Undergraduate Program

• Instructor: Ed Cohen

HOW TO READ MICHEL FOUCAULT

The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze famously characterized Foucault’s life by saying: “Only one thing mattered to Foucault: What does it mean to think?” I’d restate that as: “Only one thing mattered to Foucault: How does thinking matter?” Indeed, as Foucault himself remarked: “In what does [philosophical thought] consist if not in the endeavor to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is already known? … The object [is] to learn to what extent the effort to think one’s own history can free thought from what it silently thinks, and so to enable it to think differently.” In this course we will closely read just a few of the texts Foucault wrote in the mid-1970s in order to trace the development of his thinking. We will focus on texts he wrote about public health, “abnormality,” the origin of the prison, “sexuality,” and modern governance in order to explore his desire to “think differently”–especially insofar as living differently always entails thinking differently as well. We might learn something about thinking along the way as well.

• Instructor: Deborah Gray White

Cross-listed with 01:512:366:01

This course explores the ways that race and sex have influenced identity in America. It investigates how class, gender and nationalism have intersected with race and sex to determine life chances in America; how the state (local, state and national government) has impacted sexuality, people of color, and women; and how our ideas about masculinity and femininity were formed. The course begins with an exploration of the concepts used in this class with particular focus on the concept of intersectionality. It continues by taking a close look at the way that the variables under review came together at various times in American history. We will study topics such as race-making, interracial marriage, gender making, immigration, gay identity and rights. Because of the continued concerns about Covid-19, the course will be conducted online using zoom.

• Instructor: Voichita Nachescu

In this course, we explore the significance of mass consumption in relation to gender and racial capitalism. What does it mean to be a consumer? What are the possibilities and limits of consumer activism? Over the course of the semester we will be tackling these questions as we explore different aspects of consumer culture, its institutions and sub-cultures, and its global reach. In addition, we examine consumption from a historical and transnational perspective, beginning with the emergence of the raced and gendered consumer in relationship with capitalism and modernity, and linking consumption with citizenship, race, class, and sexuality.

• Instructor: Judy Gerson

Run as a workshop, this seminar offers students a semester to explore their own research questions and develop important and useful research skills. We start synchronously with six weeks of common readings and then turn to everyone’s own research projects. We’ll work collectively and proceed step-by-step to make sure every student will have a meaningful, hands-on, and manageable research experience. Your final project may take the form of a research proposal, a research paper, a zine, podcast, photo album, lecture, webinar, performance, etc. You’ll come away with skills that will enable you to think critically and produce new knowledge relevant both within and outside the academy. All students are truly welcome in this interdisciplinary course, which also fulfills a WGSS requirement. There are no prerequisites and no prior knowledge is necessary. Any questions or need more information, please contact Professor Gerson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

• Instructor: Susana Galan

This course will survey some of the ways visual representation serves to reflect and critique the construction of racial and gender identity in society. Our study will focus on how such identity groupings are defined culturally and globally, and we will look at a range of contemporary art practices used to challenge, highlight, confront, and ultimately encourage recognition of the complex systems of representation that give way to ideas about race and gender and their relationship to identity performance and subjective experience. We will also learn methods used to interrogate the representation of race and gender, and consider how viewing art through this critical lens may enrich our understanding of art in general. While art historians have focused extensively on questions of gender since the late 1960s, robust research on issues of race is a more recent phenomenon in the discipline and there is still much work to do. Much of this scholarship has focused on African American/Black identity, especially as it is closely tied in with larger themes of American art and society, so while we will address other racial and ethnic identities, the content of this course skews heavily in this direction. Students are encouraged to bring into class discussions additional examples of contemporary artists addressing cultures and identities not explicitly covered in the course material.

• Instructor: Kyla Schuller

An introduction to many of the ways feminists engage with the sciences, this course examines ways that feminists have critiqued the production of scientific knowledge as well as ways that contemporary critical analyses of gender, race, and sexuality draw on scientific research. Taking both an historical and theoretical perspective, students will explore the various ways scientists have defined gender, race, and sexual difference in humans and other animals from the nineteenth century to the present. We will investigate how dynamics of race and gender shaped specific episodes in the history of science, such as nineteenth-century race science and contemporary brain organization research. We will also look at contemporary scientific practice, especially examining the role of women in science and cultural ideas about women scientists, as well as at feminist writers who argue that we should deepen our understanding of scientific research in order to advance feminist causes. Throughout we will examine science in many genres: histories of science, fictional writing, documentary film, and feminist theory, among others.

• Instructor: Voichita Nachescu

In this course, we explore contemporary digital media as sites of production of gender, race, and sexuality. Inspired by intersectional theory and cyberfeminism, we examine Twitter, blogs, and podcasts as environments where race / gender /sexuality / are produced, negotiated, and subverted. We critically interrogate the ways new technologies often reinscribe power relations, discipline, and surveillance, and we explore the possibilities and limits of online activism.

Students will work collaboratively to create a podcast based on their research on a topic of their choice.

For a full list of all available WGSS classes, please see the Undergraduate Course Schedule

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Please note that the "Semester(s) Offered" entry does not guarantee that the course will always be offered in that semester. Please consult the online Schedule of Courses to verify whether a course will be offered in an upcoming semester.

Historical, cross-cultural, and multidisciplinary approaches to sexuality research. Social, moral, and political meanings of sexuality in U.S. and transnational contexts. Current issues and debates around sexual norms. Prerequisite: 01:988:280.

Considers how globalization alters conceptualizations of sexuality and its relationship to gender. Issues include global, diasporic, and postcolonial gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender activism, tourism and travel, HIV/AIDS organizing, "sexual rights" discourses, sex work, and asylum based on gender and sexual orientation.
Prerequisite: 01:988:101 or 190 or 235 or 201 or 202.