Fall 2021 Course Guide : Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies : UMass Amherst

WGSS

Attention Majors and Minors - requirements have changed! Students who enter the major or minor Fall 2020 or after are under new requirements. For those of you that declared before Fall 2020, use this list to see what counts towards the distribution requirements. Courses in yellow count towards the theory requirement for majors.

WGSS 187 – Gender, Sexuality and Culture
Monday, Wednesday 10:10-11:00
Friday discussion sections 9:05, 10:10, 11:15, 12:20
Karen Cardozo

This course offers an introduction to some of the basic concepts and theoretical perspectives in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Drawing on disciplinary, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural studies, students will engage critically with issues such as gender inequities, sexuality, families, work, media images, queer issues, masculinity, reproductive rights, and history. Throughout the course, students will explore how experiences of gender and sexuality intersect with other social constructs of difference, including race/ethnicity, class, and age. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which interlocking systems of oppression have shaped and influenced the historical, cultural, social, political, and economical contexts of our lives, and the social movements at the local, national and transnational levels which have led to key transformations. (Gen. Ed. I, DU)

WGSS 201 – Gender and Difference: Critical Analyses
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m. – Miliann Kang
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m. - ~~Biko Caruthers~~ Signe Predmore

An introduction to the vibrant field of women, gender, and sexuality studies, this course familiarizes students with the basic concepts in the field and draws connections to the world in which we live. An interdisciplinary field grounded in commitment to both intellectual rigor and individual and social transformation, WGSS asks fundamental questions about the conceptual and material conditions of our lives. What are “gender,” “sexuality,” “race,” and “class?” How are gender categories, in particular, constructed differently across social groups, nations, and historical periods? What are the connections between gender and socio-political categories such as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, (dis)ability and others? How do power structures such as sexism, racism, heterosexism, and classism and others intersect? How can an understanding of gender and power enable us to act as agents of individual and social change? Emphasizing inquiry in transnational feminisms, critical race feminisms, and sexuality studies, this course examines gender within a broad nexus of identity categories, social positions, and power structures. Areas of focus may include queer and trans studies; feminist literatures and cultures; feminist science studies; reproductive politics; gender, labor and feminist economics, environmental and climate justice; the politics of desire, and others. Readings include a range of queer, feminist and women thinkers from around the world, reflecting diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives in the field.

WGSS 230/793R – Politics of Reproduction
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Laura Briggs

From the Black Panther Party and Young Lords in the 1970s to SisterSong and Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice in the 1990s to Ferguson and Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement in the present, communities of color and socialist feminists have fought for a comprehensive reproductive freedom platform--birth control and abortion to be sure, but also the right to raise wanted children that are safe, cherished, and educated. The names of these issues have included freedom from sterilization, high quality affordable day care, IVF, immigrant justice, social reproduction and wages for housework, welfare and neoliberalism, foreclosure and affordable housing.

WGSS 286 – History of Sexuality and Race in the U.S.
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 - ~~Signe Predmore~~ Jude Hayward-Jansen
Tuesday, Thursday 4:00-5:15 - Derek Siegel
UWW Section – Jude Hayward-Jansen

This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary feminist study of sexuality. Its primary goal is to provide a forum for students to consider the history of sexuality and race in the U.S. both in terms of theoretical frameworks within women's and gender studies, and in terms of a range of sites where those theoretical approaches become material, are negotiated, or are shifted. The course is a fully interdisciplinary innovation. It will emphasize the links rather than differences between theory and practice and between cultural, material, and historical approaches to the body, gender, and sexuality. Throughout the course we will consider contemporary sexual politics "from the science of sex and sexuality to marriage debates" in light of histories of racial and sexual formations. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

WGSS 290B – Introduction to Sexuality Studies: Movements for Justice in the Contemporary World
Monday, Wednesday 11:15-12:05 p.m.
Discussion sections Friday, 11:15 and 12:20
Svati Shah

This interdisciplinary course will help students to understand what the term "sexuality studies" means by providing a foundation in the key concepts, historical and social contexts, topics, and politics that inform the fields of sexuality studies; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies; and queer studies. Course instruction will be carried out through readings, lectures, films, and discussions, as well as individual and group assignments. Over the course of the semester, students will develop and use critical thinking skills to discern how "sexuality" becomes consolidated as a distinct category of analysis in the late nineteenth century, and what it means to speak about sexuality and transgender politics and categories today. Topics will include queer theories and politics, trans theories and politics, LGBTQ social movements within and outside of the US, relationships with feminist reproductive justice movements, heterosexuality, homophobia, and HIV/AIDS and health discourses. The range of materials covered will prioritize developing analyses that examine the interplay between sexuality and class, gender, race, ethnicity, and neoliberalism. (Gen. Ed. SB, DG)

WGSS 293X/ENGLISH 293X – Speculative Fictions of Race/Gender/Sexuality
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Cameron Awkward-Rich

This course is not a history of feminist speculative fiction, nor a survey of the genre. Instead, it is a course that takes seriously speculative fiction as a site where commonsense is made strange and, therefore, can be remade. Combining readings in science fiction studies, feminist theory, and the fiction of authors like Octavia Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin, Samuel Delany, Torrey Peters, and Kai Cheng Thom with our own experiments in critical imagination, we will explore how the tools of speculative fiction can help us to both apprehend how race, sexuality, and gender in the United States have historically been constituted and imagine them otherwise.

WGSS 301 – Theorizing Gender, Race and Power
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Laura Briggs

Ways of analyzing and reflecting on current issues and controversies in feminist thought within an international context sensitive to class, race, and sexual power concerns. Topics may include work and international economic development, violence against women, racism, class and poverty, heterosexism, the social construction of gender, race and sexuality, global feminism, women, nationalism and the state, reproductive issues, pornography and media representations of women. This course counts towards the theory requirement for majors.

WGSS 392V – Black Feminist Thought
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Karen Cardozo

From Sojourner Truth asking "ain't I a woman?" in the 19th century to the Combahee River Collective, Kimberle Crenshaw, and other theorists of intersectionality in the 20th century, to the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements as well as controversies over teaching Critical Race Theory in the 21st century, it is impossible to adequately engage in Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies without centering the lives and thought of women of color. Our interdisciplinary, multimedia, and theoretical approach will also examine class, sexuality, and other social constructs as they intersect with race and gender in both subjection and resistance to White supremacist heterosexist patriarchy under global capitalism.

WGSS 393W/ENGLISH 393W – Writing Black Feminisms: Knowledge, Storytelling, and Interdisciplinarity
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
~~Sandra Russell~~ Karen Cardozo

Fulfills Junior Year Writing requirement for majors. Like many inter/disciplinary fields, both English and WGSS have struggled to frame their subjects and objects of knowledge in constitutively intersectional ways. That is: without continually reverting to cis White heteronormativity as the “universal” default. By centering diverse expressions of Black feminist lives and thought, this course will explore the deep interconnections between storytelling, writing and knowledge production, asking foundational questions such as: What is the relationship between embodiment and bodies of work? What does it mean to create truly intersectional feminist knowledge? What are best practices for interdisciplinary inquiries? What are the constraints and possibilities of genre (how does the medium shape the message)? You will analyze and write in genres that may include book and/or popular culture reviews; personal essays; creative, scholarly or social media; grant proposals or other professional writing. You will also learn tools of research-related communication used in all fields, such as: abstracts, organization of knowledge, uses of evidence, and compilation of archival and bibliographic resources. Students will plan, develop, and revise a final project on a topic of their choosing. Nonmajors admitted if space available.

WGSS 391AA – Asian American Feminisms
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Miliann Kang

How have the figures of the Chinese bachelor, the geisha, the war bride, the hermaphrodite, the orphan, the tiger mother, the Asian nerd, the rice king, the rice queen, and the trafficked woman shaped understandings of Asian Americans, and how have these representations been critiqued by Asian American feminist scholars and writers? Is there a body of work that constitutes "Asian American feminism(s)" and what are its distinctive contributions to the field of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies? How does this body of work illuminate historical and contemporary configurations of gender, sexuality, race, class, nation, citizenship, migration, empire, war, neoliberalism and globalization? In exploring these questions, this course examines Asian American histories, bodies, identities, diasporic communities, representations, and politics through multi- and interdisciplinary approaches, including social science research, literature, popular representations, film, poetry and art. This course counts toward the theory requirement for WGSS majors.

WGSS 395J – Imagining Justice
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Laura Ciolkowski

This course will be conducted inside the Western Massachusetts Regional Women's Correctional Center (WCC) in Chicopee and will enroll students from UMass and students who are incarcerated in the facility. As a member of this course, you will be joining an international community of educators and students who are committed to dialogue and scholarly learning inside prisons and jails. Enrollment in this course is by application only. Permission by Instructor is required. Application for admission to the course is available here: https://forms.gle/HnUXPTubR4zRreUZ9 Contact department with questions.

This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the critical, aspirational, artistic, and creative forms that Justice takes in literature and the humanities more broadly. What sorts of ethical, social, and political questions are animated by writers and thinkers who seek to imagine and build a different world? What are the tangled roots of inequality and the legacies of sexual, racial, economic, and ecological injustice? How do writers, poets, artists, and "freedom dreamers," as Robin D.G. Kelley so memorably called them, labor to expose injustice and re-invent our universe? Ursula Le Guin has written, "We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable." Taking Le Guin's focus on the radical imagination as a starting point, this course explores the relationship between literature, the arts, and a wide range of social justice projects. Topics will include: Afrofuturism; utopian and dystopian fiction; art, politics and social justice; bioethics and literature; antebellum slave narratives and fictions of restorative and transformative justice; mass incarceration and prison literature; diaspora studies and literary and artistic representations of movement, forced migration and displacement.

WGSS 705 – Genealogies of Feminist Thought
Wednesday 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Cameron Awkward-Rich

This graduate seminar in feminist theory constitutes a core course for students enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies. Please email Linda if you have trouble enrolling. The seminar will be organized around questions that emerge for feminisms from the rubrics of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, transnationalism, human rights, economics and postcolonialism. Feminist theory is inherently interdisciplinary and we will draw on classic and contemporary writings from the many fields that contribute to the "field" of feminist theory.

