Undergraduate Program
Undergraduate Program
Undergraduate Director:Dr. Yana Rodgers
Sr. Department Administrator: Monique Gregory
The Women's & Gender Studies undergraduate program, founded in the early seventies, is one of the oldest in the nation. Currently, the program has over 200 majors and minors and serves over 1900 students annually in a wide array of core and cross-listed courses. The major, approved in 1984, introduces students to significant issues and debates in feminist scholarship, theory, and activism.
“Women’s & Gender Studies seek to enrich traditional disciplinary approaches not simply by including women but by transforming the categories, through which knowledge is produced and disseminated.”
All courses are interdisciplinary and each considers the complex dynamics among race, ethnicity, locality, class, gender, and sexuality. The readings and discussions in each class represent a wide variety of women's perspectives concerning issues such as: the conceptualization of difference, the production and recreation of femininity and masculinity, language and gender, the division of labor, women and poverty, sexual violence, reproductive rights, gay and lesbian theory, gender and popular theory, and contemporary feminist politics. Ultimately, we strive to ground both research and theory in the everyday realities of feminist activism around the globe. Women’s & Gender Studies program faculty, students and staff are active members and leaders of academic and community women’s organizations.
The WGS alumnae pursue their professional career in various fields. One-fifth of our graduates continue their education in graduate programs in different fields (political science, English, law) around the country. Many alumnae also engage in work in the area of health and pharmacy (about one fourth). Others choose law (one-fifth of the alumnae), education (one fourth) media or computer studies. Many WGS graduates continue their activist work in non-governmental organizations that engage with women and work, international politics and women’s leadership.
01:988:407 Women’s Global Health Movements (3)
Politics and structure of global women's health movements. Relationship between health and phenomena such as international politics, globalization, economic policy, and conflict and war.
01:988:406 Women, Work, and Social Change (3)
Study of problems faced by women working in industry, unions, the home, and professions in light of modern agitation and social trends; analysis of sex-differentiated occupations, legislation, and service roles with attention to biological, psychological, and social differences between the sexes.
01:988:405 Gender and Human Rights (3)
Examines history and discourse of women's human rights; uses of humanitarian law in wartime; issues of gender-based violence, health, and sexuality.
Prerequisite: 01:988:101 or 235 or permission of instructor.
01:988:399 CESEP (1)
Community service placement in women's and gender studies. Corequisite: Must be taken in conjunction with a designated CESEP (Civic Engagement and Service Education Partnerships) course offered in the women's and gender studies program.
01:988:398 Freud and Feminism II--The Unconscious (3)
Examines Freud's account of the unconscious and its relevance to theories of subjectivity, especially to feminist theory and antiracist theory.
01:988:397 Freud and Feminism I--Sexuality (3)
Introduces Freudian concepts, methods and terminology, and the corresponding issues and debates in feminist theory.
01:988:396 Topics in Women's and Gender Studies (3)
Selected topics in women's and gender studies. Topics vary each semester. Consult department.
01:988:395 Race, Gender, Media, and the Law (3)
Considers relationship between gender, law, and race in contemporary popular and political culture. Addresses impact of rise in televised court cases on perceptions of legal system and in stimulating public debates about justice. Prerequisite: 01:988:101 or 235 or 201 or 202.
01:988:394 Black Women in the United States (3)
Examines cultural stereotypes; political, economic, and social challenges confronting black women in the United States; and strategies of resistance developed by black women. Prerequisite: 01:988:101 or 235 or by permission.
01:988:392 Thinking Bodies (3)
Examines work of theorists questioning the subordination of body to mind in modern Western thought.