WGSS 187: Gender, Sexuality and Culture

Mon & Wed 10:10AM-11:00AM

Beaudelaine Pierre

                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

Tu & Th 1:00PM-2:15PM

Miliann Kang

  This course will introduce you to the vibrant field of Women’s, Gender, Sexuality Studies and its unique interdisciplinary perspective.  Questions that we will interrogate throughout the semester include:  What is gender, and why does it matter?  How are individuals, institutions and social processes “gendered”?  How does gender intersect with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, nation, religion, ability and other forms of difference? How do biological, cultural, historical and political frameworks shape knowledge of sex, gender and sexuality?  How is gender constructed differently across social groups, cultures and historical periods?  What are the connections and tensions between feminist theory and practice?  How can tools of feminist critique empower individual, institutional and social change?  In exploring these questions, the course incorporates sources ranging from social science research, literature, essays, film, poetry, art, media and popular culture.  Topics include: transnational feminisms, gendered labor and the global economy, feminist and queer theory, sexual violence, carceral politics, science and technology, visual cultures, social movements and advocacy.

WGSS 205: Feminist Health Politics

Tu & Th 10:00AM-11:15AM

Kirsten Leng   

This course serves as a broad introduction to feminist health politics. We will interrogate the concept of health from various perspectives and think about why and how health is a crucial issue for feminists. Our course will cover a range of topics including: the political economy of healthcare; medicine, gender, and sexuality; health, knowledge, and activism; and reproductive health and justice. We will consider how we define health, why health matters, and how politics, economics, social conditions, culture, and historical factors affect health.

WGSS 230: Politics of Reproduction

Tu & Th 11:30AM-12:45PM

Laura Briggs

From the Black Panther Party and Young Lords in the 1970s to SisterSong and Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice in the 1990s, 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. This course will explore the history of these issues and present controversies.

WGSS 286: History of Race and Sexuality

MW 2:30PM-3:45PM

Or 

Tu & Th 11:30AM-12:45PM

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 301: Theorizing Gender, Race, and Power

Tu & Th 10:00AM-11:15AM

Laura Briggs

This course will explore ways of analyzing and reflecting on current issues and controversies in feminist thought within an international context. Topics may include traditions in Black feminisms, Chicanx feminism, Caribbean feminisms, indigenous feminisms, socialist feminism, Queer theory, feminist science studies, radical feminism, and feminist legal studies. This course counts towards the theory requirement for majors.

WGSS 310: Junior Year Writing

Mon & Wed 2:30PM-3:45PM

Cameron Awkward Rich

 Fulfills Junior Year Writing requirement for majors. This course will develop your skills in modes of writing and argumentation useful for scholarly, creative, and professional work in a variety of fields. Some of these skills include: performing analyses of primary and secondary texts, seeking out and organizing knowledge effectively, using a range of evidence to articulate ideas for diverse audiences, and honing one's writerly voice. We will work in a variety of genres including, potentially, popular culture reviews, op-eds, manifestos, first-person narratives, research proposals, and research papers. Nonmajors admitted if space available.

WGSS 360: Asian American Feminisms

Tuesday 4:00PM-6:30PM

Miliann Kang

What is the body of work that constitutes "Asian American feminism(s)" and what are its driving questions and distinctive contributions to the fields of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and Ethnic Studies? How does this scholarship 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 interdisciplinary approaches, including social science research, literature, popular culture, film, poetry, and art.

WGSS 392J: Feminism and Environmental Justice

Tu & Th 11:30AM-12:45PM

Jacquelyn Southern 

While feminism and environmental justice are both political projects of social change, their objects or objectives are not the same. As we sink into the 21st century, amid looming fears of ecological catastrophes and socio-economic crises, is a conversation between these two projects likely to be productive for both struggles, or are their goals at odds with each other?  This class will examine the perceived, existing, and potential links (or disjuncts) between feminism and environmental justice. Our interdisciplinary inquiry will be guided by questions such as:  What is understood by the terms "feminism" and "environmental justice"?  How have nature and the environment figured in feminist writings and feminist ideas of justice?  Conversely, how do women and gender figure in ideas and struggles for environmental justice?  Indeed, how do feminist ideals inform (or not) other struggles for social change (such as those of peasants, workers, ethnic groups, queer folk, and more)?

WGSS 393M: Everything to Expect when You’re Expecting

Tu & Th 1:00PM-2:15PM

Kirsten Leng

Pregnancy losses are generally resigned to silence. They are not publicly discussed and do not constitute a standard part of pregnancy education. Moreover, different kinds of pregnancy loss are siloed from each other. Within this course, we will hold all forms of pregnancy loss within a common frame. We will think collectively about how we might reimagine and treat reproductive losses—and indeed, reproduction itself—as existing on a spectrum of experiences, and will approach reproduction as a simultaneously biological, social, cultural, political, economic, and subjective phenomenon. Grounded in an approach informed by reproductive justice, and specifically birth justice, this course will draw upon interdisciplinary scholarship and guest talks.

WGSS 395D: Queer/Trans/Feminist Disability Studies

Tuesday 4:00PM-6:30PM

Cameron Awkward-Rich

Disability studies is an interdisciplinary field that interrogates how and why “disability” becomes a meaningful category of social organization, political resistance, and lived experience. Beginning from the premise that “disability” is not a fixed or singular category, disability studies attunes us to how historically-contingent norms of embodiment, cognition, comportment, rationality, and so on come to be embedded in the institutions that organize everyday life, limiting the life chances of those whose bodyminds are askance to those norms. *Feminist* disability studies, in particular, is attentive to the way that these processes intersect with and are shaped by regimes of gender, sexuality, race, and colonization. It insists that the struggle for disability justice is, therefore, intimately bound up with struggles for trans/queer/women’s liberation, for black and indigenous freedom, for economic justice, against imperialism, and so on. In this course, we will first ground ourselves in core concepts of feminist disability studies; then we will consider how various institutions have historically disciplined disabled subjects *and* wielded ableism as a mechanism to discipline subjects we might not ordinarily think of as disabled; and, finally, we will turn to consider the kinds of resistance to be found in various forms of art, activism, and cultural/knowledge production. We will approach these questions through a range of critical essays, books, films, artwork, and simple sitting together, working to queer and crip - or further trouble - present ways of conceptualizing disability.

WGSS 398/698: Teaching and Learning in Carceral Spaces

Tuesday 2:30PM-5:00PM

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Laura Ciolkowski

This cohort-based social justice education project focuses on the study of the historical processes, social relations, and material logics of the U.S. prison system.  It also trains students to offer individualized tutoring/mentoring sessions that support the academic goals of students in the Hampshire County Jail and the Franklin County Jail.  Students in this course will engage in research in social justice education and the field of critical prison studies, critical race studies and feminist pedagogy; and they will explore broad questions around equity and access to education in prison and jail.  "Teaching & Learning in Carceral Spaces" will give students an opportunity to develop the knowledge, experience, and practical skills to support justice in education and to work with others to imagine, advocate for, and build a more just society in which all people, regardless of their circumstance, have access to quality higher education. Instructor's permission required.

 APPLY HERE: https://forms.gle/HjLuy3hRqhqD26Py9

NOTE: Graduate students who successfully complete this course are eligible to apply for Jail Education Initiative TA or TO positions in jail.

WGSS 891P: Critical Feminist Pedagogy

Thursday 10:00AM-12:30PM

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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, 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; 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. Critical 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.