WGSS 793R/230 – Politics of Reproduction
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Laura Briggs

WGSS 891P – Critical Feminist Pedagogy
Tuesday 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Laura Ciolkowski

Feminist pedagogy is a radical philosophy of teaching and learning. It is an approach, rather than a toolbox of assorted tips and strategies, that is rooted in feminist, anti-racist critiques of power and knowledge, and is deeply informed by the values of social justice feminism and feminist practice. This graduate-level course in critical feminist pedagogy will explore the epistemological, methodological, and theoretical foundations of feminist pedagogical approaches, from Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed to bell hooks? Teaching to Transgress; from readings in the Black radical tradition to the Latin American experiments with literacy and empowering the poor; and from Bettina Love’s abolitionist pedagogies and Audre Lorde’s pedagogies of social justice and collective dissent to the growing scholarship on participatory methods, mindfulness and presence, and feminist experiments with alternative epistemological frameworks. The course will also explore, from a feminist pedagogical perspective, the obstacles that students face in learning: why some believe we have a ‘push out’ problem more than a ‘drop out’ problem; how pedagogical practices can be painful and harmful to students; the debates over classroom ‘safe space’; and the critiques of the ‘corporate university’ and its metrics. A combination practicum and graduate theory seminar, the course also centers the practice of feminist pedagogy in the classroom. Feminist Pedagogy will create a fully collaborative space for students to interrogate, explore, test out and reshape the methods, methodologies, theories, and critical pedagogies that support our feminist teaching practices. Over the course of the semester, students will develop and workshop a course syllabus; they will design, critique, and practice learning plans; and they will build a community of feminist teachers and learners with whom they may continue to think about, reflect on, and reimagine critical feminist pedagogy.

UMASS

UMass Courses Outside of WGSS (Departmental)

ANTHRO 205 – Power and Inequality in the United States
Monday, Wednesday 11:15-12:05
Jennifer Sandler
Wednesday and Friday discussions

The roots of racism and sexism and the issues they raise. The cultural, biological, and social contexts of race and gender and examination of biological variation, genetic determinism, human adaptation, and the bases of human behavior. (Gen Ed SB, DU)

ANTHRO 224 – Hip-Hop Cultures
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Whitney Battle-Baptiste

This course will critically examine issues of race, representation and the sexual politics of hip- hop culture. We will trace the historical implications of race and gender in U. S. culture from slavery onwards and connect how past images of African Americans continue to influence contemporary notions of Black identity. We will trace the early historical moments of the hip- hop movement in order to understand how the culture became synonymous with male dominated spaces and silent women. This course will also explore the role of misogyny, sexual exploitation, and hypermasculinity in current rap music and contrast this with the rise of independent artists challenging and reshaping hip-hop music today. Ultimately, we will look at the role of the internet and alternative forms of media as a means of how hip-hop has moved from the board room to the global stage, giving the power back to the people.

ANTHRO 494BI – Global Bodies
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Elizabeth Krause

The human body has increasingly become an object of anthropological study. The body is rich as a site of meaning and materiality. Similarly, culture inscribes itself on the body in terms of ?normalization? and governance. This course will explore pertinent issues surrounding the body today. Topics such as personhood, natural vs. artificial bodies, identity and subjectivity (nationality, race, class, sex, gender), domination and marginalization, and policy will be discussed. We will focus on the body in three main stages: birth, life, and death, with relevant case studies in each stage (e.g., embryos, reproduction, breastfeeding, organs, immigrant bodies, etc.) The course has a digital ethnography component as a final project option. Satisfies the Integrative Experience requirement for BA-Anth majors.

ANTHRO 497LC – Women’s Health Across the Life Course
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Achsah Dorsey

See department for description.

ART-HIST 391P/691P – Identity Politics and Art: 1960s to Today
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Karen Kurczynski

This course historicizes identity politics in art from the 1960s to today, examining what social identity means and why it has been a contentious topic in contemporary art history. Students will consider the problem of discussing intersectional identities when they are shifting, open-ended, and complex constructions. We will study artists whose work raises personal and political questions about social experience and authenticity in ways that break down stereotypes. The role of performative works, video and installation will be considered in relation to more traditional artistic media such as drawing and painting. We will study the history of the Black Art and Feminist movements and key texts from queer studies, feminist, and critical race theory in order to examine their intersections and divergences. The relationship of art to political protest movements, the AIDS crisis, Black Lives Matter and other recent developments will be addressed along with art world controversies such as The Decade Show (1991), the Culture Wars (1989-91), and the Whitney Biennials of 1993 and 2017. The course also incorporates trips to current exhibitions on view that relate to these topics.

CLASSICS 335 – Women in Antiquity
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Teresa Ramsby

Lives, roles, contributions, and status of women in Greek and Roman societies, as reflected in classical literature and the archaeological record. (Gen.Ed. HS)

ECON 347 – Economics of LGBT Issues
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Lee Badgett

The economic, social, and legal position of LGBT people has changed very rapidly in the U.S. This course focuses on how policy change happened and whether and why LGBT people still face economic inequality. This course explores that position from the perspective of economics, politics, and policy, primarily in the U.S., but also in other regions of the world. Major questions addressed include: What was the role of the economy and political factors in shaping LGBT identities and social movements? What factors made the LGBT social movement successful? What are the remaining sources of legal inequality? What causes employment discrimination against LGBT people? Does the state of the economy affect anti-LGBT prejudice and political change? Are LGBT families different? Why and how? Do public policies reduce economic inequality for LGBT people? What kinds of economic inequalities do LGBT people still face? What has been the role of business in supporting LGBT equality? How do businesses gain from LGBT equality? How does economic development contribute to LGBT equality and vice versa in other parts of the world?

ECON 397EL – Equity Lab
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Lee Badgett

The Equity Lab course uses economic research and thinking to propose solutions to important social and economic equity problems, including inequality based on race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disabilities. To design those interventions, we will also draw on ideas about fairness, as well as data analysis, communication strategies, and policy methods. Some likely projects for our Equity Lab will include reparations for African Americans, differential taxation of urban and rural farms, and employment discrimination against transgender and nonbinary people, as well as other issues.

ECON 397S – Gender and Economic Development
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Lynda Pickbourn

This course examines the complex relationships between the process of economic development and gender inequality. Students will be introduced to the theoretical frameworks and debates that have shaped the analysis of gender and economic development. This will be followed by an exploration of the interactions between economic development policy and gender relations in the global South. Topics covered will include the household as a unit of analysis; the gender division of labor; paid and unpaid work; asset inequality; microfinance; migration; the gendered impacts of economic restructuring and economic crisis; the feminization of labor in the global economy. Open to students with STPEC, ECON, RES-ECON, or MGRECON as their primary major. Pre Requisite: Economics 103 OR Resource Economics 102. Open only to Econ/STPEC/ResEc/MgrEcon primary majors until after juniors enroll, then open to all on April 14th.

ENGLISH 132 – Gender, Sexuality, Literature and Culture
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 11:15-12:05 p.m. – Mitia Nath
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 12:20-1:10 p.m. – Patricia Matthews
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:10-11:00 a.m. – Kate Perillo

Literature treating the relationship between man and woman. Topics may include: the nature of love, the image of the hero and heroine, and definitions, past and present, of the masculine and feminine. (Gen.Ed. AL, DG)

GERMAN 373 – Witches: Myth and Reality
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1:25-2:15 p.m.
Kerstin Mueller Dembling

This course focuses on various aspects of witches/witchcraft in order to examine the historical construction of the witch in the context of the social realities of women (and men) labeled as witches. The main areas covered are: European pagan religions and the spread of Christianity; the "Burning Times" in early modern Europe, with an emphasis on the German situation; 17th-century New England and the Salem witch trials; the images of witches in folk lore and fairy tales in the context of the historical persecutions; and contemporary Wiccan/witch practices in their historical context. The goal of the course is to deconstruct the stereotypes that many of us have about witches/witchcraft, especially concerning sexuality, gender, age, physical appearance, occult powers, and Satanism. Readings are drawn from documentary records of the witch persecutions and witch trials, literary representations, scholarly analyses of witch-related phenomena, and essays examining witches, witchcraft, and the witch persecutions from a contemporary feminist or neo-pagan perspective. The lectures will be supplemented by related material taken from current events in addition to visual material (videos, slides) drawn from art history, early modern witch literature, popular culture, and documentary sources. Conducted in English. (Gen Ed. I, DG)

HISTORY 297WL/LEGAL 297WL – Women and the Law
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Jennifer Nye

This course examines the legal status of women in the United States, focusing specifically on the 20th and 21st centuries. How has the law used gender, sex, sexuality, and race to legally enforce inequality between women and men (and among women)? We will examine the legal arguments feminists have used to advocate for legal change and how these arguments have changed over time, paying specific attention to debates about whether to make legal arguments based on formal equality, substantive equality, liberty, or privacy. We will also consider the pros and cons of using the law to advocate for social justice. Specific issues that may be covered include the civil and political participation of women (voting, jury service), employment discrimination, intimate relationships, reproduction, contraception and abortion, violence against women, women as criminal defendants, and women as law students, lawyers, and judges. Combined with LEGAL 297WL

HISTORY 364 – Gender and Race in US Social Policy
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Libby Sharrow

What are the problems associated with developing equitable and just policy? Why does social policy in the United States continue to be marked by tensions between the principle of equality and the reality of inequalities in social, political, and economic realms? How might policy subvert or reinforce these differences and inequalities? This class examines the history of social policy in the United States, particularly those policies affecting concerns of gender, race, and class. We will examine a wide range of social policies, focusing on those affecting groups such as: women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT people, and low-income people. We will study primarily empirical work, while asking questions about how political culture, interest groups, social movements, government institutions and other factor influence U.S. social policy.

HISTORY 397RL – Rape Law: Gender, Race, (In)justice
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Jennifer Nye

The history of the legal response to rape has often resulted in injustice for both the victim/survivor and the alleged perpetrator. This course will examine the evolution of the U.S. legal system's treatment of rape, paying particular attention to the movement against lynching in the post-civil war era, the rise of the feminist anti-rape movement in the 1970s and the student movement against campus sexual assault. Through an analysis of court cases, legislation, and other texts we will consider the role sexual violence has played in maintaining gender and racialized power relationships. We will examine how and why such violence came to be seen as a crime, including who is worthy of the law's "protection" and who is subject to the law's ? punishment." We will explore issues such as: rape as a form of racialized and imperial violence, especially against black and Native American women; the criminal legal treatment of rape and the evolution of the legal concepts of force, resistance, and consent; and the civil responses to rape under the Violence Against Women Act and Title IX. We'll also look at the international law responses to rape as a weapon of war. Finally, we'll think about how the legal responses, or non-responses, to rape have differed over time depending on factors such as the race/ethnicity, income level, immigration status, sexual orientation/gender identity, age, and marital status of the victim/survivor and the perpetrator. Finally, we?ll consider how the legal system can or should respond to rape, particularly in this age of mass criminalization and mass incarceration, and whether restorative justice responses might be preferable. Prior law-related coursework is helpful, but not required.

HISTORY 397WR – Women and Revolutions
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Diana Sierra Becerra

In the twentieth-century, working-class women built revolutions to dismantle oppressive systems and create a free society. They organized workers, waged armed struggle, and built alternative institutions. Why did women join revolutionary movements? How did gender shape their participation? How did women define revolutionary theories and practices? We will consult primary and secondary sources to understand the experiences and dreams of radical women. We will focus on historical case studies primarily from Latin America.

