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Fall 2024 Graduate Courses
[Core Courses]
WST 601 - Feminist Theories
Angela Jones
Tuesdays: 2:00-4:50pm
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to a wide range of readings
in feminist theories and the impact of gender and sexuality studies criticism on literary
studies and feminist narratology. Taking an intersectional approach to argue that
multiple modalities—gender, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, ability, geographical
location—create social positions and representations structured by inequalities, we
will examine and critique a variety of literary/critical texts that anticipate, intervene
in, and embody feminist and queer representations in narrative. Loosely organized
around feminist chronologies, we will examine early feminisms alongside second-wave
and sexuality studies; we then examine critical race studies and black feminisms,
and shift to queer of color and transnational feminisms. Readings range from Mary
Wollstonecraft and Julia C. Collins to Gloria Anzaldúa, Hortense Spillers, and Maggie
Nelson. French feminists, Wittig, Kristeva, Cixous, and Irigaray are read in conjunction
with earlier works by Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf ( A Room of One’s Own , e.g.) and alongside Spivak, Butler, Fuss, and Ahmed. Longer works include Morrison’s Beloved , Rankin’s Citizen and Cisneros’s Woman Hollering Creek. Collaborative praxis is expected in this class as such work comprises education as
a “practice of freedom,” as bell hooks has written.
WST 610 - Advanced Topics in Women's Studies - "Trans Studies"
Joanna Wuest
Wednesdays: 3:30-6:20pm
Description TBA
WST 680 - Interdisciplinary Research Design
Nancy Hiemstra
Thursdays: 2:00-4:20pm
This interdisciplinary seminar guides students engaged in feminist, liberatory, and
social justice oriented projects through the process of research design. We will explore
interdisciplinary ideas and debates voiced by scholars and activists about the relationship
between theory and research practice, and the conduct of research and research outcomes.
Students will be introduced to an array of research methods available across the Arts,
Humanities, Social Sciences and Sciences, think critically about their use, and gain
some hands-on experience with methods. The seminar is designed as a workshop to apply
knowledge of methods and methodologies to students' own research, and over the semester,
students will develop either a research proposal for funding agencies and/or their
dissertation proposal (prospectus). Course topics will include formulating and refining
research questions; developing appropriate theoretical frameworks; articulating scholarly
value; and thinking critically about the methods used in feminist interdisciplinary
research. Students are expected to work collaboratively, presenting their individual
works-in-progress to the class for constructive critique.
[WGSS-Related Electives]
HIS 535 - Theme Seminar: "Body Politics"
Nancy Tomes
Tuesdays: 6:30-9:20pm
This course will explore the diverse ways that medical knowledge about the human body
has been deployed in the exercise of “biopower,” to use Foucault’s term. We will use
his concept of biopower as starting point to explore the historical construction of
categories such as natural/unnatural, normal/abnormal, able/disabled, and healthy/diseased.
We will explore how those changing categories have aligned with the exercise of political
and cultural power over gendered bodies and minds. Our goal is to understand the changing
dynamics of medical authority in the past: how it was constituted, accepted, resisted,
and subverted. Besides Foucault, we will sample the work of other theorists, including
Judith Butler’s new book, Who’s Afraid of Gender? We will read in common five or six
works of history, such as Melissa Stein, Measuring Manhood: Race and the Science of
Masculinity, 1830-1934, Susan Burch and Hannah Joyner, Unspeakable: the Story of Junius
Wilson, Susan Reverby, Examining Tuskegee: the Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy,
and Richard McKay, Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic. (I will revisit
this list of common readings once I see who’s in the seminar.) In addition to the
common readings, seminar members will be given the chance to explore and share readings
relevant to their specific interests. Although my own specialization is in U.S. medicine
from 1800 onward, I am eager and willing to work with people interested in other localities
and time periods. The main writing requirement consists of writing a review essay
(7-10 pages) and an annotated bibliography on a topic of the participant’s choice.
Enrollment in History MA or PhD Program or Permission of Instructor.
SOC 591 - Special Seminar: "Sociology of the Body"
Rebekah Burroway
Wednesday: 2:00 - 4:50pm
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View Past Graduate Courses:
Spring 2021