Contacts | Program of Study | Program Requirements | Summary of Requirements | Grading | Honors | Advising | Minor Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies | Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses - Theories | Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses - General

Department Website: http://gendersexuality.uchicago.edu

Program of Study

Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Chicago encompasses diverse disciplines, modes of inquiry, and objects of knowledge. Gender and Sexuality Studies allows undergraduates the opportunity to shape a disciplinary or interdisciplinary plan of study focused on gender and sexuality. Students can thus create a cluster of courses linked by their attention to gender or sexuality as an object of study or by their use of gender/sexuality categories to investigate topics in sexuality, social life, science, politics and culture, literature and the arts, or systems of thought.

Students in other fields of study may also complete a minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies. See Minor Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Program Requirements

The major is designed with flexibility in mind and is meant to provide students with the opportunity to design a course of study tailored to their particular concentrations. 

The major consists of 13 courses, from both Gender and Sexuality Studies as well as from supporting courses in a different discipline that provide training in the methodological, technical, or scholarly skills needed to pursue research in the student's primary field. An optional BA thesis carries with it two course enrollments that may replace two GNSE electives.

Required courses for all students include one Foundations course (GNSE 12000–14999), one Problems course (GNSE 20100–20399), and one Concepts course (GNSE 23101–23399). The Foundations courses are designed to provide an introduction to theories in the field of Gender and Sexuality Studies and are recommended as an entry point for the major. Concepts and Problems courses delve further into a specific subject area and are a way to build upon prior knowledge in the field. Additionally, students must take GNSE 20001 Theories of Sexuality and Gender (or an approved substitute). This course is recommended for third- and fourth-year students following enrollment in other GNSE courses. In addition, students take four additional GNSE courses, three supporting courses, and either two additional GNSE courses OR the BA Seminar (GNSE 29800) and BA research project or essay (GNSE 29900) for those completing a thesis. 

All Gender and Sexuality Studies majors are advised, but not required, to take GNSE 15002-15003 Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations I-II to fulfill their general education requirement in civilization studies. If the civilization requirement is fulfilled with another sequence, GNSE 15002-15003 can count as courses in the major.

BA Thesis Option

For those who are planning to write a BA thesis, a substantial essay or project is to be completed in the student's fourth year under the supervision of a BA adviser who is a member of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Affiliated Faculty or Affiliated Postdoctoral Fellows. Those who plan to write a thesis will attend two workshops during the Spring Quarter of their third year, at which point they will create a proposal for their project. (If students are studying abroad, they should meet with the BA preceptor individually in the quarter prior to departure.) Students are also required to attend a BA Seminar in Autumn and Winter Quarters of their fourth year. Enrollment in the corresponding course (GNSE 29800 B.A. Paper Seminar) can occur in Autumn or Winter, but attendance is required in both quarters. GNSE 29900 BA Essay, also a required enrollment, can be registered for in any quarter during the student’s fourth year. The grade for this credit-bearing independent study course will be the grade given to the BA thesis. Students must submit the completed thesis by fifth week of their quarter of graduation.

This program may accept a BA paper or project used to satisfy the same requirement in another major if certain conditions are met and with the consent of the other program chair. Approval from both program chairs is required. Students should consult with the chairs by the earliest BA proposal deadline (or by the end of their third year, when neither program publishes a deadline). The Petition to Use a Single Bachelor's Paper for Two Majors, to be signed by both chairs, is available from the College adviser. It must be completed and returned to the College adviser by the end of Autumn Quarter of the student's year of graduation.

Summary of Requirements

MAJOR
One Foundations course (GNSE 12000–14999)100
One Problems course (GNSE 20100–20399)100
One Concepts course (GNSE 23100–23399)100
GNSE 20001Theories of Sexuality and Gender100
Four additional GNSE courses400
Three supporting courses (can be coursework from another department unrelated to gender/sexuality or further GNSE coursework)300
Two additional GNSE courses OR GNSE 29800 B.A. Paper Seminar and GNSE 29900 BA Essay200
Total Units1300

Grading

Two of the supporting courses may be taken for P/F grading. All other courses must be taken for a quality grade.

Honors

Students with a 3.25 or higher overall GPA and a 3.5 or higher GPA in the major are eligible for honors if they complete a BA thesis that receives an A and is recommended for honors by their faculty adviser.

Advising

Students are encouraged to design their program of study with the assistance of the Assistant Director for Student Affairs and Curriculum and/or the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Regular check-ins are recommended to be sure all requirements are being met.

Minor Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies

Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Chicago encompasses diverse disciplines, modes of inquiry, and objects of knowledge. A minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies allows students in other major fields to shape a disciplinary or interdisciplinary plan of study that will provide a competence in gender and sexuality studies. Such a minor requires a total of six courses:

GNSE 20001Theories of Sexuality and Gender100
Five additional courses in Gender and Sexuality Studies500
Total Units600

Students who elect the minor program in Gender and Sexuality Studies must meet with the Assistant Director for Student Affairs and Curriculum before the end of Spring Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor and to consult on which courses will fulfill the requirements. It is recommended, but not required, that students who minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies take GNSE 15002-15003 Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations I-II to fulfill their general education requirement. If the civilization requirement is fulfilled with another sequence, GNSE 15002-15003 can count as courses in the minor. 

Courses in the minor (1) may not be double counted with the student's major(s) or with other minors and (2) may not be counted toward general education requirements. Courses in the minor must be taken for quality grades, and at least four of the requirements for the minor must be met by registering for courses bearing University of Chicago course numbers.

Nonmajors are encouraged to use the lists of faculty and course offerings as resources for the purpose of designing programs within disciplines, as an aid for the allocation of electives, or for the pursuit of a BA project. For further work in Gender and Sexuality Studies, students are encouraged to investigate other courses taught by resource faculty. For more information about Gender and Sexuality Studies, visit the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality website at gendersexuality.uchicago.edu or contact the Assistant Director for Student Affairs and Curriculum.

Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses - Theories

GNSE 20001. Theories of Sexuality and Gender. 100 Units.

This is a one-quarter, seminar-style course for undergraduates. Its aim is triple: to engage scenes and concepts central to the interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality; to provide familiarity with key theoretical anchors for that study; and to provide skills for deriving the theoretical bases of any kind of method. Students will produce descriptive, argumentative, and experimental engagements with theory and its scenes as the quarter progresses.

Instructor(s): Kristen Schilt     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Prior course experience in gender/sexuality studies (by way of the general education civilization studies courses or other course work) is strongly advised.
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20290, CHDV 20001

Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses - General

GNSE 12103. Treating Trans-: Practices of Medicine, Practices of Theory. 100 Units.

Medical disciplines from psychiatry to surgery have all attempted to identify and to treat gendered misalignment, while queer theory and feminisms have simultaneously tried to understand if and how trans- theories should be integrated into their respective intellectual projects. This course looks at the logics of the medical treatment of transgender (and trans- more broadly) in order to consider the mutual entanglement of clinical processes with theoretical ones. Over the quarter we will read ethnographic accounts and theoretical essays, listen to oral histories, discuss the intersections of race and ability with gender, and interrogate concepts like "material bodies" and "objective science". Primary course questions include: 1.

Instructor(s): Paula Martin     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course counts as a Foundations Course for GNSE majors
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 22100, HIPS 12103, HLTH 12103, HMRT 12103, ANTH 25212

GNSE 12114. Feminist Ethics. 100 Units.

Many injustices in the world are related to gender oppression and inequality. In this introductory course, we will examine the ways that feminist ethics aims to identify, assess, and correct gender biases that cause this harm. We will begin by situating feminist ethics within its historical context to understand how and why it developed. We will then consider different methods that feminists use to identify and critique oppressive social structures. With these tools in hand, we will assess several acute sources of gender oppression and inequality, including the global labor market, reproductive mores, and climate change. In doing so we will also consider proposals to remedy these harms. Throughout the course, we will ponder the intersection of gender with religion, race, class, and global location. We will be attentive to the role that Western feminism has had in shaping global views on oppression and inequality. We will also evaluate the influence of religion on feminist ethics. As we read, we will explore the normative commitments that are expressed in the texts, as well as the bases for these commitments and the sources of authority to which the authors appeal as they claim to advance gender justice. This course is an undergraduate course that assumes no prior knowledge in ethics, feminist studies, or religious studies. It will include some lectures but will be primarily seminar based.

Instructor(s): Kat Myers     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 23311, GLST 23311

GNSE 12116. The "Bad Moms" Renaissance. 100 Units.

From the murderous matriarch to the overbearing stepmother, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary representations of mothers reveal the anxieties, fantasies, and social ideals of reproduction, family, and gender in the period. This course argues that what makes a mom "bad" in these texts is bound up in the racial, gendered, and sexual imagination of early modern England. We will read a broad range of early modern texts from epic poetry to prose fiction, from midwifery manuals to the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. In doing so, we will confront past (and present) understandings of motherhood, care, femininity, and family structures. (Pre-1650, Drama)

Instructor(s): Sarah-Gray Lesley     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 10103

GNSE 12120. Gender, Sexuality and Sport. 100 Units.

This course will examine how the categories of gender and sexuality have shaped the contemporary life of sport. We will begin by unpacking the complexity of gender and sex as concepts in the study of sport while also considering the origins of gender-based segregation in sport. Major topics in this course include: Title IX protections; intersectionality and race; sexuality, homophobia, and sport; hyperandrogenism; trans inclusion; and cultural nationalism and sport. This is an interdisciplinary course that will draw on methods in philosophy, history, bioethics, and the study of gender and sexuality. Our texts will comprise of readings as well as visual media across multiple regions, including India, South Africa, and the United States. Students will broadly learn to critically think about sport in relation to concepts of gender, sexual orientation, and race along with the ideals of law, social justice, and inclusivity.

Instructor(s): Zoya Sameen     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 18502, SOCI 20581

GNSE 12121. Contemporary Feminist Politics: From the Sex Wars to Beyonce. 100 Units.

This course offers a survey of feminist politics and texts on feminist action from the 1980s to now. We look to texts and media from feminist scholars, activists, and scholar-activists in order to tackle questions of what feminism is and should be in theory and practice. This course will focus on key contentions and debates amongst feminists on questions of politics and culture, demonstrating that disagreement is characteristic and generative for feminist politics. With this in mind, we will cover topics such as the Sex Wars, the rise of Third Wave Feminism, #MeToo, and Beyonce in order to trace the contours of disagreement in our feminist present. Readings include works from bell hooks, Susan Faludi, Roxane Gay, Sara Ahmed, and Judith Butler. This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors.

Instructor(s): Rhiannon Love Auriemma     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 12121

GNSE 12123. Global Perspectives on Reproductive Justice Theory and Practice. 100 Units.

The US Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has sharpened our awareness of the perils that besiege our reproductive futures. This course offers a deep dive into comparative reproductive justice theory and practice rooted both in unique cultural particularities and in globally resonant issues and challenges. While exposing students to the foundational texts shaping the reproductive justice movement, the course shall engage critically with the possibilities and limitations of a rights based framework and the challenges and liberatory potential of a justice based approach to reproductive decision-making. Drawing from literature and media from across the world, the course shall provide global perspectives on issues as varied as contraception, assisted reproductive technology, mass sterilization, and family leave, along with scholarship and resources from the US. While engaging critically with theory, the course shall also provide practitioners' perspectives through guest lectures by ethnographers, lawyers, and healthcare professionals working in the field. This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors.