HONORS 499CN – Women Organize for a Better World, First Semester
Tuesday, Thursday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Graciela Monteagudo

Throughout the planet, women create common spaces for a better world in response to threats to their livelihood. This course uses the concept ?woman? to refer to bodies feminized by power, to include both transgender and cis women. Students will analyze the axis of oppression and resistance that sit at the core of women?s experiences. Focusing on gender, sexuality, the economy, and ethnic/racial oppression will help students zero on the structural aspect of women?s organizing. Students will prepare to write their thesis by learning about a wide range of movements, such as movements against gender violence, against racism, for access to full reproductive rights, for living wages, and to de-naturalize domestic work?s hidden unpaid labor. The Fall Seminar, HONORS 499CN, will help students develop expertise in this area.

ITALIAN 333 – Women’s Bodies: Poetry, Politics, and Power
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:10-11:00 a.m.
Stacy Giufre

In this course, students will explore the mind-body connection and its implications for conceptions of gender, identity, and power, both interpersonal and political through close analysis of visual art, texts, and films. Though the works we will analyze in this class were all produced in 20th-century Italy and center on representations of women and their bodies, all of these works appeal to a broad base of students. The course is appropriate for all types of learners and will employ methods of instruction that take into account students' varying interests and learning modalities. This course will help students develop skills that are useful not only for the study of the humanities but also the practice of healthcare professions. (Gen. Ed. AL)

LEGAL 297WL – Women and the Law: History of Sex and Gender Discrimination Law
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Jennifer Nye

POLISCI 395F – Women and Politics
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 12:20-1:10
Sarah Tanzi

Women have made tremendous gains in every aspect of social, economic and political life in the United States, particularly since the second wave of the women's movement in the 1960s.  Yet, women's progress in terms of achieving elected office has reached a puzzling plateau since the 1990s. We will examine the course of women's movements towards achieving political incorporation in the United States. We consider the debate over why women's political progress has stagnated and we consider the impact of the gender imbalance in American electoral politics - to what extent do these disparities matter? We begin by exploring women's suffrage campaigns and voting behavior in the period immediately following their achievement of the right to vote and beyond. We then turn to the relationship between women and party politics before discussing the challenges women face as candidates in American politics. We will focus on understanding why women remain underrepresented as legislators. We then consider the extent to which women's participation in campaigns and elections makes a substantive difference in policy making.

POLSCI 375 – Feminist Theory and Politics
M,W 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Sarah Tanzi

A theoretical consideration of different feminisms including liberal-feminism, socialist-feminism, anarcha-feminism, radical feminism and eco-feminism. Also examines: the relation between feminist theory and practice; the historical development of feminism; feminist issues within the canon of political theory; the problem of identity and difference(s) as related to race, class, and gender.

PSYCH 391LB – Psychology of the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Experience
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
John Bickford

Students in this course will explore psychological theory and research pertaining to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Topics include sexual orientation, sexual identity development, stigma management, heterosexism & homonegativity, gender roles, same-sex relationships, LGB families, LGB diversity, and LGB mental health. Open to Senior and Junior Psychology majors only. Prerequisite: PSYCH 241 Students who have previously taken Psych 391ZZ are not eligible for this class.

PUBHLTH 328 – Fundamentals of Women’s Health
Thursday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Sara Sabelawski

This course will provide a comprehensive overview of issues related to health in women, addressing areas including but not limited to biology, psychology, geography, economics, health policy, and social issues.

STPEC 101 – Introduction to STPEC
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Shemon Salam

This course will familiarize new students with the program and its vision. STPEC is a rigorous, democratically run, interdisciplinary academic program. STPEC is also a community of students, staff, instructors, alumni, and friends that will help you navigate your time at UMass. Ideally this course will also familiarize us with each other. The content of this course is organized around concepts students will encounter in their other STPEC requirements, as well as in the STPEC community and the greater world. It will provide an introduction to social theory, political economy, race and ethnicity, gender, masculinities and femininities, globalization and inequality in the Global North and the Global South. Assignments facilitate exploration of these and related topics. Students will have the opportunity to learn the value of social theory and how to make an argument; communicate for effective dialogue, and how to begin to identify social justice issues.

STPEC 491H – Focus Seminar I: The Political Economy of Race and Gender
Monday 1:25-3:55 p.m.
Katherine Moos

This course is a rigorous introduction to intersectional feminist political economy. To that end, we will investigate the meaning and effect of hierarchal identity-based power structures in patriarchal-capitalist societies. Drawing on a diverse literature from political economy, economics, and related social sciences, this course will familiarize students with how different schools of thought—in particular, but not limited to: intersectionality theory, stratification economics, care theory, and social reproduction theory—consider issues of race, class, and gender. We will research the roles of individuals, households, firms, markets, and the state in reproducing our human capabilities and the capacity to work for wages, as well as social norms and power structures.

SOCIOL 1067 – Race, Gender, Class & Ethnicity
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m. – Joshua Kaiser
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 (RAP section/Moore Hall - Blair Harrington
~~Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m. – Kelly Giles~~

Introduction to Sociology. Analysis of the consequences of membership in racial, gender, class and ethnic groups on social, economic and political life. (Gen.Ed. SB, DU)

SOCIOL 283 – Gender and Society
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Ana Villalobos

Analysis of: 1) historical and cross-cultural variation in positions and relationships of women and men; 2) contemporary creation and internalization of gender and maintenance of gender differences in adult life; 3) recent social movements to transform or maintain "traditional" positions of women and men. Prerequisite: 100-level Sociology course.

SOCIOL 344 – Gender and Crime
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Reyna Orellana

The extent and causes of gender differences in crime, from the "streets" to the "suites." Topics include problems in the general measurement of crime, historical and cross-cultural differences in the gender gap, the utility of general theories of the causes of crime in explaining the continuing gender gap, and a detailed look at the question and magnitude of gender discrimination in the American criminal justice system. Prerequisite: A 100-level or 100-level Sociology course.

SOCIOL 388 – Gender and Globalization
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Terra Steinkeuhler

Examines how globalization impacts gender relations, as well as how beliefs about femininity and masculinity influence globalization. Focuses on particularly important contexts, including: global production, international debt, migration, sex, tourism and war. Prerequisite: A 100-level or 200-level Sociology course.

UMass Courses Outside of WGSS (Component)

ANTHRO 297ST – Science, Technology, and Society
Monday, Wednesday 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Nicholas Caverly

This course explores scientific and technical systems that permeate our lives. By way of facial recognition, IQ tests, vaccine protocols, hydroelectric dams, and other systems, we will focus on the all-too-human questions embedded in processes of scientific innovation and technological development. Together, we will address the following: What makes something a scientific fact? What are the benefits and harms of emerging platforms, and for whom? How do social, political, and economic inequities shape technology and vice-versa? Can we engineer alternate futures? These are a few of the topics and questions that drive the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Students in this course will engage with the work of STS scholars and practitioners—including anthropologists, historians, sociologists, and geographers—as they unpack connections between social, technical, historical, and political change. We will focus on the ways that STS methodologies can be used to address some of the most pressing questions of our time. That includes asking how AI changes what it means to be human, developing infrastructures for living through climate change, examining obligations between humans and other species, and exploring how medical technologies algorithmically encode racism, sexism, and other structural inequities.

ANTHRO 597CR – Critical Race Theory
Tuesday 10:00-12:45 p.m.
Amanda Johnson

See department for description.

ART-HIST 324/624 – Modern Art, 1880-present
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Karen Kurczynski

This course takes a new and interactive look at 20th Century art, from the move toward total abstraction around 1913 to the development of Postmodernism in the 1980s. We examine the impact on art of social and political events such as World War I, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Fascism, the Mexican Revolution, the New Woman in the 1920s, World War II, the Cold War, and the rise of consumer culture. We will investigate the origins and complex meanings of movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Mexican Muralism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. We will reconsider and reevaluate major issues in Modern art and culture such as the evolution of personal expression, the recognition of non-western culture in Euro-America, the interest in abstraction as a universal language, new technologies in art, the politics of the avant-garde and its attempts to reconnect art and life, issues of gender, race and representation, the role of myth and the unconscious, and the dialogue between art and popular culture. (Gen. Ed. AT, DG)

ASIAN 312 – Bridging Asia and Asian America
Monday, Wednesday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
C.N. Le

This course examines the historical, political, economic, and cultural connections and intersections between Asian and the United States, particularly as they relate to Asian Americans. Drawing on interdisciplinary methodological and analytical approaches, this course will help students to develop and apply an analytical toolset that combines theory, concepts, methods, and empirical data to better understand real-world and complex issues such as early examples of globalization, trade, and immigration between Asia countries and the U.S.; cultural dispersion and the development of the first Asian American communities; dynamics of gender/race/ethnicity; and current issues centered on environmental sustainability, civil society and human rights, emerging transnational media, economic and political tensions, and anti-globalization movements, to name just a few. (Gen. Ed. I, DG)

COMM 338 – Children, Teens and Media
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Erica Scharrer

In this seminar, we will explore the role of media (television, Internet, video games, mobile media, film, etc.) in shaping the lives of children and teens. We will consider how much time children devote to various media, what they think about what they encounter through media, and the implications of media for children's lives. We will draw on social science research to examine a wide range of topics, including: depictions of race, class, gender, and sexuality in ads, programming, and other media forms; the role of media in the development of adolescent identity; media uses and effects in the realms of educational TV and apps, advertising and consumer culture, violence, and sex; and the possibilities of media literacy, parental rules and dialogue, and public policies to shape children's interactions with media.

COMP-LIT 231 – Comedy
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Kathryn Lachman

Our course begins with the premise that contemporary American comedy is informed by the histories of ethnic American groups -- African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and U.S. Latinos/Latinas -- along with issues of race, class, sexuality and citizenship. American comedians, independent filmmakers, feminists and transgendered comics deploy the language of comedy to invoke serious social matters in contemporary American life: racism, heterosexism, homophobia, class biases against the poor and the undocumented, misogyny, war and other burning issues of the day. We will thus consider that the ends of comedy are more than laughter. Comedy confronts political issues that are constitutive of and threatening to the U.S. body politic. (Gen Ed AL)

EDUC 590Z – Critical Pedagogy for Media Literacy
Tuesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Kysa Nygreen

This course brings the rigorous study of educational inequality together with the tools of critical media analysis to explore representations and realities of inequality in schools with a focus on race, class, ability, gender, and sexuality. Students will also develop skills to teach for critical media literacy using critical pedagogical methods.

