Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies

Catalog description

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. COURSE OVERVIEW. This course explores the core concepts of the interdisciplinary field of women’s and gender studies, focusing on various perspectives, scholarship, theories and histories of sex, gender and sexuality; examines theories of intersectionality, analyzing the interplay among race/racism, class/classism, sex/sexism, disability/ableism, nation/nationalism, religion/religious bias among other factors in gendered experiences and systems; surveys feminist, queer, anti-racist, decolonial and/or global scholarship that examines how social institutions and control mechanisms enact power, privilege and bias; engages controversial material and historical and/or contemporary case studies that challenge and/or support conventional understandings of gender, sex, sexuality, identity and power as necessary to achieve course learning outcomes and proficiency in disciplinary concepts and ideas. TOPICS. Course may include and is not limited to discussions and descriptions of violence, sexual assault, homophobia, transphobia, femicide, genocide, familial/domestic abuse, forced sterilization and workplace harassment; investigations of political controversies centered on reproductive and gender healthcare, gender identity, policing and/or immigration; analysis of popular culture and creative expression, including but not limited to: performance, literature, drag, music, visual culture; examinations of primary texts from historical and/or contemporary social movements and activists across the United States and around the globe; investigations of contemporary and historical labor relations and globalization; analyses and descriptions of anatomy, physiology and psychology. Instructors teaching this class will choose texts, assessments and approaches that represent current scholarship, instructor expertise, and satisfy course learning objectives.