Instructor(s): Malavika Parthasarathy     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GLST 22123, HMRT 12123

GNSE 12124. Queering God. 100 Units.

Can God be an ally in queer worldmaking? Is God queer? What does queerness have to do with Judaism, Christianity, or Islam? This course introduces students to foundational concepts in queer and trans studies by focusing on queer Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theologies. We will analyze the ways that contemporary artists, activists, and scholars are using theology to reimagine gender and experiment with new relational forms. Our readings will include a variety of genres: memoir, letters, scriptural interpretation, and a novel. There will be no presumption of previous acquaintance with any of the readings or topics discussed, or indeed with any academic theology or queer theory at all.

Instructor(s): Olivia Bustion     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26105, CMLT 26105

GNSE 12125. Living Queer: Experiences, Encounter, Affinities. 100 Units.

In this interdisciplinary seminar, we will explore representations and expressions of queer and trans lives across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Assembling a diverse archive of artistic works and cultural artifacts (fiction, memoir, film, lyric poetry, anthology, activist ephemera) together with foundational works in the study of sexuality and gender, we will ask: How do hegemonic institutions, discourses, and definitions - from medical models of pathology to hostile bureaucratic infrastructure - shape the expressive forms available to queer and trans people? And how does the literary, artistic, and activist work of queer and trans people work in turn to reshape those very expressive possibilities? How can individual experiences of isolation and marginalization form the basis of a community or subculture? How are erotic creativity, imaginative life, and political action linked? Our readings will introduce a range of critical and creative methods - such as oral history, ethnography, autobiography, performance - that scholars and artists have used to theorize and represent queer life. Through short "micro-assignments," we will try out these methods for ourselves. By interweaving the creative work of queer and trans people and communities with practical experiments in research and making, we will aim to broaden our collective understanding of what it might mean to "live queer." (Previous experience in gender and sexuality studies is not required for this course.)

Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 12125

GNSE 12126. She'll never be human again!": Superheroes and Bodily Transformation. 100 Units.

This course looks at the mutated, rearranged, supplemented, and hyper-able bodies of superheroes and supervillains. Drawing on disabilities studies, critical race theory, gender studies, and trans and queer studies, we'll examine 20th- and 21st-century representations of super-anatomies and their place in American culture. Within superhero media-a genre full of spectacular bodily transformation, biological difference, and physical violence-where do ideologies around race, gender, sexuality, ability, and definitions of "human" get reproduced or destabilized? How can these biodivergent figures who stretch, incinerate, and bubble with muscle be resources for envisioning new possibilities for queer and racialized living, or for reading outside of traditional fantasies of white male power? What is the role of Western science and medicine, of accidents, experiments, and evolutions? Looking at film, graphic novels, and literary texts, we'll ask how materiality-what the body's made of-can (re)produce ideology. Finally, we'll consider these narratives in relation to how bodily transformation is policed today, from bans on gender-affirming care to non-consensual "mutations" caused by environmental racism. Students of all majors are welcome. (Fiction, 1830-1990, Theory)

Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 10117, RDIN 10117

GNSE 12154. Gendered Experiences of the City: London. 100 Units.

A 9-week course in which we will explore gendered experiences of London in the 20th Century. Each week we will explore the context - London - from a different angle. We will consider gender in literature, experimental film, art, nightlife, working life, parenthood, and fashion. We will meet people who tell us their stories of London as a gendered space and visit important sites of activity relevant to our area of study.

Instructor(s): Kim Coleman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Admission to the GNSE Civ Study Abroad Program.
Note(s): This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors.

GNSE 12159. Reading as a Writer: The Bad Girls Club. 100 Units.

Jezebels, witches, femme fatales, nasty women, sirens, madwomen, and murderesses: the world over, these women of many names-whom we'll collectively refer to as the Bad Girls Club-have alternately inspired the disdain and delight of multitudes. Whether jailed, expelled, excommunicated, or burned at the stake, their (anti)heroic antics have challenged, critiqued, or, some might say, corrupted the laws, mores, and sensibilities of societies. If it is true that polite, well-behaved women rarely make history, then what do impolite, badly-behaved women teach us about the construction of (his) story? In this course, we'll examine literature from around the world featuring members of the Bad Girls Club, who in opposing complimentary constructions of femininity, femaleness, and power invite introspection on the gendered nature of story and storytelling. In short critical papers, we'll analyze the tropes, features, and conventions of literature featuring these bad characters, and in short exercises, you'll write stories, poems, and essays inspired by them.

Instructor(s): Julie Iromuanya     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.
Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 12159

GNSE 12160. Beyond the Binary: Gender and Sexuality in Modern and Contemporary Art. 100 Units.

In recent years, cultural understandings of gender and sexuality have undergone seismic shifts around the world, accompanied by new theorizations that emphasize fluid, non-binary, and trans identities. Where did we come from and where are we going? This course proposes to explore issues of gender and sexuality as they have been taken up by artists and art historians from the mid-nineteenth century through the present day, with an emphasis on historiographic and global frameworks. The course will be organized thematically around key topics. We will begin with a week devoted to historiography that introduces foundational theorists such as Judith Butler, Laura Mulvey, and Griselda Pollock, followed by weeks on subjects such as craft and decoration, collecting and consumer practices, and exhibition strategies. Examples and readings will span different time periods and geographies. For instance, the week on craft and decoration will investigate gendered uses of African textiles in mid-nineteenth-century Brazil, feminine notions of the "decorative" in late nineteenth-century Europe, and queer textile artists in the late twentieth-century United States. Rather than considering these issues in a vacuum, we will investigate how gender and sexual identities intersect with other identities and will examine practices of making, consuming, and display, including some--such as interior decoration--that fall outside of a typical art historical framework.

Instructor(s): S. Strother     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 17414

GNSE 12161. Topics in EALC: Queer Literature and Politics in Contemporary East Asia. 100 Units.

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of queer literature from East Asia in English translation. This course will focus on such contemporary fiction, exploring how "queer" interfaces with issues of identity and subjecthood; desire, embodiment and reproduction; creativity and labor, and more. To this end, beyond issues of fictional representation, we will work to parse the relation between queer as an identity or subject position (queer people/characters) and queer as a set of interpretive strategies and ethical orientations to cultural texts (queer critique). In the first half of the quarter, we will examine some of this recent fiction alongside queer literary criticism and theory, and hold in-class workshops to conceptualize together the "queer" in queer literature and learn about the current situation of queer activism and cultural production in East Asia. In the second half of the quarter, we will read further East Asian literature through several thematic clusters - family, fandom, desire, etc. - while applying the interpretive approaches we learned in the first. The course may include readings by authors such as Wang Xiaobo, Park Sang Young, Murata Sayaka, Li Kotomi and Chi Ta-Wei among others. No prior knowledge is required; all readings will be in English.

Instructor(s): N. Ogonek     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 10722

GNSE 12162. Queer Singing, Queer Spaces. 100 Units.

Queer practice and identity have long been expressed through/as song. According to Ovid, it was the great singer Orpheus who first introduced same-sex relationships to the people of Thrace; in early modern Europe, men performing the role of Orpheus on the operatic stage were often eunuchs with non-normative bodies singing in a vocal range traditionally associated with the feminine. Beyond fabled musicians, though, carnal technologies of the voice have continually been implicated in historically and geographically situated paradigms of queerness. Likewise, many of the spaces in which queer peoples have found community or refuge have been associated with music or singing. What might it suggest that in the twentieth century, generations of queer communities formed around listening to and ventriloquizing the voices of Judy Garland, Maria Callas, and Madonna? How might exclusively queer spaces, like the hijra communities of the Indian subcontinent, effect the production of voice and performance of music for its inhabitants and outside observers? For which audiences are young trans* people on YouTube documenting their vocal progressions over the course of their transitions? Why have both European and Chinese operatic traditions abounded with cross-dressing for most of their histories? In this course we will investigate the broad relationship between practices of the voice and the body and consider why so many of our cultural understandings of queerness are accompanied by singing.

Equivalent Course(s): MUSI 22620

GNSE 13001. Introduction to Gender Studies. 100 Units.

This course invites students to take an empirical and theoretical approach to understanding gender. Drawing on scholarship from across the natural and social sciences, as well as the humanities, we begin the course by learning about the questions, methodologies, foundational concepts, research findings, and theoretical frameworks that comprise the field of gender studies. Next, we delve into the diverse ways that gender emerges and operates in our everyday lives, including our own embodiment. We then identify the historical and socioeconomic forces that animate, construct, regulate, and transform gender from one generation to the next. And we end by analyzing the relationship between gender and systems of power. All of our inquiries will consider the complex ways that gender operates at the intersection of sexuality, race, class, age, ethnicity, religion, ability and other emerging categories of difference. This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors.

Instructor(s): Red Tremmel     Terms Offered: Autumn

GNSE 13002. Introduction to Sexuality Studies. 100 Units.

Introduction to Sexuality Studies: This course introduces students to foundational concepts and emerging questions that animate the interdisciplinary field of sexuality studies. Using an intersectional and transnational lens, we will examine research, films and artistic practices to better understand the social, historical, and cultural dimensions of sex, sexuality, and the erotic. Zooming in and out, from the personal to the global and back again, students will gain a new understanding of how sexual fantasies, arousals, desires, and relations mutually constitute economic, political and ecological systems.

Instructor(s): Red Tremmel     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course counts as a Foundations course for GNSE majors.

GNSE 15002-15003. Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations I-II.

This two-quarter sequence aims to expand students’ exposure to an array of texts—theoretical, historical, religious, literary, visual—that address the fundamental place of gender and sexuality in the social, political, and cultural creations of different civilizations. This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

GNSE 15002. Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations I. 100 Units.

The first quarter of the GNSE Civ sequence offers a historical examination of bodies, sex, and gender. Through a series of readings that include historical primary sources and examples of cultural production from antiquity to the present, we will investigate how bodies across a variety of cultures become sexed and gendered. In particular, we will ask how the very categories of sex and gender not only produce social meaning from bodies and their anatomical differences but may also be complicit in acts violence, oppression, and colonization. Thematically we will pay attention to the emergence and critique of the distinction between sex and gender; resistances to the gender binary; the relationship between gender, power, and authority; feminism and critiques of Western feminism; the category of woman as an object of scientific knowledge; and the flourishing of and violence against trans life. Finally, while we will be dealing with historical accounts in this course, the aim is to understand how the regulation of bodies in the past has informed and may challenge our understanding of the diversity of embodied experience in the present.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies. This course is not available for First Year Preregistration.

GNSE 15003. Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations II. 100 Units.

The second half of the civ sequence will extend our earlier interrogation of bodies, sex, and gender into an examination of sexualities and socialities. Through an encounter with theoretical texts, literature, and art, we will investigate a series of important critiques of biopower, or statist strategies for regulating bodies and controlling populations. These interventions include critiques of nationalism, colonialism, capitalism, and heteronormativity, all of which, as we will see, contribute to our understanding of sexuality. Throughout the course, feminist and queer critique will fundamentally frame our analyses of power, desire, and sexuality.