WGSS 701: Genealogies of Feminist Thought

Wednesday 2:30PM-5:00PM

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Svati Shah

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 U+ Courses

WGSS 220: Sustainability, Gender, Global Environment

MWF 11:15AM-12:05PM

U+

Gender, the environment and sustainability are key terms in debates about economic globalization and social justice. While not new, they are reemerging in the as part of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. This course will introduce students to the perceived and existing links between women, gender, and the global environment as they appear in 21st century discussions about sustainable development. We will explore these debates by focusing on questions such as: 

- When did the environment and sustainability emerge as key issues on global agendas? 

- What are their connections to economic globalization? To colonialism and capitalism? 

- How did women and gender become part of these discussions? 

- How did governments, multilateral institutions (e.g. the United Nations, the World Bank), and development policies target third world women? Was it to meet their needs and address gender equality? Or was it for more efficient and effective environmental and sustainability outcomes? 

- What were the results and implications of these interventions? 

- In what guise are these interventions reemerging in the context of the ?green? economy, food security, and population and reproductive rights? 

- How have women across the world organized to address concerns about the environment and sustainability?  

- How have feminists engaged with issues of gender, the global environment and sustainability? 

The primary goal of this class is to familiarize students with these debates in a way that will enable them to participate in 21st century discussions in informed, critical and self-reflexive ways. (Gen. Ed. SB, DG) 

WGSS 250: Intro to Sexuality Studies

U+

                This interdisciplinary course will help students to understand what the terms "sexuality studies" and "trans studies" mean, 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" and "gender" become consolidated as distinct categories of analysis in the late nineteenth century, and what it means to speak about sexuality and transgender politics and categories today. Topics include queer theories and politics, trans theories and politics, LGBTQ social movements within and outside of the U.S., relationships with feminist reproductive justice movements, heterosexuality, gender norms, 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)

Seminar-Gender and the Law

LEGAL 391GL

This class explores the socially constructed norms and frameworks enabling the legal regulation of gender. The course emphasizes on the United States but turns to international law to examine a number of areas of juridical areas such as equal protection, reproductive rights, the sex trade, work family issues, and sexual and domestic violence. From the perspective of legal cases, legal theory, and sociolegal scholarship, the class explores important topics including, the construction of gender identity through law; the meaning and manifestations of inequality; the intersection of gender with other identity categories such as race, religion, and sexuality; the public/private divide; and, how law reproduces hierarchies while also having the ability to participate in significant social change.

Gender and Race in US Social Policy History

POLISCI 364

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.

Women in the Justice System

LEGAL 258

This course explores the intersection between women and the criminal justice system. The nature and extent of women as offenders, as victims, and as professionals in the criminal justice system will be explored, as well as theories related to offending and victimization. Also integral to the course is the relationship between victimization and offending and the intricacies of women's intersectionality with the criminal justice system as offenders, law enforcement and probation officers, correctional personnel, lawyers and judges.

Women and the Law: History of Sex and Gender Discrimination

LEGAL 268

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. Prior law-law related coursework helpful, but not required.

Gender and Race in US Social Policy History

SPP 364

397R/397R – Special Topics: Women in Architecture                                                                                Vickery

MWF 10:10 – 11:00                                                                                                                                           This course begins with an examination of gendered, architectural spaces and how and why they were structured for women in the 19th century in both Britain and America. Looking at primary and secondary sources, students will gain insight into societal norms and how they conditioned architecture generally associated with women, such as houses, asylums, and early women's colleges. This study will serve as a platform from which to understand the pressures upon women and the pioneers who rejected such norms and pursued architecture as a profession. The latter half of the course will look at the work of early women architects, the hurdles they faced and the examples they set. The course will conclude with a critical examination of women architects practicing today and how they navigate the profession.

Art History 301/601

Nuestra Señora: Popular Marian Devotion in Latin America

MW 2:30-3:45

Professor Ximena Gómez

In this course, we will examine some of the most famous images of the Virgin in Latin

America and the visual culture her cult has generated. The course will begin with an introduction to Marian devotion and the ways different regions in Latin America have mobilized images of the Virgin to define and redefine themselves. We will be particularly interested in the sometimes familiar, sometimes strange objects that Latin Americans and US Latinxs have used while interacting with “their” Virgins, such as clothing, wigs, jewelry, flowers, and processional litters. Starting in the colonial period and continuing into the present, we will note continuities in Marian cults over time and end our investigation with the reverent and irreverent popular visual culture related to Marian devotion, including tattoos, electric shrines, souvenirs, and candles.

324 – Modern Art, 1880-present                                                                                                         Kurczynski

Tu/Thu 11:30 – 12:45     

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)

Sociology 283: Gender & Society

SPIRE #: 69019

MW 2:30-3:45pm

Ana Villalobos

Being assigned a “male” or “female” gender  shapes all aspect of our lives. In this course, we will critically examine the common understanding of gender as a set of fixed biologically-based behavior differences between men and women and instead grapple with the ways in which the two-gender system is socially constructed and used to perpetuate inequality. Rather than viewing this system as exclusively harmful to those at the bottom of the status hierarchy, which of course it does, we will see how the gender system limits and is ultimately harmful for everyone. To understand gender as it is actually lived, we will delve into various life realms, such as the media, family, sexuality, the market and the workplace, in which gender differences and inequalities are produced and maintained.

Summer 2025

History 265: U.S. LGBT and Queer History

Online, Jennifer Nye

 This course explores how queer individuals and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities have influenced the social, cultural, economic, and political landscape in United States history. With a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the course covers topics such as the criminalization of same-sex acts, cross-dressing, industrialization and urbanization, feminism, the construction of the homo/heterosexual binary, transsexuality and the "lavender scare" during the Cold War, the homophile, gay liberation, and gay rights movements, HIV/AIDS, and (im)migration. We will often look to examples from the present to better explore change over time and the modes and influences that shape both current and past understandings of gender and sexual difference. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

History 398: U.S. Women’s History Since 1890

Online, Jennifer Nye

 This course explores the relationship of women and gender to the social, cultural, economic, legal and political developments shaping American society from 1890 to the present. It examines change over time in family life and intimate relationships, including marriage, divorce, sexuality and reproduction (sterilization, birth control, abortion, reproductive technologies, adoption); the civil and political participation of women, including voting, jury service, military service, and holding political office; and paid and unpaid labor, including employment discrimination and sexual harassment. The course will pay particular attention to gender and leadership in various social movements such as suffrage, civil rights and racial justice, welfare rights, reproductive rights and justice, and the anti-rape and battered women?s movements. We?ll consider the long arc of feminist activism, as well as conservative resistance and backlash. This course will specifically focus on how class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and immigration status have shaped the historical experiences of women, broadly defined. Sophomore level and above. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

 Fall 2025

History/Legal 268: Women & the Law- History of Sex & Gender Discrimination

J. Nye

Th 10:00-12:30

  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.  Prior law-law related coursework helpful, but not required. This course counts as an additional course for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Certificate.  Please note: this is not a History gen ed course.

Other History Classes that may count toward WGSS

History 242H: American Family

M. Yoder

TuTh 2:30-3:45pm

An historical, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary approach to the study of families in America.  We will examine the histories of various groups, exploring how these experiences have resulted in different family dynamics.  We will then take up the question of the continuing relevance of race, ethnicity, and social class to families in America today and to the discussion of family in American politics.