FRENCHST 280 – Love and Sex in French Culture
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Patrick Mensah

Is love a French invention? How do we explore, through literature, the substance behind the stereotypical association of love, romance, and sexual pleasure with French culture? Do sex, passion, and love always unite in the pursuit of emotional fulfillment in human relations, according to this literature? What affiliations does this literature interweave between such relations of love, requited or unrequited, and pleasure, enjoyment, freedom, self-empowerment, on the one hand, and on the other hand, suffering, jealousy, crime, violence, negativity, notions of perversion, morbidity, and even death? How are problems of gender roles and human sexuality?i.e. Hetero-, bi-, homo- and other forms of sexuality--approached in this literature? What connections or conflicts are revealed in this literature between human love relationships and the social norms and conventions within which they occur, as well as the forms of political governance that have been practiced in France over the centuries? Those are some of the issues that are investigated in this course, which offers a broad historical overview of selective ways in which love, passion, desire and erotic behavior in French culture have been represented and understood in Literature and, more recently, in film, from the middle ages to the twentieth century. Readings are from major French authors drawn from various centuries such as Marie de France, Beroul, Moliere, de Sade, Flaubert, Gide, and Duras. They will be supplemented with screenings of optional films that are based on those texts or are pertinent to them in important ways. (Gen. Ed. AL)

GEOGRAPH 397S/697S – Environmental Geography and Sustainability
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Britt Crow-Miller

This course provides a critical exploration of the fundamental interrelations among human systems and the natural environment. We take as our focus a handful of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to examine the two-way interplay between environmental factors and issues related to poverty, hunger and food systems, gender equality, urbanization, inequality, and economic and socio-cultural change. The course enables students to consider major challenges related to the environment and sustainability at multiple scales, from the local and regional to the global.

GERMAN 275 – The Scientific Mind
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Sara Jackson

In this course, taught in English, students will explore how the concept of the scientific mind develop in German sciences, literature, art, and philosophy from the eighteenth century to the present. By examining parallel and intersecting developments in cultural products and in the natural sciences, we will examine how knowledge was separated into different fields. Importantly, in doing so we will examine and discuss how socio-cultural and political value was assigned to different ways of thinking and different modes of production, and how those values have shaped the way we view ourselves and others, particularly in constructed categories such as gender, race, sexuality, and ability. This is an introductory course. There are no prerequisites, and no prior knowledge is required. (Gen. Ed. AL, DG)

HISTORY 154 – Social Change in the 1960s
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m. – Jason Higgins (Social Justice RAP – Moore Hall)
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m. – Andrew Grim (Engineering RAP – Kennedy)

Few periods in United States. history experienced as much change and turmoil as the "Long Sixties" (1954-1975), when powerful social movements overhauled American gender norms, restructured the Democratic and Republican parties, and abolished the South's racist "Jim Crow" regime. This course examines the movements that defined this era. We will explore the civil rights and Black Power movements; the student New Left and the antiwar movement; the women's and gay liberation movements; struggles for Asian American, Chicano/a, Native American, and Puerto Rican freedom; as well as the rise of conservatism. Throughout the semester, we will assess Sixties social movements' ideals, strategies, and achievements, and their ongoing influence upon U.S. politics, society, and culture. (Gen.Ed. HS, DU)

HISTORY 264 – History of Health Care and Medicine in the U.S.
Monday, Wednesday 1:25-2:15 p.m.
Discussions Friday
Emily Hamilton

This course explores the history and social meaning of medicine, medical practice, health care, and disease in the United States from 1600 to the present. Using a variety of sources aimed at diverse audiences students will investigate topics such as: the evolution of beliefs about the body; medical and social responses to infectious and chronic disease; the rise of medical science and medical organizations; the development of medical technologies; mental health diagnosis and treatment; changing conceptions of the body; the training, role, and image of medical practitioners and the role of public and government institutions in promoting health practices and disease treatments. We will pay particular attention to the human experience of medicine, with readings on the experience of being ill, the delivery of compassionate care, and the nature of the relationship between practitioners and patients. Course themes will include race, gender, cultural diversity, women and gender, social movements, science, technology, politics, industry, and ethics. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

JOURNAL 490J – Arts and Culture Journalism
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Kelsey Whipple

In this class, students will become explorers, arbiters and communicators of culture. That includes a wide variety of journalistic beats, such as music, food, film, television, art, travel and fashion. By developing cultural journalism skills, students will learn how to assess and diagnose what art is worth consuming and what is not, what audiences need to know and what they do not and how best to communicate all of the above. And they will learn how to cover culture in a variety of ways, including reporting, criticism and first-person essay writing. Finally, by studying the history, theory and practice of cultural journalism, students explore how class, race, gender and other identity factors influence how we respond to cultural products and creators. This course combines both theoretical concepts and practical lessons to teach students how to strengthen their critical-thinking skills, their cultural authority and their journalistic credibility while sharpening their authorial voices and their understanding of popular culture. Open to Senior and Junior JOURNAL majors only. Prerequisite: JOURNAL 300 Arts and culture journalism is an ongoing conversation both about and with culture, and this course will help you learn to increase your cultural cache as well as that of your audience. In this class you will be explorers and communicators of culture.

LABOR 297S/SOCIOL 297S – Sports, Labor and Social Justice
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Jerrold Levinsky

Protests by professional and amateur athletes against racial and gender discrimination are not new or isolated events in U.S. history. In fact, sports have long been connected to the social, economic, and political issues of the day. With a particular focus on labor and civil rights struggle, our goal is to better understand the history of sports as it relates to social class, race, and gender. Students will analyze current controversies through this critical approach to sports and society.

LEGAL 397EQ – Law and Inequality
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Tania DoCarmo

This course examines the persistence of inequality based on race, class, gender and/or citizenship as it relates to law, both in the U.S. and internationally. We will examine the legal system from a critical perspective, incorporating material from law, history, sociology, and other disciplines. We will map some of the ways legal regimes and concepts contribute to the production, recognition and maintenance of power hierarchies, exploring and discussing questions such: as how and why the legal system has historically favored the rich and discriminated against the poor, nonwhites, women and immigrants; as well as the extent to which the legal system can be used to achieve social change.

PORTUG 397F – The City in Contemporary Lusophone Literature and Film
Thursday 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Patricia Martinho Ferreira

This course is designed as an introduction to Brazilian, Portuguese and Lusophone African cinema and cultures. The selected cinematographic works will afford students an opportunity to engage with film theory and criticism, and to examine a variety of topics such as the formation of national identity, gender and family dynamics, social inequalities, rural vs. urban societies, migration, civic agency, race relations, and major political and historical events that have impacted the contemporary societies of the Portuguese-speaking world (mainly Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and S'o Tome e Principe). Our goal is to evaluate how film can contest hegemonic accounts and to investigate how artistic productions play a role in interpreting one's society and forming one's identity. Class will be conducted in English. The films will be shown in the original language with subtitles.

PUBHLTH 389 – Health Inequities
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Luis Valdez

While the health and wellbeing of the nation has improved overall, racial, ethnic, gender and sexuality disparities in morbidity and mortality persist. To successfully address growing disparities, it is important to understand social determinants of health and translate current knowledge into specific strategies to undo health inequalities. This course will explore social justice as a philosophical underpinning of public health and will consider the etiology of disease rooted in social conditions. It aims to strengthen critical thinking, self-discovery, and knowledge of ways in which socioeconomic, political, and cultural systems structure health outcomes. (Gen. Ed. SB, DU)

STPEC 320 – Writing for Critical Consciousness
Monday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Graciela Monteagudo

The STPEC Junior Writing Seminar focuses on individual development of voice. We will weave this theme through standard essay assignments, weekly response papers, cover letters and resumes, and a research paper with a theme of your choosing. We encourage integration of ideas from your other courses and experiences. Be prepared to think critically and examine texts carefully. We will be sharing our writing with each other – be ready to give and receive constructive feedback. This course meets only once a week; attendance is crucial.

STPEC 391H – Core Seminar I
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Graciela Monteagudo

STPEC Core Seminar I focuses on major theoretical currents in political theory and the historical circumstances that gave rise to those theories - in particular Liberalism, Marxism, Anarchism, Decolonial, and Poststructural theories. As this is an interdisciplinary class, we will be bringing in analytic tools from various disciplines paying attention to the historical construction and reception of ideas.

STPEC 392H – Core Seminar II
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Shemon Salam

STPEC Core Seminar II focuses on the development of social struggles, political economy, and theory from the 1960s to the present. Continuing our analysis of racial capitalism and empire, Core II will explore how these formations changed due to economic crisis, national liberation, and class struggle. We will research the connections between race, class, gender, sexuality, disease, and other axes of oppression under racial capitalism. A major research paper of the student's choosing will be produced over the course of the semester allowing students to more deeply engage with a topic, and to practice applying the critical methodological and theoretical
tools developed in the STPEC curriculum.

STPEC 492H – Focus Seminar II: Decolonial Resistance: Colonization, and strategies of liberation; now and in History
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Stellan Vinthagen

This course is focused on resistance and strategies of liberation against colonialism, now and in history. It explores how to effectively decolonialize through three parallel approaches: (1) a 500-year overview of the world history of colonialism, imperialism and waves of anti-colonial liberation struggles, (2) an analysis of contemporary colonialism (overseas as well as “internal”), resistance and “decolonization”, and (3) comparative case-studies of strategies of liberation. Students will choose their own focus on particular liberation strategies (e.g., everyday struggles, cultural resistance, guerilla struggles, mass civil disobedience, etc.), thematic issues (e.g., the role of women in anti-colonial liberation struggles, or the recreation of colonial patterns within postcolonial states), within historical or contemporary cases. The course is based on active participation through text seminars, movies, student presentations and the writing of course papers. Besides UMass students, the course will also in a unique way, via online communications, include some overseas students from colonized contexts, students with first-hand experiences from decolonization struggles. In this way, the course is a laboratory where we learn from mixing our experiences and different positions in relation to colonialism and decolonization, in theory and practice.

SOCIOL 329 – Social Movements
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1:25-2:15 p.m.
Millicent Thayer

Explores how and why social movements occur, what strategies they use, how they create collective identities, how issues such as civil rights, workers' rights, women's rights, the environment, the global economy mobilize activists' participation within the circumstances faced.

SOCIOL 297S/LABOR 297S – Sports, Labor and Social Justice
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Jerrold Levinsky

SOCIOL 397ED – Sociology of Eating Disorders
Monday, Wednesday 5:30-6:45 p.m.
Veronica Everett

This course is designed to look at eating disorders through the lens of Sociology. We will be discussing relevant topics such as social narratives around body image and media (including social media), gender norms, race, feminism, socioeconomic influences related to weight, the history of some of these variables and how they've evolved over time. We will also look at issues related to development and mental health including self-esteem, peer relationships, family systems/environment, mood disorders, trauma, diagnoses, healthcare policy and treatment. Lastly, as its relevant to you as students, we will look at college life and eating disorders as it is often a time when eating disorders develop or peak.

