WGSS 101
Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Fall 2016 (also offered Spring 2017)
Division II Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

This discussion and lecture course introduces students to a range of issues, theories, and controversies within feminism, gender studies, and sexuality studies. It has several aims: to provide critical and analytical tools for thinking about gender; to explore key issues facing women and sexual minorities in the U.S. (and other) societies, and to discuss strategies for confronting them. The course will examine issues such as: body politics, sexuality, reproductive rights, sexual violence, gender and work, motherhood and family, homophobia, transgendered people’s experiences in the US and abroad. Above all, the course is intended as an exploration of the tremendous diversity of thought contained under the general rubrics of feminist, gender, and sexuality studies and as a vehicle for developing skills in writing and research, as well as analytical tools for further work in the field. This course meets the requirements of the Exploring Diversity Initiative in that its main emphases are on challenging the notion of one universalizing category of “woman,” and to recognize the diverse ways in which national, sexual, ethnic, racial, classed and other kinds of differences produce multiple and often divergent relations of gendered power. It also whenever possible contextualizes within a global frame the central issues that have made up and continue to define the U.S. feminist tradition, in order to encourage students to recognize the role cultural difference plays in a variety of feminist issues and to decenter the U.S as a reference point for all feminist theory and politics. During days with lectures, two sections may combine for team-teaching. Otherwise, the sections meet separately for discussion.
The Class: Format: lecture and seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 1892
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: 1 or 2 short (3 page) essay, 1 final paper proposal/abstract, 1 annotated bibliography, 1 final paper of 7-9 pages (w/revisions); evaluation will be based on these assignments and class participation
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis; not available for the fifth course option
Prerequisites: none
Unit Notes: required course for the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies major
Distributions: Division II Writing Skills Exploring Diversity Initiative
Attributes: AMST Critical and Cultural Theory Electives

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