Instructor(s): Staff     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): GNSE 15002
Note(s): This sequence meets the general education requirement in civilization studies.

GNSE 15004. Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations III: European Feminist Theory. 100 Units.

The third quarter of the civ sequence examines the development of second and third-wave feminist theory in Western Europe, focusing on debates about equality and difference.

Instructor(s): Linda Zerilli     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Admission to London GNSE Civ Study Abroad program.
Note(s): This course is part of the Study Abroad program in London.

GNSE 15005. Gender and Sexuality in World Civilizations III: South Asia. 100 Units.

This course will explore major themes in the history of women, gender, and sexuality in modern South Asia. We will address reform, legislation, nationalism, and rights discourses across periods of colonialism and independence in the nineteenth and twentieth century. This includes examining how colonial reforms and criminal codes impacted women with respect to education, marriage, abortion, infanticide, and prostitution, as well as how laws targeted gender expression and criminalized forms of queerness. In independent South Asia, we will consider the development of gender and queer rights discourses and how these have been shaped by the politics of patriarchy, religion, caste, and class. We will also examine instances of gendered and sexual violence during moments of rupture such as the Partition of India and the Bangladesh Liberation War. Students in this course will draw on a range of primary and secondary texts across written and visual mediums to critically think about the place of women and gender/sexual minorities and their expressions of resilience and defiance in modern South Asia.

Instructor(s): Zoya Sameen     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): GNSE 15002 and 15003
Note(s): This is an optional 3rd quarter of GNSE Civ. Students must have taken the first two quarters to be eligible to enroll in this course.
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 15005, HIST 11004

GNSE 15006. Gender and Sexuality in World Civ III: Queens in a Global Context. 100 Units.

What is a queen? How have the roles and perceptions of queens changed over time and space? Are there any common threads we can see in the study of queens from vastly different contexts? What can these questions tell us about female power and the construction of gender and sexuality in global societies? In this class, we will draw on the knowledge gained in the first two quarters of the Gender and Sexuality in World Civilization sequence to explore queens, queenship, and the long history of people's fascination with queens and royal women. While most of the academic work on queens have been in the European context, we will be expanding our exploration of queens and queenship into a global context by considering the experiences of queens and the construction of queenship in different cultures, places, and periods, such as ancient Egypt and Nubia, medieval China, early modern Madagascar, Aotearoa New Zealand, imperial Russia, and many more. We will be examining the biographies of individual queens, their patronage, their political agency, their reputation and representation, and their diplomatic activity within the lens of gender and sexuality. This class will include a mixture of primary source readings and object study, secondary source readings from the new field of global queenship studies, and visits to museum collections.

Instructor(s): Jordan Johansen     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): GNSE 15002 and 15003
Note(s): This is an optional 3rd quarter of GNSE Civ. Students must have taken the first two quarters to be eligible to enroll in this course.

GNSE 15007. Gender and Sexuality in World Civ III: Queer Medievalisms. 100 Units.

TBD

Instructor(s): Kris Trujillo     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Admission to Paris Gender & Sexuality study abroad program (Autumn 2024)

GNSE 16004. Jewish Civilization III - Mothers and Motherhood in Modern Jewish Culture. 100 Units.

Jewish Civilization is a three-quarter sequence that explores the development of Jewish culture and tradition from its ancient beginnings through its rabbinic and medieval transformations to its modern manifestations. Through investigation of primary texts-biblical, Talmudic, philosophical, mystical, historical, documentary, and literary-students will acquire a broad overview of Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness while reflecting in greater depth on major themes, ideas, and events in Jewish history. The Spring course in 2022 will focus on mothers and motherhood in modern Jewish culture. From sentimentalized keepers of Jewish tradition to objects of ridicule burdened by stereotypes of overbearing, guilt-inducing behavior, Jewish mothers hold a prominent role in Jewish self-representations. Writing alongside or against these stereotypes, Jewish mothers themselves have struggled with the obligations and expectations of Jewish motherhood. Engaging with a variety of literary, theological, historical, and pop culture texts, this class explores Jewish feminisms in relation to motherhood, Jewish fictions of motherhood, and the role of motherhood in Jewish religious life and thought. This course includes material from a variety of different contexts for modern Jewish life, but places particular emphasis on American Jewish history and culture.

Instructor(s): Jessica Kirzane     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Students who wish to take this course for Civilization Studies credit, must also take Jewish Civilization I and II. The course may also be taken as an independent elective.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 22013, YDDH 21724, JWSC 12004

GNSE 16404. Criminal, Police, and Citizen in Latin America. 100 Units.

Crime and policing are intensely debated today around the world, but perhaps nowhere are these debates felt more sharply than in Latin America, the site of both high rates of crime and violence and widespread distrust of the police and criminal justice institutions. This course delves into the history of these issues in the region. In the process, it sheds light on broader themes of Latin American history from the late colonial period to the present day. As the course shows through topics ranging from crimes against honor, to the policing of street vending, to the drug war, crime and policing in Latin America have been crucial spaces for the construction and contestation of social and legal hierarchies, the voicing of political protest and social critique, and the making and unmaking of citizenship. Through the use of diverse readings, including primary sources such as court records, satirical poems, and blockbuster films, students will trace how ideas of crime, and of the role of the state in attempting to define it and respond to it, changed over time with broader social, economic, and political developments. In doing so, they will examine how crime and policing have intersected with class, race, and gender, and how debates over crime and the practices of policing have shaped the boundaries of citizenship.

Instructor(s): K. Boyar     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 16404, RDIN 16404, LACS 16404

GNSE 17915. Women's Work. 100 Units.

As a haptic art, an art experienced through touch as well as the other senses, architecture operates at multiple scales: that of hand, building, city. The scale of the hand gives the most direct access to architecture and its furnishings: think of a handrail, a chair, a textile, a brick pattern, a wood detail. This is the realm of craft in architecture and was, for decades, the realm inhabited and ruled by women practitioners. Women designed furniture, made drawings, wove textiles, produced pottery and glasswork as a means of expression within the male world of architectural practice. As an introduction to the study of architecture, craft entails applying principles of proportion, scale, tactility, precision, materiality, and assembly; in this way, craft is a microcosm of architecture. Through a series of projects and readings centered around the craft arts and the women who advanced them, this studio course will introduce students to small-scale making and translate that process to larger scales. Students will undertake two investigations: the first a series of small craft objects and a set of orthographic drawings describing the making process, the second a spatial analysis and workspace for a craft practitioner.

Instructor(s): K. Mills     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): While this class does not require prior experience, all ARCH studio courses require consent. Starting July 31, please visit arthistory.uchicago.edu/archconsent to request instructor consent for this class or other ARCH studios. (Please do not send consent requests by email.)
Equivalent Course(s): ARCH 17915, ARTH 17915

GNSE 18120. Contemporary Fiction. 100 Units.

How do we approach literature that's being made at the same time we're studying it? In this course we read recent mainstream literary hits and cult darlings, while keeping an eye on how social structures affect how books get made, read, and acclaimed. We discuss how recent fiction reflects, dodges, or disputes legal structures, financial systems, race, gender, class, and social media. Course readings will focus on fiction in the American context; authors might include Percival Everett, Sally Rooney, Jackie Ess, Ottessa Moshfegh, Ling Ma, Jennifer Egan, Roberto Bolaño, and/or Helen DeWitt. We will also read theories of the culture industry from the Frankfurt School through the present, and recent popular literary criticism. Throughout, we develop strategies for keeping in touch with what's being written right now. Course writing will include the option to develop a magazine-style review essay. (Fiction, Theory)

Instructor(s): Lily Scherlis     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 10120

GNSE 18124. Poverty, Crime, and Character: 18th Century and Now. 100 Units.

From highwaymen and vagrants to thieves and murderers, this course will look at fictional representations of crime and criminology from the 18th century and the present. We will ask how changing concepts of character, literary and legal, shape a society's understanding of what criminality is and how it should be managed. Looking first at how the early British novel asks us to think about literary and personal character by way of crime and confession, we will then turn to the 20th- and 21st-century afterlives of these 18th-century crime narratives, attending to how configurations of moral constitution and personal identity-especially relating to class, gender, and race-become intertwined in more recent fiction and film. Syllabus may include fiction by Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, William Godwin, James Hogg, Richard Wright, Patricia Highsmith, Philip K. Dick, and Jordy Rosenberg; films by Steven Spielberg, Bong Joon-ho, Horace Ové, Hirokazu Koreeda, and Richard Linklater; and theoretical texts by David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, Patrick Colquhoun, and recent criminologists. (Fiction, 1650-1830)

Instructor(s): Jacob Biel     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 10124

GNSE 18128. Enigmas of the Novel: Fiction after 1900. 100 Units.

This course examines the centrality of opaque figures, happenings, and details to the workings of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century novel. To what degree are obscure elements in a work of fiction methodical in their appearance? Are enigmas necessarily code for something else? Where does the figure of the narrator live, exactly? Are characters more easily visualized, or less, when markers of race, class, and/or gender are invoked? Our first aim will be to identify the formal strategies and styles of opacity in modern and contemporary novels; our second will be to craft literary-critical arguments about the political and historical attitudes that seem to underlie these decisions. We'll examine the assumptions and paradoxes of novel form brought to the fore by its blurry parts, and consider how these parts offer frameworks for analyzing the wayward activities of perception, belonging, and power. Through discussion and writing assignments, students will hone their skills of close reading, argumentation with concepts, and critical practice. Prospective reading list includes Ford Madox Ford, Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rachel Cusk, and recent novels by Raven Leilani and Weike Wang. (Fiction, Theory)

Instructor(s): Rivky Mondal     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 10128

GNSE 19960. Comedy from the Margins. 100 Units.

This course examines the centrality of normativity to our conceptions of funniness, reading theories of comedy alongside stand-up, sitcoms, dramedy, and romantic comedy. We will ask: in what ways do comedic formulas establish ideas of the "normal" in order to subvert (or perhaps reinforce) them? How, does comedy about the "strange"-as the foreign, the queer, the excessive or the abject-reframe structures of sociality often taken for granted, forcing us to grapple with questions of citizenship and belonging, gendered and sexual norms, racialization and power? In addition to theories of comedy and joke theory, students will analyze theoretical works on race, gender and sexuality alongside popular television series, talk shows, and comedy specials. Possible texts and comics include: Chewing Gum, Fleabag, Insecure, Reservation Dogs, Ramy, Atlanta, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, Julio Torres, Hasan Minhaj, Ali Wong, Jacqueline Novak, Dave Chappelle, Hannah Gadsby, and Ronny Chieng. (Theory, 1830-1940)

Instructor(s): Shirl Yang     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 19960, ENGL 39960, CRES 19960

GNSE 20007. Africa in the Middle East and the Middle East in Africa. 100 Units.

