A survey introduction to the critical, theoretical, and historical study of women and gender from feminist and cross-cultural perspectives. Readings range across a wide body of feminist scholarship in order to familiarize students with key questions, theoretical tools, and issues within the field. The course aims to sharpen critical awareness of how gender operates in institutional and cultural contexts, in students’ own lives and the lives of others. Two questions are central to the course:

How is gender created and maintained through social practices (e.g., ideology or media representations)?

How do these gendered social practices intersect with other social categories, such as race, ethnicity, class, disability, and sexuality?

Because Women’s and Gender Studies grew out of activism, this course will explore the relationship between how we generate critical knowledge about gender and how we work to use this knowledge to promote social justice at gender's intersection with other identities. Most of the course materials are drawn from the US context; however, we will also engage with feminist issues and activism in other parts of the world and transnationally.

Course Requirements:

Three non-cumulative exams, final ethnographic or archival project.

Class Format:

Students will still have asynchronous options for both lectures. Synchronous attendance will not be required for the lectures.