SOCIOL 461 – Race and Racism
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Moon-Kie Jung

Though biologically untenable, race continues to structure virtually every aspect of social life, from life expectancies at birth to death penalty executions. Topics to be covered in this course include the historical origins and evolution of race and racism, gender and class dynamics of race, antiracist movements, poverty, higher education, migration, incarceration, and nationalism. Considering and critiquing various theoretical approaches, this course reaches beyond the Black-white binary and, though focusing on the United States, also examines race and racism in other contexts.

SPANISH 324 – Introduction to Latino/a Literature
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Stephanie Fetta

In this course students will think critically about the various "wild tongues" that have defined U.S. Latinx literature and culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. Our analysis will center on issues of power as they are experienced by diverse U.S. Latinx populations. Specifically, we will focus on Latinx writers, performers, and scholars that push the boundaries of acceptable gender, sexuality, and racialization within U.S. Latinx cultures, focusing specifically on Caribbean and Chicanx populations in the United States. Students will be required to engage critically with primary texts, as well as reflect on the ways in which these issues exist in the world around us. Because Latinx thinkers often blur the boundaries of traditional literary and scholarly genres, we will consider pinnacle works of Latinx studies - such as those of Pedro Pietri, Gloria Anzaldua, and Junot Diaz - alongside other forms of cultural production, such as performance art and film. We will also try our hands at these art forms in an effort to find new, embodied ways to interact with expressions of Latinx culture. Course texts are written in both English and Spanish. Class discussion will take place in Spanish. All assignments must be completed in Spanish. (Gen. Ed. AL, DU)

SPORTMGT 490A – Diversity & Inclusion in Sports
Monday, Wednesday 2:30-3:45 p.m.
Nicole Melton

This course examines an encompassing perspective of diversity within North American and International sport organizations. Specifically, the purpose of this course is to provide students with an analysis and understanding of the various ways that people within sport organizations can differ, and how differences based on this diversity impact life experiences and outcomes. Modules to be discussed include Foundations of Diversity and Inclusion, Forms of Diversity (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation, age, mental and physical ability, appearance, religious beliefs, and social class), and Organizational inclusiveness.

SUSTCOMM 397R – Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Urban Environments
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:10-11:00 a.m.
Darrel Ramse-Musolf

In this seminar, we will examine how urban environments operate as places of refuge and/or peril for persons that primarily define themselves by their race, gender, or sexual expression. To understand this spatial dichotomy, we will survey materials (e.g., film, memoirs, news accounts, scholarly writing) that emphasize their voice, their point of view, and potential conflicts with mainstream society. As a secondary theme, we will also note how capitalism, neighborhood succession, and/or gentrification may amplify their experiences.

Graduate

WGSS 705 – Genealogies of Feminist Thought
Wednesday 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Cameron Awkward-Rich

This graduate seminar in feminist theory constitutes a core course for students enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies. The seminar will be organized around questions that emerge for feminisms from the rubrics of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, transnationalism, human rights, economics and postcolonialism. Feminist theory is inherently interdisciplinary and we will draw on classic and contemporary writings from the many fields that contribute to the "field" of feminist theory.

WGSS 793R/230 – Politics of Reproduction
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Laura Briggs

WGSS 891P – Critical Feminist Pedagogy
Tuesday 2:30-5:00 p.m.
Laura Ciolkowski

This course surveys a range of topics in feminist economics, including gender and macroeconomics, gender and development, and micro-level approaches to households and bargaining. The course will primarily focus on the feminist economics literature, although critical engagement with neoclassical approaches will also be part of the class. Although the course will focus on issues of economics and gender, topics relating to other socially constructed groups (based on race, ethnicity, nationality, etc) will also be explored.

ENGLISH 891TE – Trans-Embodiments of the Early Modern World
Monday 1:00-3:30 p.m.
Marjorie Rubright

“The condensation of transness into the category of transgender is a racialized narrative,” C. Riley Snorton writes. This seminar begins with the proposition that exploring the contours of gendered embodiment(s) in early modern texts requires attending to the emergence of modern forms of race and racism. How do we set out on this project in ways that attend both to possibilities and pitfalls of intersectionality and transhistorical research? In exploring gender’s dynamism, plurality, and expansiveness in various cultural and literary contexts, how are we illuminating or obscuring white supremacy, anti-blackness, xenophobia, and the biopolitics of settler colonialism? In exploring these and other questions, the seminar draws together conversations underway in #RaceB4Race seminars and symposia and those inaugurated by the 2019 publication of the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies’ special issue, “Early Modern Trans Studies.” Our primary readings will span early modern drama, travel writing, medical treatises, and ephemera. Our critical readings will range broadly as we pay particular attention to how recent collections are shaping the conversation: JEMCS “Early Modern Trans Studies”; The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality and Race; Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies; Early American Studies “Beyond the Binaries in Early America”; & Trans Historical: Gender Plurality before the Modern (forthcoming).

SPANISH 597NC – New Catalan Cinema: Feminist Film Theory and Women Film Practice
Wednesday 4:00-6:30 p.m.
Barbara Zecchi

See department for description.

Summer/Fall 2021 UWW (ONLINE) COURSES

WGSS Majors and Minors must focus their papers or projects on WGSS topics to count courses listed as "component."
100-level courses only count toward the minor. All other courses listed at 200-level and above automatically count towards botht the major and minor.
Registration

WGSS 187 – Gender, Sexuality and Culture
Summer Session 1
Laura Ciolkowski

ANTHRO 106 – Culture Through Film
Summer Session 1
Justin Helepololei
Component

Exploration of different societies and cultures, and of the field of cultural anthropology through the medium of film. Ethnographic and documentary films; focus on gender roles, ethnicity, race, class, religion, politics, and social change. (Gen.Ed. SB, DG)

ANTHRO 258 – Food and Culture
Summer Session 2
Gabriela Quijano-Seda
Component

This course surveys how cultural anthropologists have studied the big questions about food and culture. How and why do people restrict what foods are considered "edible" or morally acceptable? How is food processed and prepared, and what does food tell us about other aspects of culture like gender and ethnic identity? How have power issues of gender, class, and colonialism shaped people's access to food? How has industrialization changed food, and where are foodways headed in the future? Along the way, students will read and see films about foodways in Europe, Africa, Asia, the United States, and Latin America. (Gen. Ed. SB, DG)

COMM 284 – Possible Futures: Science Fiction Cinema
Summer Session 1
Kevin Anderson
Component

There are multiple growing concerns regarding issues of climate, class, race, gender identity, and the nature of democracy in our contemporary world. Science fiction has proven to be a thought-provoking genre to help raise awareness to many of these social and environmental issues. This course takes a global perspective on such pressing issues by examining science fiction films from around the world. As such, the course uses science fiction films as primary texts, accompanied by weekly readings. Students will engage in a critical analysis of the assigned films and readings in order to better appreciate what we can begin to anticipate regarding our future. (Gen. Ed. SB, DG) Students are encouraged to check out the following video about the course: https://tinyurl.com/summer21comm284

COMM 288 – Gender, Sex & Representation
Summer Session 1
Sut Jhally

This course will examine the relationship between commercialized systems of representation and the way that gender and sexuality are thought of and organized in the culture. In particular, we will look at how commercial imagery impacts upon gender identity and the process of gender socialization. Central to this discussion will be the related issues of sexuality and sexual representation (and the key role played by advertising).

COMM 394EI – Performance and the Politics of Race
Summer Session 1
Kimberlee Perez

This course looks at the ways race, racial identities, and interracial relations are formed through and by communication practices in present-day U.S. America. Though focusing on U.S. America in the current historical moment, the course takes into account the ways history as well as the transnational flows of people and capital inform and define conversations about race and racial identities. Race will be discussed as intersectional, taking into account the ways race is understood and performed in relation to gender, sexuality, class, and nation. The course will focus on the performance and communications of race, ranging from everyday interactions, personal narratives and storytelling, intra- and inter-racial dialogue, and staged performances.

ECON 397SE – Stratification Economics: Understanding Inequality
Summer Session 1
Carly McCann
Component

This course will examine the economics of socially constructed groups and the inequalities in income, wealth, and power between them. The course will include, as a central feature, an examination of inequalities based on race and ethnicity. However, the course will also explore economic dynamics and disparities between a range of socially constructed groups, including those based on gender, caste, nationality/citizenship, different concepts of class, and sexuality. This course will introduce students to key concepts and analytical approaches in stratification economics and the economics of identity. Prerequisite: ECON 103 (or RES-ECON 102) and ECON 104

ENGLISH 132 – Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture
Summer Session 1
Dina Al Qassar

FRENCHST 280 – Love and Sex in French Culture
Summer Session 1
Patrick Mensah
Component

FRENCHST 353/FILM-ST 353 – African Film
Summer Session 2
Patrick Mensah
Component

This course offers an introduction to African film as an aesthetic and cultural practice. Students should expect to be familiarized with the key ideas and objectives that have inspired and driven that practice since the early 1960s, and be furnished with the technical tools and methodological skills that would permit them to understand, analyze, and think critically about the artistic and thematic aspects of the films that are screened. They should also expect the course to provide them with a critical peek into several cardinal issues of social and cultural relevance in contemporary Africa and its history. Issues of interest typically include, the nationstate and its declining status, imperatives of decolonization, economic dependency and structural adjustment programs, orality and changing traditional cultures, diasporic migrations, urbanization and its problems, gender relations, civil wars, child soldiers, gangs, and related themes. Filmmakers studied include, but are not limited to, Abderrahmane Sissako, Gillo Pontecorvo, Ousmane Sembene, Raoul Peck, Jean-Marie Teno, Dani Kouyate, Mweze Ngangura, Gavin Hood, Neill Blomkamp, Moufida Tlatli, Djibril Diop Mambety (please note that this list is subject to change, and shall be updated as future changes are made). The course is conducted in English, and requires no prior knowledge of the field. All films are streamed to your computer from the UMass library on demand. Required readings are provided online, and no book purchases are necessary. (Gen.Ed. AT, DG)

HISTORY 154 – Social Change in the 1960s
Summer Session 2
Julia Sandy-Bailey
Component

This course focuses on the "Long Sixties," a period stretching from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. We will look in new ways at topics you are probably already familiar with: the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, counterculture, sexual experimentation, and never trusting anyone over 30. We will also explore aspects of the Sixties you may not know about or associate with a different era, such as the Great Society, a thriving conservative movement, environmentalism, and gay rights. Students will view online lectures, participate in online discussions, and complete assignments which include reviewing music, movies, and books from the sixties.