History 264: History of U.S. Healthcare and Medicare

E. Hamilton

MW 10:10-11:00am, Friday discussions

 This course investigates the social meaning of medicine, health care, and disease in the U.S. from 1600 to the present.  Major topics will include: 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; and the role of public and government institutions in promoting health practices and disease treatments.  To explore the human experience of medicine, readings will address the experience of being ill, the delivery of compassionate care, the nature of the relationship between practitioner and patient, and ethics.  Throughout the semester, the class will link medicine to broad issues in American history by examining:  

1. the effects of class, race, gender, age, sexual orientation, lifestyle, and geographic region on health and medical care 

2. cultural and religious diversity in medical expression 

3. the intersections of politics, science/technology, consumerism, social movements, industry, the economy, and health care 

4. the role of the marketplace in shaping professional identities, patient expectations, and outcomes 

5. the training of medical practitioners, their role, and image  

6. media and health activism as influencers in individual and public health 

7. the global nature and politics of disease and medicine 

 Course materials will include recent scholarly literature in the history of medicine, writings by physicians and patients, historical documents, films, websites, audio interviews, and artifact studies.

History 301: Women & Gender in Latin America

D. Sierra-Becerra

TuTh 10:00-11:15am

What happens to our understanding of history when gender is at the center of our analysis? This course will use gender as an analytical lens to study key themes and periods of Latin American history, from the European conquest of the Americas to the present-day neoliberal era. It will show gender shapes power relations, including institutions, social relationships, and identities. Together, we will learn how the individual and collective actions of women, from witches to revolutionaries, have transformed Latin America.

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Understand key themes in Latin American history

• Understand how gender operates and intersects with multiple forms of power

• Recognize the historical processes that have shaped gender roles over time

• Sharpen their critical thinking, reading, writing, and communication skills

History 364: Gender & Race in U.S. Social Policy History

E. Sharrow

MW 9:45-11:00am

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 450: Policing in the Modern U.S.

J. Fronc

TuTh 1:00-2:15pm

This writing seminar will explore historical and sociological literature on policing in the 20th century United States.  Murder and mass incarceration will be among the topics covered.  Students will write several short papers during the first half of the semester; during the second half, they will work on individual research projects, resulting in a final paper of 15-20 pages.

Spanish 324 “Introduction to Latinx Literature"

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)

Spanish 591L “Latinx Literature and the Body”

This course is an introduction to Chicanx and Latinx literature, a body of literature with 19th century antecedents that, in the late 20th century, gave literary expression to a rising politicization of a transnational community. We will read representative texts of the 20th and 21st centuries by US writers of varied Latin American origins and study their respective social and historical contexts. In our survey, we will study a principal figure, the ubiquitous trope and the often most powerful social actor in these narratives: the human body. In texts written by Afrolatinx, Indigenous Chicanx, Queer Latinx, Crip Latinx, as well as those authored or about so-called Whitinos, we will see the body in its capacity for extralinguistic expression, identify how the body is the primary object figured in economies of race, sex, class, health, and other social discourses creating social and economic asymmetries, but we will also understand how aesthetic

renderings reveal the body, a primary human intelligence. Some of the questions we will discuss include: What literary tensions are brought to bear via the artistic treatment of the Latinx body? Does the fictional body reflect how Chicanx bodies function in society?

WGSS 698: Teaching and Learning in Carceral Spaces

                This cohort-based social justice education project focuses on the study of the historical processes, social relations, and material logics of the U.S. prison system.  It also trains students to offer individualized tutoring/mentoring sessions that support the academic goals of students in the Hampshire County Jail and the Franklin County Jail.  Students in this course will engage in research in social justice education and the field of critical prison studies, critical race studies and feminist pedagogy; and they will explore broad questions around equity and access to education in prison and jail.  "Teaching & Learning in Carceral Spaces" will give students an opportunity to develop the knowledge, experience, and practical skills to support justice in education and to work with others to imagine, advocate for, and build a more just society in which all people, regardless of their circumstance, have access to quality higher education. Instructor's permission required.

 APPLY HERE: https://forms.gle/HjLuy3hRqhqD26Py9

NOTE: Graduate students who successfully complete this course are eligible to apply for Jail Education Initiative TA or TO positions in jail.

WGSS 700: Critical Feminist Pedagogy

                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, 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; 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. Critical 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.

WGSS 701: Genealogies of Feminist Thought

                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.

SWAG 160 / POSC 160 Sexualities in International Relations

Tuesday/Thursday 2:35 – 3:50pm

From abortion to gay rights, sexuality is deeply entangled in world politics. As LGBT rights become human rights principles, they not only enter the rights structure of the European Union and the United Nations but are also considered a barometer of political modernity. If some Latin American nations have depicted their recognition of gay rights as symbolic of their progressive character, certain North African nations have depicted their repression of homosexuality symbolic of their opposition to western imperialism. The results of sexual politics are often contradictory, with some countries enabling same-sex marriage but criminalizing abortion and others cutting aid in the name of human rights. This course explores the influence of sexual politics on international relations. We analyze how women and gay rights take shape in the international system, from the UN to security agendas, and evaluate how sexuality shapes the modus operandi of contemporary politics.

This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate.

Limited to 30 students. Fall semester.  Karl Loewenstein Senior Lecturer Picq.

SWAG 188 / BLST 288 Sex, Race, and Empire: The Global Politics of Gender and Sexuality

Tuesday/Thursday 10:05 – 11:20am

How might we connect the U.S.’s current economic, social, and military dominance over much of the world to empires of the past such as the nineteenth century British empire in India, Africa and the Caribbean? What does the existence of human zoos of the nineteenth and early twentieth century tell us about how empires thought of colonized peoples? How might we connect imperial legacies to the current immigrant crisis in the U.S.? How have the gendered performances of American military women during the US-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan been instrumentalized for counterinsurgency warfare? This course looks at a global range of responses to empire and colonization by activists, writers and filmmakers–from the early Indian proto-feminist novella Sultana’s Dream (1905) to the contemporary American film BlacKkKlansman (2018), and the classic anti-colonial film Battle of Algiers (1967), among others.

Fall semester. Co-taught by Professors Polk and Shandilya.

SWAG 200 Theories in Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies

Monday/Wednesday 1:05 – 2:20pm

This course provides an introduction to historical and contemporary intersectional and interdisciplinary feminist theory. We begin the course by first asking the questions: What is theory? Who gets to participate in theory building? How is feminist knowledge production influenced by power, privilege and geopolitics? We will explore the ways in which feminism is multi-vocal, non-linear, and influenced by multiple and shifting sites of feminist identities. This exploration includes the examination and analysis of local and global feminist thoughts on gender/sex, race, sexuality, disability, reproductive justice, colonialism, nationalism as they effect and shape social and economic forms of power and oppression. The emphasis of the course will remain focused on the theories produced by feminist, Black, queer, trans, indigenous, and transnational scholars, among others, to help explain and resist dominant or exploitative forms of power.

Recommended: One course on gender or sexuality. Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Professor Karkazis.

SWAG 209 / ANTH 209 / SOCI 207 Intersectional Feminist Science Studies

Monday/Wednesday 4:05 – 5:20pm

This seminar uses feminist theory and methods to consider scientific practice and the production of medicoscientific knowledge. We will explore how medicine and science reflects and reinforces social relations, positions, and hierarchies as well as whether and how medicoscientific 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).

Students who completed SWAG 108/ANTH 211 Feminist Science Studies in Fall 2019/20 will need to consult with Professor Karkazis prior to enrolling.

Limited to 20 students with 5 seats reserved for first-year students. Fall and spring semesters. Professor Karkazis.