From Mansa Musa's Hajj in 1324 to the contemporary Afrobeats scene in Dubai, African and Middle Eastern societies share long histories of interconnection. This course examines these interconnections from the early modern to the contemporary era through a series of case studies ranging from traditions of exchange on the Swahili Coast, to the Ottoman Scramble for Africa, to the creation of a long-standing Lebanese diaspora in West Africa and a more recent Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel. Students will examine debates that animate this field of scholarship including conversations about race; histories of slavery and its legacies; conceptions of indigeneity, nativism, and settler colonialism; religious encounters; gender and society; shared and divergent experiences of European colonialism and struggles for independence; and transnational collective-building projects such as Pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism. In addition to scholarship based on textual analysis, students will develop skills to investigate cultural sources such as music, photography, film, fashion, literature, and sports. No prior coursework in Middle Eastern or African studies is required. However, a background in African Civ, Islamic History and Society Civ, or Islamic Thought and Literature Civ is recommended.

Instructor(s): K. Hickerson     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Assignments: Short papers; long paper; in-class presentation
Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 20007, HIST 20007

GNSE 20112. From the Harem to Helem: Gender and Sexuality in the Modern Middle East. 100 Units.

This course will provide a historical and theoretical survey of issues pertaining to gender and sexuality in the modern Middle East. First, we will outline the colonial legacies of gender politics and gendered discourses in modern Middle Eastern history. We will discuss orientalist constructions of the harem and the veil (Allouche, Laila Ahmed, Lila Abu-Loghod), and their contested afterlives across the Middle East. We will also explore colonial (homo)sexuality, and attendant critiques (Najmabadi, Massad). We will pay especial attention to local discourses about gender and sexuality, and trouble facile assumptions of "writing back" while attending to the various specificities of local discourses of everyday life across various sites of the Middle East. Eschewing reductive traps for more nuanced explorations of the specifics of life in Beirut, Cairo, Istanbul, or Tehran - as well as to rural areas - we will show how gender and sexuality are constructed and practiced in these locales. In addition to foundational scholarly texts in the field, we will also engage with an array of cultural texts (films, novels, poetry, comics) and - where possible - have conversations with activists who are working in these sites via Skype/teleconferencing.

Instructor(s): Stephanie Kraver     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 30112, NEHC 30034, NEHC 20034

GNSE 20119. Language, Gender, and Sexuality. 100 Units.

This course focuses on the relationship, in theory and in practice, between language, gender, and sexuality. We begin with a brief overview of the field and some of its major theoretical developments. Then we expand on themes of desire and identity; binaries and normativities; embodiment; "interstices"; and performativity. The practical component of the course includes critical analysis of language used to construct gender and sexuality (e.g. in drag shows, communities you belong to personally, social media, and current events). We also consider binary language reform, abolition of linguistic gender systems, and emergence of identity categories as practices of everyday relationality that contest hegemonic systems. Readings are interdisciplinary and draw from fields including Linguistics, Anthropology, Performance Studies, Literary Studies, and Queer Studies.

Instructor(s): Tulio Bermúdez     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): LING 22450, ANTH 22450

GNSE 20121. Women and Work in Modern East Asia. 100 Units.

Worldwide, women do about 75 percent of the world's unpaid care and domestic work. They spend up to three hours more per day cooking and cleaning than men do, and anywhere from two to ten hours more per day looking after children and the elderly. Women's underpaid work at home and in industry subsidized the early stages of industrialization in nineteenth-century Britain, early twentieth-century Japan, and contemporary China, and women's unpaid contributions to their households enable employers worldwide to keep wages low. We know, at least in outline, how women came to carry double burdens in Europe and North America, but little research has been done so far about this process in East Asia. In this course, we will discuss when and how China, Japan, and Korea developed a division of labor in which most wage work was gendered male and reproductive work was marked female. Are current divisions of labor between men and women rooted in local cultures, or are they the result of industrial capitalist development? How do divisions of labor differ between the three East Asian countries, and how did developments in one East Asian country affect others?

Instructor(s): Jacob Eyferth     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 34518, EALC 34501, EALC 24501, GNSE 30121, HIST 24518

GNSE 20124. Fictions of Patriarchy in German Literature and Thought. 100 Units.

In his 1861 study Mother Right, J. J. Bachofen argues that patriarchy is, at is most basic level, fictive. While the mother's connection to the child is materially perceptible-she gestates, births, and nurses her offspring-the father is a "remoter potency" whose relationship to his progeny, because it is always mediated through the mother, can never be known for sure. Paternity, Bachofen suggests, is a juridical invention rather than a naturally evident fact. Taking its cue from Bachofen, this course will investigate the relationship between notions of patriarchy and fictionality in German literature and thought. We will consider how philosophical texts use the figure of the father to ground their speculative claims, how literary narratives adapt changing ideas about the family and the state, and how concepts of patriarchy have structured thinking about fiction's function and effects. Readings from: Herder, Schiller, Fichte, Kleist, Bachofen, Hauptmann, Freud, Werfel, Heiner Müller, and Jelinek, among others.

Instructor(s): Sophie Salvo     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 30124, GRMN 23823, GRMN 33823

GNSE 20125. Global Feminist and Queer Aesthetics. 100 Units.

This course examines ways of seeing, or representation, in the making of gender and sexuality across time and place. We will study feminist and queer literature and arts, and theories of representation across disciplines, on questions from migration and borders to care. For example, how do practices of mapmaking, or narratives of crossing, help us understand intimacy or estrangement? And how might visualizing care move us toward repair or a new world? In taking this lens, we will also consider how gender and sexuality are co-constituted with race, the nation-state, and labor. Through a workshop model, we will build on these foundational and new approaches to representing gender and sexuality together. Participants are encouraged to bring in supplementary texts to build out our archive of transnational gender and sexuality. Our class will culminate in a glossary, made up of short essays by participants on aesthetics, interpretative approaches, and imaginaries. (Fiction, Theory)

Instructor(s): Kaneesha Parsard     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 25262

GNSE 20126. Shrews! Unladylike Conduct on Stage and Page in Early Modern England. 100 Units.

This course will move between three sites of inquiry to investigate the social and material history of an evergreen trope: the domestication of a refractory servant or wife. From rare book libraries and museum collections, we will track the common features of popular entertainments that traffic in this scenario. We will then bring our findings to bear in a theatre lab environment, where we will assay scenes from The Taming of the Shrew, The Tamer Tamed, and the City Madam. (Drama, Pre-1650)

Instructor(s): Ellen MacKay     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 20360, TAPS 20360

GNSE 20127. Black Women Work: The labor of Black women in communities, families, and institutions. 100 Units.

This multidisciplinary course will explore the labor of Black women in three distinct arenas-communities, families, and institutions. Students will explore these areas through engaging with historical and contemporary narratives, research, and popular media, heavily drawing in a U.S. context, but not exclusively. Through an engagement of Black women in the U.S. labor force, this course will explore three questions. How has the labor of Black women contributed to the sustainability of communities, families, and institutions? What are the choices Black women make to engage and sustain their work? What is the future of the labor of Black women? Is the future one that is liberatory or not? Students will leave this course with an understanding of the ways intersectional experiences of oppression contribute to complex conditions and decision-making, that shape the labor of Black women, the function of certain labor decisions as sites of resistance, as well as the generative resources that support the professional success and well-being of Black women.

Terms Offered: TBD
Equivalent Course(s): SSAD 29600, CRES 29600, SSAD 69600

GNSE 20128. Creating a Different Image: Black Women's Filmmaking of the 1970s-90s. 100 Units.

This course will explore the rich intersections between African American women's filmmaking, literary production, and feminist thought from the 1970s to the early 1990s, with an emphasis on the formation of a Black women's film culture beginning in the 1970s. We will examine the range of Black feminisms presented through film and the ways that these films have challenged, countered, and reimagined dominant narratives about race, class, gender, and sexuality in America. We will explore the power and limitations of filmmaking as a mode of Black feminist activism; the range of Black feminisms presented through film; and the specific filmic engagements of well-known Black feminist critics such as bell hooks, Toni Cade Bambara, and Michele Wallace. As many Black feminist writers were engaged with filmmaking and film culture, we will look at these films alongside Black women's creative and critical writing from the period. Approaching filmmaking in the context of Black feminist thought will allow us to examine the possibilities of interdisciplinary approaches to film studies broadly, as well as to think specifically about the research methods and theories that are demanded by Black women's filmmaking in particular.

Instructor(s): Allyson Field     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): This course is open to graduate and undergraduate students from across the disciplines; our conversations and presentations of the films will both depend on and be energized by different disciplinary perspectives.
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24. Please email Professor Field at anfield@uchicago.edu before enrolling. Course Description Continued: We will discuss the form, aesthetics, and politics of individual films and we will examine larger efforts by artists and activists to build a Black women’s film culture, asking such questions as: What does a film history of Black feminism look like, and what scholarly and creative methods does such a history demand? To begin to answer these questions, we will revisit the 1976 Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts—believed to be the first ever Black women’s film festival—organized by Michele Wallace, Faith Ringgold, Patricia Jones, Margo Jefferson, and Monica Freeman. The class will collectively participate in a homage series inspired by the 1976 festival, featuring work by filmmakers from the original festival such as Monica Freeman, Madeline Anderson, Michelle Parkerson, Ayoka Chenzira, Carol Munday Lawrence, Edie Lynch, and Camille Billops; as well as others including Julie Dash, Zeinabu irene Davis, Maya Angelou, and Yvonne Welbon. The weekly course screenings will be open to the public and students will gain experience in the public presentation of films by actively engaging in public-facing aspects of film exhibition (writing program notes, delivering introductions, participating in discussions, etc.). The class will culminate with a two-day symposium that will bring together around 35 Black feminist filmmakers and artists, including a number from the 1976 festival, to revisit the threads and legacies of the original event and discuss the present and future of Black women’s film practices.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27415, CMST 31025, CRES 21025, HMRT 21025, CMST 21025, GNSE 30128, HIST 37415, KNOW 31025, HMRT 31025

GNSE 20129. Writing Gender. 100 Units.

In German, even if you are not writing about gender, you are always writing gender: the grammatical categories "masculine," "feminine," and "neuter" are implicated in every noun declension and personal pronoun. How have writers negotiated this in their constructions of gender identity? In this course, we will examine how gender has been thought within and beyond the masculine/feminine binary in German intellectual history. We will study historical conceptions of grammatical gender as well as recent attempts to make German more inclusive for genderfluid and trans people (e.g., neopronouns). Finally, we will consider how authors use literature as a space for gender exploration, such as in Kim de L'Horizon's recent award-winning novel Blutbuch. Readings and discussions in English.

Instructor(s): Sophie Salvo     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GRMN 25524, GNSE 30129, GRMN 35524

GNSE 20130. Queer Theory. 100 Units.

This course offers a foundation in queer theory. In order to understand the contested definitions of the term "queer" and explore the contours of the field's major debates, we will work to historicize queer theory's emergence in the 1980s and 1990s amidst the AIDS crisis. Reading texts by key figures like Foucault, Sedgwick, Butler, Lorde, Bersani, Crimp, Warner, Halperin, Dinshaw, Edelman, Anzaldúa, Ferguson, and Muñoz in addition to prominent issues of journals like GLQ, differences, and Signs, we will approach these pieces as historical artifacts and place these theorists within the communities of intellectuals, activists, and artists out of which their work emerged. We will, thus, imagine queer theory as a literary practice of mournful and militant devotion, trace queer theory's relationship to feminism and critical race theory, critique the hagiographic tendency of the academic star system, and interrogate the assumptions of queer theory's secularity.

