FALL 2024 COURSES

GWS 200-001:  SEX & POWER
INSTRUCTOR:  FRANCES HENDERSON
MEETING TIMES: HYBRID, MW 10:00-10:50 (IN PERSON) & SOME PORTIONS ONLINE
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary fields of both Gender Studies and Women's Studies which explore the ways that sex and gender manifest themselves in social, cultural, and political arenas. It draws upon scholarship in women’s studies, feminist studies, masculinities studies, and queer studies which themselves draw upon a variety of intellectual perspectives, including historical, psychological, rhetorical, sociological, literary, and biological. Students will use gender-based theory to look at the ways in which gender identification and representation influences individuals and societies. The primary goal of this course is to familiarize students with key issues, questions and debates in Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS) scholarship, both historical and contemporary. This course meets UK core requirement (Intellectual Inquiry, Social Science) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate major and minor, and the sexuality studies certificate. 

GWS 200-003: SEX & POWER
INSTRUCTOR:  MELISSA STEIN
MEETING TIMES: HYBRID, MW 11:00-11:50 (IN PERSON) & SOME PORTIONS ONLINE
This course addresses key issues in GWS through a social science perspective that is cross-cultural, transnational, and interdisciplinary in its approach. It will cover such topics as identity and identity politics, sexuality and reproduction, labor and the gender politics of the workplace, health and health activism, feminist thought and action, gendered forms of violence and organized resistance, and the everyday experience of gender. Particular attention will be paid to the intersections of gender with other social categories, such as race, nationality, class, and sexual orientation. This course meets UK Core requirement (Intellectual Inquiry, Social Science) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor, and the sexuality studies certificate. 

GWS 201: GENDER & POPULAR CULTURE
SECTIONS:
001:  TR 2:00-3:15, ARIA HALLIDAY
002:  MWF 3:00-3:50, TBD
003: MWF 2:00-2:50, ELIZABETH WILLIAMS
201:  ONLINE ASYNCHRONOUS, FRANCES HENDERSON
202:  ONLINE ASYNCHRONOUS, TBD, PART OF TERM (OCT 21-DEC 20)

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 250-001: SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
INSTRUCTOR:  TBD
MEETING TIMES:  TR 12:30-1:45
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 301-001: CROSSROADS IN GWS:  BLACK & LATINA WOMEN IN U.S. POLITICS
INSTRUCTOR:  FRANCES HENDERSON
MEETING TIMES: HYBRID, MW 1:00-1:50 (IN PERSON) & PORTIONS ONLINE
This course examines Black and Latina women’s participation in American politics as citizens, voters, activists, and elites. Central to this course are the meaning and nature of gender equality and the ways that gender intersects with race, ethnicity and class. Throughout the course, we will interrogate ideas about citizenship and participation through the lens of Black and Latina women. Politics will be broadly conceived to account for the various ways in which women of color participate both inside and on the margins of formal politics and political processes in the US. Thus, topics will likely include: analysis of the mobilization of women of color around reproductive justice, the carceral state, immigration and education, in addition to Black and Latina women’s mobilization into politics through the suffrage movement and the modern women’s movement. The course will also analyze the role of gender and race in shaping public opinion and electoral behavior; public opinion and electoral behavior on gender issues; women’s activities within the political parties. Throughout the semester, we will be following the role of Black and Latina women and gender issues in the 2020 election. This course will provide students with a limited introduction to the study of gender and U.S. politics including some central questions, concepts, and debates in the field. Students will develop intersectional theoretical frameworks and analytical tools for studying gender and politics in the United States.  This course meets UK Core requirement (Community, Culture, and U.S. Citizenship) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor.  

GWS 301-003: CROSSROADS IN GWS: GIRLHOOD STUDIES
INSTRUCTOR: ANASTASIA TODD
MEETING TIMES:  TR 12:30-1:45
This course is an introduction to Girlhood Studies, with a particular focus on 20th and 21st century girls and girlhoods. Girlhood Studies asks us to think critically about the construction of girlhood, the variegated meanings that attach themselves to “the girl,” and the lived experiences of girls. Is girlhood self-evident, is it a temporal life stage, a bio-social construction, or a feeling? In this course we will ponder these questions, as well as think and write critically about how gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality inform how we understand who “counts” as a girl. We will watch documentary films, reality TV, and social media content alongside our theoretical and popular readings about girls and girlhoods. In exploring lived realities as well as cultural representations, for example, Taylor Swift’s never-ending girlhood and our recent obsession with “girl dinner” and “girl math,” we think through what “the girl” can tell us about the contemporary sociohistorical moment. This course meets UK Core requirement (Community, Culture, and U.S. Citizenship) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor. 

GWS 302-001:  GENDER ACROSS THE WORLD: REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE
INSTRUCTOR:  CAROL MASON
MEETING TIMES: HYBRID, MWF 2:00-2:50
Interdisciplinary, comparative and transnational examination of issues of gender focused around particular themes and locations. Thematic focus explicating gender which also illuminates questions of history and political economy in specific locations. Introduces students to research and a variety of analytical questions in the field, as well as the interaction between locales/people and structural processes. The theme for this section of 302 is Reproductive Justice. A group of African American women planning to attend the International Conference on Population and Development in Egypt coined the phrase “reproductive justice” to assert their perspectives as women of color, mothers, health care advocates, human rights champions, and political organizers. Reproductive justice therefore began as a transnational, antiracist, and activist concept. That was more than 30 years ago and, since then, organizations and academics have adopted the RJ mode of analysis to understand issues such as sterilization, surrogacy, infant mortality, the right to parent, family separation, abortion, infertility treatment, contraception, and more. We will examine these global issues. This course meets UK Core requirement (Global Dynamics) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor.

GWS 302-002: GENDER ACROSS THE WORLD: GLOBAL GAYS IN THE GLOBAL GAZE
INSTRUCTOR:  ELIZABETH WILLIAMS      
MEETING TIMES: MWF 11:00-11:50
This course takes an interdisciplinary and transnational approach to the study of GLBTQIA+ lives, histories, and identities. We will consider how same-sex attraction and love have been understood in dramatically different ways across time and place. Likewise, gender has not always been understood in terms of binary between male and female, masculine and feminine; rather, a wide range of gender(ed) identities have been deemed possible and acceptable in various times and places. Students in this course will likely be familiar with the current discourse of GLBTQIA+ rights, a discourse that has, in recent decades, focused on liberal approaches to inclusion in existing state structures. We will explore how this politics emerged in Europe and America and ask to what extent this framework is applicable or useful in the Global South. We will also think about how global dynamics, especially colonialism, have reshaped understandings of gender and sexuality in harmful ways. This course meets UK Core requirement (Global Dynamics) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor.

Students in this course will:

• Understand how “queer” is used as a theoretical position and political standpoint and consider its applicability to spaces in the Global South.

• Understand how ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality have changed over time and across geographic space.

• Engage meaningfully with spaces and histories outside of the Global North.

• Learn how to read academic texts strategically, looking for argument, evidence, and approach.

• Hone skills in academic writing, with a focus on argumentation, organization, and analysis.

• Develop proficiency in analyzing popular media, unpacking the deeper meanings at play

GWS 302-002: GENDER ACROSS THE WORLD: TRANSNATIONAL SEXUALITIES
INSTRUCTOR:  CHARLIE YI ZHANG            
MEETING TIMES: TR 2:00-3:15
This course examines the politics of sexualities within a transnational frame of analysis and explores the process of “border-crossings” through critical engagements of normative and non-normative sexualities. Using cross-cultural research on sexuality studies, the course will address these key questions: as bodies move across national, cultural, racial, and ideological borders, how is sexuality redefined, named, and leveraged for change? What factors allow for new formations and understandings of sexuality to emerge within an increasingly globalized world? How do social forces such as nationalism, citizenship, global neoliberalism, settler colonialism, and mass media shape and produce desires, sexual identities, sexual labor, sexual practices, bodies, and genders? Students will learn key concepts used in discussions of transnational sexuality studies to expand their understanding of intersectional analysis. Topics for study include: queer and LGBTQI organizing; expression of sexual identities, desires, and practices across nation-state borders; queer migration and labor flows; transnational porn industries; sex trafficking and tourism; and settler colonialism, among others. This course meets UK Core requirement (Global Dynamics) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor.

GWS 309-201 (SAME AS CPH 309): HEALTH, HISTORY, AND HUMAN DIVERSITY
INSTRUCTOR:  TBD
MEETING TIMES: ONLINE, ASYNCHRONOUS
Health care reform is often in the news, and everyone has an opinion on why the system is broken, how to fix it, who should have access to good medical care, under what circumstances, and what constitutes “good care.” This online, multi-format course will consider what it has meant to be a good patient or a good doctor at various points in U.S. history, who was included or excluded in each group, how medicine became professionalized, and how people have organized around health issues. Students will engage with primary sources, watch related films, interact with the professor during virtual “office hours,” and participate in online moderated discussions. This course meets UK Core requirement (Intellectual Inquiry, Humanities and/or Community, Culture, and Citizenship in the U.S.) and counts toward requirements for the undergraduate GWS major and minor.

GWS 340-001: HISTORY OF FEMINIST THOUGHT
INSTRUCTOR:  ANASTASIA TODD
MEETING TIMES: TR 8:00-9:15
This course investigates historical flashpoints in feminist thought up until the late 1970s (ish). Our goal is to weave together multiple histories, epistemologies, and narratives on order to explore the genesis of feminist thought and create an (imperfect) feminist archive that holds the theoretical contributions of feminist thinkers, activists, and intellectuals pre-1980. We will read primary and secondary sources that are not always included in the feminist canon and ask how these texts inform, expose, transform, and challenge our understanding of feminist theory and contemporary social justice issues. Overall, this course is designed to help students think critically about how our ideas of feminism, including who counts as a feminist and what counts as feminist issues have changed (or not changed) over time, place, and space. This course counts toward the undergraduate GWS major and minor. 

GWS 599-001:  DOING FEMINIST RESEARCH II: CAPSTONE
INSTRUCTOR: CHARLIE YI ZHANG
MEETING TIMES: T 3:30-6:00
This course provides a space for students to synthesize what they have learned about the methods and theories of GWS in various ways. Students will reflect on how one constructs an argument and writes as an interdisciplinary scholar on gender or women. Students will write a senior thesis and edit the theses of other students; students will also read and discuss materials which deal with research and writing in GWS. This course is required for GWS majors. 

ADDITIONAL COURSES FOR GWS CREDIT

ANT 401-201:  GENDER ROLES IN CROSS CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
INSTRUCTOR: MONICA UDVARDY
MEETING TIMES: ONLINE SYNCHRONOUS, TR 4:00-5:15
The world encompasses a liberating array of cross-cultural variation in how humans interpret sexual difference. ANT 401 explores the theoretical and substantive basis for contemporary thinking about gender from an anthropological perspective. Gender content is explored in several cultures representing all levels of sociocultural complexity. Additional topics include the history of the study of gender within anthropology and the impact of development on gender systems in the global South. A primary objective is for the student to reflect upon their own gendered self. This course counts toward the anthropology major, and/or toward the Gender and Women’s Studies major or minor; and/or toward certain themes in the International Studies major. 

RUS 370-001: THE FLOKLORE OF RUSSIA AND UKRAINE
INSTRUCTOR:  JEANMARIE ROUHIER-WILLOUGHBY
MEETING TIMES: TR 9:30-10:45
This course studies the folk ways of the East Slavs, from food to ritual, from housing to stories and songs. We will discuss how this material reflects the cultural norms about social hierarchies, gender roles and family and social identities. We will also trace the development of folk beliefs today by reading about contemporary life. Since this course fulfills the global dynamics requirement, comparisons to American folk material and popular culture will be an essential component of the class.