SWAG 235 / BLST 236 Black Sexualities

Tuesday/Thursday 2:35 – 3:50pm

From the modern era to the contemporary moment, the intersection of race, gender, and class has been especially salient for people of African descent—for men as well as for women. How might the category of sexuality act as an additional optic through which to view and reframe contemporary and historical debates concerning the construction of black identity? In what ways have traditional understandings of masculinity and femininity contributed to an understanding of African American life and culture as invariably heterosexual? How have black lesbian, gay, and transgendered persons effected political change through their theoretical articulations of identity, difference, and power? In this interdisciplinary course, we will address these questions through an examination of the complex roles gender and sexuality play in the lives of people of African descent. Remaining attentive to the ways black people have claimed social and sexual agency in spite of systemic modes of inequality, we will engage with critical race theory, black feminist thought, queer-of-color critique, literature, art, film, “new media” and erotica, as well as scholarship from anthropology, sociology, and history.

Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Professor Polk.

SWAG 239 / RELI 261 Jewish Identity and MeToo: A Study of Women in Judaism

Monday/Wednesday/Friday 11:35am – 12:25pm

Ranging from ancient texts to contemporary documentaries, we explore the portrayals and roles of women in Jewish tradition.  Sources include biblical and apocryphal texts; Rabbinic literature; selections from medieval commentaries; letters, diaries, and autobiographies written by Jewish women of various periods and settings; works of fiction; and visual media. An important thread in the course examines contemporary responses to and interpretations of classical sources, as writers and film-makers examine or refashion the tradition in the light of current challenges facing women in Judaism. 

2025 Fall. Professor Niditch.

SWAG 252 / HIST 252 History of Race, Gender, and Comic Books

Monday/Wednesday 4:05 – 5:20pm

What can we learn about MLK and Malcolm X and from Magneto and Professor X? What can we learn about gendered and racialized depictions within comic books? As a catalyst to encourage looking at history from different vantage points, we will put comic books in conversation with the history of race and empire in the United States. Sometimes we will read comic books as primary sources and products of a particular historical moment, and other times we will be reading them as powerful and yet imperfect critiques of imperialism and racial inequality in U.S. history. Besides comic books, this course uses a wide range of material including academic texts, traditional primary source documents, and multi-media sources.

Limited to 25 students. Fall semester. Professor Peralta.

SWAG 262 / LJST 260 Feminist Legal Theory

Monday/Wednesday 1:05 – 2:20pm

In the twentieth century, American feminist movements made significant strides in securing suffrage, formal equality under the law, reproductive justice, and the possibility of economic independence through paid labor.  And yet, the entry of (some) women into the public sphere has only intensified the urgency of a series of underlying questions: Is it desirable to demand legal transformations in the name of the identity “woman,” and if so, how should we incorporate considerations of gender and queerness, class, race, ability, and nationality? What is the relation between the formal emancipation of some women and intensified forms of domination of other women, for example, in the sphere of care work? What are the histories, logics, and political economies of these relations?  What is the family, what is its relationship to reproduction, and how should its legal attachments, obligations, and relationships be understood from a feminist perspective? How did individual choice become the privileged legal mechanism for feminist forms of freedom and what is the status of choice today? We will aim to develop our understanding of these distinct but deeply linked questions of feminist thinking and methodology, with an emphasis on American writers and their postcololonial and anti-racist critics, and to appreciate conflicting points of view and longer histories within these debates.

Thinkers include Mary Wollstonecraft, Sojourner Truth, Aleksandra Kollontai, Rosa Luxemburg, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Betty Friedan, Catherine Mackinnon, Andrea Dworkin, Shulamith Firestone, Adrianne Rich, Angela Davis, Bell Hooks, Eve Sedgewick, Sylvia Federici, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Donna Haraway, Hortense Spillers, Patricia J. Williams, Judith Butler, Kim TallBear, José Muñoz, Melinda Cooper, Sophie Lewis, M.E. O’Brian, and Amia Srinivasan, as well as materials from intersectional movements and jurisprudence that demanded legal and more-than-legal transformation, including the Atlanta Washer Women Strike of 1881, the Jane Collective, Wages for Housework, the Combahee River Collective, ACT-UP, INCITE!, sex worker unions, and the #MeToo movement.

Limited to 30 students. Fall semester 2025. Visiting Assistant Professor Siegel.

SWAG 274 / BLST 275 / HIST 275 / LLAS 275 Gender and Slavery in Latin America

Monday/Wednesday 2:35 – 3:50pm

Latin American slavery was one of the most brutal institutions the world has ever known, and it affected women and girls, boys and men in profoundly different ways. This readings-based course features both secondary and primary sources. Students will gain in-depth understanding of how gender and sexuality affected the experiences of enslaved Africans and their descendants in Latin America from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Topics will include gender roles in Western Africa and how these diverged from the expectations of Spanish and Portuguese slave masters; the sexual and reproductive as well as labor exploitation of enslaved African women and girls; how enslaved men constructed masculinity within the emasculating institution of slavery; gender relations and family structures within slave communities; childhoods under slavery; and the sometimes distinct visions of freedom imagined by enslaved women and men. Select primary documents will acquaint students with the sources historians use to reconstruct these aspects of the histories of largely non-literate African-descended peoples. Regions to be covered include Brazil, the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, and the Andean region. Students will be evaluated on class participation, a series of weekly reading notes, and two short papers.

Fall semester. Professor Lohse.

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

Tuesday 1:05 – 3:50pm

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.

This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate. Not open to first-year students. Limited to 18 students. Fall 2025: Professor Staller.

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

Monday/Friday 11:35am – 12:50pm

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.

Recommended Prior Coursework: SWAG 100 or HIST/SWAG 158. Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Peralta.

SWAG 357 / EUST 347 / FAMS 328 / SPAN 347 The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar

Tuesday/Thursday 2:35 – 3:50pm

Pedro Almodóvar has defined world cinema for the last five decades. As Spain’s most celebrated film director, Almodóvar has created his own cinematic universe. Almodóvar lit up Spain’s movie screens beginning in the 1980s with his confrontational takes on gender, sexuality, religion and family. Now a globally-recognized and award-winning queer filmmaker, Almodóvar has matured from his raunchy beginnings in the Madrid punk scene to become a director sensitive to the LGBTQ+ community, marginalized people, and human rights, though he still manages to stir up controversy. In this course, we will consider a panorama of Almodóvar films from the 1980s to the 2020s during periods of political, social and cultural transition in Spain. Particular emphasis will be placed on how the director has represented gender identity and sexuality throughout his career. Through weekly screenings, course readings, written assignments and a final video essay, we will work through Almodóvar’s ongoing dialogue with Spain’s social history and culture, as well as his cinematic legacy throughout Europe, Latin America and the United States. 

This course is conducted in Spanish, with most readings in English; prior exposure to film studies is not required. 

Prerequisite: Spanish 301 or permission of instructor.  Fall semester: Professor Brenneis

SWAG 365 / ENGL 372 Reading the Romance

Tuesday 1:05 – 3:50pm

Do people the world over love in the same way, or does romance mean different things in different cultures? What happens when love violates social norms? Is the “romance” genre an escape from real-world conflicts or a resolution of them? This course analyzes romantic narratives from across the world through the lens of feminist theories of sexuality, marriage, and romance. We will read the heterosexual romance such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and popular romance author Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series, alongside queer fiction such as Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For and trans-romances like Torrey Peters' Detransition, Baby . We will also pay attention to the Western romantic-comedy film, the telenovela, and the Bollywood spectacular.

