Fall 2016

Core Courses

Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies in the Social Sciences (WST 102)/ Teri Tiso

Tu/Th 10:00AM-11:20AM Physics P127 OR

Tu/Th 11:30AM-12:50PM Physics P116

This course is an introductory and interdisciplinary survey that will familiarize students with gender and sexuality theories, histories of women’s and feminist movements, and current debates within Women’s and Gender Studies. We draw on sources from across the social sciences to understand how gender and sex is explained with respect to specific physical bodies; formulates identities within gendered institutions; and influences our everyday personal and political interactions. Critically thinking of these issues can only occur when we include the intersection of racial, class, age, ableist and national identities within our analysis. The overarching theme of power, hierarchy, and privilege in structured(ing) institutions will always guide our study.

DEC: F

SBC: CER, SBS

3 credits

Women, Culture, Difference (WST 103)/Nancy Hiemstra and graduate TAs

Lecture, M/W 12:00PM-12:53PM Javits 110 AND

Recitation, FRI 12:00PM-12:53PM (led by graduate TAs)

This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the social construction of gender, sex, and sexuality, and the ways in which these constructions shape our realities. We will unpack how gender, race, class, sexuality, disability and other categories of identity and difference intersect in dominant power structures. In so doing, the course aims to provide students with a range of theoretical and methodological tools for analyzing, interpreting, and enacting change in social, cultural, and political phenomena. The first part of the course explores the role of western science in contemporary gender imaginaries, the invention of sexual and racial difference, and the disciplining of bodies in popular culture. The second part of the course foregrounds questions of gender as we investigate the emergence of the modern nation-state and regulation of the modern family. The third part tackles issues of gender and globalization, focusing on neoliberal processes of production and consumption on local to global scales, and human mobility within and across political borders. Although the syllabus is divided into three separate themes, these units are designed to complement and build on one another. In other words, students are expected to draw connections between the sections and to relate material assigned at the beginning of the semester
with what follows. As a whole, this course aims to give students a sense of the topics, methods, and questions that are central to Women’s and Gender Studies.

DEC: G

SBC: HUM

3 credits

Women, Culture, Difference (WST 103)/Shruti Munkherjee

Tu/Th 8:30AM-9:50AM Frey Hall 328

An introductory humanities survey focusing on women's traditional association with the home and men's association with public life and how writers, artists, philosophers, and religious thinkers have reflected upon those relationships over the past 150 years. Through lectures and critical analyses of novels, poetry, art, philosophy, and religious texts, the course explores how changing intellectual, artistic, and religious precepts have affected gender identity and different genres in the humanities.

DEC: G

SBC: HUM

3 credits

Introduction to Queer Studies in the Humanties (WST 111)/Kadji Amin

Tu/Th 11:30AM-12:50PM Physics P113

A survey of historical representations of queer difference from the late 19th century to the present. Works of visual art, literary representations and poetry are examined as evidence of the shifting understanding of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered/ queer identity.

DEC: G

SBC: HUM

3 credits

Introduction to Feminist Theory (WST 291)/ Ritch Calvin

Tu/Th 10:00AM-11:20AM Physics P117

An introductory survey of historical and contemporary interdisciplinary theories used in Women's and Gender Studies. Theoretical debates on sex, gender, sexuality, race, class, knowledge, discourse, representation are among the topics to be considered. The course will provide a strong theoretical foundation for further studies in Women's and Gender Studies.

Prerequisite: WST 102 or WST 103

DEC: G

SBC: ESI, HFA+

3 credits

Histories of Feminism (WST 301)/Rachel Corbman

Tu/Th 10:00AM-11:20AM Physics P112

This course traces the intellectual and movement histories of feminism. Although this course specifically hones in on U.S. feminism in late twentieth century, it aims to place this history in a broader transnational context, while paying close attention to the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality. To do so, we will examine a wide range of material, including archival documents, historical analyses, theoretical texts, memoirs, and films. In the first part of the course, we consider the contexts and intellectual traditions that helped incite the emergence of the women’s liberation movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The second part of the course, then, turns its attention to this movement itself. In this section of the course, we look at position papers and other documents that were published in four U.S. cities in or around the year of 1970, thinking critically about the production and dissemination of these texts. Next, the third section of the course moves thematically and roughly chronologically through the 1970s and 1980s, considering the genealogy of feminist thinking in relation to key concepts or debates in U.S. feminism. Finally, in the last section of the course, we read cutting-edge feminist and queer scholarship that revisits this moment in the history of U.S. feminism to raise theoretical questions about memory, affect, temporality, space, and feminist historiography. Overall, students in this course will develop the critical tools to engage with historical documents, while sharpening their understanding of the contexts out of which these texts emerged.

