WST 150 A-Z - (IS) Topics in Women’s Studies

Semester Hours: 3

This course will offer an in-depth study of major issues in Women’s and Gender Studies. Topics will reflect current developments in the field and will address issues such as women’s roles in work, family, sexuality, and reproduction; language, representation, and performance; feminist politics and policies; transnational and cross-cultural perspectives of gender; and the impact of science and technology on women’s lives.

Current Special Topics

WST 150C - Women Making Movies

Women have been making films since the birth of cinema, and yet women directors’ work remains both underfunded and overlooked. This course seeks to correct this by introducing students to women film-makers whose work crosses decade, genre and culture. In class we will watch films made by both pioneering experimentalists and contemporary directors from USA, India and Europe.

WST 150G - BANNED: Sexuality and Gender in the World of Letters

We may be tempted to think that reading and writing are almost natural skills that one easily acquires and masters, but they are social and cultural practices that have been historically informed by gender and sexuality. In this course we will read English translations of literature originally written in Spanish (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, from the 1600s to today), as well as critical texts that investigate the control and regulation of access to the means of literary production. Works include: the remarkable Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World (written in 1592); relevant essays and poems by the Mexican nun, poet and scholar Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; stories from the 1900s by Spanish women’s rights activist and novelist Emilia Pardo Bazán. We will put those works in conversation with texts by Virginia Woolf, Luce Irigaray, and more recently, trans philosopher Paul Preciado’s 2020 text, “Can the Monster Speak? Report to an Academy of Psychoanalysts.” Our focus will be on gender and sexuality as they intersect with identity categories such as “race”, ethnicity, and/or legal status, and will read, among others, works by Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, and more recently Alan Pelaez Lopez. The course will study texts using narratology (e.g. the use of different narrative devices to create different meanings), as well as looking at the cultural, social, and historical circumstances surrounding the texts and their readership. Materials for this course are all in English, and the class is conducted in English.

WST 150K - Queer Fashion as Performance: Redefining Gender & Identity Through Design

The course examines the interplay between fashion, queer identity, and activism, with a focus on clothing as a means of expressing and promoting social change. Utilizing historical analysis, class discussions, and creative projects, students will explore the evolution of queer fashion and its subversive potential to challenge gender norms and promote inclusivity. Moreover, the performative aspects of fashion will be scrutinized to elucidate the role of clothing in shaping both individual and collective identity and creating a sense of community. The course aims to endow students with an in-depth comprehension of the interdependence between fashion, gender, and identity and to enable them to craft their distinctive voices within the realm of queer fashion.

WST 150Y - LGBTQ+ Relationships

LGBTQ+ identity is, like any other socially constructed identity, inherently understood via relationships. Without our relationships with others in society, the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity would be largely unimportant to survival; and without our close interpersonal relationships, our experience of ourselves and others as LGBTQ+ would be fundamentally different. This course will explore these topics in a person-centered, humanistic manner and apply them to students’ interests and future careers. Relationships considered will include both intrapersonal (a person’s relationship with themselves) and interpersonal (relationships between two or more people) dynamics, as well as the couple, family, friend, and societal systems of relationships relevant to LGBTQ+ individuals.

WST 150Z - Sex & Gender in Antiquity

This course examines cultural attitudes toward sex and gender in the Greek and Roman worlds through the study of ancient literary sources. We will explore how notions of masculinity and femininity structured Greco-Roman thought and produced normative representations of ancient men and women. We will also place a special emphasis on gender-nonconforming individuals and non-normative forms of sexual desire: the richness and complexity of the ancient sources offer valuable evidence for alternative ways of being in the ancient world. Close readings of the primary sources will be framed by modern methodologies for the analysis of ancient cultures.

Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
Subjects will change from semester to semester and the course may be repeated for credit when topics vary. Specific titles and course descriptions for special topics courses are available in the online class schedule.

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