Instructor(s): Kris Trujillo     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 26855, GNSE 36855, RLST 26885, RLVC 36855, CMLT 36855, ENGL 36855, ENGL 26855

GNSE 20131. Gendering Slavery. 100 Units.

This reading seminar will introduce students to the key questions, methods, and theories of the burgeoning field of gendered histories of slavery. Global in scope, but with a focus on the early modern Atlantic world, we will explore a range of primary and secondary texts from various slave societies. Assigned monographs will cover a multitude of topics including women and law, sexualities, kinship, and reproduction, and the intersection of race, labor, and market economies. In addition to examining historical narratives, students will discuss the ethical and methodological implications of reading and writing histories of violence, erasure, and domination. Learning to work within and against the limits imposed by hegemonic forms of representation, the fragmentary nature of the archive, and the afterlives of slavery, this course will examine how masculinity and femininity remade and were remade by bondage.

Instructor(s): M. Hicks     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 39105, LACS 29106, CRES 29105, LACS 39106, HIST 29105

GNSE 20132. Gender, Race, and Horror. 100 Units.

This course will contend with the ways that horror as a film genre constructs and deconstructs notions of gender and race in society. We will attend to texts across decades and subgenres that will illustrate how gender and race are made and regulated through notions of confusion, fear, and repulsion. By attending to these universal human feelings, students will learn how emotions are evoked through the construction of the text, its portrayal of the disruption of gender norms and its construction of racial boundaries. Students will learn the necessary vocabulary and methodologies to be able to critically analyze (audio)visual texts. In order to do this, students will be guided through how to construct argumentative critical papers through proper utilization of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. By the end of the course, students will be well versed in cinematographic terms such that they will be able to critically analyze texts to understand the impact of perspective, interpretation, and judgment. This course is meant to help students navigate and make sense of an increasingly scary world by learning to appreciate fear as a necessary human expression. Finally, and most importantly, students will be able to engage with the age-old notion of terror to be able lead a more ethical and intellectually richer life.

Instructor(s): AE Stevenson     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 35507, CMST 25507

GNSE 20133. Trans Genres. 100 Units.

This course explores genres of writing and cultural production concerned with transgender life and politics. Students will engage genre's relationship to gender, as they will read across memoir, fiction, poetry, and criticism. (Theory).

Instructor(s): C. Riley Snorton     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 22408, RDIN 20408

GNSE 20134. Special Topics in Criticism and Theory: Gender and Sexuality. 100 Units.

An introduction to classic texts in feminist and queer literary criticism. (Theory, 1840-1990)

Instructor(s): Sianne Ngai     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 22212, CCCT 22212

GNSE 20135. Divas, Idols, Material Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Music Videos. 100 Units.

The stark black and white of Madonna's "Vogue" and the pinks and sparkles of "Material Girl." The explosive surprise releases of Beyoncé's BEYONCÉ and Lemonade visual albums. The lavish cinematic spectacle of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood" and the fanbait intertextuality of SM Entertainment's Aespa. Since MTV's advent in 1981, hit music videos have made a number of pop songs inextricable from iconic imagery and choreography; ubiquitous digital devices and the rise of platforms like YouTube and TikTok have only increased pop music's audiovisuality. Looking at and listening to female pop icons raises fraught questions of agency, representation, race, sexuality/sexualization, bodies, commodification, and capital. In this course, students will gain a vocabulary for talking about both the audio and visual parameters of music video, and they will use this vocabulary to engage with critical frameworks for examining meaning, circulation, and reception in contemporary music videos. Assignments across the course will allow students to experiment with a range of writing and media genres, including critical close readings, micro-reception histories, thinkpieces, podcast episodes, and video essays.

Instructor(s): Paula Harper     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): MAAD 14723, MUSI 27423

GNSE 20136. Generations, Gender, and Genre in Korean Fiction & TV Drama. 100 Units.

The seminar analyzes the issues of generations, gender, and genres that arise from a selection of popular literary and television dramas from modern and contemporary Korea. The selection for the course is marked by the creative contributions of Korean women as novelists, scriptwriters, directors, among others. It includes prose fiction by renowned authors such as Park Wan-sŏ (1931-2011), Han Kang (1970- ), and Cho Nam-joo (1978- ), as well as television series like Mr. Sunshine (2018; scripted by Kim Eun-sook), The Red Sleeve (2021; dir. by Chŏng Chi-in; adapted the 2017 novel by from Kang Mi-kang), and My Liberation Notes (2022; written by Park Hae-yeong). Through a blend of close textual analysis and historical contextualization, the course aims to uncover the ways in which the gendered and generational identities of these creators might have helped certain configurations of concerns, needs, and aspirations saliently emerge in response to social, cultural, historical, and political currents of their time. [Consent Required; No prior knowledge of the Korean language is necessary]

Instructor(s): K. Choi     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 30136, EALC 23044, MAAD 13044

GNSE 20137. Horror, Abjection, and the Monstrous Feminine. 100 Units.

This course explores cinematic and literary works of horror (the uncanny, gothic, sci-fi, paranormal, psychological thriller, killer/slasher, gore) from around the world. As a mode of speculative fiction, the genre envisions possible or imagined worlds that amplify curiosities, dreads, fears, terrors, phobias, and paranoias which simultaneously repel and attract. Horror frequently explores the boundaries of what it means to be human by dwelling on imaginaries of the non-human and other. It often exploits the markers of difference that preoccupy our psychic, libidinal, and social lifeworlds-such as race, class, gender, and sexuality, but also the fundamental otherness that is other peoples' minds and bodies. Interrogating the genre's tension between desire and fear, our course will focus on the centrality of abjection and the monstrous feminine-as both thematic and aesthetic tropes-to works of horror. Films and fiction will be paired with theoretical readings that contextualize the genre of horror while considering its critical implications in relation to biopolitical and geopolitical forms of power. Content Warning: Course materials will feature graphic, violent, and oftentimes disturbing images and subjects. Enrolled students will be expected to watch, read, and discuss all course materials.

Instructor(s): Hoda El Shakry     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): No prerequisites for undergraduate students Online consent required for graduate students
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 38871, CMLT 28871, GNSE 30137, ENGL 28871, CMLT 38871, MAAD 10871

GNSE 20138. Gender Before Gender: Constructing Bodies in Ancient American Art. 100 Units.

In this course, we will seek to test the possibilities and limits of understanding gender and sex in premodernity through an inquiry into the artistic traditions of the ancient Americas. Works of art constitute a primary means by which we can access ideas about what we call gender and sex. Based on what we can reconstruct from visual, textual, and archaeological sources, these cultures conceptualized and represented gender in ways that might seem unfamiliar, in the process putting into question our own preconceptions. Indeed, pre-modern works of art might not have served to simply record conventions of gender but also helped construct the very idea of a sexed body within a given cultural context. As we discover commonalities and divergences between these Indigenous American traditions, we will learn to think across cultural contexts and disciplinary divides, putting into question some of our own assumptions. We will see that gender is not an immutable construct but something actively brought into being in different ways in different times and places.

Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 30138, LACS 35731, ARTH 25731, ARTH 35731, LACS 25731

GNSE 20555. The Sociology of Work. 100 Units.

From the Great Depression to the Great Resignation, paid work has played a central role in American life. The average American spends 1/3 of their life at work - making it an area of the social world heavily examined by politicians, journalists, and social scientists. In this course, we will look at the structural and interpersonal dynamics of work to consider the questions of what makes a "good job" in America and who gets to decide? Our topics will include low-wage work, the stigma of "dirty jobs," gender and racial inequality at work, physical and emotional labor on the job, side hustles and the gig economy, and life after retirement. Students will be required to write a 15 page research paper that draws on interview data they will collect over the quarter. No prior background in doing interviews is required!

Instructor(s): K. Schilt     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20555, PBPL 20555, CHDV 24711

GNSE 20580. Health and Society. 100 Units.

A long and healthy life is a widely sought after human goal. But not everyone has equal chances of achieving this goal. This course focuses on the role played by society in differential access to physical, psychological, cognitive health and well-being. We will discuss the role of parental characteristics and childhood circumstances in later-life health, differences in health and well-being for men and women, for racial and ethnic groups, by sexual minority status, by characteristics of our neighborhoods and communities, and by regions or countries. We will examine the role of social policies. The format will be lectures and a series of short exercises.

Instructor(s): L. Waite     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HLTH 20580, SOCI 20580

GNSE 20620. Literature, Medicine, and Embodiment. 100 Units.

This class explores the connections between imaginative writing and embodiment, especially as bodies have been understood, cared for, and experienced in the framework of medicine. We'll read texts that address sickness, healing, diagnosis, disability, and expertise. The class also introduces a number of related theoretical approaches, including the medical humanities, disability studies, narrative medicine, the history of the body, and the history of science. (Theory)

Instructor(s): Leland Jasperse     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HLTH 26020, ENGL 10620

GNSE 20700. Topics in EALC: Poets/Teachers/Fighters: Writing Women in China and Beyond. 100 Units.

This course offers a survey of women's writing in late Imperial and modern China, exploring the ways in which women (and men) reimagined the collectivity of women and the concept of "women's literature" in order to stake out a position in the cultural sphere. How did Chinese women use literature to redefine what it meant to be a woman, and what was their role (both of women and of literature) in the major social and political upheavals and in the revolutionary movements of their day? Readings include essays, poetry, diaries and fiction by women writers from the 12th to the 21th century in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. All assigned readings are in English translation, but students who read Chinese are encouraged to read the original texts.

Instructor(s): P. Iovene     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 10701

GNSE 21001. Cultural Psychology. 100 Units.

There is a substantial portion of the psychological nature of human beings that is neither homogeneous nor fixed across time and space. At the heart of the discipline of cultural psychology is the tenet of psychological pluralism, which states that the study of "normal" psychology is the study of multiple psychologies and not just the study of a single or uniform fundamental psychology for all peoples of the world. Research findings in cultural psychology thus raise provocative questions about the integrity and value of alternative forms of subjectivity across cultural groups. In this course we analyze the concept of "culture" and examine ethnic and cross-cultural variations in mental functioning with special attention to the cultural psychology of emotions, self, moral judgment, categorization, and reasoning.

Instructor(s): R. Shweder     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates must be in third or fourth year.
Note(s): CHDV Distribution: B, C
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 31000, ANTH 35110, PSYC 23000, CRES 21100, PSYC 33000, CHDV 31000, CHDV 21000, ANTH 24320, AMER 33000, KNOW 31000

GNSE 21111. History of Death. 100 Units.

From the treatment of mortal remains to the built environment of cemeteries, tombs, and memorials, the dead have always played a role in the lives of the living. This course examines how beliefs and practices surrounding death have been a source of meaning making for individuals, institutions, religious communities, and modern nations. It will ask students to consider how examining death makes it possible to better understand the values and concerns of societies across time and space. This course will consider case studies from Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and Asia, from the Middle Ages to the Vietnam War. It introduces students to the methods and debates that animate the historical study of death-coming from histories of the body, social history, and the study of slavery-and ends by asking the question: "Is it possible to have a global history of death?"

