal. In this course, we will deconstruct this. From this class, you should be able to think critically about where men and masculinity have been, where they are going, and what this might mean more generally for gender relations and gender inequality.

Course Category: Sexuality Concentration

WGS 3100 Intro to WGS Theory

I.F. Gonzales

Explores major debates, key ideas, and historical developments in women, gender, & sexuality theory. Students will gain familiarity with queer, trans, and feminist theory, including Black, Native, socialist, crip, and other approaches. Will consider the different methods that gender & sexuality scholars have used to explain the social world, and why such explanations are vital to WGS. Course emphasizes reading, discussion,and critical writing.

WGS 3125 Transnational Feminism

TBA

This course places women, feminism, and activism in a transnational perspective, and offers students the opportunity to examine how issues considered critical to the field of gender studies are impacting women's lives globally in contemporary national contexts. We will look closely at how violence, economic marginality, intersections of race and gender, and varied strategies for development are affecting women in specific geographical locations.

Course Category: Non-Western Perspectives

WGS 3150 Race & Power in Gender & Sexuality

TBA

Offers a study of race-racialization in relation to gender-sexuality. Consider how the concept of race shapes relationships between gendered selfhood & society, how it informs identity & experiences of the erotic, & how racialized gender & sexuality are created-maintained-monitored. With an interdisciplinary perspective, we will consider how race & power are reproduced & resisted through gender & sexuality, individually-national-international.

WGS 3305 Issues in LGBTQ Studies

Aaron stone

This course is an interdisciplinary analysis of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) Studies. We will study historical events and political, literary and artistic figures and works; contemporary social and political issues; the meaning and development of sexual and gender identities; and different disciplinary definitions of meaning and knowledge.

WGS 3500 RM Course: Queer American History

Doug Meyer

This course focuses on the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) activism in the United States.  Particular attention will be paid to the twentieth century, but topics covered will include the formation of heterosexual and homosexual identities and the construction of sexual practices prior to the 1900s.  From the twentieth century, the course will focus on the Homophile Movement, Gay Liberation, and ACT UP, among other leftist activist movements.  Although primary emphasis will be placed on historical LGBTQ activism, contemporary movements and politics regarding LGBTQ-rights will also occasionally be a focus of this course.

We will move in chronological order throughout the semester, beginning with the construction of heterosexual and homosexual identities at the end of the 1800s.  Most of the course will then focus on sexual minorities in the early 1900s, prior to World War II, and the discrimination and activism following World War II – that is, the Homophile Movement and Gay Liberation (the period from approximately 1945 through the late 1970s).  We will focus on the Stonewall uprising (1969), at the same time that we critique its place in history.  The course will end with several classes and readings on HIV/AIDS activism during the 1980s, as well as LGBTQ politics in the 1990s.  

This course develops fundamental skills for critical thinking, researching, writing, and communicating in WGS. Students will learn methods for finding and analyzing sources, approaches to framing arguments, and skills for effective written and oral communication. Seminars are offered on a variety of topics. This class fulfills the Second Writing Requirement and Enhanced Writing Requirement. 

Course Category: Second Writing Requirement

WGS 3500 RM Course: Issues and Controversies in Women's Sport

Bonnie Hagerman

This course develops fundamental skills for critical thinking, researching, writing, and communicating in WGS. Students will learn methods for finding and analyzing sources, approaches to framing arguments, and skills for effective written and oral communication. Seminars are offered on a variety of topics. This class fulfills the Second Writing Requirement and Enhance

Course Category: Second Writing Requirement

WGS 3611 Gender and Sexuality in the United States, 1600-1865

Corinne Field

This course investigates the significance of gender and sexuality in North America from the first European settlements to the Civil War. We will ask how Indigenous, European, and African understandings of gender and sexuality changed over time. We will pay particular attention to shifting class distinctions and regional differences. The choice of readings and topics reflects the instructor's commitment to feminist and anti-racist pedagogy, centering the voices of women, sexual/gender minorities, and people of color.

Course Goals:

--Develop an understanding for how gender and sexuality have changed over time in relation to other social formations such as race, class, age, and nation.

--Learn how to analyze historical documents and generate new insights about the past.

--Refine your analytical writing and verbal communication.

--Expand your ability to discuss controversial topics, articulate your own viewpoint, and learn from people with whom you disagree.

Course Requirements and Grading:

            30 %    Reading/Participation

            30 %    Short Writing Exercises

            30 %    Final Paper

             5 %      Office Hours and Check-Ins

             5 %      Final Reflection

This course fulfills the second writing requirement, the historical perspectives requirement, and is low-cost.

There are no prerequisites.

WGS 3895 Front Lines of Social Change I

Taylor Nichols & Jaronda Miller-Bryant

Provides a comprehensive introduction to the foundational concepts and theories underpinning social change with a focus on gender, equality/equity, and feminist issues. Students will explore the dynamic intersections of gender identity, social norms, power structures, and activism through interdisciplinary lenses including sociology, psychology, history, and critical theory.

WGS 4325 Feminist Disability Politics

Sarah Orsak

This course investigates what and who feminist disability politics encompass. We will explore disability and ableism through their relations to interlocking structures of domination. We will link disability to anti-blackness, capitalism, empire and conquest, carcerality and policing, and cisheteropatriarchy. A major focus includes theories and practices of resistance. Students can develop creative projects alongside scholarly writing.

WGS 4500 Topics Course: Fashion, Freedom and American Feminism

Bonnie Hagerman

WGS 4500 Topics Course: Mass Incarceration

Doug Meyer

This course focuses on the historical and contemporary institutionalization of jails and prisons in the United States.  Topics covered will include the expansion of policing and incarceration over time in addressing a wide range of social problems, as well as prison abolition and broader resistance to these developments from marginalized groups.  You have readings on the cultural linking of Blackness with “crime” in the U.S., restorative and transformative justice, feminist complicities with the carceral state, and the challenges facing former prisoners, among many other topics.  Several of your readings center the experiences of Black women, LGBTQ people, especially queer of color folks and transgender people, and Latinx individuals.  The growing criminalization of immigration will be covered in this course, as well criminalized approaches to sex trafficking, intimate partner violence, and sexual assault.  

The first third of the semester or so will focus on the historical development of mass incarceration that took place during the late 20th century, especially the 1970s and 1980s, although we will also cover some of the decades prior to this time as well.  This part of the semester will expose you to debates in the field regarding why and how mass incarceration developed over time and has continued to play such an outsized role in U.S. society.  This part of the semester certainly has resonance to the contemporary United States, but we will mostly be focusing on historical institutionalization during this time.  After that part of the semester, many of the other readings you have focus on contemporary issues and effects.  Historical changes will continue to make an appearance throughout the semester, but the readings for the last two-thirds of the semester relate more to contemporary dynamics in the U.S.  

WGS 4820 Black Feminist Theory

Lanice Avery

WGS 7500 Topics Course: Black & Indigenous Feminist Survival and Experiment

Tiffany King