Women's and Gender Studies

This course is an introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies, an interdisciplinary field that examines the concept of gender and how it intersects with class, race and sexuality. Students will become familiar with key issues and debates in the scholarship, as well as histories of feminism and feminist thought.

This course introduces Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Studies. Students will uncover the history of modern, western ideas about sexuality and sexual and gender identity through a wide variety of texts and images across a range of disciplines and methodologies. Sexuality and gender will be considered not as “natural” or consistent phenomena, but as sets of cultural beliefs that have changed over time, manifesting themselves differently in varied cultural and historical contexts. Students will also discuss controversies in the contemporary period while being tolerant and respectful of differing viewpoints.