Advisory prerequisite: WST major or minor or WST 102 or WST 103

DEC: K

SBC: SBS+

3 credits

Feminist Theories in Context (WST 305)/Ritch Calvin

Tu/Th 1:00PM-2:20PM Chemistry 126

A study of major texts of the feminist tradition in social sciences and humanities, focusing on theories of subjectivity from a feminist point of view. Theoretical debates on gender, feminism, psychoanalysis, discourse, ideology, and representational systems are included.

Prerequisite: WST major or minor, or WST 102 (formerly SSI/ WST 102), or WST 103, or WST 301, or WST/PHI 284, or 6 credits of departmentally approved courses.

DEC: G

SBC: HFA+

3 credits

Senior Research Seminar for Majors and Minors/Mary Jo Bona

Tu 1:00PM-3:50PM Humanities

An exploration of significant feminist scholarship in various disciplines, designed for senior women's and gender studies majors. Seminar participants present and discuss reports on their reading and research.

Prerequisites: WST 291 and WST 301 and WST 305; 15 additional credits in the major; U4 standing; Women's Studies major

SBC: EXP+, SPK, WRTD.

3 credits

focus studies

Protest and State Violence Across the Americas (WST 395)/Melissa Forbis

M/W 2:30PM-3:50PM Melville Library N4000

Focusing on the Americas, this course explores histories and contemporary issues of state sanctioned violence, everyday violence that emerges through and from our social institutions and structures, and protest and dissent. Working from a transnational feminist perspective, we will consider on a range of recent and emerging movements for social justice that foreground issues of gender, race, and sexuality. Our comparative study of these movements in a diversity of national and transnational arenas will foster an understanding of the historical contexts and political conditions that give rise to both violence and resistance. Combining key theoretical texts, social science readings, films, literature, and social media, this interdisciplinary course looks at those issues, and focuses on how communities and movements across the Americas are actively working to oppose their oppression and create sustainable futures. May be repeated as the topic changes.

Prerequisite: WST major or minor, or WST 102 (formerly SSI/ WST 102), or WST 103, or WST 301, or WST/PHI 284, or 6 credits of departmentally approved courses

Advisory prerequisites: may be announced with topic

DEC: J

SBC: GLO, SBS+

3 credits

Gender, Race, Citizenship and Human Mobility Across Borders:

Immigration Through a Feminist Lens (WST 398)/Nancy Hiemstra

M/W 2:30 PM- 3:50 PM Psychics P117

This course examines immigration with a lens especially attentive to gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, and additional categories of differentiation. We begin by identifying historical and contemporary causes and consequences of immigration, from the scale of the home to the global/transnational, and we think about human mobility as both risk and opportunity. The course then considers how ideas of gender, race, sexuality, and family play into immigration policymaking, as well as how they shape national and cultural identities. We explore a range of contemporary topics pertaining to immigration, including (but not limited to) immigrant labor, media coverage, political discourse, and border enforcement. The main focus is on the United States, but we make connections to case studies and issues around the world. Course materials include an interdisciplinary variety of academic readings, popular culture, current news sources, and films.

Prerequisite: WST major or minor, or WST 102 (formerly SSI/WST 102), or WST 103, or WST 301, or WST/PHI 284, or 6 credits of departmentally approved courses

DEC: K

SBC: SBS

3 credits

Sex, Publics, and Space in the U.S. (WST 399)/ Victoria Hesford

M/W 2:30PM-3:50PM Frey Hall 224

In this course we will study sexuality as a set of institutions and practices that changes over time and in relation to different groups of people. Drawing upon work in the fields of American Studies, Queer Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies, we will chart some of the ways in which different sexual practices and publics, ways of life, and identities have been made in the U.S., how they emerged out of social and economic changes in the nineteenth century, and how they were formed in relation to major events in the twentieth century, including World War II, and the Civil Rights, Black Power, and women’s and gay liberation movements. The questions we will ask are: what is sexuality? Who gets to have sex? How and why do areas of social life and cultural practice, like sports for example, get sexualized? Why do schools, families, and government institutions care about how we have sex, where we have it, and with who? What is “normal” sexuality in the U.S., and how have different groups conceived of their sexual identities in relation to, and as a reaction against, those norms? How does sexuality operate in relation to race and gender, as well as class? May be repeated as the topic changes.

Prerequisite: WST major or minor, or WST 102 (formerly SSI/ WST 102), or WST 103, or WST 301, or WST/PHI 284, or 6 credits of departmentally approved courses

Advisory prerequisites: may be announced with topic

DEC: G

SBC: HFA+

3 credits

electives

Sociology of Gender (WST/SOC 247)/Kathleen Fallon

M/W 2:30PM-3:50PM Javits 102

The historical and contemporary roles of women and men in American society; changing relations between the sexes; women's liberation and related movements. Themes are situated within the context of historical developments in the U.S. This course is offered as both SOC 247 and WST 247.