Limited to 20 students. Not open to first-year students. Fall semester. Professor Shandilya.

SWAG 377 / ASLC 376 / HIST 376 Sex, Gender, and the Body in South Asian History

Monday/Wednesday 2:35 – 3:50pm

This course explores how history can be understood through sex, gender, and the body. The course focuses on South Asia as part of global history. We explore what relationship sex had with medieval politics. We analyze how colonialism and capitalism dominated people through disciplining bodies. Finally, we examine how nationalisms operate through gender. Throughout the course, we interpret a range of primary sources including poetry, maps, and films. Students will have the opportunity to do independent research by visiting the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections.  

Two meetings per week. Fall semester.  Professor Gomes.

SWAG 424 / HIST 424 U.S. LGBTQ Rights Movement, 1945-2020

Thursday 2:35 – 5:05pm

The LGBTQ Rights Movement in the U.S. has revolutionized the lives, rights, and representations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people in modern life. Despite its transformative impact, few people know much of anything about the people, organizations, or legal issues involved in the struggle. By studying LGBTQ history through primary source materials, students will develop a rich and nuanced historical view of pivotal moments, places, and people from the homophile movement of the 1950s to gay liberation of the 1970s to the anti-sodomy law and gay marriage battles of the 1990s to the transgender revolution of the 2000s. We will examine organizational records, movement magazines, legislative debates, oral histories and prominent published writings while also diving deeply into the LGBTQ press. We will address such topics as the closet, bullying, anti-gay laws, conversion therapy, the lavender scare, police harassment, religious campaigns, employment discrimination, and violence.  Students will learn to identify and work with an archive to craft a major, original research paper or digital exhibition or art installation on some aspect of the LGBTQ Rights Movement in the U.S. history. We will make extensive use of digitized source material while also visiting local archives such as the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College and the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center at UMass Amherst.

Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Professor Manion.

Philosophy of Sexuality

CSI-0150-1

Franklin Patterson Hall 107 CRS

 MW 01:00PM 02:20PM

Philosophy of Sexuality: Employs an intersectional philosophical approach to the study of human sexuality. Specific topics include ethical, epistemological (knowledge), and political questions related to sexual orientation, lust, casual sex, adultery, love, sexual orientation and practice, different types of relationships, and the intersectionality of sexual identity and orientation with other identities such as race, gender, and disability status. As we consider these questions, we will challenge assumptions regarding human sexuality, consider the importance of sexuality and friendship to the good life, and discuss what, if any, is the appropriate role of the state in human sexual behavior. Keywords:Ethics, Sex, Sexuality, Sexual Orientation, Relationships

Race and Power

Gaming the System: Race, Queerness, and the Politics of Play

CSI-0198-1

Emily Dickinson Hall 2 CRS

TTH 10:30AM 11:50AM

Gaming the System: Race, Queerness, and the Politics of Play : This course explores race, queerness, and the politics of play within the games industry and games community. By critically investigating racial stereotypes, gendered constructs, and ableist assumptions within the varied field of gaming (digital, table-top, LARPing), we can begin to understand and analyze how race, gender, and normativity structure our desires and code our cultures. This course will employ Game Studies, Cultural Studies, Queer Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Disability Studies. Questions to be considered include: What role does capitalism play in the production of games? Do games reinforce racist, ableist, and misogynist stereotypes? Can games be used to ethically explore difference? How do BIPOC/queer/disabled game designers reimagine tired tropes and create new realms for us to inhabit? What do games reveal about the complex relationships between marginalized bodies, history, and technology? How can we harness the power of gaming to disrupt and dismantle white supremacy, settler colonialism, and cisheteropatriarchy? Keywords:Game Studies, Popular Culture, Disability Studies, Critical Race Theory, Queer Studies

Race and Power

Alien/Freak/Monster: Race, Sex, and Disability In Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy

CSI-0242-1

Emily Dickinson Hall 2 CRS

 TTH 01:00PM 02:20PM

Alien/Freak/Monster: Race, Sex, and Disability In Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy : 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? Keywords:Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, Film and Media Studies, Disability Studies

Race and Power

Writing the Body: Materiality, Power and Pleasure

IA-0108-1

Greenwich House WRC CRS

 TTH 10:30AM 11:50AM

Writing the Body: Materiality, Power and Pleasure: Audre Lorde argues that all knowledge is mediated through the body. We all have bodies, but what does it actually mean to exist in a body? Is the body a vessel, a discursive construction, our essential self? And how can we capture this complexity in our writing? This course will explore writing about the body as a means of critical reflection on the self and the world. We will read and discuss published work-history, critical theory, personal essays, fiction, poetry (maybe even some science!)-that engages the complexities of inhabiting a body marked by discourses of race, class, gender, age, ability, ethnicity, etc., in our modern world. And we will explore, through a variety of different types of writing, how bodies as political sites both enable and limit our ability to navigate public and private spaces; how they function as sources of pain as well as pleasure; and how they can serve as contradictory sites of oppression and liberation. This Writing Program course is open to both new and experienced writers in all genres.

Race and Power

The Queer-Coded Canon: Reading 20th Century American Literature Against the Grain

LCSEM-0105-1

Emily Dickinson Hall 2 SEM

MW 10:30AM 11:50AM

The Queer-Coded Canon: Reading 20th Century American Literature Against the Grain: In 1993, Eve Sedgwick famously described queer reading practices as running "against the grain" of the popular understanding of literature, finding hidden within stories a "charged surplus" with which the marginalized reader might identify. In this course, we'll apply this method of reading to several canonical works of 20th century literature from authors such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Nella Larsen, Carson McCullers, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Cheryl Dunye, excavating the queer and trans lifeblood that has always resided within canonical texts that, for some, have gained the reputation of dusty, outmoded classics. In so doing, students will build a foundation for critical analysis, including how to use literary theory and archival research to develop their own practice of literary analysis that "runs against the grain." Please note this seminar will require reading multiple full-length novels. Keywords:literature, 20th century, trans, queer, novel

Race and Power

GNDST-101 Introduction to Gender Studies

Fall and Spring. Credits: 4

This course is designed to introduce students to social, cultural, historical, and political perspectives on gender and its construction. Through discussion and writing, we will explore the intersections among gender, race, class, and sexuality in multiple settings and contexts. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to a variety of questions, we will consider the distinctions between sex and gender, women's economic status, the making of masculinity, sexual violence, queer movements, racism, and the challenges of feminist activism across nations, and possibilities for change. We will also examine the development of feminist theory, including its promises and challenges.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities

Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive

N. Timmons

GNDST-204CP Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Trap Doors and Glittering Closets: Queer/Trans* of Color Visual Cultures of Resistance'

Fall. Credits: 4

In 2014, Time magazine declared the "Transgender Tipping Point" as a popular moment of transgender people's arrival into the mainstream. Using a queer and trans* of color critique, this course will unpack the political discourses and seeming binaries surrounding visibility/invisibility, recognition/misrecognition, legibility/illegibility, belonging/unbelonging and aesthetics/utility. How might we grapple with the contradictions of the trapdoors, pitfalls, dark corners and glittering closets that structure and normalize violence for some while safeguarding violence for others? This course will center the 2017 anthology Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility.

Crosslisted as: CRPE-256

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives

Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive

R. Hwang

Prereq: One course in CRPE, Gender Studies, or CST.

GNDST-204CW Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Androgyny and Gender Negotiation in Contemporary Chinese Women's Theater'

Fall. Credits: 4

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.