HISTORY 264 – History of Health Care and Medicine in the U.S.
Summer Session 1
Emily Hamilton
Component

PUBHLTH 340 – LGBTQ Health
Summer Session 2
Kelsey Jordan

This course is about the unique health needs and health disparities within the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) communities, and among the individuals who make up each of these communities. We will learn about gender identity and sexual orientation development in kids and young adults, sexual health, global perspectives, strategies for improving the healthcare experience of LGBT people (e.g., patient-centered and compassionate care), barriers to accessing health care, and many other relevant topics. This is an important course for public health students, because it teaches more than just the facts, but also skills for creating a compassionate and inclusive environment for vulnerable populations. (Gen. Ed. SB, DU)

PUBHLTH 465 – Global Perspective on Women’s Health
Summer Session 2
Hope Bastian

In this seminar, students will discuss a variety of issues affecting women's health around the world. Topics include maternal mortality, family planning, infectious disease, sex trafficking, and gender-based violence.

SOCIOL 106 – Race, Gender, Class & Ethnicity
Summer Session 2
Debadatta Chakraborty

Introduction to Sociology. Analysis of the consequences of membership in racial, gender, class and ethnic groups on social, economic and political life. (Gen.Ed. SB, DU)

SOCIOL 248 – Conformity and Deviance
Session 2
Anthony Huaqui
Component

This course examines the social processes of rule-making and rule-breaking, and how categories of "normal" and "deviance" change historically. We examine different theories of conformity and deviance, using topics such as sexuality and politics.

SOCIOL 397AM – Asylums, Madness, and Mental Illness in American Culture
Summer Session 1
Janice Irvine
Component

This course uses the rise and fall of the asylum movement to examine shifting ideas about "mental illness" and its treatment, from the mid-19th century to the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1970s. Born of a utopian spirit dedicated to healing minds broken by the modern world, insane asylums devolved into "theaters of madness" where "lunatics" were stigmatized and warehoused. Race, gender, class, and sexuality shaped how mental illness has been conceptualized and treated over a pivotal century in American culture. Using sociological research and popular culture - such as films, novels, and television - we examine the asylum as a type of social control, and mid-20th century criticisms of asylums as "total institutions."

UWW 377 – Child Abuse, & Neglect
Summer Session 1
Lisa Fontes

This interdisciplinary course explores the causes and effects of child abuse and neglect, prevention strategies, and ways to intervene with children, families and communities. The course draws on psychological, sociological, public health, feminist, legal, and criminal justice approaches. The course addresses child sexual abuse, physical abuse, child neglect, and psychological maltreatment. The course has a focus on ways to make child maltreatment services relevant to culturally diverse people within the United States.

UWW 397SV – Sexual Violence
Summer Session 2
Lisa Fontes

This course explores sexual violence in the United States from psychological, sociological, public health, feminist, legal, historical, and criminal justice perspectives. It addresses the sexual victimization of teenagers and adults of all genders in a variety of social contexts, using an anti-oppression framework. The course also focuses on ways to make sexual violence prevention and intervention services better suited to culturally diverse people.

FALL 2021 UWW COURSES

WGSS 286 – History of Sexuality and Race in the United States
Joy Hayward-Jansen

AFROAM 236 – History of the Civil Rights Movement
Maria Ximena Abello Hurtado
Component

Examination of the Civil Rights Movement from the Brown v. Topeka decision to the rise of Black power. All the major organizations of the period, e.g., SCLC, SNCC, CORE, NAACP, and the Urban League. The impact on white students and the anti-war movement. (Gen.Ed. HS, DU)

ANTHRO 258 – Food and Culture
TBD
Component

COMM 271 – Humor in Society
Stephen Olbrys Gencarella
Component

This course examines humor as a significant form of creative expression in social and political life. In recent decades, scholars of all persuasions from the humanities, social sciences, and even hard sciences have examined this subject through a critical lens, leading to the development of an interdisciplinary field known as humor studies. This course provides an introduction to that burgeoning field. Topics include theories of humor, the differences and relationship between humor and comedy, the use of both in the redress of political and social tensions, the importance of the body in humor and comedy, and their role in the negotiation of identity and community. (Gen Ed SB)

EDUC 210 – Social Diversity in Education
Warren Blumenfeld
Component

Focus on issues of social identity, social and cultural diversity, and societal manifestations of oppression. Draws on interdisciplinary perspectives of social identity development, social learning theory, and sociological analyses of power and privilege within broad social contexts. (Gen.Ed. I, DU)

EDUC 595G – LGBTQ Issues in Education
Warren Blumenfeld

How can we develop language, attitudes, and practices that validate and support all students along the spectrums of gender expressions, identities, and sexualities? How are issues related to gender and sexuality diversity connected to privilege, power, and oppression? Participating in this online course will allow you to consider how we can think ethically, critically, and in socially just ways about LGBTQ issues in education and how to cultivate affirming and supportive learning environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) students. Drawing on work from the fields of anti-oppression education, critical pedagogy, and queer theory, we will examine how heteronormativity, heterosexism, and genderism/transgender oppression play out in educational contexts and explore ways to promote gender and sexuality equity within schools. We will discuss the complexities of sex, gender, and sexuality, and address contemporary issues facing educators who want to implement LGBTQ curriculum. You will be able to demonstrate your learning by creating an applied project on a topic of your choice. This course is open to any student interested in this topic. No pre-requisites.

ENGLISH 132 – Gender, Sexuality, Literature, and Culture
TBD

HISTORY 154 – Social Change in the 1960s
TBD
Component

This course focuses on the ?Long Sixties,? a period stretching from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. We will look in new ways at topics you are probably already familiar with: the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, counterculture, sexual experimentation, and never trusting anyone over 30. We will also explore aspects of the Sixties you may not know about or associate with a different era, such as the Great Society, a thriving conservative movement, environmentalism, and gay rights. Students will view online lectures, participate in online discussions, and complete assignments which include reviewing music, movies, and books from the sixties.

HISTORY 264 – History of Health Care and Medicine in the U.S.
Emily Hamilton
Component

SOCIOL 106 – Race, Gender, Class Ethnicity
TBD

Introduction to Sociology. Analysis of the consequences of membership in racial, gender, class and ethnic groups on social, economic and political life.
(Gen.Ed. SB, DU)

SOCIOL 397GF – Gender, Crime, and Families
TBD

Families are a major social institution that operate as a cornerstone of human experiences. They also deeply impact broader social structures due to their central position as an arbiter between individuals and an array of other institutions such as communities, schools, and the criminal justice system. In this course, we examine the interrelationship between gender, crime, and families. Doing so provides an opportunity for nuanced engagement with existing social science research on gender and crime and how that relationship impacts and is shaped by family/families.

Five Colleges

Amherst

SWAG 209/ANTH 209/SOCI 207 – Feminist Perspectives on Science and Medicine
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Katrina Karkazis

This seminar uses feminist theory and methods to consider scientific practice and the production of scientific knowledge. We will explore how science reflects and reinforces social relations, positions, and hierarchies as well as whether and how scientific practice and knowledge might be made more accurate and socially beneficial. Central to this course is how assumptions about sex, gender and race have shaped what we have come to know as “true,” “natural,” and “fact.” We will explore interdisciplinary works on three main themes: feminist critiques of objectivity; the structure and meanings of natural variations, especially human differences; and challenges to familiar binaries (nature/culture, human/animal, female/male, etc).

SWAG 223/HIST 223 – Law, Sex, and Family in the Wider Mediterranean (1300-180)
Tuesday, Thursday 3:00-4:20 p.m.
Jutta Sperling

This course invites students to assume a comparative and intersectional perspective when analyzing differently organized patriarchal societies of the Mediterranean. Our focus will be on women’s access to properties, marriage, divorce, child rearing, and sexuality; our case studies are located in Renaissance Italy, early modern France, Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire, Mamluk Egypt, Islamic Iberia, and Jewish communities in France and Italy. We will attempt to separate the issue of religious denomination from family history and foreground the question of commensurability in matters relating to gender, sex, and kinship. Topics include: marital gift exchange and divorce in Renaissance Italy and Mamluk Cairo; female resistance to arranged marriages in France and Anatolia; women’s access to power in the Ottoman harem; different forms of slavery in the Mediterranean; the fate of female refugees and converts in the Mediterranean; male and female same-sex desire in Renaissance Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and Safavid Iran. Writing assignments will consist of comparative analyses of historical literature.

SWAG 309/FAMS 308/BRUS 308 – Writing Together: Film and Feminist Collectivity
Tuesday, Thursday 3:00-4:20 p.m.
Sunday 7:00-9:30 p.m.
Amelie Hastie

As an artistic and industrial form, film depends on acts of collaboration. Such acts take place at the level of production, whether on a Hollywood lot that might employ hundreds if not thousands of people to make a single film or in an independent artisan’s work in which one primary maker works with the subjects she films. Collaboration is also necessary in the exhibition of films: across the expanses between widescale distribution at multiplexes around the world, art-house and repertory cinemas, and small-scale screenings at galleries or colleges. And then, of course, film invites a response from its viewers; in the words of Modernist novelist and film critic Dorothy Richardson, viewers and films “cooperate” with one another. Drawing on these intrinsic facets of film, this seminar will link film to feminist action, which is itself dependent on collective action. Specifically, we will explore what happens when we link film and feminism historically, analytically, and, for the purposes of our class, through the act of writing. The subjects of our writing will be women-directed films. Though we will consider some earlier models, our attention will be focused on global artists working in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As we explore their films, our coursework will be divided into three units, which will invariably overlap with and sustain one another. Hence, we will explore writings about film by various feminist “collectives”; we will produce individual essays in a workshop format; and we will collectively produce a special issue of a student-generated journal or database in order to exhibit the work of the students beyond our classroom.

SWAG 310/ARHA 385/EUST 385 – Witches, Vampires, and Other Monsters

Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.

Natasha Staller

Our course will explore how evil was imagined, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate an array of monstrous creatures and plagues -- their terrifying powers, the explanations for why they came to be, and the strategies for how they could be purged -- as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they shared. We will study centuries-old witch burning manuals, and note the striking degree to which dangerous tropes -- about women, about pestilence, about dangerous sexuality, and about differences of all kinds -- have continued to our day. Among the artists to be considered are Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Buñuel, Dreyer, Wilder, Almodóvar, and the community who made the AIDS Quilt.

SWAG 320/SPAN 320 – Strange Girls: Spanish Women’s Voices
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Sara Brenneis

Although at times derided as abnormal “chicas raras,” Spanish women have carved out a particular niche in the history of Spanish literature. These novelists, poets, essayists and short story authors have distinguished themselves by tackling issues of sexuality, subjectivity, marginalization, sexism, and feminism head-on. But how do we define an escritura femenina in Spain and what, if anything, differentiates it as a gendered space from canonical “masculine” writing? This course examines the social, historical and cultural transformations women have undergone in Spain from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. We will explore a lively variety of texts and literary genres by well-known authors such as Emilia Pardo Bazán, Carmen Laforet, Carmen Martín Gaite, Ana Rossetti and Dulce Chacón, while also widening our focus to Afro-Spanish voices who have traditionally been excluded. Students will create their own canon by becoming the editors of an Anthology of Spanish Women’s Writing. Conducted in Spanish.

SWAG 348/HIST 348 – History of Asian American Women: Migration and Labor

Tuesday, Thursday 3:00-4:20 p.m.

Christine Peralta

This seminar will explore the intersections of gender, migration, and labor, with a particular focus on Asian American women in the United States (broadly defined to include the U.S.’s territories and military bases), from 1870 to the present. Through transnational and woman-of color feminist lenses, we will investigate U.S. colonial and neo-colonial formations which disrupt local economies, compelling women to migrate from their homes across national borders and then channeling them into limited employment opportunities in some of the most exploitative industries in the United States, including manufacturing, agricultural, and domestic work. Students will do close analysis of historical evidence, including written documents, images, film, and newspapers. There will also be intensive in-class discussion and varying forms of written work, which will culminate in a final research paper on a topic chosen by the student.

SWAG 416/ECON 416/BLST 416 – Economics of Race and Gender
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Reyes

Economics is fundamentally about both efficiency and equity.  It is about allocation, welfare, and well-being.  How, then, can we use this disciplinary perspective to understand hierarchy, power, inequity, discrimination, and injustice?  What does economics have to offer?  Applied microeconomics is a fundamentally outward-looking and interdisciplinary field that endeavors to answer this question by being both firmly grounded in economics and also deeply connected to sociology, psychology, political science, and law.  In this class, we will employ this augmented economic perspective to try to understand the hierarchies and operation of race and gender in society.  We will read theoretical and empirical work that engages with questions of personal well-being, economic achievement, and social interaction.  Students will have opportunities throughout the semester to do empirical and policy-relevant work.  Each student will build a solid foundation for the completion of an independent term paper project that engages with a specific economic question about racial or gender inequity.

SWAG 436/HIST 436 – Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. History
Tuesday, Thursday 1:30-4:15 p.m.
Jen Manion

This course introduces students to critical theories of difference in thinking and writing about the past. We will read major works that chart the history of the very concepts of race, gender, and sexuality. We will explore how these ideas were both advanced and contested by various groups over the years by reading primary sources such as newspaper articles, personal letters, court records, and organizational papers. Movements for women’s rights, racial justice, and LGBTQ liberation have dramatically shaped these debates and their implications. In particular, feminist theory, critical race theory, and queer theory provide powerful arguments about how we formulate research questions, what constitutes a legitimate archive, and why writing history matters. Students will learn to identify and work with an archive to craft a major research paper in some aspect of U.S. history while engaging the relevant historic arguments about race, gender, and/or sexuality.

SWAG 453/ANTH 453/SOCI 453 – Feminist and Queer Ethnography
Tuesday 1:30-4:15 p.m.
Katrina Karkazis

This course highlights key questions and dominant paradigms of the field as well as emphasizing qualitative ethnographic research including interviewing and fieldwork. As such, we will engage the practical question of how to research, observe, describe, record, and present material about feminist and queer politics and activism.

Hampshire

CSI 265 – History and Theories of Racial Capitalism
Tuesday, Thursday 2:30-3:50 p.m.
Stephen Dillon

This course examines historical and theoretical scholarship on the development and operation of racial capitalism. Focusing on the United States, the course explores research areas such as slavery, settler-colonialism, immigration and migration, the war on terror, economics, and the law. At the same time, we will also explore the relationship between gender, sexuality, and racial capitalism examining feminist, queer, and trans understandings of the foundational relationship between capitalism and race.

HACU 156 - Alien/Freak/Monster: Race, Sex, and Disability in Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy
Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-2:20 p.m.
Stephen Dillon

This course examines questions of race, gender/sexuality, and disability in science fiction, horror, and fantasy film and television. It investigates how and why people in different social positions have been constructed as foreign, freakish, or monstrous. In addition to exploring the relationship between sex/gender norms and hierarchies based on race/species or class/caste, we will also consider the following questions: Does the figure of the alien/freak/monster reconfigure the relationship between bodies, technology, and the division of labor? How do such figures simultaneously buttress and transgress the boundary between human and non-human, normal and abnormal, Self and Other? How does society use the grotesque body of the alien/freak/monster to police the liminal limits of sexuality, gender, and ethnicity? How does The Other come to embody Pure Evil? Finally, what are the consequences of living as an alien/freak/monster for specific groups and individuals?

Mt Holyoke

GNDST 204CW/FMT 230CW/ASIAN 215 – Androgyny and Gender Negotiation in Contemporary Chinese Women's Theater
Wednesday 1:30-4:20 p.m.
Ying Wang

Yue Opera, an all-female art that flourished in Shanghai in 1923, resulted from China's social changes and the women's movement. Combining traditional with modern forms and Chinese with Western cultures, Yue Opera today attracts loyal and enthusiastic audiences despite pop arts crazes. We will focus on how audiences, particularly women, are fascinated by gender renegotiations as well as by the all-female cast. The class will read and watch classics of this theater, including Romance of the Western Bower, Peony Pavilion, and Butterfly Lovers. Students will also learn the basics of traditional Chinese opera.

GNDST 204RP/LATST 250RP/CST 249RP – Race, Racism, and Power
Tuesday, Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Vanessa Rosa

This course analyzes the concepts of race and racism from an interdisciplinary perspective, with focus on Latinas/os/x in the United States. It explores the sociocultural, political, economic, and historical forces that interact with each other in the production of racial categories and racial "difference." In particular, we focus on racial ideologies, racial formation theory, and processes of racialization, as well as the relationship between race and ethnicity. The course examines racial inequality from a historical perspective and investigates how racial categories evolve and form across contexts. The analysis that develops will ultimately allow us to think rigorously about social inequality, resistance and liberation.

GNDST 209 – Sex and Gender in Back Diaspora
Tuesday, Thursday 1:45-3:00 p.m.
Riché Barnes

This course explores, in global perspective, concepts of blackness and its relationship to feminist, women-led, queer and gender-based political movements that have shaped complex discourses on the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nationality. We begin with an introductory examination of the ways in which "race" has been historically theorized in U.S. sociological and anthropological discourse. The course integrates a survey of ethnographies and ethnographically informed studies of the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nationality and concludes with a student-led ethnographic project. Students should leave the course having simultaneously explored sociological and anthropological conceptualizations of the intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nationality, their political implications, and how these issues resonate within broader fields of identity formation, globalization, public discourse and political movements.

GNDST 210SL/RELIG 207 – Women & Gender in Islam
Tuesday, Thursday
Amina Steinfels

This course will examine a range of ways in which Islam has constructed women--and women have constructed Islam. We will study concepts of gender as they are reflected in classical Islamic texts, as well as different aspects of the social, economic, political, and ritual lives of women in various Islamic societies.

GNDST 221QF – Feminist and Queer Theory
Tuesday, Thursday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Sarah Stefana Smith

We will read a number of key feminist texts that theorize sexual difference, and challenge the oppression of women. We will then address queer theory, an offshoot and expansion of feminist theory, and study how it is both embedded in, and redefines, the feminist paradigms. This redefinition occurs roughly at the same time (1980s/90s) when race emerges as one of feminism's prominent blind spots. The postcolonial critique of feminism is a fourth vector we will examine, as well as anti-racist and postcolonial intersections with queerness. We will also study trans-theory and its challenge to the queer paradigm.

GNDST 333AE/ARTST 380AE/CST 349AE – Race, Gender and Sexual Aesthetics in the Global Era 'Justice'
Tuesday 1:30-4:20 p.m.
Sarah Stefana Smith

Reading across a spectrum of disciplinary focuses (e.g. philosophies of aesthetics, post-structural feminisms, Black cultural studies, and queer of color critique) this course asks the question what is the nature of aesthetics when it negotiates modes of difference? This course explores the history and debates on aesthetics as it relates to race, gender, and sexuality with particular emphasis on Black diaspora theory and cultural production. Drawing on sensation, exhibitions, active discussion, observation, and experimentation, emphasis will be placed on developing a fine-tuned approach to aesthetic inquiry and appreciation.

GNDST 333KA/ENGL 361KA – Korean American Feminist Poetry
Thursday 1:30-4:20 p.m.
Anna Maria Hong

Poetry by Korean American feminist writers has burgeoned in the 21st century with new generations of poets contributing to life of American letters. Reading works by Theresa Cha, Myung Mi Kim, Don Mee Choi, Mary-Kim Arnold, and others, we will discuss how each writer evokes racial and ethnic identity and intersections with gender and other political concerns, as well as the choices each poet makes regarding form and style. Students will gain insight into a great diversity of approaches to writing poetry and will create a portfolio of their own poems based on our discussions. Most classes will involve group critique of writing; several will involve visits with our authors. All are welcome.

GNDST 333PC/BIOKL 321PR – Pregnancy and the Placenta
Monday, Wednesday 11:30-12:45 p.m.
Sarah Bacon

Pregnancy is a stunning feat of physiology. It is a conversation between two bodies -- maternal and fetal -- whose collective action blurs the very boundaries of the individual. In this course we will explore such questions as: what is pregnancy, and how does the ephemeral, essential organ known as the placenta call pregnancy into being? How is pregnancy sustained? How does it end? We will consider the anatomy of reproductive systems and the hormonal language of reproduction. We will investigate the nature of "sex" hormones, consider racial disparities in pregnancy outcome, and weigh the evidence that the intrauterine environment influences disease susceptibility long after birth.

GNDST 333QH/SPAN 350QH – Queering the Horror: Collective Memory, Political Violence, and Dissident Sexualities in Latin American Narratives
Thursday 1:30-4:20 p.m.
Adriana Pitetta

The bloody dictatorships that took place in the Southern Cone and the armed conflicts in Colombia, Guatemala and Peru during the 20th century left behind a legacy of political violence and collective trauma. These states themselves became sadistic death machines, where bodies became territories of punishment and discipline as well as of struggle, resistance, and difference. We will analyze how recent cultural production (film, novel, short stories, and theater) along with theoretical texts imagine and represent those "body struggles" through queer and female bodies, and how they replace the masculine icons of the left-wing militants and the state military terrorists.

GNDST 333UU/CST 349UU/LATST 360 – Latina/o Immigration
Monday, Wednesday 10:00-10:00-11:15 p.m.
David Hernandez

The course provides an historical and topical overview of Latina/o migration to the United States. We will examine the economic, political, and social antecedents to Latin American migration, and the historical impact of the migration process in the U.S. Considering migration from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, we will discuss the social construction of race, the gendered nature of migration, migrant labor struggles, Latin American-U.S. Latino relations, immigration policy, and border life and enforcement. Notions of citizenship, race, class, gender, and sexuality will be central to our understanding of the complexity at work in the migration process.