DEC: K

SBC: SBS

3 credits

Literature and Cultural Contexts (WST/EGL 276)/ Brandi So

Tu/Th 1:00PM-2:20PM Light Engineering 154

An examination of works written by or about women reflecting conceptions of women in drama, poetry, and fiction. The course focuses on literature seen in relation to women's sociocultural and historical position. This course is offered as both EGL 276 and WST 276.

Prerequisite: WRT 102 or equivalent

DEC: B

SBC: HUM

3 credits

Women of Color in the U.S. (WST/HIS 323)/ Shirley Lim

Tu/Th 8:30AM-9:50AM Melville Library W4550

An introduction to the social, political, and cultural history of Latinos, the fastest-growing population in the United States, using a variety of readings and films to illuminate selected topics and themes in this population's history from 1848 to the present. Key course topics include legacies of conquest; past and present immigration; inclusion and exclusion; labor movements and activism; articulations of race, gender, and citizenship in urban and rural settings; transnationalism; Latino politics; and contemporary border control and immigration debates. This course is offered as both HIS 323and WST 323.

Prerequisite: U3 or U4 status and one of the following: HIS 104, HIS 116, WST 102, WST 103

DEC: K

SBC: SBS+

3 credits

Gender Issues in the Law (WST/POL 330)/ Dina Cangero

Th 5:30PM-8:30PM Harriman Hall 137

A critical exploration of American law that specifically addresses the issues of (in)equality of women and men in the United States. The course surveys and analyzes cases from the pre-Civil War era to the end of the 20th century dealing with various manifestations of sex discrimination, decided in the federal court system, typically by the Supreme Court, and the state court system. The course also considers how the political nature of the adjudicative process has ramifications for the decisions rendered by a court. This course is offered as both POL 330 and WST 330. Prerequisite: U3 or U4 standing Advisory Prerequisite: POL 102 or 105 or WST 102 (formerly SSI/WST 102) DEC: K SBC: SBS+ 3 credits

Sociology of Human Reproduction (WST/SOC 340)/ Catherine Marrone

W 7:00PM-9:50PM Frey Hall 102

A study of the links between biological reproduction and the socioeconomic and cultural processes that affect and are affected by it. The history of the transition from high levels of fertility and mortality to low levels of both; different kinship, gender, and family systems around the world and their links to human reproduction; the value of children in different social contexts; and the social implications of new reproductive technologies. This course is offered as both SOC 340 and WST 340.

DEC: H

SBC: STAS

Prerequisites: SOC 105; one DEC E or SNW course in biology

3 credits

Psychology of Women (WST 377/PSY 347)/Bonita London-Thomas

Tu/Th 10:00AM-11:20AM Melville Library W4550

The psychological impact of important physiological and sociological events and epochs in the lives of women; menstruation, female sexuality, marriage, childbirth, and menopause; women and mental health, mental illness and psychotherapy; the role of women in the field of psychology. This course is offered as both PSY 347 and WST 377. Prerequisite: WST major or minor; or one of the following: WST 102, WST 103, PSY 103, WST/SOC 247

DEC: F

SBC: SBS+

3 credits

Black Women's Literature of the African Diaspora (WST/AFH/EGL 382)/ Tracey Walters

Tu/Th 10:00AM-11:20AM Frey Hall 301

Black women's literature presents students with the opportunity to examine through literature the political, social, and historical experiences of Black women from the African Diaspora. The course is structured around five major themes commonly addressed in Black women's writing: Black female oppression, sexual politics of Black womanhood, Black female sexuality, Black male/female relationships, and Black women and defining self. This course is offered as AFH 382, EGL 382, and WST 382. DEC: G SBC: HFA+ 3 credits

Envioronmental Justice, Health, and Feminism (WST 394)/ Allyse Knox

M/W 8:30AM-9:50AM Frey Hall 224

Environmental justice (EJ) brings environmentalism out of the "wilderness" and into the everyday lives of people and communities. Starting from the contention that pollution and environmental degradation are far more likely to adversely affect the lives of those traditionally marginalized, including women, people of color, and low-income people, movements for environmental justice connect the health of people in a community to the health of the natural environment they live in. This course aims to give students a solid grounding in the issues important to environmental justice in the US and around the world, from the pesticides of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to the lead-contaminated water of Flint and other poor communities of color. With a focus on problems that affect women and families in particular, we will draw on a range of sources from literature, history, public health, and the social sciences to develop an understanding of the past and present of the environmental justice movement and its intersections with feminism and struggles for racial and economic justice. Selected topics in gender and medicine and in human reproduction. May be repeated as the topic changes.

Prerequisite: WST major or minor, or WST 102 (formerly SSI/ WST 102), or WST 103, or WST 301, or WST/PHI 284, or 6 credits of departmentally approved courses

Advisory prerequisites: may be announced with topic

DEC: H

SBC: STAS

3 credits

Undergraduate