Crosslisted as: ASIAN-215, FMT-230CW

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives

Y. Wang

Notes: Taught in English

GNDST-204GV Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Gendered Violence from Medieval to Contemporary Spain'

Fall. Credits: 4

This survey course will review the complex interaction of gender and violence as a personal and institutional issue in Spain from Medieval times to the present. What are the ideological and sociocultural constructs that sustain and perpetuate violence against women? What are the forms of resistance women have put into play? Among the texts, we will study short stories by Lucanor (thirteenth century) and María de Zayas (seventeenth century), song by Bebé and movie by Boya&iacuten (twentieth century), contemporary news (twenty-first century), and laws (from the thirteenth century to the present).

Crosslisted as: SPAN-230GV

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Language

Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive

N. Romero-Díaz

Prereq: SPAN-212.

Notes: Taught in Spanish.

GNDST-204NB Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Nonbinary Romanticism: Genders, Sexes, and Beings in the Age of Revolution'

Fall. Credits: 4

With the onslaught of American, French, Haitian, and South American revolts and revolutions, the Atlantic world, much of Europe, and its colonial/industrial empire were thrown into a period of refiguring the concept of the raced, national, and gendered subject. This course considers what new forms of gender, sex, sexuality, and being were created, practiced, or thought, however momentarily, in this tumultuous age. Specific attention is given to conceptions of nonbinary being (of all varieties). Authors may include E. Darwin, Equiano, Wollstonecraft, Lister, M. Shelley, Byron, Jacobs.

Crosslisted as: ENGL-233

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities

K. Singer

Restrictions: Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors

Notes: This course is a second part of a two-course sequence with ENGL-232/GNDST-204ET, but each may be taken separately.

GNDST-204RV Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Perspectives on Revolutionary Parenting'

Fall. Credits: 4

In this space, we center the radical potentials of mothering/parenting alongside reproductive justice. We'll discuss how mothering/parenting operates in relation to the state, medical structures, borders, and other apparatuses. This course also considers what practices make mothering/parenting and reproductive justice as a space of potential liberation. What and who constitutes a mother/parent? How can the practice of parenting and reproductive justice be a liberatory practice? We'll look at texts such as Revolutionary Mothering and the history of community mothering spaces such as STAR House.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities

Other Attribute(s): Writing-Intensive

N. Timmons

Prereq: GNDST-101.

GNDST-204TA Women and Gender in the Study of Culture: 'Transgender Literature'

Fall. Credits: 4

Transgender literature has had a significant impact on how we talk about transness (and gender) and the kinds of trans stories we are able to tell. Although trans identities may find expression in texts as early as Metamorphoses (Ovid), this course will look at literature from the 20th and 21st centuries. Considering a wide range of genres -- novels, poetry, short stories, memoir, and young adult literature -- we will think about how writers talk about their bodies, their transitions, and their histories. Drawing upon fields such as history, medicine, and social science, this course will look at trans literature as both a product of these histories and as a powerful tool for critical liberation.

Crosslisted as: ENGL-217TR

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives

J. Hayward-Jansen

Restrictions: Course limited to sophomores, juniors and seniors

GNDST-206BF Women and Gender in History: 'The Historical-Grammar of Black Feminist Thought Across the Caribbean and the Americas'

Fall. Credits: 4

This class aims to raise student awareness of and exposure to different cultural backgrounds and contributions of Black feminist thought, womanism, and afro feminism across the Caribbean and the Americas. We will take a historical journey exploring the roles of cisgender Black women and gender-non-confirmative Black people in the formations of Black feminist thought, highlighting their contributions and struggles in dismantling the Western matrix of domination, but also in the radical building of new societies. Students will learn about the groundbreaking theories and methodologies that helped pave the way for contemporary feminist organizations and social movements.

Crosslisted as: CRPE-244

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives

Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive

M. Abella Hurtado

GNDST-221QF Feminist and Queer Theory: 'Feminist and Queer Theory'

Fall and Spring. Credits: 4

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.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities

C. Gundermann, S. Smith

Prereq: GNDST-101.

GNDST-221TR Feminist and Queer Theory: 'Feminist Transnationalities'

Fall. Credits: 4

This course explores recent histories, contexts, debates, and representations of feminist thought and movement across national, political, and cultural domains. Through engagement with narrative, ethnographic, and artistic sources, we consider how coalitions and solidarities have been built, in resistance to gendered and racialized oppressions, that not only challenge dominant feminist discourses but also reimagine possibilities for antiracist and anticolonial worldmaking. Topics include Black feminist internationalism, Marxist and socialist feminisms, migration and the politics of borders, trans inclusivity, as well as critiques of binaries such as west/east, local/global, and victim/agent.

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities; Multicultural Perspectives

S. Russell

Prereq: GNDST-101.

GNDST-241RA Women and Gender in Science: 'Rethinking Aids'

Fall. Credits: 4

Many aspects of COVID-19 have their roots in the 1980s AIDS epidemic -- politically, scientifically, culturally. A careful reexamination of the mainstream narrative of the HIV/AIDS phenomenon and the history from which it emerged is therefore urgent. The course will focus on the unprecedented scientific narratives around HIV and AIDS, as well as their continuation into present-day Africa, on the backdrop of advances in immunology, virology, and genetics. It will also scrutinize the burgeoning political and neoliberal economic constellations later known as pharmocracy, which appropriated and weaponized novel radical forms of activism that had emerged from within gay minority culture.

Applies to requirement(s): Social Sciences

Other Attribute(s): Speaking-Intensive, Writing-Intensive

C. Gundermann

Prereq: 4 credits in Gender Studies, CRPE, Anthropology, Sociology, Environmental Studies, Psychology, Neuroscience, Biology, FMT, History.

GNDST-333QM Advanced Seminar: 'The Queer Early Modern'

Fall. Credits: 4

This course combines early modern texts with various related secondary readings that will enable students to better understand the way that sexuality-both normative and nonnormative-was portrayed and interpreted in Renaissance literature. As we progress through the course, we will discuss what defines queer history and histories of sexuality, how the history of sexuality in the past informs the present, and, ultimately, the ways in which we can use early modern literature to better understand ourselves today. Course texts will include Christopher Marlowe's Edward II, John Lyly's Galatea, Shakespeare's sonnets, and the poetry of Aemilia Lanyer and Katherine Philips.

Crosslisted as: ENGL-382QM

Applies to requirement(s): Humanities

C. Mahaffy

Restrictions: This course is open to juniors and seniors

SWG 150 Introduction to the Study of Women and Gender (4 Credits)

An introduction to the interdisciplinary field of the study of women and gender through a critical examination of feminist histories, issues and practices. Focus on the U.S. with some attention to the global context. Primarily for first- and second-year students. Enrollment limited to 25. {H}{S}

Fall, Spring

SWG 220 Introduction to Queer Studies (4 Credits)

This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of queer studies, including its historical formations and recent innovations. We will explore the roots of queer theory in feminist theories of subjectivity and desire, queer of color critique, and queer critiques of traditional domains of knowledge production, including psychoanalysis and visual culture. Students will examine a wide range of media and forms of documentation ranging from archival material and oral histories, to critical theory. Throughout the course we will attend carefully to race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability, and will put these and other topics/identifications in conversation with course material and discussions. {A}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 222 Gender, Law and Policy (4 Credits)

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. Students study constitutional and statutory law as well as public policy. Topics include sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, pregnancy and 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. {H}{S}

Fall

SWG 227 Colloquium: Feminist and Queer Disability Studies (4 Credits)