ENGL 232 - Rovers, Cuckqueens, and Country Wives of All Kinds: The Queer Eighteenth Century
Wednesday 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Kate Singer

With the rise of the two-sex model, the eighteenth century might be seen to be a bastion of heteronormativity leading directly to Victorian cis-gender binary roles of angel in the house and the bourgeois patriarch. Yet, beginning with the Restoration's reinvention of ribald theater, this period was host to a radical array of experimentation in gender and sexuality, alongside intense play with genre (e.g., the invention of the novel). We will explore queerness in all its forms alongside consideration of how to write queer literary histories.

Smith

SWG 200 – The Queer ‘90s
Monday, Wednesday 1:20-2:35 p.m.
Jennifer DeClue

In this course we will immerse ourselves in the 1990s, looking specifically at the emergences and points of contention that made the ‘90s a queer, radical, deeply contested decade. The Queer 90s examines the moment in lesbian and gay studies when the recuperation of the term “queer” emerged. By engaging with the readings and films assigned in this course students will gain an understanding of the AIDS crisis and the rage that mobilized ACT UP. Students will learn what the Culture Wars, Welfare Reform, and the conservative attacks against the National Endowment for the Arts have to do with one another. In order to grasp the charged feeling, the urgency, the upheaval of this era we will read foundational queer theoretical texts and analyze a selection of films from the movement known as New Queer Cinema.

SWG 222 – Gender, Law and Policy
Monday, Wednesday, Friday 10:50-12:05 p.m.
Carrie Baker

This course explores the impact of gender on law and policy in the United States historically and today, focusing in the areas of constitutional equality, employment, education, reproduction, the family, violence against women, and immigration. We study constitutional and statutory law as well as public policy. Some of the topics we will cover are sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, pregnancy/caregiver discrimination, pay equity, sexual harassment, school athletics, marriage, sterilization, contraception and abortion, reproductive technologies, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and gender-based asylum. We will study feminist efforts to reform the law and examine how inequalities based on gender, race, class and sexuality shape the law. We also discuss and debate contemporary policy and future directions.

SWG 228 – Theorizing Queer Feminism
Tuesday, Thursday 9:25-10:40 a.m.
TBA

We will consider varied articulations of both feminism and queerness and ways the relationship between them has been narrated and debated. Questions explored include: what might it mean to “queer” feminism? What might it mean to understand queerness through a feminist lens? How might we understand the place of the figure of the lesbian in imagining queer feminism? What sorts of ethical questions might queer feminist perspectives center? Concepts explored include: the centrality of race to concepts of gender and sexuality, relationships among feminist, queer, and trans studies, and sexual ethics.

SWG 241 – White Supremacy in the Age of Trump
Tuesday, Thursday 2:45-4:00 p.m.
Loretta Ross

This course will analyze the history, prevalence, and current manifestations of the white supremacist movement by examining ideological components, tactics and strategies, and its relationship to mainstream politics. We will also research and discuss the relationship between white supremacy and white privilege and explore how to build a human rights movement to counter the white supremacist movement in the U.S. Students will develop analytical writing and research skills while engaging in multiple cultural perspectives. The overall goal is to develop the capacity to understand the range of possible responses to white supremacy, both its legal and extralegal forms.

SWG 245/CCX 245 – Collective Organizing
Wednesday, Friday 2:45-4:00 p.m.
Elisabeth Brownell

This course is designed to introduce students to key concepts, debates and provocations that animate the world of community, labor, and electoral organizing for social change. To better understand these movements’ visions, we will develop an analysis of global and national inequalities, exploitation and oppression. The course explores a range of organizing skills to build an awareness of power dynamics and learn activists’ tools to bring people together towards common goals. A central aspect of this course is practicing community-based learning and research methods in dialogue with community-based activist partners.

SWG 377 – Feminist Public Writing
Thursday 1:20-4:00 p.m.
Carrie Baker

This interdisciplinary course will teach students how to translate feminist scholarship for a popular audience. Students will practice how to use knowledge and concepts they have learned in their women and gender studies classes to write publicly in a range of formats, including book and film reviews, interviews, opinion editorials, and feature articles. We will explore the history and practice of feminist public writing, with particular attention to how gender intersects with race, class, sexuality, disability, and citizenship in women’s experiences of public writing. We will also some of the political and ethical questions relating to women’s public writing.

AMS 245 – Feminist and Indigenous Science Studies
Tuesday, Thursday 10:50-12:05 p.m.
Evangeline Heiliger, Christen Mucher

In this course, we will consider such questions as: What do we know and how do we know it? What knowledges count as “science”? How is knowledge culturally situated? How has “science” been central to colonialism and capitalism and what would it mean to decolonize science(s)? Is feminist science possible? We will look at key sites and situations—in media and popular culture, in science writing, in sociological accounts of science, in creation stories and traditional knowledges—in which knowledge around the categories of race, gender, sex, sexuality, sovereignty, and dis/ability are produced, contested and made meaningful.

EAL 245 – Writing, Japan and Otherness
Tuesday, Thursday 1:20-2:35 p.m.
Kimberly Kono
component

An exploration of representations of “otherness” in Japanese literature and film from the mid-19th century until the present. How was (and is) Japan’s identity as a modern nation configured through representations of other nations and cultures? How are categories of race, gender, nationality, class and sexuality used in the construction of difference? This course pays special attention to the role of “otherness” in the development of national and individual identities. In conjunction with these investigations, we also address the varied ways in which Japan is represented as “other” by writers from China, England, France, Korea and the United States. How do these images of and by Japan converse with each other? All readings are in English translation.

ENG 243 – The Victorian Novel
Monday, Wednesday 1:20-2:35 p.m.
Cornelia Pearsall
component

An exploration of the worlds of the Victorian novel, from the city to the country, from the vast reaches of empire to the minute intricacies of the drawing room. Attention to a variety of critical perspectives, with emphasis on issues of narrative form, authorial voice, and the representation of race, class, gender and disability. Novelists will include Brontë, Collins, Dickens, Eliot and Kipling.

ESS 240 – Exercise and Sport for Social Change
Monday, Wednesday 10:50-12:05 p.m.
Erica S. Tibbetts
component

This class is designed for students who wish to understand more about the role sport and exercise can play in relation to social justice and civil rights movements, the way that current inequities influence who is able to participate in various types of sport/exercise, and methods for addressing these inequalities and injustices. Students will have the chance to learn about social justice and social change as they relate to the following topics: athlete activism, coaching, administration, participation, fairness, and non-profit community based and governmental level interventions.

HST 278 – Deolonizing U.S. Women’s History 1848-Present
Wednesday, Friday 2:45-4:00 p.m.
Jennifer Guglielmo

Survey of women’s and gender history with women of color, working-class women and immigrant women at the center and with a focus on race, class and sexuality. This course is guided by the cultural and theoretical work of women of color feminists to decolonize knowledge, history, and the world. Topics include labor, racial formation, colonialism, imperialism, im/migration, popular culture, citizenship, education, medicine, war, consumerism, feminism, queer cultures, capitalism and neoliberalism. Emphasis on discussion and analysis of original documents.

MES 213 – Sex and Power in the Middle East
Tuesday, Thursday 10:50-12:05 p.m.
Susanna Ferguson

This course invites students to explore how sexuality has been central to power and resistance in the Middle East. When and how have empires, colonial powers, and nation states tried to regulate intimacy, sex, love, and reproduction? How have sexual practices shaped social life, and how have perceptions of these practices changed over time? The course introduces theoretical tools for the history of sexuality and explores how contests over sexuality, reproduction, and the body shaped empires, colonial states, and nationalist projects. Finally, we examine contemporary debates about sexuality as a basis for political mobilization in the Middle East today.

REL 227 – Women and Gender in Jewish History
Tuesday, Thursday 9:25 – 10:40 a.m.
Lois Dubin

An exploration of Jewish women’s changing social roles, religious stances and cultural expressions in a variety of historical settings from ancient to modern times. How did Jewish women negotiate religious tradition, gender and cultural norms to fashion lives for themselves as individuals and as family and community members in diverse societies? Readings from a wide range of historical, religious, theoretical and literary works in order to address examples drawn from Biblical and rabbinic Judaism, medieval Islamic and Christian lands, modern Europe, America and the Middle East. Students' final projects involve archival work in the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History.

SOC 229 – Sex and Gender in American Society
Tuesday, Thursday 2:45-4:00 p.m.
William Cory Albertson

An examination of the ways in which the social system creates, maintains and reproduces gender dichotomies with specific attention to the significance of gender in interaction, culture and a number of institutional contexts, including work, politics, families and sexuality.

SOC 236 – Beyond Borders: The New Global Political Economy
Tuesday, Thursday 1:20-2:35 p.m.
Payal Banerjee
component

This course introduces students to the basic concepts and theories in global political economy. It covers the history of economic restructuring, global division of labor, development, North-South state relations, and modes of resistance from a transnational and feminist perspective. Issues central to migration, borders and security, health, and the environment are central to the course.

SOC 317 – Inequality in Higher Education
Monday 1:20-4:00 p.m.
Tina Wildhagen
component

This course applies a sociological lens to understanding inequality in American higher education. We examine how the conflicting purposes of higher education have led to a highly stratified system of colleges and universities. We also address the question of how students’ social class, race, ethnicity and gender affect their chances of successfully navigating this stratified system of higher education. Finally, we examine selected public policies aimed at minimizing inequality in students’ access to and success in college.

SOC 333 – Social Justice, the Environment and the Corporation
Tuesday 1:20-4:00 p.m.
Leslie King
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Over the last century, the reach of corporations has gradually extended into all facets of our lives, yet most of us rarely stop to think about the corporation as a social entity. This course focuses on the social, economic and legal foundations that both shape its power and provide a dominant logic for its actions. We examine the implications of corporate power and processes for communities, workers and the environment. We also focus on the ways that governments and various social groups have sought to change corporate assumptions and behaviors concerning their social and environmental responsibilities.

SPP 230 – Creative Writing By and With Spanish Women
Tuesday, Thursday 10:50-12:05 p.m.
Reyes Lazaro

A quest for the self and its relation to otherness through a one-poem per class approach. Readings in modern and contemporary works by poets from both sides of the ocean, complemented by the study of related music and visual art. We examine the consequences of political exile as a journey to the unknown (Jiménez, Cernuda, Cortázar, Neruda, Alberti) as well as the voluntary exile of the artist in search of a new aesthetic identity (Darío, Lorca, Vallejo). Special attention is given to the problems of subjectivity, gender and sexuality in the works of four women poets: Agustini, Storni, Parra and Pizarnik.

WLT 205 – Contemporary African Literature and Film
Monday, Wednesday 10:50-12:05 p.m.
Katwiwa Mule
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A study of the major writers and diverse literary traditions of Africa with emphasis on the historical, political, social and cultural contexts of the emergence of writing, reception and consumption. We pay particular attention to several questions: in what contexts did modern African literature emerge? Is the term “African literature” a useful category? How do African writers challenge Western representations of Africa? How do they articulate the crisis of post-coloniality? How do women writers reshape our understanding of gender and the politics of resistance?