Instructor(s): K. Hickerson
Note(s): Assignments: short papers, in-class presentation, alternative projects.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 20111, HIST 20111, RLST 20111, HLTH 20111

GNSE 21303. Gender, Capital, and Desire: Jane Austen and Critical Interpretation. 100 Units.

Today, Jane Austen is one of the most famous (perhaps the most famous), most widely read, and most beloved of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British novelists. In the 200 years since her authorial career, her novels have spawned countless imitations, homages, parodies, films, and miniseries - not to mention a thriving "Janeite" fan culture. For just as long, her novels have been the objects of sustained attention by literary critics, theorists, and historians. For example, feminist scholars have long been fascinated by Austen for her treatments of feminine agency, sociality, and desire. Marxists read her novels for the light they shed on an emergent bourgeoisie on the eve of industrialization. And students of the "rise of the novel" in English are often drawn to Austen as an innovator of new styles of narration and a visionary as to the potentials of the form. This course will offer an in-depth examination of Austen, her literary corpus, and her cultural reception as well as a graduate-level introduction to several important schools of critical and theoretical methodology. We will read all six of Austen's completed novels in addition to criticism spanning feminism, historicism, Marxism, queer studies, postcolonialism, and psychoanalysis. Readings may include pieces by Sara Ahmed, Frances Ferguson, William Galperin, Deidre Lynch, D.A. Miller, Edward Said, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Raymond Williams. (18th/19th, 20th/21st)

Instructor(s): Tristan Schweiger     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Open to 3rd and 4th years with consent of the instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 21360, GNSE 41303, ENGL 41360, MAPH 40130

GNSE 21304. Medieval Romance. 100 Units.

Medieval romance is one of the main ancestors of fantasy and science fiction. This course examines the speculative work of fantasy in medieval romance's explorations of aesthetics, desire, and politics. (Pre-1650; Med/Ren)

Instructor(s): Mark Miller     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 41304, ENGL 20304, ENGL 40304

GNSE 21370. Ships, Tyrants, and Mutineers. 100 Units.

Since the Renaissance beginnings of the "age of sail," the ship has been one of literature's most contested, exciting, fraught, and ominous concepts. Ships are, on the one hand, globe-traversing spaces of alterity and possibility that offer freedom from the repression of land-based systems of power. And they are Michel Foucault's example of the heterotopia par excellence. From Lord Byron to Herman Melville to Anita Loos, the ship has been conceived as a site of queerness and one that puts great pressure on normative constructions of gender. At the same time, the ship has been a primary mechanism for the brutality of empire and hegemony of capital, the conduit by which vast wealth has been expropriated from the colony, military domination projected around the world, and millions of people kidnapped and enslaved. Indeed, the horror of the "Middle Passage" of the Atlantic slave trade has been a major focus of inquiry for theorists like Paul Gilroy and Hortense Spillers, interrogating how concepts of racial identity and structures of racism emerge out of oceanic violence. In the 20th and 21st centuries, science-fiction writers have sent ships deep into outer space, reimagining human social relations and even humans-as-species navigating the stars. While focusing on the Enlightenment and 19th century, we will examine literary and filmic texts through the present that have centered on the ship, as well as theoretical texts that will help us to deepen our inquiries. (18th/19th)

Instructor(s): Tristan Schweiger     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Open to open to 3rd and 4th years.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 41370, ENGL 41370, MAPH 41370, ENGL 21370

GNSE 21400. Advanced Theories of Gender and Sexuality. 100 Units.

Beginning with the fraught legacy of the New Left and the proliferation of "new social movements" such as feminism and gay liberation, this seminar explores the key debates around which gender and sexuality were articulated as tenacious but open structures of power subject to political critique and social transformation. The relatively stable yet dynamic character of what Gayle Rubin in 1975 famously called "the sex/gender system" raises basic questions of structure and event: (1) how are systemic relations of domination and rule historically constituted and sustained over time?; and (2) how can that which is regularly reproduced be not only momentarily interrupted, but fundamentally altered through both quotidian and extraordinary forms of action and worlding? The unexpected character of the new social movements called for a radical rethinking of structures and their transformation. Haunted by unpredictable forms of resistance, heteropatriarchal structures challenged theorists and activists to forge new frameworks of critique that refigured basic concepts of power, subjectivity, and agency. These frameworks are examined with an eye to how racialized sexuality and gender are created and contested in the context of modern biopolitical capitalism and its constitution of naturalized conceptions of rule.

Instructor(s): Linda Zerilli and Helen Galvin Ross     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Undergraduates by Consent Only
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 31400, CCCT 21400, PLSC 21410, CCCT 31400, PLSC 31410

GNSE 21404. More than Human Ethnography. 100 Units.

In this course we explore the growing fields of more-than-human and 'multispecies' ethnography. We will examine theoretical antecedents promoting the inclusion of non-human social actors in ethnographic analysis and read many examples of such work, including foundational texts on interspecies engagements, exploitations, and dependencies by Deborah Bird Rose, Kim Tallbear, Eduardo Kohn, Anna Tsing, and Augustin Fuéntes among many others. We will consider the role other species and 'actants' played in early social science work and contemplate recent studies of "becoming with" other animals, plants, fungi, bacteria-encountering complex ecological kin relationships, examining naturalcultural borders, and querying decolonial legacies and the role of ecofeminist thought and queer ecologies in the 'more-than' turn. Multispecies and posthumanist approaches encourage a decentering of traditional methodologies; we will thus couple ethnographic examples with literature by geographers, biologists, and philosophers. The course is a discussion-based seminar, with significant time devoted to understanding the logistical or methodological aspects of 'more than' work-to querying how such studies have been conducted in practice. The final paper in the course will take the form of an exploratory essay (ethnographic, historical, or theoretical) based on data and observations collected during previous weeks.

Instructor(s): Wilhoit, Mary     Terms Offered: Spring Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 31404, ANTH 21426, KNOW 32404, MAPS 31404, CEGU 21426, ANTH 33807

GNSE 21650. Kafka's The Trial. 100 Units.

This very close reading of Kafka's arguably most well known unfinished novel means to move away from megalithic glosses of Kafka as a writer of allegory-of bureaucratic oppression, social alienation, and a world abandoned by God, etc.-instead to look deeply at Kafka's precision, and strategic imprecision, of language, language as trauma, wound, and axe. Knowledge of German is not necessary.

Instructor(s): M. Sternstein     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): open only to Fundamentals majors. all other majors need consent of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): REES 22009, FNDL 21650

GNSE 21720. Science fiction against the state. 100 Units.

Ursula Le Guin's anarchist utopia, The Dispossessed was published 50 years ago, but its complex imagining of a whole way of life without law, police, money or sovereignty, and its investment in thinking that way of living in relation to environment, gender, freedom and work offers a science fictional horizon for what it might be to live communally in our own moment. This course will read The Dispossessed and other science fiction that imagines what it might mean to live against, beyond or without the state, alongside theorizations that may help us formulate our own visions of other possible worlds. We will pay particular attention to questions of environment and ecological relations, race, gender and social reproduction, and feminist utopias. We'll also spend some time thinking about actually existing forms of living against the state (including blockades, encampments, autonomous zones). SF authors may include Le Guin, Samuel Delany, Kim Stanley Robinson, Tade Thompson, Sally Gearhart, Iain Banks, and ME O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. Other authors read may include Saidiya Hartman, Monique Wittig, Fredy Perlman, James Scott, Pierre Clastres, and David Graeber.

Instructor(s): Hilary Strang     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): MAPH 41720, ENGL 21720, GNSE 41720, ENGL 41720

GNSE 22035. The Acts of Paul and Thecla and the Pastoral Epistles. 100 Units.

In the early second century there were bitter battles over the legacy of Paul and his preserved letters in terms of gender, sexuality, family life, asceticism, church administration, and theological vision. We can see these well by reading the narrative text The Acts of Paul and Thecla alongside the "Pastoral Epistles" (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus), the former championing a female, cross-dressing ascetic Christ-missionary and the latter, in pseudepigraphical epistolary texts written in the dead Paul's name, insisting on patriarchal family life and women's adherence to traditional roles. In this course we shall read both sets of texts carefully in Greek, noting points of similarity and contestation, and test various models of how these sources-each of which seeks to "fix" the Pauline legacy in its own way-are related to one another. Time allowing, we shall also look at the later reception of the cult of Saint Thecla and late antique interpretations of "the apostle," Paul, on these issues of sexuality and gender roles, and their perduring influence in contemporary debates.

Instructor(s): Margaret Mitchell     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): At least one year of Greek, or equivalent.
Note(s): This course meets the HS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 22035, GREK 27423, GNSE 42035, GREK 37423, RLST 22035, HCHR 42035, BIBL 42035

GNSE 22151. Pacific Worlds: Race, Gender, Health, and the Environment. 100 Units.

This discussion-based course will introduce students to both classical and recent scholarship in Pacific World historiography. By adopting micro-historical, comparative, and transnational methods, students will examine the formation of three overlapping "worlds": The Antipodes, Polynesia, and the northeastern Pacific. Analyzing the myriad intersections of race, gender, health, and the environment, we will explore a range of large-scale historical processes that shaped and reshaped the Pacific between the mid-eighteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. These processes include European exploration, settler colonialism, and indigenous sovereignty; sex, depopulation, and race science; labor, migration, and urbanization; industrialization and environmental exploitation; and imperial expansion and citizenship. The course is intended for students with an interest in the Pacific Islands, Australasia, and the North American West, as well as those interested in race, gender, health, or the environment within indigenous, immigrant, or settler colonial contexts. Required readings - which will consist of book chapters and academic articles - will be used to contextualize and critically analyze a variety of primary sources during each class session.

Instructor(s): Christopher Kindell     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course counts towards the ENST 4th year Capstone requirement. Restricted to 3rd and 4th year students.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 20151, HIST 25030, HIPS 20151, ENST 20151, HLTH 20151, GLST 25151

GNSE 22156. Staging Identity in the Eighteenth Century. 100 Units.

This course will consider connections between theatre, performance, and identity in the eighteenth century, a time when selfhood is everywhere depicted as both metaphorically and literally theatrical. We will ask: How does actual theatrical practice shape the way that identity was understood in this period?  What components of identity, particularly in terms of race, class, gender, and sexuality, are privileged or destabilized by the eighteenth-century stage? Course reading will focus primarily on Restoration and eighteenth-century British drama, but may also include short works of eighteenth-century fiction and philosophy, as well as selected secondary readings in theatre history, performance studies, and gender and sexuality studies. The final syllabus will be shaped by what's on in London in the fall; we will hopefully be able to attend a performance or two, and consider how recent playwrights look back to the eighteenth century in their own work.  (1650-1830, Drama)

Instructor(s): Heather Keenleyside     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Admission to the London Program (study abroad) is required.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 20156

GNSE 22182. Early Modern Loss and Longing. 100 Units.