In the essay "A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer," writer-activist Audre Lorde forges pioneering connections between the work of social justice and the environmental, gendered, and healthcare inequities that circumscribe black and brown lives. Following Lorde’s intervention, this course examines contemporary feminist/queer expressive culture, writing, and theory that centrally engages the category of dis/ability. It will familiarize students with feminist and queer scholarship that resists the medical pathologization of embodied difference; foreground dis/ability’s intersections with questions of race, class, and nation; and ask what political and social liberation might look like when able-bodiedness is no longer privileged. Prerequisite: SWG 150. Enrollment limited to 20. {A}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 230 Gender, Land and Food Movements (4 Credits)

The class begins this course by working alongside Gardening the Community, a youth-based and anti-racist food and land movement in Springfield, MA. Students center their studies on both regional and transnational women’s movements across the globe to develop their understanding about current economic trends in globalization processes. Through the insights of transnational feminist analysis, students map the history of land and food to imagine a more equitable present and future. Students develop a community-based research project that spans issues of climate change, environmentalism, critical race analysis and feminism. Prerequisite: SWG 150. {H}{S}

Fall

SWG 234 Feminist Science Studies: Postcolonial, Posthuman, Queer (4 Credits)

Feminist science studies is a rich and diverse interdisciplinary field with genealogies in science practice, history, social sciences, and philosophy. Science studies has been a vital resource to feminist, queer, critical race, post- colonial, and disability theory and has also been profoundly shaped and extended by work in these fields. This class introduces core epistemological interventions and innovations in feminist and postcolonial science studies in order to frame readings of exciting new and classics works in the field. In particular we will explore themes of post/colonialism, posthumanism, and the queer. {S}

Fall

SWG 235 Colloquium: Black Feminism (4 Credits)

An in-depth discussion of the history, debates, theory, activism and poetics of Black Feminism. Students study the conversations, ruptures and connections produced in dominant feminist scholarship by black feminist theory. The class reads foundational and emergent work in the field. Students learn the history of those scholarly interventions and examine the pervasive ways of knowing that are being disrupted through black feminist scholarship. Students develop an understanding of the relationship between black feminism, feminism, women of color feminism and queer theory. Topics covered using theoretical texts, works of cinema and popular culture. Students examine cultural texts alongside theory to practice close reading as a methodological tool. Students finish with the analytical and methodological skills to identify and critique structures of power that govern everyday experiences of gender, the body, space, violence and modes of resistance. Prerequisite: SWG 150. Enrollment limited to 25.

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 237 Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism (2 Credits)

This practicuum course is an academic complement to the work students interning with the Meridians journal as Praxis interns, Quigley Fellows, STRIDE Fellows, MMUF, Meridians interns, etc. will be doing. Run by the journal Editor, the class will discuss the scholarly, creative, artistic, archival and artistic work published in Meridians and how it is informed by - and contributes to - intersectionality as a paradigm and practice. Students will also become familiarized with feminist journal production processes and ethics, promotion and marketing strategies, co-curricular events planning and archival research. Instructor permission only. S/U only. Enrollment limited to 5.

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 241 White Supremacy in the Age of Trump (4 Credits)

This course analyzes the history, prevalence and current manifestations of the white supremacist movement by examining ideological components, tactics and strategies, and its relationship to mainstream politics. Students 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 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. {H}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 245/ CCX 245 Colloquium: Collective Organizing (4 Credits)

Offered as SWG 245 and CCX 245. This course introduces 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, students 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. Enrollment limited to 18. {H}{S}

Fall

SWG 267/ AMS 267 Colloquium: Queer Ecologies: Race, Queerness, Disability and Environmental Justice (4 Credits)

Offered as AMS 267 and SWG 267. What is learned by reading Queer Ecologies alongside Butler’s Lilith’s Brood, or Over the Hedge as environmental racism? The class considers what it means to have a racialized and sexualized identity shaped by relationships with environments. How is nature gendered, racialized and sexualized? Why? How are analytics of power mobilized around, or in opposition to, nature? How are conceptions of “disability” and “health” taken up in environmental justice movements? Students investigate the discursive and practical connections made between marginalized peoples and nature, and chart the knowledge gained by queering our conceptions of nature and the natural. Enrollment limited to 20. (E) {H}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 281/ SAS 281 Love, Devotion and Desire in Bollywood and Beyond (4 Credits)

This course examines the dominant gaze in Bollywood romantic genre films and how it constitutes the notion of romantic love and desire. The class explores the concept of love-devotion-desire in Vaishnav and Sufi texts and their influences on Bollywood. By engaging with feminist scholars and considering the female gaze from South Asian directors, especially those who challenge gender norms, the class tries to understand desire and love outside the heteronormative structure. The course also has guest lectures by South Asian activists and filmmakers. (E) {A}

Fall, Variable

SWG 288 Immigration and Sexuality in France and Europe (4 Credits)

Taught in English. This course analyzes the politics of sexuality in immigration debates in France and Europe, from the 1920s to the present. Students examine both cultural productions and social science texts: memoirs, psychoanalytical literature, activist statements, sociological studies, films, fashion, performance art, music videos, and dance forms. France has historically been the leading European host country for immigrants, a multiplicity of origins reflected in its current demographic make-up. Topics include: the hyper-sexualization of black, brown, and Muslim bodies, France as a Mediterranean culture, immigrant loneliness in Europe, intermarriage and demographic change, the veil and niqab, as well as sexual nationalism and homo-nationalism. May be taken concurrently with FRN 288, which is taught in French, for FRN credit. Enrollment limited to 35. {H}{L}{S}

Fall

SWG 300ah Seminar: Topics in the Study of Women and Gender- Abortion History, Law and Politics (4 Credits)

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, reversing a half-century-long precedent of constitutional abortion rights. This course explores the history, law and politics of abortion in the U.S. before, during and after Roe. The course examines ideologies, strategies and tactics of the abortion rights movement as well as the anti-abortion movement, focusing in particular on the gender and racial politics of these movements. Discussions include abortion access, anti-abortion violence, “crisis pregnancy centers,” fetal personhood campaigns, the criminalization of pregnancy, abortion pills, telemedicine abortion and self-managed abortion. Prerequisite: SWG 150. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required.

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 300js Seminar: Topics in the Study of Women and Gender-Justice and Security (4 Credits)

This course explores understandings of security and justice from a feminist perspective. It draws upon a trans-disciplinary range of social theories and materials from both the US and international contexts (mostly in the Global South) to critically explore how traditional practices of security authorize and protect specific interests while destabilizing and rendering vulnerable other populations. The course centers grassroots practices of security, peace and justice that challenge prevailing militarized and securitized assumptions and practices. At the heart of this course is a commitment to questioning our conceptions of how security works around the intersections of power and oppression (i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.). Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {S}

Fall, Variable

SWG 300qt Seminar: Topics in the Study of Women and Gender- Building Queer and Trans Lives (4 Credits)

This seminar considers “building” as both metaphor and practice in queer and trans feminist epistemologies. What systems and institutions (e.g. white supremacy, settler colonialism, binary gender, ableism, late-stage capitalism, the carceral state) do queer and trans epistemologies slate for demolition or destruction? Should certain structures (e.g. medical, educational, political, scientific, housing) and relationships (e.g. platonic, romantic, sexual, caregiving, community) be repaired or renovated? What needs to be built from scratch or salvaged from existing resources to ensure sustainable, accessible, non-violent, joyful modes of living? We draw on queer, trans, Black feminist, critical disability and feminist science studies blueprints for world-building. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required.

