50 courses with the subject WFQS, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
WFQS 122Queer Italian American Media0.5
(Same as ITAL 122 and MEDS 122 ) Representations of Italian Americans are ubiquitous in American media, from the mafia patriarch, to the family-obsessed nonna, these archetypal tropes have trained audiences to understand Italian Americanism in terms of exaggerated heteorsexuality. This course looks for characters and narratives that push back against those norms, creating cracks in the foundation for other modes of embodiment. We look at movies and popular TV shows that play with the archetypes, like The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, where the hypermachismo of the blue collar greaser takes the form of a proud gay man; or Younger , where the lasagna loving zia is an out lesbian. We study the parallels between the mobster and queer in The Sopranos and Alto, and we read first-hand accounts from queer Italian Americans working in the media about what representation and the lack thereof has meant to them. This short course introduces students to the interconnected fields of media, film, gender and Italian studies. Sole Anatrone. First six-week course. Two 75-minute periods accompanied by film screenings. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
(Same as ITAL 123 and MEDS 123 ) This six week course takes a close look at the representation of women in some of the most iconic examples of Italian cinema. From La dolce vita to La vita è bella this course puts gender theory in dialogue with media studies to consider the ways the art form interacts with and reflects changing attitudes towards women and female sexuality. Each week is devoted to a different historical moment as we move from the early divas of silent cinema, to contemporary films like those of the Rohrwacher sisters whose directing and acting work interrogates the categories of both Italian and woman. No knowledge of Italian is necessary to take this course. Sole Anatrone. Second six-week course. Two 75-minute periods accompanied by film screenings. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 130Introduction to Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies1
In this introductory survey, students explore gender and sexuality through multiple axes of power, including race, class, ethnicity, disability, and more. Employing a variety of feminist analytics including transnational and decolonial feminism, Black feminism, indigenous feminism, queer studies, and transgender epistemologies, this course interrogates the interconnectedness of global forces and local realities. Together, we study the way that gender and sexuality help organize the world, but also constitute and offer a methodological prism through which to transform it. Kristin Sánchez Carter, Tracey Holland. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
(Same as ENGL 183 ) This intensive offers students an opportunity to engage the polemic as a rhetorical form of particular importance to queer social movements. We review examples of the polemic across a variety of literary forms, including the manifesto, political pamphlet, satirical essay, and allegory, and across different media: films/videos, songs, ?zaps,? posters, fashion, memes, and zines. Foregrounding the place of ?queer? within a broader history of social justice movements, we inquire into the appeal and effectiveness of the polemic as a strategy for political change (or disruption or refusal) in relation to specific crises and struggles. As an exercise in experiential learning, we will try our hands at composing polemics collaboratively. What is the role of anger and outrage in fomenting collective identities or counterpublics? What is the place of camp in the history of the queer polemic? What new digital forms of the queer polemic have emerged from social media platforms? Class activities include visits to the Lesbian Herstory Archive in Brooklyn, New York and the Schomburg?s ?In the Life? Collection in Harlem, NY. Hiram Perez. Both first and second six-week course. One 2-hour period. Course Format: INT
WFQS 201Critical Conversations in Women, Feminist, and Queer Studies1
This course offers a continued exploration of the theories and methodologies of feminism, gender studies, queer, and trans* studies introduced in WFQS 130. Special attention is paid to the ways in which categories of sexuality, gender, nationality, race, class, and dis/ability are generative of both growth and tension within feminist and LGBTQ activist histories and communities. Kristin Sánchez Carter.
WFQS 130 or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
WFQS 203Women in Greek and Roman History and Myth1
(Same as GRST 203 ) Greek and Roman literary and historical accounts abound with vividly drawn women such as Helen, Antigone, Medea, Livia, and Agrippina, the mother of Nero. But how representative were such figures of the daily lives of women throughout Greek and Roman antiquity? This course investigates the images and realities of women in the ancient Greek and Roman world, from the Greek Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BCE) to the Roman Empire (up to the III c. CE) by juxtaposing evidence from literature, historical sources, and archaeological material. Throughout, the course examines the complex ways in which ancient women interacted with the institutions of the state, the family, religion, and the arts. Barbara Olsen. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27.
(Same as AFRS 205 ) This course examines a selection of literary works by modern and contemporary Arab women writers in English translation. We will read fiction, poetry, autobiographies, short stories, and critical scholarship by and about Arab women, from North Africa and the Middle East, in order to develop a critical understanding of the social, political, and cultural context(s) of these writings, and to form an enlightened opinion about the issues and concerns raised by Arab women writers throughout the Twentieth Century, at different historical junctures, and in different locations. Our class discussions will focus-among other themes-on: (1) Arab women writers and feminism. (2) Arab Women and Islamism. (3) Arab women and the West. (4) Arab Nationalism(s), Arab Modernity(s), and Arab women. (5) Arab Women writing in the Diaspora: hyphenated identities and different routes of homecoming. The authors to be read include Assia Djebar (Algeria); Fatima Mernissi (Morocco); Nawal Sadaawi (Egypt); Hanan Al-Shaykh (Lebanon); and Sahar Khalifeh (Palestine); and many others. Mootacem Mhiri. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27.
(Same as ECON 206 ) An analysis of gender in education, earnings, employment and the division of labor within the household. Topics include a study occupational segregation, discrimination, the role of “protective legislation” in the history of labor law, and effects of changes in the labor market of the U.S. We also study the economics of marriage, divorce, and fertility. A comparative study of gender roles in other parts of the world is the final topic in the course. Sarah Pearlman.
ECON 102 . Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 214Transnational Perspectives on Women and Work1
(Same as LALS 214 and SOCI 214 ) This class is a theoretical and empirical exploration of women’s paid and unpaid labor. We examine how women’s experiences as workers — across space, place, and time — interact with larger economic structures, historical moments, and narratives about womanhood. We pay particular attention to the ways in which race, class, gender, sexuality and citizenship intersect and shape not only women’s relationships to work and family, but to other women workers (at times very differently geopolitically situated). We are attentive to the construction of women workers, the work itself, and the meanings women give to production, reproduction, and the global economy. Light Carruyo. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
(Same as AFRS 221 ) From Celia the Slave (1855) to CeCe McDonald (2011) cis, queer, and trans women (particularly of color) have been deemed unruly, deviant, and criminalized for defending themselves against gendered violence. With no selves to defend in the face of the law, how do these subjects seek justice when their survival is routinely “rewarded” with both legal and extralegal forms of punishment? While critiques of the criminal justice system often center the mechanisms of the system itself, this course is concerned with the testaments of survivors, their protocols of survival, namely the feminist, trans, and queer-of-color ethics, activisms, and intellectual histories that resist gender violence, criminalization, and punishment. This course centers histories, testimony, poetry, art, music, and social theory including activists accounts from Harriet Jacobs, Ida B. Wells, Angela Davis, Sylvia Rivera, Dean Spade, Miss Major, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, and others. Jasmine Syedullah. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 222Women, Gender, & Sexuality in Islamic Spaces1
(Same as RELI 222 ) This course explores the relationship between Islam, gender, and sexuality through a focus on space. The course is organized through six key spaces that have formed gendered bodies in Islamic contexts and diasporas: the home, the mosque, the school, the public square, the medical clinic, and the interior soul. As we move through each of these spaces, we explore how sexual difference, gender, sexuality, and religious practice take on different shapes in different settings, and at different life stages. We read canonical works of Muslim feminist thought, as well as the classical sources they engage with. We pay attention to gender diversity in the classical traditions and contemporary Islamic contexts, coming-of-age and other life stages, and to the role of gender and sexuality in mystical relationship with the divine. Kirsten Wesselhoeft. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
(Same as MUSI 231 ) A study of women’s engagement in creating and sustaining musical cultures. Drawing on recent work in feminist musicology and ethnomusicology, this course examines women musicians and their music from many perspectives: vocal and instrumental, historical and current, Western and non-Western, classical and popular. First six-week course. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 244Topics in Feminist and Queer Politics and Activism1
This course introduces students to various methodologies of gender studies and feminist analysis, with an emphasis on feminist and queer histories of knowledge formation, social activism, and cultural engagement. What kind of movements, societal transformations, kinship relations, cultural spaces, or political structures have feminist and queer actors pursued and brought into being? Differences within and around feminist and queer movements will be explored, as we consider the complicated paths from theory to praxis in global and postcolonial settings.
One prior course in WFQS or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall and Spring
WFQS 250Feminist Theory1
(Same as PHIL 250 ) Should housework be waged? Should sex be for sale? What is the patriarchy anyway? This course is an introduction to feminist theory as well as the arguments and questions that have occupied radical, socialist, Black, eco, decolonial and queer feminists. In this class, we’ll read Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Silvia Federici, Audre Lorde, Kimberle Crenshaw, Gloria Anzaldua, Jack Halbertstam and Gayatri Spivak among others, with a view towards understanding connections between gender, work, and identity as well as how they matter for us today. Shivani Radhakrishnan.
One unit of Philosophy or Women’s Studies. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
WFQS 251Global Feminism1
(Same as ASIA 251 and INTL 251 ) Women have long been the silent figure at the center of debates on nation-building; the object to be saved in the event of catastrophe, pillaged in the event of war, exalted in the efforts to populate and nourish the nation. This course takes as its premise the intersections between key terms “migration,” “citizenship” and “feminism” and looks at ways women and gender nonconforming people work against this objectification to make themselves heard and form community in new spaces. Through a study of literature, film and theoretical texts, we explore the ways communities and activist groups are shaped and influenced by feminist networks across the globe, and the ways individuals define themselves in relation to concepts of feminism and nationhood. Close readings of personal and fictional narratives that center on gender and migration are paired with material on the relevant socio-political and historical contexts, in an effort to encourage critical reflection on how certain discourses surrounding both migration and feminism are racialized and gendered. We look at the consequences of repeating or ignoring those ideological underpinnings, as well as ways people are working against these norms. We consider fictional narratives, testimonials and media coverage as we follow the journeys of people traveling through Africa and Central America, across the Mediterranean through the Middle East and Asia in no small part because of current rising tensions and real peril surrounding these highly trafficked migratory thoroughfares. We pair analysis of cultural material with a body of theoretical work aimed at providing students with a toolbox of global feminist scholarship. Seungsook Moon.
One prior course in WFQS or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
WFQS 253Topics in American Literature1
The specific focus of the course varies each year, and may center on a literary movement (e.g., Transcendentalism, the Beats, the Black Mountain School), a single work and its milieu (e.g., Moby-Dick and the American novel, Call It Sleep and the rise of ethnic modernism); a historical period (e.g., the Great Awakening, the Civil War), a region (e.g., Southern literature, the literature of the West), or a genre (e.g., the sentimental-domestic novel, American satire, the literature of travel/migration, American autobiography, traditions of reportage, American environmentalist writing). Belvin Shelnutt.
(Same as PHIL 254 ) What is the relationship between gender and colonialism? This course begins by looking at how colonial projects involved constructions of gendered binaries and heterosexuality on non-European cultures. We then look at continued relationships of coloniality and critiques of Western feminism, while introducing students to Africana, Third World, Indigenous, and Latinx feminist philosophers and taking up questions about decolonial futures and the possibilities of solidarity. We read Mariana Ortega, Maria Lugones, Nkiru Nzegwu, Oyèrónké Oyêwùmí, and Gayatri Spivak among others. Shivani Radhakrishnan.
One course in Philosophy or Women’s or Feminist & Queer Studies or permission of the instructor. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 260Sex & Reproduction in 19th Century United States: Before Margaret Sanger1
(Same as HIST 260 ) Focusing on the United States from roughly 1800 to 1900, this course explores sex and reproduction and their relationship to broader transformations in society, politics, and women’s rights. Among the issues considered are birth patterns on the frontier and in the slave South; industrialization, urbanization, and falling fertility; the rise of sex radicalism; and the emergence of “heterosexual” and “homosexual” as categories of identity. The course examines public scandals, such as the infamous Beecher-Tilton adultery trial, and the controversy over education and women’s health that was prompted by the opening of Vassar College. The course ends by tracing the complex impact of the Comstock law (1873) and the emergence of a modern movement for birth control. Rebecca Edwards. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
(Same as DRAM 261 and ITAL 261 ) What makes theatre an effective (or ineffective) vehicle for radical politics? How and why is Italy a valuable case study to consider the relationship between political activity and performance practice, particularly in light of post-1968 social ferment and during the politically explosive (and notoriously violent) 1970s? In this course, we look at plays and performance projects by artists like Dario Fo, Franca Rame, Dacia maraini, Mario Mieli, and numerous theatre collectives operating across the peninsula, as well as culutural theorists that may include Antonio Gramsci, Umberto Eco, Walter Benjamin, and Bertolt Brecht. In light of a historical moment that saw unprecedented worker and students protests and occupation of factories and universities, we consider how performance moved out of the theatre and redifined its goals and boundaries. We also devote particular attention to how feminist and queer theatre-makers critiqued institutional power and re-imagined art, society, and revolutio. This course investigates key concepts, texts, and artists involved in the theatre communities in 1970s Italy, their visions of politics and revolution, their artistic strategies, and their lasting resonance and influence on contemporary practice and aesthetics. Emily Antenucci. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
(Same as ANST 262 ) In an effort to subjugate indigenous nations, colonizing and Christianizing enterprises in the Americas included the implicit understanding that subduing Native American women through rape and murder maintained imperial hierarchies of gender and power; this was necessary to eradicate Native people’s traditional egalitarian societies and uphold the colonial agenda. Needless to say, Native women’s stories and histories have been inaccurately portrayed, often tainted with nostalgia and delivered through a lens of western patriarchy and discourses of domination. Through class readings and writing assignments, discussions and films, this course examines Native women’s lives by considering the intersections of gender and race through indigenous frameworks. We expose Native women’s various cultural worldviews in order to reveal and assess the importance of indigenous women’s voices to national and global issues such as sexual violence, environmentalism, and health. The class also takes into consideration the shortcomings of western feminisms in relation to the realities of Native women and Native people’s sovereignty in general. Areas of particular importance to this course are indigenous women’s urban experience, Haudenosaunee influence on early U.S. suffragists, indigenous women in the creative arts, third-gender/two-spiritedness, and Native women’s traditional and contemporary roles as cultural carriers. Molly McGlennen. Two 75-minute periods. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
This topics course focuses on gender as it plays out in any number of forms of culture and media. Various texts help elucidate how gender is constructed, represented, and consumed, with important interventions derived from feminist theory, queer theory, media and cultural studies.
Subject
WFQS
Credits (min)
1
Credits (max)
1
Credit unit
unit(s)
Type
course
Repeatable
May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed.
One prior course in WFQS or permission of the instructor. May be repeated for credit if the topic has changed. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
WFQS 271Hello, Dear Enemy: Mounting an Exhibition on Children’s Experiences of War and Displacement1
(Same as EDUC 271 , INTL 271 , LALS 271 and MEDS 271 ) At a time when the world is witnessing the largest displacement of people since WWII, due in significant measure to armed conflict, this course examines select case studies (both past and present) of armed conflict and their consequences for children. Journalists, photographers, and writers of children’s literature have done much to raise awareness about children and armed conflict, and to treat them in such a way that audiences develop understanding, empathy, and solidarity with children affected by armed conflict. A principal aim of the course is to study the topics of armed conflict and displacement through photography, photojournalism, and children’s literature, and then to mount exhibitions both on campus and a traveling exhibition in the Vassar Collaboratory. Our work is enriched by the study of human rights and humanitarian laws and policies concerning children affected by armed conflict, as well as by interaction with visiting artists, educators, and children’s rights experts from the United Nations and other international organizations. The course focuses on the impact of armed conflict on girls, and includes such topics as displacement, education, child soldiers, child labor, birth registration, and sexual violence. Tracey Holland. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 272Feminist Thought and Politics: Sex, Gender, Matter1
(Same as POLI 272 ) Since its beginnings, feminism has radically transformed the very foundations of politics, forcing us to rethink values and ideals as fundamental as freedom and equality. It has challenged former understandings of fundamental political concepts like power, and the distinction between the private and public spheres, as well as the personal and the political. Feminist theory is also incredibly creative and prolific in terms of its production of new concepts (e.g., gender). In this course we interrogate high-stakes questions such as: Are masculinity and femininity, men and women, heterosexual and homosexual, transsexual and cys-gender, the human and the nonhuman, contingent or universal categories? Are these categories empowering, alienating, both? Are racialized, sexed, gender, intersecting identities the necessary foundations for political action, or do they hinder the valuation of difference? What does feminist theory teach us about less apparently related issues like terrorism, colonialism, or environmental crisis? Claire Sagan. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
(Same as HIST 278 and LALS 278 ) This course explores the history of Latin America by centering women. Beginning with examples in the ancient Americas and continuing through the colonial and national periods, this course explores how the ideas, representations, experiences, and actions of women have shaped Latin American history. Class materials draw from a range of academic, literary, and primary sources, and class discussions cover topics such as: women in Aztec and other ancient societies; “La Malinche” and women of the Conquest; witchcraft and women in colonial religion; Sor Juana, Gabriela Mistral, and women of Latin American literature; women and 20th-c. activism; and indigenous women in Latin America today. Accordingly, this course addresses the questions: what cultural, economic, and political conditions have shaped how women in Latin America experienced the world? How have women had agency in shaping the meaning of Latin America? And what is at stake for Latin American women today in debates over issues such as economic development, migration, and human rights? Daniel Mendiola. Two 2-hour periods. Course Format: CLS
EDUC 235 or WFQS 130 . Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
WFQS 280Gender and Genre in Hindu Literature1
(Same as ASIA 280 and RELI 280 ) Literature is prime territory for thinking about gender in Hindu traditions as an expansive, contested, interrogative category. When it comes to Hinduism, we find some of the most intricate, profound reflections on gender in sources that are highly aware of the social and emotional realities of human life: epics, narratives, poems, and performance genres. Inspired by Mrinalini Sinha’s challenge to “distinguish between merely exporting gender as an analytical category to different parts of the world and rethinking the category itself in light of those different locations,” (2012) this course asks how works of Hindu literature develop and convey their own theories of gender and sexuality. What tensions do they explore? Where do they seem to prescribe, and where do they seem to question? How do the specifics of literary forms and Hindu practices allow them to do that? The course is organized by literary genre, with students exploring early, medieval, and contemporary sources. Themes include: epic masculinity, devotional voices, heroines, ritual possession, and narratives of gender affirmation. Nell Hawley. Two 75-minute periods. Course Format: CLS
For fieldwork: 2 units of work in Women’s Studies or from the list of Approved Courses. Permission of the director is required for all independent work. Course Format: INT
For independent study: 2 units of work in Women’s Studies or from the list of Approved Courses. Permission of the director is required for all independent work. Course Format: OTH
Offered
Fall or Spring
WFQS 303Senior Capstone: Interdisciplinary Research Methods and Writing Seminar0.5
This course is a two semester (.5 units per semester) course required of all seniors completing a capstone thesis in WFQS. Meeting weekly, students choose and begin to develop a senior thesis project as we review best practices for sound interdisciplinary research. Over the course of the academic year, as appropriate to their project, students learn to frame original research questions, develop plans for identifying the parameters of sound inquiry and argument, gather and synthesize sources in the form of annotated bibliographies and literature reviews, and act as sounding boards and constructive critics of each other’s work in progress.This process might result in a traditional scholarly essay, or a project that includes community-engaged learning, performance, or other forms of creative expression. Kristin Sánchez Carter. Yearlong course 303- WFQS 304 . One 2-hour period. Course Format: INT
WFQS 304Senior Capstone: Interdisciplinary Research Methods and Writing Seminar0.5
This course is a two semester (.5 units per semester) course required of all seniors completing a capstone thesis in WFQS. Meeting weekly, students choose and begin to develop a senior thesis project as we review best practices for sound interdisciplinary research. Over the course of the academic year, as appropriate to their project, students learn to frame original research questions, develop plans for identifying the parameters of sound inquiry and argument, gather and synthesize sources in the form of annotated bibliographies and literature reviews, and act as sounding boards and constructive critics of each other’s work in progress. This process might result in a traditional scholarly essay, or a project that includes community-engaged learning, performance, or other forms of creative expression. Kristin Sánchez Carter. Yearlong course WFQS 303 -304. One 2-hour period. Course Format: INT
This course examines various literary traditions. The materials may cross historical, national and linguistic boundaries, and may investigate how a specific myth, literary form, idea, or figure (e.g., Pygmalion, romance, the epic, the fall of man, Caliban) has been constructed, disputed, reinvented and transformed. Topics vary from year to year.
Open to Juniors and Seniors with two units of 200-level work in English, or by permission of the instructor. This course satisfies the REGS requirement for the English major. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
WFQS 321Feminism, Knowledge, Practice1
(Same as SOCI 321 ) How has feminist insight into issues of race, power/knowledge, intersecting inequalities, and human agency changed the way we understand the social world? What is the relationship between theory and practice? What counts as theory? How does theory inform research, pedagogy, and social relationships? Drawing on theoretical, empirical, and experimental texts we explore how feminist knowledge is created, circulated, and debated. Light Carruyo. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27.
WFQS 322Caribbean Spaces: Discourses of West Indian resistance, love and hope1
(Same as AFRS 322 and EDUC 322 ) Caribbean Spaces centers the English speaking West Indies and its diverse people, food and customs. I borrow the title from Carole Boyce Davies who says, “the claiming of Caribbean Space captures ontological ways of being in the world. It assumes movement as it makes and remakes the critical elements of Caribbean geography; landscape and escape, sky and sun, but also music, food and style.” Caribbean people are diverse, multifaceted and complex as a result of colonial histories, and modern struggles for self determination and governance. In this course, we explore a people who introduced the world to maroonage, and anti-colonial insurrection. A people who resist subjugation, love themselves into freedom and governance and a people who use “every mickle to mek a muckle.” This course explores themes of resistance, love and hope across the diaspora called the Caribbean through anti-slave narratives, independence and economic struggles, language and customs, education, tourism, sexuality, etc. Kimberly Williams Brown. One 3-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
(Same as AFRS 336 , ANST 336 , ENST 336 , and HIST 336 ) This seminar operates on the notion that structural racism and environmental degradation are historically related–and that Black Americans have confronted the two together. Over the course of the semester, we interrogate how different Black activists have done so, from the Antebellum period to the present day. We consider how enslaved people drew from nature in their resistance to slavery, as well as the role of pollution, environmental disasters, and gentrification in twentieth-century organizing. Toward the end of the course, we explore the concepts of environmental justice and ecofeminism. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 340From Patriarchy to Family Romance: The Family and Sexuality in Early Modern Europe1
(Same as HIST 340 ) Between 1500-1800, the family was very much a public institution, the keystone of social and political order. This course examines the material conditions of families: childhood, paternal authority, motherhood, and sexuality. At the center of our study is an investigation of how, between 1500 and 1800, the prevalent ideal of the family, which was defined by property and lineage, gave way to an image of the family as a private and intimate sphere. Three factors contributed to this shift: The Protestant Reformation, the expansion of the state, and a rise in literacy which introduced new reading and writing practices. In examining the relationship of the family to larger historical trends, this course also explores how the family provides an alternative lens in the study of history, allowing us to see alternative narratives to events like revolution and colonialism. Sumita Choudhury. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
(Same as ENGL 352 and GNCS 352 ) In-depth study of Romantic-era texts with the option of pursuing a select group of writers under the rubric of a specific genre, methodological approach, topic or theme. This course aims to deepen students’ expertise in one or more of the topics covered in ENGL 248 .
Open to Juniors and Seniors with two units of 200-level work in English, or with permission of the instructor. This course satisfies the pre-1900 or the REGS requirement for the English major. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 354Critical Issues in Women’s Health1
(Same as STS 354 ) This course provides an overview of critical issues affecting women’s health in the United States. By identifying the systemic reasons and historical context women experience bias and discrimination in healthcare, students gain an understanding of the gaps in medical research, representation, and funding for women’s health. Reviewing health conditions such as endometriosis, heart disease, and autoimmune disorders provides context. Students discuss other current public health crises, such as the public health implications of abortion bans and the Black maternal health crisis. We address the imperative for transgender and nonbinary inclusiveness in language and public health solutions. The life course, social determinants, reproductive justice, and intersectionality frameworks guide and contextualize the topics discussed. Christie Van Horne. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
WFQS 355Childhood and Children in Nineteenth-Century Britain1
(Same as HIST 355 and GNCS 355 ) This course examines both the social constructions of childhood and the lived experiences of children in imperial and domestic Britain during the long nineteenth century. We analyze new ideals of childhood arising at the beginning of this period and explore how these ideals—of childhood innocence and dependence, for example—applied to the experiences of actual children in vastly different ways. Thus, a main theme of the course is how age categories intersect with racial, class, gender, and national identities. Topics include the relationships between children and adults, child labor, sexuality, gender, education, welfare, and the ways in which ideals of childhood upheld imperialism. The course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of childhood; we examine a variety of primary sources ranging from parliamentary reports and memoirs to photographs and children’s literature. Lydia Murdoch. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
(Same as ENGL 357 ) In-depth study of literatures of the twentieth century, with primary focus on British and postcolonial (Irish, Indian, Pakistani, South African, Caribbean, Australian, Canadian, etc.) texts. Selections may focus on an author or group of authors, a genre (e.g., modern verse epic, drama, satiric novel, travelogue), or a topic (e.g., the economics of modernism, black Atlantic, Englishes and Englishness, themes of exile and migration). Heesok Chang.
Open to Juniors and Seniors with two units of 200-level work in English, or by permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Fall
WFQS 360Religion, Sex, and the Modern State1
(Same as RELI 360 ) This course examines the intertwined regulation of religion and sexuality by modern states through six case studies from around the world: Nigeria, France, Norway, Iran, Uganda, and India. These cases take us through a range of political systems and both religiously homogenous and religiously diverse societies, showing how in each case the state is intimately concerned with the relationship between religion, sexuality, and sexual difference. Through our analysis of these cases, we cover topics including comparative secularisms, race and citizenship, Islamic law, postcolonial feminist and queer theory, the sociology of religious revival, and religion and global media. At the end of the course, students will have a globally-informed and nuanced understanding of the stakes of contemporary debates about religious freedom, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights around the world. Kirsten Wesselhoeft. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27. Course Format: CLS
Permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Course Format: CLS
Offered
Spring
WFQS 369Masculinities: Global Perspectives1
(Same as ASIA 369 and SOCI 369 ) From a sociological perspective, gender is not only an individual identity, but also a social structure of inequality (or stratification) that shapes the workings of major institutions in society as well as personal experiences. This seminar examines meanings, rituals, and quotidian experiences of masculinities in various societies in order to illuminate their normative making and remaking as a binary and hierarchical category of gender and explore alternatives to this construction of gender. Drawing upon cross-cultural and comparative case studies, this course focuses on the following institutional sites critical to the politics of masculinities: marriage and the family, the military, business corporations, popular culture and sexuality, medicine and the body, and religion. Seungsook Moon.
Previous coursework in Sociology or permission of the instructor. One 2-hour period. Not offered in 2026/27.
WFQS 372New Materialism1
(Same as POLI 372 ) This seminar is a non-exhaustive survey of a recent and prolific current in theory called “new materialism” and “the nonhuman turn.” Consisting mostly of feminist theorists, new materialists argue for the need to build upon, radicalize, and sometimes even break from the previous post-structuralist focus on discourse (the so-called “linguistic turn”). They argue that it is time to re-emphasize materiality, bodies, biology, evolution, ecologies, the nonhuman, the more-than-human, even the specter of the posthuman. This attempt is partly inspired by the rise of digital and surveillance capitalism resulting in the omnipresence of technology in our daily lives and in the production of “cyborg” (Donna Haraway) subjectivities or “dividuals” (Gilles Deleuze). New materialism has also emerged in response to the “intrusion of Gaia” (Isabelle Stengers) or what some have called the “Anthropocene,” or the “ecological crisis” (arguably more aptly described as “eco-catastrophe”). Claire Sagan.
(Same as HIST 382 ) More than 200 years after her death, Marie-Antoinette continues to be an object of fascination because of her supposed excesses and her death at the guillotine. For her contemporaries, Marie-Antoinette often symbolized all that was wrong in French body politic. Through the life of Marie-Antoinette, we investigate the changing political and cultural landscape of eighteenth-century France including the French Revolution. Topics include women and power, political scandal and public opinion, fashion and self-representation, motherhood and domesticity, and revolution and gender iconography. Throughout the course, we explore the changing nature of the biographical narrative. The course also considers the legacy of Marie Antoinette as martyr and fetish object in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and her continuing relevance today. Sumita Choudhury. Sumita Choudhury. Not offered in 2026/27.
(Same as GRST 383 ) Sapphic. Lesbian. “Greek love.” Greco-Roman antiquity is foundational to so much of the language of queerness. In this course, we trace how people have constructed modern queer identities through and in relation to ideas about (what we might call) queerness in the ancient world. We examine both homoeroticism and gender variance in ancient Greece and Rome and its afterlives in queer art and discourse to the present day, pairing, for example, The Song of Achilles with Homer’s Iliad , Hedwig and the Angry Inch with Plato’s Symposium , Anne Lister’s diaries with the poems of Martial. We pay careful attention to the use of classical antiquity in circumscribing more-inclusive queer communities, as well as in gatekeeping and excluding those who, for example, had limited access to the study of Greek and Latin. We also explore how studying other cultures’ attitudes and assumptions about gender and sexuality can reframe or complicate our own; what it means to look to the past for queer origins, affinities, or ancestry; and how to make sense of the myriad ways that people have used “the classics” as a way of talking about and around queerness throughout history. Rachel Morrison.
For independent study: 2 units of work in Women’s Studies or from the list of Approved Courses. Permission of the director is required for all independent work. Course Format: OTH