This course examines depictions of early modern desire and loss in genres including the essay, lyric, drama and fiction. The class will also have substantial engagement with affect theory as well as period theorizations (Neoplatonic accounts of desire, humoral accounts of melancholy, etc.) (Med/Ren, 18th/19th).

Instructor(s): Sarah Kunjummen     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 40182, ENGL 20182, GNSE 42182, MAPH 40182

GNSE 22207. Caste, Reproduction, and Citizenship in India. 100 Units.

This undergraduate and graduate level seminar will center on caste and reproduction in understanding notions of citizenship in India. The course will systematically engage with ideas of belonging to the post-colonial nation-state, particularly as experienced from following standpoints-gender, caste, indigeneity, and class. Understanding how citizenship is constituted, performed and negotiated in India, especially in relation to the biological and political reproduction of "good citizens", reveals the scopes and limits of citizenship as governance. The course is premised on the centrality of reproduction to governance in the largest democracy of the world. Drawing on a set of interdisciplinary literature, the readings are organized around feminist theorizations of the State, governance, and citizenship to locate the body within the body politic. The aim is to develop critical thinking on how the politics of reproduction is deeply imbricated with the reproduction of democratic politics; a politics that is entangled with knowledge, expertise and constructed human difference. In so doing, the course brings together reproductive governance with articulations of social justice in India.

Equivalent Course(s): RDIN 32203, GNSE 32207, CHDV 32203, RDIN 22203, CHDV 22203, ANTH 32203, SALC 35704

GNSE 22260. Housekeeping: Domestic Drama and Material Culture. 100 Units.

The theatre represents a new and wildly successful commodity in the early modern English market. Yet it is often kept separate from other fashionable goods of the period by virtue of its intangible form. This course overturns the orthodoxy that an early modern play was a co-imaged event and the early modern theatre was an "empty space" by attending to the Renaissance theatre's frequent recourse to household stuff. We will read plays designed for private performance, that use the fixtures of the household to build theatrical worlds. We will investigate dramatists who liken the playhouse to key venues of commodity culture, including the pawnshop, the Exchange (the precedent of the shopping mall), and the fairground. We will draw from Henslowe's Diary to recover the business of theatrical property-making and the allure of a company as disclosed by its holdings. All the while, we will question how the fiction of emptiness takes hold in theatre history, and how plays that depict a furnished world are relegated to second-class genres like domestic tragedy and city comedy. (Med/Ren)

Instructor(s): Ellen MacKay     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 20260, TAPS 30362, ENGL 40250, TAPS 20362, GNSE 40250

GNSE 22266. Coming of Age: Autobiography, Bildungsroman, and Memoir in Victorian Britain and its Empire. 100 Units.

In this course, we will consider the broad generic category of "coming of age" stories that characterized the literary writing of the nineteenth century. Across several different kinds of writing, a focus on the growth and development of the child into adulthood became an obsessive focus. We will read autobiographies by Mill and Martineau, Bildungsroman by Bronte and Eliot, memoirs by Dickens but also lesser known figures: working class autodidacts, women in childbirth, colonial subjects. We will, along the way, learn more about Victorian childhood, the emergence of developmental psychology, psychoanalysis, and the socio-psychological "invention" of adolescence. (1830-1990)

Instructor(s): Elaine Hadley     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 20266

GNSE 22295. Morrissey's America: Contemporary Social Problems. 100 Units.

What are the most pressing social problems in the U.S.? What do we know about them and what can we do to address them? We will use the life and music of Morrissey, the controversial former frontman of The Smiths, as a lens through which to explore our country's most critical social issues. An outspoken defender of animal rights and disaffected youth's preeminent lyricist, Morrissey has also increasingly flirted with nationalist policies. As such, he embodies the tensions, complexities, and ambiguities around critical topics that characterize our time. Guided by sociological theory, we will examine the latest social science evidence on race, immigration, gender and sexuality, health, poverty, segregation, crime, and education as they are key sites in which social inequality is produced and reproduced today. Finally, we will discuss potential solutions to these problems.

Instructor(s): R. Flores     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20295

GNSE 22320. Critical Videogame Studies. 100 Units.

Since the 1960s, games have arguably blossomed into the world's most profitable and experimental medium. This course attends specifically to video games, including popular arcade and console games, experimental art games, and educational serious games. Students will analyze both the formal properties and sociopolitical dynamics of video games. Readings by theorists such as Ian Bogost, Roger Caillois, Alenda Chang, Nick Dyer‐Witheford, Mary Flanagan, Jane McGonigal, Soraya Murray, Lisa Nakamura, Amanda Phillips, and Trea Andrea Russworm will help us think about the growing field of video game studies. Students will have opportunities to learn about game analysis and apply these lessons to a collaborative game design project. Students need not be technologically gifted or savvy, but a wide-ranging imagination and interest in digital media or game cultures will make for a more exciting quarter. This is a 2021-22 Signature Course in the College. (Literary/Critical Theory)

Instructor(s): Patrick Jagoda     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 12320, MAAD 12320, SIGN 26038, CMST 27916

GNSE 22323. The family in the Greek and Roman world. 100 Units.

This course examines how family was conceptualized and manifested in the Greek and Roman world. In this class, we will begin by examining key terms related to family (household, kinship, ancestors, descendants) and scholarly approaches to familial studies under the light of different theoretical perspectives. Through the examination of written sources (literary texts, inscriptions, and papyri) and archaeological evidence, we will adopt a thematic approach exploring the ways in which family intersected with several fields of public and domestic life, such as law, adoption, heirship, religion, rituals, education, politics, and public honors.

Instructor(s): G. Tsolakis.      Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CLAS 32323, GNSE 32323, CLCV 22323

GNSE 22333. Cassandras: Truth-Telling in Times of Crisis. 100 Units.

In public life, why and how are some people accepted as truth-tellers while others are not? Is truth simply a problem of and for "correct" reasoning? What assumptions about argumentation and evidence go unexplored in this way of framing the problem? What if truth were a problem of truth-telling instead? When and how do social, racial, and gender hierarchies authorize received understandings of a (credible) truth-teller? What is credible telling usually thought to sound like? What are the conditions for listening and hearing the truth? To think through these questions, we take as a lens the archetype of Cassandra, the babbling prophetess of classical Greek myth and tragedy doomed not to be believed. Cassandra has served as a resource and source of inspiration for a range of critical thinkers, including but not limited to theorists, feminists, poets, and novelists. What is a "Cassandra"? Does her "deranged" way of seeing the world - her prophetic speech - disorient or destabilize? We will consider how, in her different representations, Cassandra places questions of language, patriarchy, and sexual violence at the center of general discussions of credibility and critique. Readings range from ancient Greek thought to 21st century theory.

Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 22333, CCCT 22333, CCCT 32333, GNSE 32333, PLSC 32333, PLSC 22333

GNSE 22509. Intersections of Gender and Race Throughout the Modern Middle East. 100 Units.

This course will explore how parts of the modern Middle East confronted notions, questions, and definitions of race and gender. Organized thematically and covering a region that spans from North Africa to Iran, we will use the analytics of race and gender in an intersecting way to explore topics in the Middle East such as: structural racism, colonialism, slavery, local nationalisms, whiteness, racism in nation building, eugenics, scientific racism, and global solidarity movements. In so doing, our course will reveal that race is an operative category in the study of Middle East history, the historical racial logics operating in various Middle Eastern countries, and how race and gender intersect at the site of individual as well as the effects of this. This course is designed for anyone interested in race theory, gender theory, intersectionality, and Middle East history. By the end of this course, students will have the tools to think in a multidimensional way about aspects of Middle East history that do not often receive such an intersectional treatment. Additionally, they will develop the methodological tools to discern local race and gender logics that might be different than what they're most familiar with. Finally, through coming to understand their relationship to the knowledge of our course, students will also be able to use the course as a springboard for continued learning in other courses that treat race, gender, and the Middle East.

Instructor(s): Chelsie May     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 12500, NEHC 22500

GNSE 22520. Economics of Gender in International Contexts. 100 Units.

In this class, students will engage basic issues, conflicts, and innovative field research in economics of gender in international contexts. In particular, we will review theoretical foundations, data and methods of research, and a review of recent work in international research related to economics of gender. At the end of the course, you will have a suite of research approaches, topics, and methods, to investigate gender differences in a variety of economic outcomes and contexts.

Instructor(s): A. Gonzalez     Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): ECON 10000 or ECON 20000 or ECON 20010 or PBPL 22200. STAT 22000 also recommended.
Equivalent Course(s): ECON 14520

GNSE 22690. (re)Queering the American Musical. 100 Units.

In this combined studio and seminar course, we explore a selection of musicals (tentatively including Fun Home, Falsettos, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, A Strange Loop, and Indecent) considering their dramatic structure, character construction, performance norms, and musical conventions. In what sense(s) are these works "queer"? Students will investigate course materials through readings, discussions, staging experiments, and a choice of either a final paper or an artistic project. Open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students. Previous experience in theater, music, and/or film analysis or production is preferred but not required; an interest in detailed textual analysis, rigorous discussion, and focused creative engagement is essential. Team-taught by Leslie Buxbaum (Professor of Practice in TAPS), Erin McKeown (Visiting Gray Center Fellow and composer of the musical "Miss You Like Hell"), and David Levin (Professor in TAPS, CMS, Germanics, and Sr Advisor to the Provost for Arts) as part of their collaborative Gray Center fellowship "An Un-dosical" which seeks to explore the norms of the American musical.

Instructor(s): L. Buxbaum, E. McKeown, D. Levin     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 32690, MUSI 22622, TAPS 22690, TAPS 32690, MUSI 32622

GNSE 22705. Abortion: Morality, Politics, Philosophy. 100 Units.

Abortion is a complex and fraught topic. Morally, a very wide range of individual, familial, and social concerns converge upon it. Politically, longstanding controversies have been given new salience and urgency by the Dobbs decision and the ongoing moves by state legislatures to restrict access to abortion. In terms of moral philosophy, deep issues in ethics merge with equally deep questions about the nature of life, action, and the body. In terms of political philosophy, basic questions are raised about the relationship of religious and moral beliefs to the criminal law of a liberal state. We will seek to understand the topic in all of this complexity. Our approach will be thoroughly intra- and inter-disciplinary, drawing not only on our separate areas of philosophical expertise but on the contributions of a series of guest instructors in law, history, and medicine. (A)

Instructor(s): Jason Bridges, Dan Brudney     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): PQ: Third or fourth-year standing. Students should opt into a discussion section that fits their schedule.
Note(s): Philosophy majors: this course fulfills the practical philosophy (A) requirement.
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 22701, BPRO 22700, HLTH 22700, HMRT 22702, PHIL 22702

GNSE 22805. Cinematic Sicily: Exploring the Island and its Otherness through Film. 100 Units.

This course explores portrayals of Sicily in Italian films and their relationship with the social, cultural, and political realities of the island. Students will analyze how these films construct the "otherness" of Sicily, enforcing or challenging stereotypes and preconceptions about the island and its people. This course will also examine Sicily's criminal underworld and its impact on society, as well as women's emancipatory efforts and achievements against patriarchy and misogyny. The class will reflect on the historical and cultural context in which the films were made, giving students a deeper understanding of the ways in which cinema shapes our perception of Sicily in relation to the rest of Italy. The course will include films from different genres and references to TV series set in Sicily. Vocabulary to discuss formal cinematic elements will be provided throughout the quarter. Films will be available with subtitles in English and Italian.