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 303 Seminar: Queer of Color Critique (4 Credits)

Students in this course gain a thorough and sustained understanding of queer of color critique by tracking this theoretical framework from its emergence in women of color feminism through the contemporary moment using historical and canonical texts along with the most cutting-edge scholarship being produced in the field. The exploration of this critical framework engages with independent films, novels and short stories, popular music, as well as television and digital media platforms such as Netflix and Amazon. We discuss what is ruptured and what is generated at the intersection of race, gender, class and sexuality. Prerequisites: SWG 150. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {A}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 305 Seminar: Queer Histories & Cultures (4 Credits)

This course is an advanced seminar in the growing field of queer American history. Over the course of the semester, we will explore the histories of same-sex desire, practice, and identity, as well as gender transgressions, from the late 19th century to the present. Using a wide range of sources, including archival documents, films, work by historians, and oral histories, we will investigate how and why people with same-sex desire and non-normative gender expressions formed communities, struggled against bigotry, and organized movements for social and political change. This course will pay close attention to the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality and the ways that difference has shaped queer history. Prerequisite: SWG 150. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {H}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 311 Seminar: Queer Conversions (4 Credits)

What does queer life look like when placed in conversation with religious ideas of conversion, rebirth, and transformation? How is the queer subject recognized as (il)legible through practices of confession, ritual, and re creation? This seminar course will situate conversations about community, transformation, ritual, and critique in the studies of religion and queer theory. We will look at case studies including faith based ex-gay movements, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and transnational Afro-Latinx Santería practices. Students will write independent analytic and reflective pieces, which will culminate into a workshopped final research paper or podcast essay. Cannot be taken S/U. Prerequisite: SWG 150. Enrollment limited to 14. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. (E) {L}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 318 Seminar: Women Against Empire (4 Credits)

Anti-imperialist movements across the globe in the 20thcentury carried with them multiple projects for the liberation and equality of people. These movements sought to build sovereign nations independent of colonial power and to develop radically new social orders. For women in these movements, the problem of empire had complex regional and local inflections that began with the politics of reproduction. This course will look at three sites of women’s involvement contesting empire: first, the struggles of anti-imperial movements, second, women in the nationalist movements after formal independence and third, women’s movements in the current age of empire that has developed alongside the stealth of economic globalization and remote-control warfare. Prerequisite: SWG 150 and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {H}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 321 Seminar: Marxist Feminism (4 Credits)

Marxist feminism as a theory and a politics both imagines alternate, liberatory futures and critiques present social orders. Beginning with a simple insight: capitalism relies on the class politics of unpaid, reproductive "women’s work," Marxist feminists in the 19th century sought to imagine new social connections, sexualities and desire to overthrow patriarchy, slavery, feudalism and colonialism. Today, queer of color and decolonial feminist theory, alongside abolition, environmental and reproduction justice movements, rejuvenate this tradition of Marxist feminism. This seminar focuses on theoretical writings from around the world to better understand radical social movements from the past and the present. Prerequisite: SWG 150. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {H}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 327 Seminar: Queer Theory (4 Credits)

This course brings together foundational and contemporary queer theoretical texts to discuss the history and production of sexuality and gender in the U.S. We will practice close reading canonical queer theoretical texts alongside scholarly interventions to the canon that emerge from queer of color critique, trans theory, and black queer studies. We will study the ways that queer theory, from these different vantage points, challenges norms of knowledge production, temporality, space, gender, and belonging. Prerequisite: SWG 150. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required.

Fall, Spring, Alternate Years

SWG 333 Seminar: Sexual Harassment and Social Change (4 Credits)

This course is an interdisciplinary examination of sexual harassment and assault historically and today in a variety of locations, including the workplace, schools, the home, the military, and on the street. We will explore the emergence and evolution of social movements against sexual harassment and assault, and how these movements advanced law and public policy on these issues in the United States. A central focus will be on how relations of power based on gender, race, class, sexuality, age, disability, and nationality shape people’s experiences of sexual harassment and assault and their responses to it. Prerequisite: SWG 150 and permission of the instructor. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {H}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 360 Seminar: Memoir Writing (4 Credits)

How does one write a life, especially if it’s one’s own? This writing workshop addresses the profound complexities, challenges, and pleasures of the genre of the memoir, through intensive reading, discussion, and both analytical and creative writing. Our readings will be drawn from a range of mostly contemporary memoirists with intersectional identity locations—and dislocations—drawing from a range of voices, experiences, and representations, pursuing what the class comes to identify as our own most urgent aesthetic and ethical questions. Our attention will be to craft, both in the memoirs we read and those we write. Writing sample and instructor permission required. Juniors and seniors only. Enrollment limited to 12. {H}{L}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 377 Seminar: Feminist Public Writing-Calderwood (4 Credits)

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. Prerequisite: SWG 150 and one other SWG course. Cannot be taken S/U. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required. {A}{S}

Fall, Spring, Variable

SWG 400 Special Studies (1-4 Credits)

For qualified juniors and seniors. Admission by permission of the instructor and director of the program. No more than 4 special studies credits may be taken in any academic year and no more than 8 special studies credits total may be applied toward the major.

Fall, Spring

SWG 430D Honors Project (4 Credits)

An 8-credit, two-semester thesis in addition to the 10 courses that fulfill the major. Eligibility requirements for honors work, and supervision and evaluation of the thesis are determined by the Program Committee for the Study of Women and Gender as outlined on the Program website at www.smith.edu/swg/honors.html.

Fall, Spring, Annually

Summer Session I - May 19, 2025 - Jul 1, 2025

US Women's History Since 1890

Summer 2025 | HISTORY 389   Prof. Jennifer L. Nye 4 credits  (student must complete final paper on RHRJ issue for Certificate credit)

This course explores the relationship of women and gender to the social, cultural, economic, legal and political developments shaping American society from 1890 to the present. It examines change over time in family life and intimate relationships, including marriage, divorce, sexuality and reproduction (sterilization, birth control, abortion, reproductive technologies, adoption); the civil and political participation of women, including voting, jury service, military service, and holding political office; and paid and unpaid labor, including employment discrimination and sexual harassment. The course will pay particular attention to gender and leadership in various social movements such as suffrage, civil rights and racial justice, welfare rights, reproductive rights and justice, and the anti-rape and battered women?s movements. We?ll consider the long arc of feminist activism, as well as conservative resistance and backlash. This course will specifically focus on how class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and immigration status have shaped the historical experiences of women, broadly defined. Sophomore level and above. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

Summer Session II - Jul 7, 2025 - Aug 15, 2025

US LGBT and Queer History

Summer 2025 | HISTORY 265  Prof. Jennifer L. Nye 4 credits  (student must complete final paper on RHRJ issue for Certificate credit)

This course explores how queer individuals and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities have influenced the social, cultural, economic, and political landscape in United States history. With a focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the course covers topics such as the criminalization of same-sex acts, cross-dressing, industrialization and urbanization, feminism, the construction of the homo/heterosexual binary, transsexuality and the "lavender scare" during the Cold War, the homophile, gay liberation, and gay rights movements, HIV/AIDS, and (im)migration. We will often look to examples from the present to better explore change over time and the modes and influences that shape both current and past understandings of gender and sexual difference. (Gen. Ed. HS, DU)

History of Sexuality and Race in the United States

Summer 2025 | WGSS 286  Prof. Laura Briggs  4 credits

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)

History of Health Care and Medicine in the U.S.

Summer 2025 | HISTORY 264  Prof. Emily Hamilton  4 credits

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)