To view GWS courses offered during a specific semester, visit the online University Course Catalogue. Select the semester desired from the drop-down menu, then type "GWS" in the Course Prefix box or select GWS from the drop-down menu. There may also be GWS courses listed under the general "A&S" prefix or as Discovery Seminar Program "DSP" courses. Note that actual course offerings are subject to change, but this guide will provide the most current information available.

SUMMER 2024 COURSES

GWS 201-210:  GENDER AND POPULAR CULTURE
INSTRUCTOR:  GREGORY SERRANO
MEETING TIMES: ONLINE ASYNCHRONOUS (MAY 13-JUNE 10)
This course examines the role of popular culture in the construction of gendered identities in contemporary society. We examine a wide range of popular cultural forms -- including music, computer games, movies, and television -- to illustrate how femininity and masculinity are produced, represented, and consumed. This course meets UK Core requirements (Intellectual Inquiry, Humanities) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor. 

GWS 201-211: GENDER AND POPULAR CULTURE
INSTRUCTOR: REBECCA LENTJES
MEETING TIMES: ONLINE ASYNCHRONOUS (JULY 11-AUG 7)
This course explores how gender and sexuality intersect with popular culture, and specifically with histories and subcultures of rock and popular music. We will trace the trajectories of feminist thought, intersectionality, queer theory, and the waves of feminism through the lens of popular culture, from Bikini Kill to Billie Eilish to Prince to Megan Thee Stallion. We will examine constructions of “masculinity” and “femininity” and how these constructions shape (and are shaped by) not only music but other forms of popular culture such as film, television, video games, and social media. This course offers an introduction to the field of gender studies through assignments that include writing discussion posts and other short assignments; reading essays, opinion pieces, zines, and academic articles; watching video clips, interviews, and TikToks; and of course listening to a class playlist. The central goals of the class are to develop interdisciplinary research skills; to become adept at performing cultural analysis; and to think critically about how ideas of gender and sexuality are represented and interpreted within the realms of popular culture, academia, and everyday life. This course meets UK Core requirements (Intellectual Inquiry, Humanities) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor. 

GWS 250:  SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
INSTRUCTOR:  SHRUHTI PARTHASARATHY
MEETING TIMES:  ONLINE ASYNCHRONOUS (MAY 13-JUNE 10)
This course takes you through some ways in which people have organized themselves around local, national, and international issues pertaining to gender. We engage key theories that explain the origins, strategies, and success of different forms of social movements across the world. We also critically analyze case studies from different parts of the world to understand how social movements work on the ground and in specific cultural environments with unique historical trajectories, attending to ways in which social movements are shaped by, and do or do not result in changes to social structures of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality. This course meets UK Core requirement (Global Dynamics) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor. 

GWS 302-210:  GENDER ACROSS THE WORLD: 
REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE ACROSS THE GLOBE
INSTRUCTOR:  JINGXUE ZHANG
MEETING TIMES: ONLINE ASYNCHRONOUS (JULY 11-AUG 7)
The rights to have (or not have) children and to parent children is highly stratified in all societies across the world: who are considered as qualified mothers, and who are doomed to fail? Who are considered to be the appropriate future citizens and who are not? What are deemed as the ideal standards of “good mothers,” and whether/how such standards further marginalize and even demonize the already subordinated and oppressed women? Starting from slavery, access to birth control, stratified reproduction, sex selective abortions, new reproductive technologies, and the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, this course will focus on difficult topics; but no answers will be provided. Course materials will prompt students to think why access to reproductive justice is constituted and constitutive of social inequality, and how people from different communities are differentially impacted. Students are invited to tackle with these challenging topics and to think how reproductive justice is unevenly distributed along the lines of race, gender, sexuality, class, (dis)abilities, and citizenship. This course meets UK Core requirement (Global Dynamics) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor.