Courses

For Students

If you have general questions about the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, please consider sending an email to incasip@lehigh.edu 


Academic Calendar

Full Academic Calendars (taken right from the Registrar's website)
Lehigh University Course Catalog


For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
 
In the following, new courses have the full course description listed. For other courses, please see Lehigh’s catalog for course descriptions.
Abbreviations: 
BUG: counts for College of Business Global Requirement
BUD:  counts for College of Business Diversity Requirement
CAMP: on campus course
SS: counts for Social Sciences degree distribution requirement
HU: counts for Humanities degree distribution requirement
 
WGSS 001-010 Gender and Society MW 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Jones / CRN 41504 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
WGSS/MLL/ASIA 050-010 Dreaming in Pre-modern China MW 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Cook / CRN 45030 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS/MLL/ASIA 115-010 Sex, War, Women, Art MW 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Yamasaki / CRN 43587 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS/ART 121-010 Women in Art MW 2:05 PM-3:20 PM
Professor Gans / CRN 44056 / BUD, CAMP, HU, MTOP / 4 credits
 
WGSS/HIST 124-010 Women and Gender in the US TR 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Najar / CRN 44817 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
WGSS/SOC 127-010 Human Sexuality TR 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Lindemann / CRN 44862 / CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
WGSS 271-010 Independent Reading and Research  
Professor Najar / CRN 41505 / HU, SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS/ISE 296-010 Algorithms and Social Justice TR 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Snyder / CRN 44163 / CAMP, SS / 4 credits
This course explores how algorithms from Internet search engines to predictive policing software to resume screening systems reflect and magnify social inequality. Students will read and discuss readings from the history of science and technology, feminist/critical race theory, and scholarship about machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). Topics include race, gender, sexuality, and class in the context of criminal justice and policing, search engines and social media, ranking and rating, and optimization.
 
This elective course is open to all students from CAS or RCEAS and is designed to encourage peer-to-peer learning across the humanities, social sciences, and engineering. There are no prerequisites and no prior computer programming experience is required. In addition to emphasizing critical reading and thinking skills, the course will have a computing component, with hands-on experiments and projects. A key goal of the course will be to instill in students from technical fields an awareness of how social structures are a part of their work, so that their design choices are informed, from the ground up, by humanistic inquiry. Conversely, the course will provide humanists with deeper awareness of how technical tools shape and are shaped by humanistic thought.
This course can be used to fulfill elective requirements for the WGSS major or minor.
 
WGSS 330-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies  
Professor Najar / CRN 41506 / SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS/POLS 349-010 American Social Policy: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality TR 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Ochs / CRN 44803 / CAMP / 4 credits
WGSS 373 Internship On-Campus  
Section 010: Center for Gender Equity: Professor Jones / CRN 41507 / SS / 1-3 credits
Section 011: Office of Gender Violence and Education Support: Professor DeSipio / CRN 42093 / SS / 1-3 credits
Section 012: Pride Center: Professor Burden / CRN 42125 / SS / 1-3 credits
 
WGSS/ENGL/WGSS 391 Race, Gender, Slavery and Freedom in the Eighteenth-Century British Literature MW 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Dominique
Section 010:  CRN 45256 / CAMP, HU, WRIT / 4 credits, UG only
Section 011: CRN 45261 / CAMP, WRIT / 3 credits, GR only
The Rights of Man, Thomas Paines classic argument in defense of the individuals right to assert freedom in the face of tyranny, was a popular late-eighteenth century refrain originating from the 1789 French Revolution. But generalized arguments about individual human rights also gave rise to specific debates concerning the rights of women and Negro slaves. What rights were these individuals denied in eighteenth-century Britain and how did the periods literature reflect their dilemmas? This course will consider these questions as a way of introducing you to the study of race and gender in a British colonialcontext. But it is particularly concerned with occasions in literature where British writers combined simultaneous discourses about race and gender in ways that sometimes helped and at other times hindered the fights against tyranny that Negro slaves and female advocates fought. We will read plays, poetry, novels, short stories, travel literature, and non-fiction prose as well as recent theories about gender and racial construction in the eighteenth century to discuss representations of British men and women, and colonial Others like Negro slaves, Creoles and Jews. We will consider an assortment of issues ranging from slavery, anti-slavery, abolition, miscegenation, mimicry, ambivalence, hybridity, anti-Semitism, blackness and whiteness, to marriage, libertinism, and sexual double standards in a variety of canonical and obscure texts.  This course fulfills ENGL 1660 to 1900 degree requirement and can be taken for WGSS and AAS credit toward the major/minor; may count toward Africana major or minor either as an elective course, OR as a "breadth course" in the "Visual & Performing Arts or Literature" category; WGSS elective for the major as a humanities course (in the humanities concentration or as a humanities elective).
 
WGSS/AAS 393/493 Black Feminism and Media Industries T 4:25 PM-7:05 PM
Professor Vilanova 
393-010: CRN 45171 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits, UG only
493-010: CRN 45174 / CAMP / 3 credits, GR only
New Course, Pending Faculty Approval.  From the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to Lifetime's six-part investigative series Surviving R.Kelly, recent media has highlighted the particular injustices and inequities faced by black women in the popular music industry and media industries more broadly. This course historicizes the place of black women within media industries, introduces students to Black Feminist Thought, and unpacks key concepts such as hypervisibility, intersectionality, womanism, and hegemony. Altogether, it explores how difference and inequity are manifest in (and sometimes challenged by) work in the creative industries, specifically music, television, and film. Course fills major and minor requirements in AAS and WGSS.
 
WGSS 399-011 Senior Thesis  
Professor Najar / CRN 44433 / ND / 2-4 credits
 
WGSS 430-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies  
Professor Najar / CRN 41509 / ND / 1-3 credits
 
WGSS/POLS 449-010 American Social Policy: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality TR 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Ochs / CRN 44804 / CAMP / 3 credits
 
WGSS 491-010 Independent Study  
Professor Najar / CRN 42701  / 3 credits
 
 
For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
 
In the following, new courses have the full course description listed. For other courses, please see Lehigh’s catalog for course descriptions.
 
Abbreviations: 
BUG: counts for College of Business Global Requirement
BUD:  counts for College of Business Diversity Requirement
SS: counts for Social Sciences degree distribution requirement
HU: counts for Humanities degree distribution requirement
CAMP: on campus course
RMTA:  All portions of the course are conducted online and asynchronously; there are no live 
(real-time) course meetings
REMT:  All portions of the course are conducted online.  This course has required synchronous course meetings at least once per week.
 
WGSS/ENGL 104-010 Good Girls & Bad Boys - Second Half Term
Professor Jones, Rita / CRN 21174 / HU, RMTA / ONLINE / 4 credits
As the United States moves past questions about affirmative consent in high schools and college campuses, how do contemporary novels, some geared toward young adults, treat the topic? This course will give students the opportunity to think critically about the language--legal and otherwise--around consent and then consider how novels respond to that language and the concepts of consent, especially in the context of high school and college years. Students will engage in asynchronous conversations with one another around the topics and post blogs for each novel. Novels may include The Mockingbirds, Girl Made of Stars, and Beautiful Disaster.
 
WGSS/AAS 396-010 Black Feminist Thought - First Half Term
Professor Vilanova, John / CRN 21506 / RMTA, SS / ONLINE / 4 credits
From the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to Lifetime’s six-part investigative series Surviving R.Kelly, recent media has highlighted the particular injustices and inequities faced by black women in the popular music industry and media industries more broadly. This course historicizes the place of black women within media industries, introduces students to Black Feminist Thought, and unpacks key concepts such as hypervisibility, intersectionality, womanism, and hegemony. Altogether, it explores how difference and inequity are manifest in (and sometimes challenged by) work in the creative industries, specifically music, television, and film.  This course can be applied toward the concentration Social & Behavioral Sciences or an AAS elective; this course fulfillS major concentration, major non-concentration and or major elective; an approved elective for WGSS major/minor or may be applied toward a concentration.  Sophomores who are interested in registering for this course should email the instructor for consideration.
 
WGSS/AAS 496-010 Black Feminist Thought - First Half Term
Professor Vilanova, John / CRN 21973 / RMTA / ONLINE / 3 credits

From the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to Lifetime’s six-part investigative series Surviving R.Kelly, recent media has highlighted the particular injustices and inequities faced by black women in the popular music industry and media industries more broadly. This course historicizes the place of black women within media industries, introduces students to Black Feminist Thought, and unpacks key concepts such as hypervisibility, intersectionality, womanism, and hegemony. Altogether, it explores how difference and inequity are manifest in (and sometimes challenged by) work in the creative industries, specifically music, television, and film.


 
For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
 
WGSS 001-010 Gender and Society TR 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Najar / CRN 12456 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
The course introduces students to key concepts, theoretical frameworks, and interdisciplinary research in the field of Women’s and Gender Studies. Examines how gender interacts with race, age, class, sexuality, etc., to shape human consciousness and determine the social organization of human society. The course may include topics such as: gender and work; sexuality and reproduction; women’s health; media constructions of gender and race; gender, law, and public policy.
 
WGSS/ENGL/FILM 132-010 Viewing Mad Men: Window, Mirror, Screen TR 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Professor Handler / CRN 14389 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
Widely considered one of the best TV shows ever made, Mad Men demonstrated that television serial drama could combine virtuoso storytelling, cinematic visual style and historical ambition. Set in a New York ad agency in the 1960s, Mad Men both opens a window onto the past and holds a mirror up to the present. We will analyze Mad Men’s innovative visual and narrative style and explore two core themes: shifting gender roles and the influence of advertising in U.S. society.
 
WGSS/ASIA/MLL 135-010 POWER, (WO)MEN, SILENCE MW 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Yamasaki / CRN 14943 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
What do women say in their writings when their voices are silenced? How does silence speak to you? How do gender, sexuality, class, and power articulate one another? Through the study of selected short stories, novels, films, and anime, this course examines various voices, cultures, histories, and societies in Japan. No prior knowledge of Japanese language is required. An introductory course taught in English.
 
WGSS/JST/REL 138-010 Sex, Gender, Jews MW 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Eichler-Levine / CRN 14307 / BUD, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
How do Jews of all genders tell their stories? What are the varied Jewish approaches to sexuality? How have feminist movements affected Jewish rituals? In this course, we will consider how religion, gender, sexuality, race, and class intersect in the lives of Jews, with a particular focus on North America. Topics will include: Jewish women’s memoirs; the voices of LGBTQ Jews; recent innovations in Jewish ritual and leadership; Jewish masculinities; and the gendering of Jewish children’s literature, among others.
 
WGSS 191-010 LGBTQ+ Poetry MW 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Professor Foltz / CRN 14493 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
This course will introduce students to works by diverse contemporary LGBTQ+ poets from the U.S. Through analysis of poetry, we will explore how LGBTQ+ writers address a variety of topics, including the impact of homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia as well as the resiliency and resources of LGBTQ+ communities. Further, we will read aesthetic works that reflect upon intersecting forms of oppression as poets discuss the impact of colonialism, systemic racism, poverty, and ableism. We will read works by Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Chrystos, John Elizabeth Stintzi, Danez Smith, Jericho Brown, Natalie Diaz, Fatimah Asghar, Ocean Vuong, Sam Sax, Thom Gunn, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Pat Parker, Gloria Anzaldúa, Mark Doty, Chen Chen, and Xandria Phillips, among others. Ultimately, the course will give students the opportunity to think with poets about pressing challenges that LGBTQ+ people face in the U.S.as well as to engage with poets’ visionary aesthetic works that call for and imagine social change.
 
WGSS/SOC/ASIA 197-013 Gender, Work and Family in East Asia MW 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Professor Zhang / CRN 14349 / CAMP, SS / 4 credits
In this course, we examine gender inequality at the intersection of labor and marriage markets in contemporary East Asian countries, mainly China, Japan and South Korea. The topics include the persistent or worsening gender gap in employment and earnings, discrimination against women at workplaces, the impact of demographic changes on marriage market and family obligations, and the discriminatory terms such as “leftover” “Christmas cake” that push many professional women into the dilemma to choose between career and marriage. This course is an approved elective for the Sociology, Sociology & Anthropology, Asian Studies and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies majors and minors.
 
WGSS 271 Independent Reading and Research  
Section 010: Professor Najar / CRN 11290 / HU, SS / 1-4 credits
Section 011: Professor TBD / CRN 14562 / HU, SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS/ENGL/FILM/GERM/MLL 303-011 Grimms' Fairy Tales: Folklore, Feminism, Film 
MW 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Stegmann / CRN 13574 / BUG, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
This intercultural history of the Grimms’ fairy tales investigates how folktale types and gender stereotypes developed and became models for children and adults. The course covers the literary fairy tale in Germany, Europe and America. “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Cinderella”, or “Sleeping Beauty” exist not only in the Grimms’ collection but in many forms of world literature/film. Modern authors have rewritten fairy tales in feminist ways, promoting social change. Taught in English. German language students may receive a German component.
 
WGSS/AAS/HIST 322-010 African Women, Voices and Lives TR 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Essien / CRN 14618 / CAMP, HU / 3-4 credits
This course traces the changing history and status of African women. It positions their voices and biographies at the center of broader narratives that often perceive them as powerless, emerging from a lineage of poverty and oppression, and without agency. What happens when African women speak for themselves? We will explore the intersections of gender, class, race, and power to emphasize how women have been instrumental in shaping African history from the pre-colonial period to the present.
 
WGSS 330 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies  
Section 010: Professor Najar / CRN 11291 / SS / 1-4 credits
Section 011: Professor TBD / CRN 14566 / SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS 331-010 Gendered Experience of Globalization MW 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Zhang / CRN 14571 / BUG, CAMP, SS, WRIT / 4 credits
Women and men experience globalization differently and globalization affects women in different cultural and national contexts. Gender stratification has been intensified by the transnational flow of goods and people. provides students with a survey of new development in feminist theories on globalization and on gender stratification and development, and links these theoretical frameworks to empirical research about gender issues that have become more prominent with globalization.
 
WGSS/SOC 344-010 Bad Girls: Gender, Sexuality, Deviance TR 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Lindemann / CRN 14565 / CAMP, SS, WRIT / 4 credits
This course focuses on people who perform their gender and/or sexuality in ways that fall outside of the norm. Topics include, but are not limited to: commercial sex workers, dominatrixes, transpeople, stay-at-home dads, and drag queens. We will regularly discuss readings in the context of current events and popular culture.
 
WGSS/ENGL 345-010 Women and Revolution in Early America MW 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Gordon / CRN 14370 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
This course explores how opportunities and possibilities for women transformed (or remained the same) during the long eighteenth century. Which early American women could participate in public life and under what circumstances? Did early American values such as liberty and independence extend to women—and to which women? Which women, if any, felt like they had a “revolution” in 1776? Captivity narratives, poetry, novels, and other public writing by early American women will help us explore these issues.
 
WGSS 373 Internships On-Campus  
Section 011: Pride Center / Professor Burden / CRN 11943 / SS / 1-3 credits
Section 012: Center for Gender Equity / Professor Jones / CRN 11944 / SS / 1-3 credits
Section 013: Office of Gender Violence and Education Support / Professor DeSipio / CRN 12097 / SS / 1-3 credits
 
WGSS 391-010 Gloria Naylor and her Archives TR 9:20 AM-10:35 AM
Professor Edwards / CRN 14382 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
This seminar reads the extraordinary novels of Gloria Naylor in the context of her archive, which is on loan to Lehigh University through the end of this semester. We will focus our attention on the four novels in  Naylor’s quartet: The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, Mama Day, and Bailey’s Cafe. As we read, we will investigate how the extensive research materials, correspondence, diary entries, unpublished creative works, and early drafts of published novels in her archive can inform our interpretations. Gloria Naylor’s novels and collected papers offer a window on key issues in twentieth-century African-American literature and criticism: Black aesthetic, religious, and philosophical traditions; transnational literary networks; the violence of academic epistemologies; the enduring legacies of enslavement; and Black feminisms/womanism.
Our engagement with Naylor's works will be rooted in a broader consideration of how archives and records "serve as tools of oppression and liberation," in the words of Michelle Caswell, Ricardo Punzalan, and T-Kay Sangwand. Students will learn how to locate writers' archives, how to use finding aids and digital archival resources, and how to transcribe, edit, and interpret archival documents through hands-on assignments focused on the Naylor Archive. Through discussions of feminist and anti-racist methodologies in archive studies by Marisa Fuentes, Saidiya Hartman, and Alice Walker, this course will consider the archival practices that best align with Naylor’s political, intellectual, and aesthetic vision.
 
WGSS/ENGL 397-010 Feminist and Queer Theory MW 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Foltz / CRN 14495 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
This course will focus on the different ways that theorists have examined race, gender, and sexuality in feminist and queer theory. Beginning with a discussion of theories of intersectionality, we will explore major works in Black feminist theory and Indigenous feminist theory with an eye toward the reproductive justice movement and activism around combatting sexual violence. Concluding the first half of the semester with Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, we will trace how writing by radical women of color in the 1980s and 1990s continues to influence recent feminist theory especially as we imagine global feminist movements. Turning to queer theory in the second half of the semester, we begin by exploring how contemporary theorists examine queer liberation from multiple angles. We will read multiple recent queer theoretical texts that forward a “queer of color critique.” Addressing José Esteban Muñoz’s Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics and Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, and Juana María Rodríguez’s Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings, we will discuss their analyses of a variety of forms of queer cultural production that document multiple forms of oppression, but also offer visions of resistance to white supremacy and heteronormativity. Students will leave the course with a strong introduction to recent works feminist and queer theory. This course fulfills Critical Theory requirement for English Honors students; this course is an approved course substitution of WGSS 350 Seminar in Feminist Theory requirement for WGSS majors.
 
WGSS/HIST 398/497 Sex and the City in American History TR 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
398-010: Professor Vander Heide / CRN 14851 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
497-010: Professor Vander Heide / CRN 14996 / CAMP / 3 credits
This course focuses on the history of sexuality in major urban areas in the United States. It will explore how American cities fostered sexual cultures, sexual communities, and sex districts from the late-eighteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. Together, we will investigate the histories of sex work, cultures of urban romance, the commercialization of erotic leisure and entertainment, the development of queer urban communities, and the policing of private and public spaces. Throughout this investigation, we will pay special attention to how gender, race, and class structured issues of sex in the city. Along the way, we will analyze the roles of capitalism, class formation, government forces, consumerism, and “sexual sciences” in the formation of sexualities. Through analyses of newspapers, guidebooks, letters, diaries, novels, laws, and films, we’ll examine how urban spaces cultivated opportunities for sexual encounter, and how some individuals and institutions worked to police sexual boundaries. Moreover, we will consider both how urban spaces have shaped sexuality and, conversely, how sex has shaped the contours of American cities. This course fulfills an elective requirement for History and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies major and minor and the Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies certificate program.
 
WGSS 399 Senior Thesis  
Section 010: Professor Najar / CRN 11292 / 2-4 credits
Section 011: Professor TBD / CRN 14569 / ND / 2-4 credits
 
WGSS/MLL 403-011 Grimms' Fairy Tales: Folklore, Feminism, Film MW 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Stegmann / CRN 13612 / CAMP / 3 credits
This intercultural history of the Grimms' fairy tales investigates how folktale types and gender stereotypes developed and became models for children and adults. The course covers the literary fairy tale in Germany as well as Europe and America. Versions of "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", or "Sleeping Beauty" exist not only in the Grimms' collection but in films and many forms of world literature. Modern authors have rewritten fairy tales in feminist ways, promoting social change. Taught in English. German language students may receive a German component.
 
WGSS 430 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies  
Section 010: Professor Najar / CRN 11293 / 1-3 credits
Section 011: Professor TBD / CRN 14572 / 1-3 credits
 
WGSS 491 Independent Study  
Section 010: Professor Najar / CRN 11294 / 3 credits
Section 011: Professor TBD / CRN 14574 / 3 credits
 

 
Fall 2022: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses
 
For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
 
WGSS 001-010 Gender and Society M,W 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Jones / CRN 41679 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
ENGL 091-011 “It's a Drag:” Gender and Performance in Literature and Pop Culture T, R, 10:45-12:00 PM
Professor Weissbourd/ CRN 45248 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
As performer and reality-television star RuPaul once said, “We’re all born naked, and the rest is drag.” But what exactly does this mean and do we agree? How do clothing, embodiment, affect, and performance give gender meaning? How does gendered performance intersect with race and social class? This class looks to a long literary history to explore these questions. We will place shows and films including Drag Race, Work in Progress and Paris is Burning alongside gender-bending plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, medieval and early modern trans and nonbinary life-stories, and explorations of gender by a wide range of authors including Miguel de Cervantes, Virginia Woolf, and Octavia Butler. We will focus not only on drag’s potential to undo or complicate gender binaries, but also on how it has been used, perhaps paradoxically, to reinforce rigid models of gender. 
 
WGSS/MLL/ASIA 115-010 Sex, War, Women, Art M,W 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Yamasaki / CRN 44551 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS/ART 121-010 Women in Art M,W 9:50 AM-11:05 AM
Professor Gans / CRN 45299 / BUD, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS 271-010 Independent Reading and Research  
Professor Najar / CRN 41680 / HU, SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS 271-011 Independent Reading and Research  
Staff / CRN 45465 / HU, SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS/ISE 296-010 Algorithms and Social Justice T,R 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Snyder / CRN 45462 / CAMP, SS / 4 credits
This course explores how algorithms from Internet search engines to predictive policing software to resume screening systems reflect and magnify social inequality. Students will read and discuss readings from the history of science and technology, feminist/critical race theory, and scholarship about machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). Topics include race, gender, sexuality, and class in the context of criminal justice and policing, search engines and social media, ranking and rating, and optimization.
This elective course is open to all students from CAS or RCEAS and is designed to encourage peer-to-peer learning across the humanities, social sciences, and engineering. There are no prerequisites and no prior computer programming experience is required. In addition to emphasizing critical reading and thinking skills, the course will have a computing component, with hands-on experiments and projects. A key goal of the course will be to instill in students from technical fields an awareness of how social structures are a part of their work, so that their design choices are informed, from the ground up, by humanistic inquiry. Conversely, the course will provide humanists with deeper awareness of how technical tools shape and are shaped by humanistic thought. This course can be used to fulfill elective requirements for the WGSS major or minor.
 
ENGL 312 Theorizing Alternatives to Patriarchy T,R 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Kramp / CAMP, HU
Section 010: CRN 45139, Undergrads only, 4 credits
Section 011: CRN 45140, Graduate students only, 3 credits
 
WGSS 330-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies  
Professor Najar / CRN 41681 / SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS/ENGL 363-010 Gender and Sexuality in Early Modern Poetry T,R 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Lay / CRN 45636 / CAMP, HU, WRIT / 4 credits
NEW COURSE, PENDING FACULTY APPROVAL. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, poetry was a culturally significant literary form in which authors explored a range of pressing issues. Our readings will be drawn from canonical and non-canonical authors, and we will pay attention to how poetic form intersects with explorations of gender and sexuality. This study of gender and sexuality in the poetry of one historical period will enable us to think more broadly about how literary texts participate in and help to shape social and cultural norms.
 
WGSS/ENGL 363-011 Gender and Sexuality in Early Modern Poetry T,R 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Lay / CRN 45637 / CAMP / 3 credits
NEW COURSE, PENDING FACULTY APPROVAL. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, poetry was a culturally significant literary form in which authors explored a range of pressing issues. Our readings will be drawn from canonical and non-canonical authors, and we will pay attention to how poetic form intersects with explorations of gender and sexuality. This study of gender and sexuality in the poetry of one historical period will enable us to think more broadly about how literary texts participate in and help to shape social and cultural norms.
 
WGSS/POLS/ASIA/GS 369-010 Women's Movement in China T,R 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Fennell / CRN 45048 / CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
WGSS 373 Internships  
Section 010 Internship - Center for Gender Equity / CRN 41682 / SS / 1-3 credits / Rita Jones
Section 011 Internship - Office of Gender Violence and Education Support / CRN 42416 / SS / 1-3 credits / Brooke DeSipio
Section 012 Internship - Pride Center / CRN 42465 / SS / 1-3 credits / Scott Burden
 
WGSS/AAS 396-010 Black Feminism & Media Indstry T 4:25 PM-7:05 PM
Professor Vilanova / CRN 42863 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
From the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to Lifetime’s six-part investigative series Surviving R. Kelly, recent media has highlighted the particular injustices and inequities faced by black women in the popular music industry and media industries more broadly. This course historicizes the place of black women within media industries, introduces students to Black Feminist Thought, and unpacks key concepts such as hypervisibility, intersectionality, womanism, and hegemony. Altogether, it explores how difference and inequity are manifest in (and sometimes challenged by) work in the creative industries, specifically music, television, and film.
 
**CANCELLED** WGSS/MLL/FREN 397-010 Arab Women Writers T,R 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Berrada / CRN 45529 / BUG, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
This course will explore works by and about women from Postcolonial societies through Arab Francophone Literature and Film. We will examine more particularly the way these women negotiate their postcolonial identities as they relate to issues of colonialism, gender, war, patriarchy, immigration, exile, culture, religion and language. We will be looking at textual as well as visual practices in Francophone novels by Assia Djebar, Etel Adnan, Malika Mokkedem, Lela Sebbar and Andre Chedid and films by Yamina Benguigui and Nadir Mokneche among others. Course taught in English with special requirements for French and Francophone Majors and Minors.
 
WGSS/MLL/GERM/FILM 398-010 German Horror Films M,W 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Professor Landry / CRN 45590 / BUG, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
Horror film got its start in Germany as early as the 1910s. Beginning with those formative years of Expressionist horror of the traditional supernatural, vampires, and serial killers, this course moves chronologically to the final girl and the monstrous mother to examine some of the fascinating and terrifying tropes and stories of a century of German cinema. Via the horror genre in this course we will analyze the nuanced aesthetics of German film and learn about a chapter of German film history that is often overlooked. This course will be taught in English but can be taken for German credit with the completion of designated assignments in German. (Please only register for the course under GERM 3xx, if you plan to complete assignments in German.)
 
WGSS 399-010 Senior Thesis  
Professor Najar / CRN 41683 / ND / 2-4 credits
 
WGSS 430-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies  
Professor Najar / CRN 41684 / ND / 1-3 credits
 
WGSS/POLS/ASIA/GS 469-010 The Women's Movement in China T,R 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Fennell / CRN 45464 / CAMP / 3 credits
 
WGSS 491-010 Independent Study  
Professor Najar / CRN 43211 / 3 credits
 
ENLG 491-012 Queer Fiction and Theory R 4:25 PM-7:05 PM
Professor Foltz / CRN 45129 / CAMP / 3 credits
 
WGSS/AAS 496-010 Black Feminism & Media Indstry T 4:25 PM-7:05 PM
Professor Vilanova / CRN 42864 / CAMP / 3 credits
From the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to Lifetime’s six-part investigative series Surviving R. Kelly, recent media has highlighted the particular injustices and inequities faced by black women in the popular music industry and media industries more broadly. This course historicizes the place of black women within media industries, introduces students to Black Feminist Thought, and unpacks key concepts such as hypervisibility, intersectionality, womanism, and hegemony. Altogether, it explores how difference and inequity are manifest in (and sometimes challenged by) work in the creative industries, specifically music, television, and film.

 
Summer 2022: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses
 
For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
 
WGSS/ENGL 104-010 Good Girls and Bad Boys in the Age of Consent Second Half Term
Professor Jones / CRN 23337 / HU, RMTA / ONLINE / 4 credits
As the United States moves past questions about affirmative consent in high schools and college campuses, how do contemporary novels, some geared toward young adults, treat the topic? This course will give students the opportunity to think critically about the language--legal and otherwise--around consent and then consider how novels respond to that language and the concepts of consent, especially in the context of high school and college years. Students will engage in asynchronous conversations with one another around the topics and post blogs for each novel. Novels may include The Mockingbirds, Girl Made of Stars, and Beautiful Disaster.
 
WGSS/HIST/AAS/GS 131-010 Women, Gender, Sexuality and Race in African Societies Second Half Term Professor Essien / CRN 23442 / HU, RMTA / ONLINE / 4 credits
 
**CANCELLED** WGSS/HMS 197-010 Representations of the Healthy American Body First Half Term
Professor Jones / CRN 23396 / HU, RMTA / ONLINE / 4 credits
This course analyzes contemporary American cultural eating and exercising trends that emphasize the concept of "health."  How do gender, race, class, and sexuality appear in these trends?  Do these trends become imperatives?  What constitutes "health" and how might the trends end up normalizing disordered eating and exercise?  Students will read theories and peer-reviewed research around these concepts and pair those readings with fiction and non-fiction to develop a holistic understanding of how companies, influencers, and even family members participate in un/healthy body image expectations.  Students will also analyze social media as part of the conversation.  This course is offered asynchronously online.  Course is an approved elective for major/minor degree programs in HMS and WGSS.
 
WGSS/HMS 397-011 Trans and Intersex Medicine First Half Term T,R 4:00 PM-6:50 PM
Professor Ferrara / CRN 23242 / HU, REMT / ONLINE / 4 credits
Historically and contemporarily, bodies that deviate from Eurocentric conceptions of the gender binary have been impacted by medicalization. This course is an upper-level seminar that examines the topic of transgender and intersex medicine. Incorporating histories of medicine, critical theory, and applied philosophy, students will learn about how science is co-constituent with social understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality especially at their intersections with race, ethnicity, and disability. Students will be encouraged to think critically about how we conceptualize embodiment and bodily diversity, as well as what implications this might have on clinical practice. Topics addressed include: histories of scientific racism, gynecology and reproductive medicine, surgery, hormones, HIV/AIDS, and autoethnographies of embodiment. Course materials especially emphasize trans and intersex studies, Black studies, decolonial feminisms, and feminist disability studies.  Course is an approved elective for major/minor degree programs in HMS and WGSS.
 

Spring 2022: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
 
WGSS 001-010 Gender and Society M, W 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Jones / CRN 13127 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
WGSS/MLL/ASIA 098-010 Sex, Power, (Wo)man, Silence M, W 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Yamasaki / CRN 13978 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
What do women say in their writings when their voices are silenced? What does silence speak to you? How do gender, sexuality, and power articulate one another? Through the study of selected short stories, novels, films, and anime, this course examines various voices, cultures, histories, and societies in Japan. No prior knowledge of Japanese language is required. An introductory course taught in English.
 
WGSS/AAS/HIST 126-010 How Black Women Made Modern America M, W 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Hardy / CRN 15041 / BUD, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS/AAS/GS/HIST 131-010 Women, Gender, Sexuality and Race in African Societies T, R 10:45 AM-12:00 PM
Professor Essien / CRN 15273 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS/PHIL 146-010 Philosophy of Sex and Gender M, W, F 1:35 PM-2:25 PM
Staff / CRN 15256 / BUD, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS/ENGL/FILM 154-010 What Does Creativity Look Like? Documentary Visions T, R 3:00 PM-4:15 PM
Professor Handler / CRN 15319 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS/SOC/ASIA 197-015 Gender and Social Changes in East Asia M, W 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Zhang / CRN 15298 / CAMP / 4 credits
"Career or marriage? This is a dilemma faced by women in East Asia. They are successful professional women, but they are also labels as 'leftover,' or 'Christmas cake.' This course examines gender inequality at the intersection of labor and marriage markets in contemporary East Asian countries, particularly China, Japan, and South Korean."
 
WGSS/HIST 198-010 The New American Republic: Gender, Race and Politics T, R 12:10 PM-1:25 PM
Professor Najar / CRN 15082 / CAMP, SS / 4 credits
Who gets to be a citizen? What should a republican and democratic body politic look like?  These were the questions that engaged women and men, free and enslaved.  And why wouldn’t they? These decades of the founding of the new nation were a time of great experimentation, democratic impulses and optimism.  But they were also a time of the expansion of slavery, the reification of race, and the colonization of occupied lands.  This class with examine the decades after the founding of new nation with particular attention to women, gender, race, slavery, the economy, and politics. We will seek to understand these contradictory developments and the ways in which they affected the people as well as the nation they were building (and challenging). This was an extraordinary time of creativity, optimism, disappointment, and acrimony, all of which become the defining legacy of the founding of the United States.
 
WGSS 271-010 Independent Reading and Research
Professor Najar / CRN 11571 / HU, SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS/ENGL/FILM/GERM/MLL 303-011 Grimms' Fairy Tales: Folklore, Feminism, Film M, W 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Stegmann / CRN 15062 / BUG, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS 330-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies 
Professor Najar / CRN 11572 / SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS/HMS/PSYC 334-010 The Psychology of Body Image and Eating Disorders T 7:15 PM-9:55 PM
Professor Lomauro / CRN 15166 / CAMP, SS / 4 credits
WGSS 373 Internship
Multiple sections see below
Section 011 Internship - Pride Center / CRN 12448 / SS / 1-3 credits / Scott Burden
Section 012 Internship – Center for Gender Equity / CRN 12449 / SS / 1-3 credits / Rita Jones
Section 013 Internship - Office of Gender Violence Education and Support / CRN 12653 / SS / 1-3 credits / Brooke DeSipio
 
WGSS 399-010 Senior Thesis  
Professor Najar / CRN 11573 / 2-4 credits
 
WGSS/MLL 403-011 Grimms' Fairy Tales: Folklore, Feminism, Film M, W 1:35 PM-2:50 PM
Professor Stegmann / CRN 15101 / CAMP / 3 credits
 
WGSS 430-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies  
Professor Najar / CRN 11574 / 1-3 credits
 
WGSS 491-010 Independent Study  
Professor Najar / CRN 11575 / 3 credits
 

Fall 2021: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
 
WGSS 001-010 Gender and Society T, R 1210-1325
Professor Najar / CRN 41771 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
WGSS.MLL.ASIA 115-010 Sex, War, Women, Art M, W 1210-1325
Professor Yamasaki / CRN 45133 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS.THTR 129-010 HISTORY OF FASHION AND STYLE M, W 1045-1200
Professor Hoelscher / CRN 45341 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS.ENGL.FILM 196-010 Sexbots and Terminators: Cinematic Fantasies of the Intelligent Machine 
T, R 1500-1615 Professor Handler / CRN 44257 / BUD, CAMP, HU / 4 credits
This course explores film and television dramas that imagine human relationships with robots and artificial intelligence.  These speculative fictions imagine not just what humans might do with sentient machines, but what we might want from them: will we want our machines not merely to obey, but to love us?  If their feelings are simulated, will we care?  Why do films so often represent female robots as sexual partners? And why, in so many stories, are the robots trying to kill us?  Ultimately, we will be asking what fictional robots reveal about human relationships: love, sex, exploitation and domination.  This course will also ask you to examine your own relationships with artificially intelligent machines and virtual versions of self and others. Finally, as we examine these stories, we will be asking how they use the audio-visual language of film to build speculative worlds.  Films and TV shows may include The Matrix, Blade Runner, Ex Machina, Her, Black Mirror and Westworld.  Works by Sigmund Freud, Sherry Turkle, and Jessica Benjamin, and other writings about technology and contemporary society, will help to illuminate our uneasy relationship with ever more intelligent machines.
 
WGSS.HIST.AAS 197-010 How Black Women Made Modern America M, W 1045-1200
Pending / CRN 45138 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
*Please refer to RAS class search for updates*
This course will introduce students to the significant themes and events that have shaped the African American women’s historical experience from slavery to the present. We will examine the social, political, and economic meaning of freedom for women of African descent.  
 
WGSS.POLS.AAS 210-010 Revolution On Campus M, W 1500-1615
Professor Deo / CRN 44937 / CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
WGSS 271-010 Independent Reading and Research
Professor Krasas / CRN 41772 / HU, SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS.FREN 327-010 Women Writing in French M, W 1210-1325
Professor Chabut / CRN pending / CAMP, BUG, HU / 4 credits
 
WGSS 330-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Professor Najar / CRN 41773 / SS / 1-4 credits
 
WGSS.SOC.GS 331-010 Gendered Experience of Globalization M,W 1500-1615
Professor Zhang / CRN 45076 / BUG, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
 
WGSS.POLS 349-010 American Social Policy: Race, Class , Gender, and Sexuality T,R 1335-1450
Professor Ochs / CRN 44940 / CAMP / 4 credits
 
WGSS 373 Internship  Multiple sections see below
Internship - Center for Gender Equity
Section 010 / Professor Jones / CRN 41774 / SS / 1-3 credits
Internship - Office of Gender Violence Education and Support
Section 011 / Professor DeSipio / CRN 42574 / SS / 1-3 credits
Internship - Pride Center
Section 012 / Professor Burden / CRN 42627 / SS / 1-3 credits
 
WGSS.AAS 396/496 Black Feminism & Media Industry T 1625-1905
Professor Vilanova  
CRN 43084 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
CRN 43085 / CAMP / 3 credits
From the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to Lifetime’s six-part investigative series Surviving R.Kelly, recent media has highlighted the particular injustices and inequities faced by black women in the popular music industry and media industries more broadly. This course historicizes the place of black women within media industries, introduces students to Black Feminist Thought, and unpacks key concepts such as hypervisibility, intersectionality, womanism, and hegemony. Altogether, it explores how difference and inequity are manifest in (and sometimes challenged by) work in the creative industries, specifically music, television, and film.
 
*CANCELLED* WGSS.HMS 397-010 Trans and Intersex Medicine T, R 1915-2030
Professor Ferrara / CRN 45411 / CAMP, HU / 4 credits
This course is an upper-level seminar that examines the topic of transgender and intersex medicine. Incorporating histories of medicine, critical theory, and applied philosophy, students will learn about how science is co-constituent with social understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality – especially at their intersections with race, ethnicity, and disability. Topics addressed include: histories of scientific racism, gynecology and reproductive medicine, surgery, hormones, HIV/AIDS, and autoethnographies of embodiment.
 
WGSS 399-010 Senior Thesis
Professor Najar / CRN 41775 / ND / 2-4 credits
 
WGSS 430-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Professor Najar / CRN 41776 / ND / 1-3 credits
 
WGSS.POLS 449-010 American Social Policy: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality T, R 1335-1450
Professor Ochs / CRN 45257 / CAMP / 3 credits
 
WGSS 491-010 Independent Study
Professor Najar / CRN 43453 / 3 credits
 
WGSS.ENGL 495-010 Gloria Naylor in the Archives R 1625-1905
Professor Edwards / CRN 44845 / CAMP / 3 credits
Gloria Naylor’s visionary writing explores the impact of socio-economic injustice, institutionalized racism, and sexism on Black women in the twentieth-century United States. This seminar considers the novels of Gloria Naylor in the context of her archive, which is on loan to Lehigh University. Our guiding question will be: how does the archive inform our understanding of Naylor’s novels and, conversely, how do Naylor’s novels inform an ethical approach to the archive?

Summer 2021: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
For Summer 2021 Classes Mode of Instruction Descriptions, please click here...
 
*CANCELLED* WGSS.ENGL 104-010 Good Girls & Bad Boys Second Half Term
Professor Jones / CRN 20926 / BUD, HU, RMTA / 4 credits
 
*CANCELLED* WGSS.DES.THTR 129-010 History Of Fashion And Style First Half Term
Professor Hoelscher / CRN 20505 / HU, RMTA / 4 credits
 
*CANCELLED* WGSS.DES.THTR 129-011 History Of Fashion And Style Second Half Term
Professor Hoelscher / CRN 20506 / HU, RMTA / 4 credits
 
WGSS.HIST.AAS 195-011 Women, Gender, Sexuality, Race Second Half Term
Professor Essien / CRN 21617 / HU, REMT / 4 credits
This course explores the various ways in which womanhood, gender, sexuality and race is defined, constructed and articulated in African societies. The interdisciplinary course draws from historical writings, novels, biography, anthropology, political science, health and others to examine diverse activities and contributions of African women from the pre-colonial period.
 
WGSS 196-010 The Psychology of Gender-Based Violence Second Half Term - MR, 1200-1330
Professor Lipp / CRN 21688 / REMT, SS / 4 credits
This course examines gender-based violence including intimate partner violence, sexual violence, sex trafficking, and gender microaggressions through a psychological perspective. Students will learn about the psychological theories behind violence and will discover research-based ways to prevent violence in their own community. The course will also cover the psychological outcomes of gender-based violence such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Finally, treatment and intervention for survivors of gender-based violence will be covered.
 
* CANCELLED* WGSS.AAS 196-011 Digital Feminist Activism First Half Term
Professor Heidebrink-Bruno / CRN 21711 / HU, RMTA / 4 credits
This 100-level, online WGSS course studies how individuals and activist organizations have used various digital spaces, tools, and social media platforms to network and organize around gender equity and feminist causes. This course will begin with a brief overview of how social media platforms have revolutionized activists’ ability to disseminate information and mobilize citizens to advocate for gender-based issues; we will then move into a discussion of how digital feminism has evolved over the past 20+ years from the early iterations of cyberfeminism on blogs, to the global #MeToo movement.
 
*CANCELLED* WGSS.HMS 197-010 Representations of the Healthy American Body First Half Term
Professor Jones / CRN 21385 / HU, RMTA / 4 credits
This course analyzes contemporary American cultural eating and exercising trends that
emphasize the concept of health. How do gender, race, class, and sexuality appear in these trends? Do these trends become imperatives? What constitutes health and how might the trends end up normalizing disordered eating and exercise? Students will read theories and peer-reviewed research around these concepts and pair those readings with fiction and non-fiction to develop a holistic understanding of how companies, influencers, and even family members participate in un/healthy body image expectations. Students will also analyze social media as part of the conversation. This course is offered online only.
 
WGSS 330-010 Internship In WGS Studies Second Half Term
Professor Najar / CRN 21550 / SS / 1 to 4 credits
 
*CANCELLED* WGSS.SOC.HMS 341/441 Gender and Health First Half Term
Professor Alang
CRN 20675 / RMTA, SS / 4 credits
CRN 20734 / RMTA / 3 credits (Graduates only)
 
*CANCELLED* WGSS.HMS 397-010 Trans and Intersex Medicine Second Half Term – M, W 1600-1850
Professor Ferrara / CRN 21758 / REMT, HU / 4 credits
Historically and contemporarily, bodies that deviate from Eurocentric conceptions of the gender binary have been impacted by medicalization. This course is an upper-level seminar that examines the topic of transgender and intersex medicine. Incorporating histories of medicine, critical theory, and applied philosophy, students will learn about how science is co-constituent with social understandings of sex, gender, and sexuality – especially at their intersections with race, ethnicity, and disability. Students will be encouraged to think critically about how we conceptualize embodiment and bodily diversity, as well as what implications this might have on clinical practice. Topics addressed include: histories of scientific racism, gynecology and reproductive medicine, surgery, hormones, HIV/AIDS, and autoethnographies of embodiment. Course materials especially emphasize trans and intersex studies, Black studies, decolonial feminisms, and feminist disability studies.

Spring 2021: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

For class updates, restrictions and teaching times, please refer to Registration Class Search
For Spring 2021 Classes Mode of Instruction Descriptions, please click here...
 
WGSS 001-010 Gender and Society 
Professor Edwards / CRN 13324 / BUD, CAMP, SS / 4 credits
This semester we will focus on what it means to claim feminist and/or queer politics for oneself? How are feminist and/or queer activism relevant in the twenty-first century? How is a critical understanding of gender and sexuality an important part of informed citizenship—in the United States and transnationally? We will also focus on the ways in which gender and sexuality shape and are shaped by structures of social power—on college campuses, in U. S. culture, and in global contexts. To examine these issues, we will draw from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (sociology, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, and political science). We will explore ways in which gender and sexuality are not monolithic or singular categories, but rather inflected in complex ways by other aspects of identity—including race, class, ability, and nationality.
 
WGSS.REL 096-010 New Black Godz 
Professor Miller / CRN 14737 / HU, REMT / 4 credits
From celebrity self-defining agents of material abundance (Jay Z) to those posthumously made gods after tragically succumbing to socially-sanctioned sacrifice (Breonna Taylor), New Black Godz explores black icons at the center and margins of promise and peril. Following hip hop and black expressive cultures signifying on gods, we explore means/modes of black godz creative manipulation of identity and social difference, and ingenuity of transmuting problem status into creative ingenuity at the crossroads of social mobility and the limits of escape.
 
WGSS.MLL.ASIA 098-010 Sex, Power, (Wo)man, Silence 
Professor Yamasaki / CRN 14422 / HU, REMT / 4 credits
What do women say in their writings when their voices are silenced? What does silence speak to you? How do gender, sexuality, and power articulate one another? Through the study of selected short stories, novels, films, and anime, this course examines various voices, cultures, histories, and societies in Japan. No prior knowledge of Japanese language is required. An introductory course taught in English. This course will be taught remotely.
 
WGSS.HIST.HMS 125-011 Does Sex have a History? The History of Sexuality in the United States 
Professor Najar / CRN 15065 / BUD, CAMP, HU / 4 credit
This semester this class will explore the history of sexuality in the United States from the colonial era to the present. While sexuality can appear timeless and stable, sexual ideologies, categories, and behaviors have consistently evolved, and they have transformed American society in the process. For instance, while cod pieces and white wigs enhanced upper class men's apparent virility in the colonial era, the “Playboy era” saw a reliance on stereos and cars. Similarly, friendship between nineteenth-century women included intimacies that would now more typically be found in same-sex relationships and marriages. We will also study how institutions like the law, medicine, and the media have shaped sexual identities and experiences. In so doing, the class aims to develop sophisticated readers of historical and contemporary cultures.
 
WGSS.ENGL.FILM 147-010 Made to Kill:  Female Violence in Popular Film 
Professor Handler / CRN 14535 / HU, REMT / 4 credits
 
WGSS.REL.ASIA 173-010 Sex, Celibacy and Sainthood: Gender and Religion in East Asia 
Professor Pitkin / CRN 14732 / HU, REMT / 4 credits
 
WGSS 271-010 Independent Reading and Research 
Professor Najar / CRN 11655 / HU, REMT, SS / 1 to 4 credits
 
WGSS 330-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies 
Professor Najar / CRN 11656 / REMT, SS / 1 to 4 credits
 
WGSS.SOC 364-010 Sociology of the Family
Professor Lindemann / CRN 14534 / REMT / 4 credits
 
WGSS 373 Internship
Multiple sections see below
 
Internship - Pride Center / Scott Burden
Section 011 / CRN 12603 / FLXC, SS / 1 to 3 credits 
Section 014 / CRN 15456 / FLXR, SS / 1 to 3 credits 
 
Internship – Center for Gender Equity / Rita Jones
Section 012 / CRN 12604 / FLXC, SS / 1 to 3 credits 
Section 015 / CRN 15457 / FLXR, SS / 1 to 3 credits 
 
Internship - Office of Gender Violence Education and Support / Brooke DeSipio
Section 013 / CRN 12834 / REMT, SS / 1 to 3 credits 
 
WGSS.POLS.ASIA.GS 395-010 The Women's Movement in China 
Professor Fennell / CRN 14903 / REMT, SS / 4 credits
We will examine the state-sponsored, state-directed mass movement for the liberation of Chinese women. Beginning with Confucian notions of mother/daughterhood, to imperial system, to the role of women in the founding and establishment of the Communist Party of China, to the participation of women and girls in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Gender equality issues have been a central focus of the Party. The class will look at post-reform era women's status and ask, did the Party liberate women?
 
WGSS.HIST.AAS 397-010 African Women, Voices & Lives 
Professor Essien
Section 010 / CRN 15146 / HU, REMT / 4 credits
Section 013 / CRN 15147 / REMT / 3 credits
This course traces the changing history and status of African women. It positions their voices and biographies at the center of broader narratives that often perceive them as powerless, emerging from a lineage of poverty and oppression, and without agency. What happens when African women speak for themselves? Memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, and speeches by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Minna Salami, Sisonke Msimang, Winnie Madikizela Mandela, Leila Ahmed, Amina Mama, Queen-mother Yaa Asantewaa, Ingrid Jonker, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Wangari Maathai, and others, embody the reality of their voices and life experiences. We will explore the intersections of gender, class, race and power to emphasize how these women have been instrumental in shaping African history from the 19th century. This course will be taught remotely.
 
WGSS.HMS.LAS.SPAN 397-011 Gender, Sexuality, and Disability in Latin America 
Professor Perez / CRN 15363 / HU, REMT / 4 credits
What is the meaning of gender, sexuality and disability in the twenty-first century? How are gender, sexuality and disability questioned, constituted and reified in the literature that we read? This course investigates the performance, politics and aesthetics of femininity in Latin American literature and culture in the twenty-first century around questions of family, domesticity, labor, and activism. Reading will engage gender and sexuality, feminism, disability, and the politics of representation, in addition to queer and trans* studies. As such, this course focuses on how the literary works in question employ gender, sexuality and disability to contest dominant societal power structures. To do so, we will engage theoretical writing as well as artistic expression (fiction, film, mass media). Additionally, students will learn the basics of literary analysis, as well as gain a stronger understanding of how literary form influences meaning. This course will be taught remotely.
 
WGSS 399-010 Senior Thesis 
Professor Najar / CRN 11657 / REMT / 2 to 4 credits
 
WGSS 430-010 Internship in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies 
Professor Najar / CRN 11658 / REMT / 1 to 3 credits
 
WGSS 491-010 Independent Study 
Professor Najar / CRN 11659 / REMT / 3 credits
 
WGSS.POLS.ASIA.GS 495-010 The Women's Movement in China 
Professor Fennell / CRN 15072 / REMT / 3 credits
We will examine the state-sponsored, state-directed mass movement for the liberation of Chinese women. Beginning with Confucian notions of mother/daughterhood, to imperial system, to the role of women in the founding and establishment of the Communist Party of China, to the participation of women and girls in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Gender equality issues have been a central focus of the Party. The class will look at post-reform era women's status and ask, did the Party liberate women?
 
ENGL 312 Feminist and Queer Theory
Professor Foltz
Section 010 / CRN 14543 / REMT / 4 credits
Section 011 / CRN 14544 / REMT / 3 credits 
 
ENGL 366 18th Century British Literature:  Race, Gender, Slavery and Freedom 
Professor Dominique
Section 010 / CRN 14566 /REMT / 4 credits 
Section 011 / CRN 14567 /REMT / 3 credits (Graduates Only)

The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine’s classic argument in defense of the individual’s right to assert freedom in the face of tyranny, was a popular late-eighteenth century refrain originating from the 1789 French Revolution. But generalized arguments about individual human rights also gave rise to specific debates concerning the rights of women and Negro slaves. What rights were these individuals denied in eighteenth-century Britain and how did the period’s literature reflect and resolve the problems of social, racial and gender inequality? This course will consider these questions as a way of introducing you to the study of race and gender in a British colonial context. But it is particularly concerned with occasions in literature where British writers combined simultaneous discourses about race and gender in ways that sometimes helped and at other times hindered the fights against tyranny that Negro slaves and female advocates fought. We will read plays, poetry, novels, short stories, travel literature, and non-fiction prose as well as recent theories about gender and racial construction in the eighteenth century to discuss representations of British men and women, and colonial Others like Negro slaves, Creoles and Jews. We will consider an assortment of issues ranging from slavery, anti-slavery, abolition, miscegenation, mimicry, ambivalence, hybridity, anti-Semitism, blackness and whiteness, to marriage, libertinism, and sexual double standards in a variety of canonical and obscure texts including Thomas Southerne, Oroonoko (1696), Edward Kimber, The History of the Life and Adventure of Mr. Anderson (1754), Unca Eliza Winkfield, The Female American (1767), Mary Hays, The Victim of Prejudice (1799),  John Fawcett, Obi, or the History of Three Fingered Jack (1800), Maria Edgeworth, “The Grateful Negro” (1801), Amelia Opie, “The Negro Boy’s Tale” (1802), Anonymous, The Woman of Colour (1808), Heinrich von Kleist, “The Betrothal in Santa Domingo” (1811), Maria Edgeworth, Harrington (1817).  Remote synchronous. Writing Intensive.  Department Approval Required.  Fulfills British 1660 to 1900 requirement.  Approved AAS elective Spring 21.  Approved WGSS elective Spring 21.


Fall 2020: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses


For class updates, restrictions, descriptions, etc., please refer here...
 
WGSS 001-010 Gender and Society T,R 3:00-4:15 pm, 4 credits
Professor Edwards, CRN 41872 BUD, SS
The course introduces students to key concepts, theoretical frameworks, and interdisciplinary research in the field of Women’s and Gender Studies. Examines how gender interacts with race, age, class, sexuality, etc., to shape human consciousness and determine the social organization of human society. The course may include topics such as: gender and work; sexuality and reproduction; women’s health; media constructions of gender and race; gender, law, and public policy.
 
WGSS.ENGL 096-010 Women & Work In US Lit T,R 12:10-1:25 pm, 4 credits
Professor Sorensen, CRN 44875 HU
When we think of women and work, we likely imagine more iconic images, such as Rosie the Riveter. However, Rosie only gives one story of women and work in the U.S. This introductory course explores literary and pop culture representations of working people, particularly women and families, in the U.S. context. Together, we will analyze how gender, race, and class shape experiences of work and labor through women writers like Harriet E. Wilson, Tillie Olsen, Lorraine Hansberry, and Helena Maria Viramontes. Additional texts include music and oral histories. Throughout the semester, we will cover a variety of topics, including coerced labor, social mobility, relationship dynamics, immigration, and domesticity.
 
WGSS.ENGL 097-010 The Jane Austen Experience T,R 9:20-10:35 am, 4 credits
Professor Kramp, CRN 44741 HU
Jane Austen remains one of the most popular novelists of all time and her stories have been adapted perpetually to various formats, reaching perpetually new audiences. We will study Austen’s work to consider her larger project as a novelist. Students will have the opportunity to read almost all of Austen’s writing and evaluate her maturation as a writer, her commentary on a developing society, and the ways in which her stories interact with complex cultural issues of her period—and our own. We will consistently ask three central questions: (1) how does Austen’s fiction evaluate the challenges of modernity, (2) how does her work inform notions of cultural change and transition, and (3) why has her work remained consistently popular. 
 
WGSS.ART 121-010 Women In Art T,R 9:50-11:05 am, 4 credits
Professor Gans, CRN 43148 BUD, HU
A history of women artists from Renaissance to present day, with emphasis on artists of the 20th and 21st century from a global perspective. We explore attitudes toward women artists and their work as well as the changing role of women in art world. There may be required visits to museums and/or artists’ studios.
 
WGSS.REL.JST 138-010 Sex, Gender, Jews M,W 1:35-2:50 pm, 4 credits
Professor Eichler-Levine, CRN 44688 BUD, HU
How do Jews of all genders tell their stories? What are the varied Jewish approaches to sexuality? How have feminist movements affected Jewish rituals? In this course, we will consider how religion, gender, sexuality, race, and class intersect in the lives of Jews, with a particular focus on North America. Topics will include: Jewish women’s memoirs; the voices of LGBTQ Jews; recent innovations in Jewish ritual and leadership; Jewish masculinities; and the gendering of Jewish children’s literature, among others.
 
WGSS.ENGL.FILM 196-010 Sexbots & Terminators T,R 3:00-4:15 pm, 4 , credits
Professor Handler, CRN 44738 HU
This course explores film and television dramas that imagine human relationships with robots and artificial intelligence.  These speculative fictions imagine not just what humans might do with sentient machines, but what we might want from them: will we want our machines not merely to obey, but to love us?  If their “feelings” are simulated, will we care?  Why do films so often represent female robots as sexual partners? And why, in so many stories, are the robots trying to kill us?  Ultimately, we will be asking what fictional robots reveal about human relationships: love, sex, exploitation and domination.  This course will also ask you to examine your own relationships with artificially intelligent machines and virtual versions of self and others. Finally, as we examine these stories, we will be asking how they use the audio-visual language of film to build speculative worlds.  Films and TV shows may include The Matrix, Blade Runner, Ex Machina, Her, Black Mirror and Westworld.  Works by Sigmund Freud, Sherry Turkle, and Jessica Benjamin, and other writings about technology and contemporary society, will help to illuminate our uneasy relationship with ever more intelligent machines.
 
WGSS 271-010 Independent Reading & Research 1-4 credits, HU,SS, Instructor permission required, WGSS Faculty
Independent study of selected topics designated and executed in close collaboration with a member of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty. May be repeated for elective credit. Consent of program director required. 
 
ENGL 312 Feminist and Queer Theory multiple sections, M,W 1:35-2:50 pm 
Professor Foltz, HU 
*Undergraduate Section* This course will focus on the different ways that theorists have examined race, gender and sexuality in feminist and queer theory. Beginning with the groundbreaking collection titled This Bridge Called My Back: Writing By Radical Women of Color, we will explore how this text first published in 1981 calls for a shift in feminist theory by addressing the multiple and intersecting forms of oppression that women of color experience. Reading work by essayists and poets from this anthology including Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, Norma Alarcón, and Gloria Anzaldúa, we will analyze how these prominent authors importantly link gender, race, class, and sexuality in ways that continue to influence critical race theory, feminist theory, queer theory, and literary studies. With this text as a starting point, we will turn to other major work by Anzaldúa and Moraga to explore how insights offered in This Bridge are developed with greater force in longer works. Moving to a discussion of Black feminist theory, we will read Patricia Hill Collins’ thorough overview of major features of such theory and discuss Kimberlé W. Crenshaw’s and Dorothy Roberts’s contributions to critical race theory with a focus upon violence against women of color and reproductive rights. Concluding the first half of the semester with Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, we will trace how writing by radical women of color in the 1980s and 1990s continues to influence recent feminist theory. Turning to queer theory in the second half of the semester, we begin by exploring how contemporary critics have returned to Foucauldian works with an eye toward how this influential theorist’s focus on the deployment of sexuality might be expanded and revised to address constructions of race. Building from theoretical engagement with Foucault’s understanding of biopower with particular attention to Ann Laura Stoler’s Race and the Education of Desire, we will read multiple recent queer theoretical texts that work with and against Foucault to forward a “queer of color critique.” Addressing José Esteban Muñoz’s Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics and Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, Roderick A. Ferguson’s Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique, and Juana María Rodríguez’s Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings and Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces, we will discuss their analyses of a variety of forms of queer cultural production that document multiple forms of oppression, but also offer visions of resistance to white supremacy and heteronormativity. To close the course, we will address David L. Eng’s critique of queer liberalism because of its focus on normative family structures and consumerism in contrast to his conceptualization of queer disaporas that mark radical forms of kinship beyond those promoted by neoliberalism.
 
WGSS.HIST 325 History of Sexuality and Family in US T,R 10:45-12:00 pm, BUD,SS, Professor Najar
WGSS 325-010 CRN 45000 4 credits WGSS 325-011 CRN 45001 3 credits
Changing conceptions of sexuality and the role of women, men, and children in the family and society from the colonial to the post World War II era. Emphasis on the significance of socioeconomic class and cultural background. Topics include family structure, birth control, legal constraints, marriage, divorce, and prostitution.
 
WGSS 330-010 Internship In WGS Studies 1-4 credits, SS, Instructor permission required, WGSS Faculty
 
WGSS.PSYC.HMS 334-010 Psychology of Body Image and Eating Disorders W 7:15-9:55 pm, 4 credits
Professor Lomauro, CRN 43991 SS
 
WGSS 373-010 Internship: Center for Gender Equity 1-3 credits
Professor Jones, CRN 41875 SS
 
WGSS 373-011 Internship: Gender, Violence, Education & Support 1-3 credits
Professor DeSipio, CRN 42763 SS
 
WGSS 373-012 Internship: Pride Center 1- 3 credits *Pre-req of WGSS 001 will be waived
Professor Gilbert, CRN 42821 SS
 
WGSS.HIST.AAS 395 African Women, Voices & Lives M,W 1:35-2:50 pm, 3-4 credits, Professor Essien
WGSS 395-010 CRN 44998 4 credits WGSS 395-011 CRN 45002 3 credits
This course traces the changing history and status of African women. It positions their voices and biographies at the center of broader narratives that often perceive them as powerless, emerging from a lineage of poverty and oppression, and without agency. What happens when African women speak for themselves? Memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, and speeches by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Minna Salami, Sisonke Msimang, Winnie Madikizela Mandela, Leila Ahmed, Amina Mama, Queen-mother Yaa Asantewaa, Ingrid Jonker, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Wangari Maathai, and others, embody the reality of their voices and life experiences. We will explore the intersections of gender, class, race and power to emphasize how these women have been instrumental in shaping African history from the 19th century.
 
WGSS.AAS 396/496 Black Feminism & Media Industry T 4:25-7:05 pm, Professor Vilanova 
WGSS 396-010 CRN 43318 BUD, SS 4 credits WGSS 496-010 CRN 43319 3 credits
From the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to Lifetime’s six-part investigative series Surviving R.Kelly, recent media has highlighted the particular injustices and inequities faced by black women in the popular music industry and media industries more broadly. This course historicizes the place of black women within media industries, introduces students to Black Feminist Thought, and unpacks key concepts such as hypervisibility, intersectionality, womanism, and hegemony. Altogether, it explores how difference and inequity are manifest in (and sometimes challenged by) work in the creative industries, specifically music, television, and film.
 
WGSS 399-010 Senior Thesis 2- 4 credits, ND, Instructor permission required, WGSS Faculty
Research during senior year culminating in a senior thesis. Consent of program director required.
 
WGSS 430-010 Internship in Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies 1-3 credits, ND, Instructor permission required, WGSS Faculty
Internship related to women, gender, and sexuality studies. Supervised by WGSS faculty. Consent of program director required.
 

WGSS 491 Independent Study 3 credits, Instructor permission required, WGSS Faculty
Individually supervised course in area of women, gender, and sexuality studies not ordinarily covered in regularly listed courses. Consent of program director required.


Summer 2020: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

For class updates, restrictions, descriptions, etc., please refer here...
 
WGSS.ENGL 104-011 Good Girls & Bad Boys Summer Session 2 ONLINE, 4 credits
Professor Jones CRN 21054 BUD, HU
 
WGSS 129 History Of Fashion And Style ONLINE, 4 credits
Two sections available HU
 
 
WGSS.HMS 197-010 Gender, Sexualtiy and Body Image in American Culture Summer Session 1 ONLINE, 4 credits; Professor Jones CRN 21567 HU
This course analyzes contemporary American cultural eating and exercising trends that emphasize the concept of “health.” How do gender, race, class, and sexuality appear in these
trends? Do these trends become imperatives? What constitutes “health” and how might the trends end up normalizing disordered eating and exercise? Students will read theories and peer-reviewed research around these concepts and pair those readings with fiction and non-fiction to develop a holistic understanding of how companies, influencers, and even family members participate in un/healthy body image expectations. Students will also analyze social media as part of the conversation.
 
WGSS.HMS.SOC 341-010 Gender and Health Summer Session 1 ONLINE, 3-4 credits
Professor Alang CRN 20741 SS
 
WGSS.SOC 441-010 Gender and Health Summer Session 1 ONLINE, 3-4 credits
Professor Alang CRN 20811 SS
 

Spring 2020: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

For class updates, restrictions, descriptions, etc., please refer here...

WGSS 001-010 - Gender and Society TR 1240-1355, 4 credits
Edwards, Suzanne & Burden, Scott CRN: 13706 BUD, SS 
 
WGSS 196-010 - Sex, War, Women, Art MW 1500-1615, 4 credits
Yamasaki, Nobuko CRN: 14463 HU 
 
WGSS 196-011 - Female Violence in Pop Film TR 1500-1615, 4 credits
Handler, Kristin CRN: 14684 HU 
 
WGSS 197-010 - Women, Gender in US History TR 1045-1200, 4 credits
Najar, Monica CRN: 14798  
 
WGSS 271 - Independent Reading & Research, 1 to 4 credits HU, SS 
 
WGSS 296-010 - Women in Pre-Industrial China MW 1500-1615, 4 credits
Cook, Constance CRN: 14776 HU 
 
WGSS 303-010 - Grimms' Tales:Folk, Fem, Film MW 1335-1450, 4 credits
Stegmann, Vera CRN: 13837 BUG, HU 
 
WGSS 330-010 - Internship In Wgs Studies 1 to 4 credits
Najar, Monica CRN: 11795 SS 
 
**CANCELLED** WGSS 365-010 - Inequalities At Work MW 1045-1200, 4 credits
Krasas, Jacqueline CRN: 14716 BUD, SS 
 
WGSS 373-011 - Internship - Pride Center 1 to 3 credits
Gilbert, Chelsea CRN: 12868 SS 
 
WGSS 373-012 - Internship Ctr Gender Equity 1 to 3 credits
Jones, Rita CRN: 12869 SS 
 
WGSS 373-013 - Internship - Gender Viol Educ 1 to 3 credits
DeSipio, Brooke CRN: 13158 SS 
 
WGSS 399-010 - Senior Thesis 2 to 4 credits
Najar, Monica CRN: 11797  
 
WGSS 403-010 - Grimms' Tales:Folk, Fem, Film MW 1335-1450, 3 credits
Stegmann, Vera CRN: 13839 BUG, HU 
 
WGSS 430-010 - Internship In Wgs Studies 1 to 3 credits
Najar, Monica CRN: 11798  
 
**CANCELLED** WGSS 465-010 - Inequalities At Work MW 1045-1200, 3 credits
Krasas, Jacqueline CRN: 14720 SS 
 
WGSS 491 - Independent Study, 3 credits
 

Fall 2019: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

WGSS 001-10 Gender and Society  (SS , 4 credits) CBE Diversity CRN 42023
T, R 9:20 - 10:35 a.m.  
Staff
 
WGSS, ART 121-10 Women in Art  (HU , 4 credits)  CRN 43513
M, W 9:50 - 11:05 a.m.  
Professor Gans
 
WGSS, HIST 124-10 Women in America  (SS , 4 credits) CBE Diversity CRN 43384
T, R 3:00 - 4:15 p.m.  
Professor Najar 
 
WGSS, SOC 127-10 Human Sexuality  (SS , 4 credits) CBE Diversity CRN 44690
T, R 10:45 - 12:00 p.m.  
Professor Lindemann
 
WGSS, SOC 128 Race, Gender and Work (SS) 4 credits CRN44919
Race, Gender and Work is a class designed to help students understand racial and gender inequalities as they relate specifically to work and employment. We explore the origins and histories of inequalities, the ways in which inequalities persist and/or change today, and what steps might be taken toward creating a more equal society.
M, W 7:55 - 9:10 a.m.
Professor Krasas
 
WGSS, ENGL 198-10 Getting Graphic:  Gender and Visual Narrative  (HU , 4 credits)  CRN 44652
Superheroes and pop culture characters often get all the attention at ComicCon- but what voices are missing from the flashy posters and cosplay conventions? What happens when comics get serious and the popular gets political? This course seeks to answer these questions as it addresses the graphic novel as a serious medium with its own language of interpretation. It explores the use of the graphic novel in narratives ranging from the personal to the supernatural and asks what the graphic form uniquely adds to discussions of gender issues around the world. From the re-telling of a goddess’s immolation in Sita’s Ramayana to illustrating the narratives of native women in Deer Women, this course equips students for interpreting the personal and the political in the graphic novel while building a portfolio of visual storytelling. No prior experience with art or comic books required.
M, W 1:35 - 2:50 p.m.  
Professor Mizin
 
WGSS 271-10 Independent Reading and Research  (HU, SS , 1-4 credits)  CRN 42024 Instructor permission required.
WGSS Faculty
 
WGSS, MLL, GERM, FILM 296-10 Lovers in a Dangerous Time  (HU , 4 credits)  CRN 43227
In this course we will explore love and desire and its challenges through the lens of a century of German film. The story of forbidden love can be traced through German film from its earlier period in the 1920s all the way to the present and it offers a universal frame for thinking about history’s dangerous times. How do wars, walls, genocide, homophobia, and racism shape and break love during Germany’s tumultuous twentieth-century history? Film will show us these points of connectivity and fracture.
M, W 3:00 - 4:15 p.m.  
Professor Landry
 
WGSS 330-10 Internship in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies  (SS , 1-4 credits)  CRN 42025 Instructor permission required.
WGSS Faculty
 
WGSS, PSYC, HMS 334-10 The Psychology of Body Image and Eating Disorders  (SS , 4 credits)  CRN 44492
W 7:15 - 9:55 p.m.  Open only to WGSS majors/minors
Professor Lomauro
 
WGSS 373-10 Internship On-Campus (Center for Gender Equity)  (SS , 1-3 credits)  CRN 42026 Instructor permission required.
Professor Jones
 
WGSS 373-11 Internship On-Campus (Center for Gender Violence and Education)  (SS , 1-3 credits)  CRN 43034
Instructor permission required.
Professor DeSipio
 
WGSS 373-12 Internship On-Campus (Pride Center)  (SS , 1-3 credits)  CRN 43103 Instructor permission required.
Professor Gilbert
 
WGSS, AAS 396/496-10 From Lena Horne to Lemonade: Black Feminism and Media Industries  (SS , 4/3 credits) CBE Diversity
CRN 43734/43738
From the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom to Lifetime’s six-part investigative series Surviving R.Kelly, recent media has highlighted the particular injustices and inequities faced by black women in the popular music industry and media industries more broadly. This course historicizes the place of black women within media industries, introduces students to Black Feminist Thought, and unpacks key concepts such as hypervisibility, intersectionality, womanism, and hegemony. Altogether, it explores how difference and inequity are manifest in (and sometimes challenged by) work in the creative industries, specifically music, television, and film
T, 4:25 p.m. - 7:05 p.m .  
Professor Vilanova
 
WGSS, HMS 398-10 Cultural Contexts of Pregnancy and Childbirth  (HU , 4 credits)  CBE Diversity CRN 44672
M, W 10:45 - 12:00 p.m.  
In this course, we will explore primarily American conceptions of pregnancy and childbirth, beginning with a brief history of both. We will look at current laws, medical research, and grassroots activism surrounding pregnancy and childbirth and understand how intersections of race, class, and gender impact our understandings of these acts.  Texts will include film and literature.
Professor Jones
 
WGSS 399-10 Senior Thesis  ( 2-4 credits)  CRN 42027 Instructor permission required.
WGSS Faculty
 
WGSS 430-10 Internship in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies  (1-3 credits)  CRN 42028 Instructor permission required.
WGSS Faculty
 

WGSS 491-10 Independent Study  (3 credits)  CRN 44157  Instructor permission required.
WGSS Faculty


Summer 2019: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

WGSS, ENGL 104-14  Good Girls and Bad Boys in the Age of Consent (HU) 
CRN 23784 / 4 credits / CBE Diversity / Prof. Jones (Session 2) online
Contemporary novels and fan fiction authors continue to use a similar trope:  typically in her first year of college, the good, virginal girl meets and lusts after the bad, sexually-experienced boy.  What happens when we take these narratives in the context of American colleges and universities that adopt policies of “affirmative consent”?  This course will read a series of recent novels and pay specific attention to how desire and sex intersect with gender.  The course will also incorporate contemporary college and university conversations around Greek Life and athletics. Questions students will be responding to include, do the novels respond to the changing policies and laws?  How do the characters understand notions of consent?  Do readers encounter heteronormative and hegemonic notions of "masculinity" and "femininity" in the books?  What happens when the students lose faith in the campus conduct system and create their own?  In addition to reading contextual material, we will read pieces of fiction including The Mockingbirds, The Luckiest Girl Alive, Beautiful Disaster, and portions of the Twilight series, including recent mashups  
 
WGSS, THTR, DES 129-11  History of Fashion and Style (HU) 
CRN 23166 / 4 credits / Prof. Hoelscher (Session 2) online
Dress and culture in the Western Hemisphere from prehistory to today. The evolution of silhouette, garment forms and technology. The relationship of fashion to politics, art and behavior. Cultural and environmental influences on human adornment.  
 
WGSS, THTR, DES 129-10  History of Fashion and Style (HU) 
CRN 23165 / 4 credits / Prof. Hoelscher (Session 1) online
Dress and culture in the Western Hemisphere from prehistory to today. The evolution of silhouette, garment forms and technology. The relationship of fashion to politics, art and behavior. Cultural and environmental influences on human adornment.  
 
WGSS, AAS, HIST 195-11  Women, Gender, Sexuality and Race in African Societies (HU) 
CRN 23350 / 4 credits / CBE Diversity / Prof. Essien (Session 2) online
This course explore the various ways in which womanhood, gender, sexuality and race is defined, constructed and articulated in African societies. The interdisciplinary course draw from historical writings, novels, biography, anthropology, political science, health and others to examine diverse activities and contributions of African women from the pre-colonial period.  
 
WGSS 196-11  Sex in the City 
CRN 23909 / 4 credits / Prof. Jessica Vander Heide (Session 1) online
This course explores how American cities fostered sexual cultures, sexual communities, and sex districts from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries. Together, we will investigate the histories of prostitution and sex work, the commercialization of erotic leisure and entertainment, the development of non-heterosexual urban communities, and the policing of private and public spaces. Throughout this investigation, we will pay special attention to how gender, race, and class structured issues surrounding sex and urban space. Through analyses of films, newspapers, advertisements, guidebooks, maps, letters, diaries, cartoons, novels, and manuscripts, we will consider both how urban spaces have shaped sexuality and, conversely, how sex has shaped the contours of American cities.  
 
WGSS, HMS, SOC 341-10/ 441-10  Gender and Health (SS) 
CRN 23387 / 4 credits / CRN 23470 / 3 credits / Prof. Alang (Session 1) online
Relationships of sex differences and gender norms to disease and longevity. Influence of medical systems on women's lives and the impact of the women's movement on health care. Focus on specific topics, e.g. medicalization and commercialization of women's bodies, the politics of reproductive choices, and mental health.
 

Spring 2019: Required Courses & Non-Required/Elective Courses

WGSS 001-010  Gender and Society (SS) 
CRN 18851 / 4 credits / CBE Diversity / M, W 11:10 - 12:25 p.m. / Prof. Staff
The course introduces students to key concepts, theoretical frameworks, and interdisciplinary research in the field of Women’s and Gender Studies. Examines how gender interacts with race, age, class, sexuality, etc., to shape human consciousness and determine the social organization of human society. The course may include topics such as: gender and work; sexuality and reproduction; women’s health; media constructions of gender and race; gender, law, and public policy.   
 
WGSS, MLL, ASIA 015-010  Sex, War, Women, Art (HU) 
CRN 19043 / 4 credits / M, W 12:45 - 2:00 p.m. /Prof. Yamasaki
Through the study of selected visual and literary works in their historical and social contexts, students will gain knowledge of cultures in Japan. This course examines various cultures from the perspectives of gender and sexuality as constitutive factors of Japanese society. Materials include a film depicting a romantic life of samurai, art works by contemporary artists, and writings on sex workers impacted by the Japanese empire. No prior knowledge of Japanese language is required. An introductory course taught in English.   
 
WGSS, ENGL 104-010  What Does Creativity Look Like?  Documentary Visions (HU) 
CRN 18829 / 4 credits / T, R 2:35 - 3:50 p.m. / Prof. Handler 
What can documentary films tell us about the nature of creativity?  What defines it? Why does it matter to people? Some of the course films explore activities such as painting, music and dance that we commonly associate with the term “art.”  Others explore the role of creative imagination in other activities, including political dissent, online romance, and relationships with animals. Most of the course films are about people who have been marginalized because of their sex, race, class position, age, mental health or political beliefs. We will consider how these people use imaginative work to define themselves and transform their communities.  We will also examine how these documentaries frame their subjects, visually and narratively. The course will explore the ways in which documentary filmmaking, although committed to truth-telling, is itself always an act of creative imagination and interpretation. Finally, the course will encourage you to consider the role of creativity in your own life.   
 
WGSS, HMS, HIST 125-010  Does Sex Have a History? The History of Sexuality in the U.S. (HU) 
CRN 18841 / 4 credits / T, R 1:10 - 2:25 p.m. / Prof. Najar
This class explores the history of sexuality in the United States from the colonial era to the present. While sexuality can appear timeless and stable, sexual ideologies, categories, and behaviors have consistently evolved, and they have transformed American society in the process. While cod pieces and white wigs enhanced upper class men's apparent virility in the early Republic, the “Playboy era” saw a reliance of stereos and cars. Friendship between nineteenth-century women included intimacies that would now more typically be found in same-sex relationships and marriages. We will also study how institutions like the law, medicine, and the media have shaped sexual identities and experiences. In so doing, the class aims to develop sophisticated readers of historical and contemporary cultures.   
 
WGSS, REL, ASIA 173-010  Sex, Celibacy and Sainthood: Gender and Religioin in East Asia (HU) 
CRN 18894 / 4 credits / WI (Writing Intensive) / T, R 2:35 - 3:50 p.m. / Prof. Pitkin
This course explores themes of sexuality, celibacy, gender, and sainthood in East Asian religions. We will pay special attention to the experiences of religious women from many walks of life and time periods, from traditions including Buddhism, Daoism, and shamanism. Through film, poetry, autobiography, philosophical writing, visual art, and descriptions of visionary experience, students will encounter Buddhist and Daoist nuns, lay women, mothers, shamanic healers, oracles, activists, and royalty, from Tibet, Korea, Japan, China, and the U.S.   
 
WGSS, AAS, ENGL 195-010  Let America Be America Again:  Protest Literature from Past to Present (HU) 
CRN 17779 / 4 credits / T, R 9:20 - 10:35 a.m. / Prof. Edwards
In an America that seems increasingly divided, protest movements, practiced in conventional and nonconventional ways, have reemerged as potent and effective ways to create social change. Through studying protest literature, we will engage with historical representations and expressions of social protest in America, as well as examine the role of protest movements in our political present. Each unit in the course will ask students to think about cultural identities,
such as race, gender and sexuality, in concert with what it means to fight for the rights of those identities. We’ll explore central questions (including, what does it mean to protest? what various forms can protest take? where can protest occur and who can participate? how do the stakes vary for those enacting activism?) using a variety of sources, including articles, novels, short stories, plays, poetry, short videos, and film. Often, we’ll pair historical texts, such as the “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” from the first Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, with current expressions of protest, such as the Women’s March and the MeToo movement, to gain perspective on today’s turbulent times. Course texts will include Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me, Ava DuVernay's documentary film, 13th, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart.   
 
WGSS, AAS, ENGL 198-010  Love in the Time of Tinder: Relationships, Identity and Technology (HU) 
CRN 18816 / 4 credits / CBE Diversity / M, W, F 10:10 - 11:00 a.m. / Prof. Heidebrink-Bruno 
In this 100-level course, we will explore how people use various kinds of digital, electronic, and social technologies to engage in relationships with one another, and with the technology. Through a series of readings and films, students will:
·       Analyze the role of technology in personal relationships, and consider larger social and global issues concerning the production, use, and reliance upon technologies.
·       Consider the gendered and racial components that affect how individuals interact with technologies.
·       Speculate why writers and film-makers are preoccupied with futuristic technologies in science fiction and speculative fiction. What do these preoccupations reveal about our current historical moment and fears?  How will technologies continue to impact the way we communicate and bond with one another in the future?   
 
WGSS 271-010  Independent Reading and Research (HU, SS) 
Instructor permission required.
CRN 16466 / 1-4 credits / Prof. Najar
Independent study of selected topics designated and executed in close collaboration with a member of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty. May be repeated for elective credit. Prerequisite: consent of the WGSS program director.   
 
WGSS, MLL, ENGL, GERM, FILM 303-010  Grimms' Fairy Tales: Folklore, Feminism, Film (HU) 
CRN 19002 / 4 credits / CBE Global / M, W 2:35 - 3:50 p.m. / Prof. Stegmann
This intercultural history of the Grimms’ fairy tales investigates how folktale types and gender stereotypes developed and became models for children and adults. The course covers the literary fairy tale in Germany as well as Europe and America. Versions of “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Cinderella”, or “Sleeping Beauty” exist not only in the Grimms’ collection but in films and many forms of world literature. Modern authors have rewritten fairy tales in feminist ways, promoting social change. Taught in English. German language students may receive a German component.   
 
WGSS, ENGL 304-010  Women/Revolution Early America (HU) 
CRN 17997 / 4 credits / CBE Diversity / T, R 10:45 - 12:00 p.m. / Prof. Gordon
The American Revolution happened only a century after Mary Rowlandson was abducted by Native Americans (1675) and women were burned alive during the Salem Witch Trials (1692). In this course, we will read the writing that women produced—and some writing about women—to explore how opportunities and possibilities for women transformed (or remained the same) during the long eighteenth century. Were early American women able to participate in public life? If so, which women and under what circumstances? Did early American values such as liberty and independence extend to women? If so, which women and for what reasons? Did women feel like they had a “revolution” in 1776? We will read captivity narratives, poetry, novels, and other public writing—by authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Phyllis Wheatley, Hannah Griffits, Susannah Wright, Hannah Foster, Susanna Rowson, Charles Brockden Brown, and Mercy Otis Warren—to help us explore these issues   
 
WGSS, ENGL 304-011  Women/Revolution Early America 
CRN 18097 / 3 credits / Graduate Students Only / T, R 10:45 - 12:00 p.m. / Prof. Gordon
The American Revolution happened only a century after Mary Rowlandson was abducted by Native Americans (1675) and women were burned alive during the Salem Witch Trials (1692). In this course, we will read the writing that women produced—and some writing about women—to explore how opportunities and possibilities for women transformed (or remained the same) during the long eighteenth century. Were early American women able to participate in public life? If so, which women and under what circumstances? Did early American values such as liberty and independence extend to women? If so, which women and for what reasons? Did women feel like they had a “revolution” in 1776? We will read captivity narratives, poetry, novels, and other public writing—by authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Phyllis Wheatley, Hannah Griffits, Susannah Wright, Hannah Foster, Susanna Rowson, Charles Brockden Brown, and Mercy Otis Warren—to help us explore these issues   
 
WGSS, PSYC, HMS 334-010  The Psychology of Body Image and Eating Disorders (SS) 
Restricted to WGSS majors/minors.
CRN 18671 / 4 credits / T 7:10 - 10:00 p.m. / Prof. Lomauro
The course addresses the psychosocial aspects of the development of healthy and unhealthy body image and eating disorders. The roles of personality traits/individual factors, family and interpersonal functioning, and cultural factors will be examined, as will the impact of representations of body image in mass media. Public health and psychological interventions for prevention and treatment will be explored. Personal accounts/memoirs, clinical case presentations, and documentary and dramatic films will be incorporated in the presentation of topics.  (Open only to declared HMS minors, declared WGSS minors, or those who have taken WGSS 001)   
 
WGSS 350-010  Seminar in Feminist Theory (ND) 
CRN 18852 / 4 credits / T, R 2:35 - 3:50 p.m. / Prof. Krasas
An upper-level seminar serving as a capstone experience that challenges students to systematize insights gained from introductory and elective courses through the more deeply analytical lens of feminist theory. Prerequisite: WGSS 001 or WGSS 101 or consent of the WGSS program director.   
 
WGSS, MLL 403-010  Grimms' Fairy Tales: Folklore, Feminism, Film 
CRN 19004 / 3 credits / M, W 2:35 - 3:50 p.m. / Prof. Stegmann
This intercultural history of the Grimms' fairy tales investigates how folktale types and gender stereotypes developed and became models for children and adults. The course covers the literary fairy tale in Germany as well as Europe and America. Versions of "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", or "Sleeping Beauty" exist not only in the Grimms' collection but in films and many forms of world literature. Modern authors have rewritten fairy tales in feminist ways, promoting social change. Taught in English. German language students may receive a German component.   
 
WGSS, CIE 405-010  Experiencing the United Nations: Gender and Education in International Development 
CRN 18853 / 3 credits / R 4:10 - 7:00 p.m. / Prof. Kong
Building on the Lehigh University/United Nations partnership initiative, this course provides a structured practical experience for students to learn about the dynamics of NGO/UN relationships by representing one of the underrepresented international NGOs at the United Nations. Equips students with necessary experience, understanding, and skills in international education development such as policy brief writing and education sector analysis.   
 
WGSS 450-010  Seminar in Feminist Theory 
CRN 18853 / 3 credits / T, R 2:35 - 3:50 p.m. / Prof. Krasas
An upper-level seminar serving as a capstone experience that challenges students to systematize insights gained from introductory and elective courses through the more deeply analytical lens of feminist theory. Prerequisite: WGSS 001 or WGSS 101 or consent of the WGSS program director.