Instructor(s): Veronica Vegna
Prerequisite(s): ITAL 20300 or consent of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 22800

GNSE 23002. Workshop: Regulation of Family, Sex, and Gender. 50 Units.

This workshop exposes students to recent academic work in the regulation of family, sex, gender, and sexuality and in feminist theory. Workshop sessions are devoted to the presentation and discussion of papers from outside speakers and University faculty. The substance and methodological orientation of the papers will both be diverse. Continuing students only.

Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 33002

GNSE 23141. Social Reproduction: Labour, Life, and World-making. 100 Units.

Marxist feminists have defined social reproduction as the labour, with its attendant spaces and institutions, that is required for making and maintaining life in a capitalist world - from marriage to sexwork, schooling to child care, housing to healthcare, the affective to the intimate. This course explores theories, practices, histories and infrastructures of social reproduction in a transnational context, offering analytics for how life is constrained and sustained at different scales. It begins with an overview of early debates in social reproduction theory, and goes on to examine interventions from anthropology, geography, literature, history and political science that, both, focus on particular nodes that social reproduction feminists identify (such as domestic, education, service industry and healthcare spaces), as well as add other dimensions to the question of what sustains life in a capitalist world (such as fantasy and desire). Throughout our reading we will pay attention to how intersections of gender, sexuality, race, caste, class, and disability become integral to mobilizations of labour. The labour of social reproduction is often devalued and invisibilized, yet its life and world-making capacities can also offer contradictory and liberatory potentials for an everyday beyond capitalism. Thus the course also critically engages material that centres concepts of social reproduction to radically reimagine economies, bodies, the state, social relations, and futures.

Instructor(s): Tanima Sharma     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course counts as a Concepts course for GNSE majors
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20565, GLST 23141, ANTH 23141, CHDV 23141, CRES 23141

GNSE 23142. Religion and AIDS. 100 Units.

The AIDS crisis was not an epoch that we survived. It is a battle that we are still fighting…when Americans talk about AIDS they are rarely just talking about a scientific problem or a pharmaceutical solution. They are instead offering a sociology of suffering and a plan for spiritual warfare." - Kathryn Lofton Is it possible to understand current debates over public health or the role of religion in the public sphere without first examining religious responses to the AIDS crisis? This course focuses on the emergence of the AIDS epidemic during the peak of the American culture wars. As such, students will analyze the fraught intersection of political power structures, medical epistemologies, and religious views on bodies, sex, and public morality. Through a varied catalog of disciplinary frameworks, e.g., history, theology, medical ethics, sociology of religion, and history of medicine, students will weigh the accuracy of Lofton's claim that for Americans, AIDS is more than just a disease. Thus, we will scrutinize moral rhetoric surrounding contraception and its public availability. We will discuss the extent to which religious philanthropy, especially on the international stage, reshaped approaches to global health. Finally, we will revisit the role of religious communities in providing both care for the sick and theological responses to suffering. Prior knowledge of religious studies and/or medical history is not required for the course.

Instructor(s): Mark M. Lambert     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26301, CHST 26301, HIST 28007, HMRT 26301, SOCI 20563, HIPS 26301, HLTH 26301, CCTS 21014, PBPL 25301

GNSE 23143. Intro to Porn Studies. 100 Units.

This course is a multi-media introduction to the Western history and study of the mode/label/genre of aesthetic production called pornography and its other appearances as "obscenity," "erotica," "porn," "filth," "art," "adult," "hardcore," "softcore," "trash," and "extremity." We will study how others have approached this form, how they have sought to control it, uplift it, analyze it, destroy it, take it seriously, or learn to live with it. This course is both an introduction to the academic field of "porn studies" and to its equal and opposite: the endless repository of historical and current attempts to get pornography out of the way, to keep it somewhere else out of sight, to destroy it, or to deem it unworthy of study. We begin with a conversation about what the stakes are and have been in studying porn and how we might go about doing it, and then move through history and media technologies beginning with the category of pornography's invention with regards to drawings from Pompeii. The course is meant to introduce students to various forms pornography has taken, various historical moments in its sociocultural existence, and various themes that have continued to trouble or enchant looking at pornography. The goal of this course is not to make an argument for or against porn wholesale, but to give students the ability to take this contentious form and its continued life seriously, intelligently, and ethically. (Theory)

Instructor(s): Gabriel Ojeda-Sague     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 10110, MAAD 10110

GNSE 23144. Reading Nineteenth-Century Feminisms. 100 Units.

Disputes about sexual difference set feminist factions against each other during the nineteenth century, as in the present; and, like the feminisms of our own moment, nineteenth-century feminisms diverged sharply on questions about race and racism. This course reads US and British prose from 1850-1915 in order to study the debates that shaped feminist thought during that period. Considering a range of varied feminisms (among them: liberal feminism, difference feminism, eugenic feminism, white feminism, etc.), we'll encounter conflicting arguments about the right to vote, access to education, marriage, mothering, and sex. Authors may include: Anna Julia Cooper, George Eliot, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emma Goldman, Frances E.W. Harper, John Stuart Mill, Lucy Parsons, John Ruskin, Mary Arnold Ward, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. (1830-1940)

Instructor(s): Emily Coit     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 25232

GNSE 23145. Queer South Asia. 100 Units.

This course explores representations of queerness, same-sex love, sexualities and debates around them by introducing students to a variety of literary texts translated from South Asian languages as well as films, geographically ranging from India and Pakistan to Sri Lanka. We will also read scholarship that will help us place the production and reception of these primary sources in historical, political, cultural and religious contexts. In particular, we will examine questions of history and continuity (recurrent themes and images); form and genre (differences of representation in mythological narratives, poetry, biography, fiction, erotic/legal/medical treatises); the relationship of gender to sexuality (differences and similarities between representations of male-male and female-female relations); queerness as a site for exploring other differences, such as caste or religious difference; and questions of cross-cultural and transnational dialogue and cultural specificity.

Instructor(s): Nisha Kommattam     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 26113, HMRT 26113, SALC 26113, CRES 26115

GNSE 23146. Religion, Sex, and Law in American History. 100 Units.

Religion and law both offer frameworks for how we ought to live and behave, and often these frameworks become entangled in ways that affect who we are, what we can do, and with whom we can do it. To make things even more complicated, religion is also an object of the law-the law tries to adjudicate the rights of religious Americans under a system of religious freedom, with varying degrees of success. Often, the tension between law and religion comes to a head on issues of sex. The collision of religion, sex, and law presents a whole host of problems and questions: How have religion and law historically related to each other when it comes to sex? How has religion shaped the law on issues of sex, and vice versa? What is, or should be, the role of the law in adjudicating issues of sexual morality and religion? In this class, we will begin with the question: how do religion and law shape our lives? Through attention to issues of sex and gender, we will explore what it means to live within the institutions of law and religion and how those institutions interrelate. The class will focus on topics such as: marriage, anti-miscegenation laws, reproductive justice, sexual education, and religious freedom. This class is intended to be interdisciplinary and assumes no prior knowledge. This class is especially suitable for students interested in religious studies, law and letters/pre-law, gender studies, and history.

Instructor(s): Erin Simmonds     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 28009, RLST 26910

GNSE 23148. BAD VIBES ONLY?: NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND THE POLITICS OF QUEER-FEMINIST CRITIQUE. 100 Units.

This course examines the role of negative emotions in the history of political thought and subsequently, in feminist and queer politics. Emotions in general, and negative emotions in particular, tend to be thought of as antithetical to politics. The liberal tradition boasts a longstanding view of emotions as personal and pre-political. When it does take emotions seriously, it tends to emphasize the democratic value of 'good vibes' like love, empathy, and generosity. Feminist and queer critics of liberalism have long challenged this view of emotions, and indeed, have drawn upon negative emotions in particular to articulate their critiques of, as well as imagine alternatives to, liberal conceptions of justice, freedom, and equality. In the first part of this course, we will familiarize ourselves with the way negative emotions have been theorized in the writings of Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Freud, among other canonical thinkers in the history of political thought. In the second part, this seminar will turn to focus each week on the way 'bad vibes' like envy, resentment, rage, and grief have informed queer-feminist critiques of liberal notions of equality, justice, and freedom. Readings will include Ahmed, Ngai, Butler, and Hartman. Students will consider how negative emotions or affects like rage, grief, and the like can be mobilized towards political ends, as well as the theoretical and practical consequences of these emotions' characterization as political.

Instructor(s): Agatha A. Slupek     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 32805, PLSC 23148, MAPS 32805, GNSE 32805

GNSE 23150. Dark Stairways of Desire": Lusting beyond the Norm in Contemporary Catalan Literature. 100 Units.

Although we can find a significant number of authors exploring queer desire and identities throughout the history of Catalan Literature (from lesbian scenes in Joanot Martorell's "Tirant lo blanc" to expanding gender identities in Maria Aurèlia Capmany's "Quim/Quima"), more recent Catalan Literature is blooming with queerness and non-normative lust. This course will give an overview of contemporary Catalan works influenced by feminist and queer debates from the seventies on. Beginning with renowned poet Maria Mercè Marçal's only novel, "The Passion According to Rennée Vivien," winner of several of the most prestigious literary awards for Catalan Literature, we will go on to discover 21st-century works by Eva Baltasar and Anna Punsoda. We will also read poems, short stories and excerpts from authors such as Maria Sevilla, Mireia Calafell, Raquel Santanera, Sebastià Portell, Sil Bel and Ian Bermúdez, among others.

Instructor(s): Bel Olid     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Taught in English.
Equivalent Course(s): CATA 21950, SPAN 21950, GLST 21950

GNSE 23151. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender politics in the United States. 100 Units.

This courses surveys academic research on sexuality and gender in American politics. Drawing from interdisciplinary perspectives, it focuses on key arguments and debates about how politics shapes and is shaped by sexuality and gender relations. We will pay particular attention to the development of sexuality and gender identity as analytic and political concepts; the role of the State and political institutions to the formation of sexuality and gender; the relationship between social movements, counter-movements, and political parties; the political behavior and attitudes of LGBT people; and the ways in which intersectional inequalities structure LGBT politics.

Instructor(s): Proctor, Andrew     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 33805, MAPS 33805, PLSC 23805, PLSC 33805, HMRT 33805, PBPL 23805, SOCI 30342

GNSE 23152. History of Sexuality and Sin. 100 Units.

Since Foucault's groundbreaking work on the History of Sexuality, we have become attuned to the effects of power and the political implications of the science of sexuality. While Foucault's text has offered a critical avenue to examine the secular state's administrations of sexuality, it begins with Christianity's techniques of power based on the confession of one's sex. The Christian formulation of the relationship between 'sex' and 'sin' is essential to understanding the techniques of power that connect sexuality, legality, criminality, normality, and transgression in modern secular contexts. In this class, we will begin with the critical questions of the History of Sexuality, then turn to primary texts in order to examine the way 'sex' and 'sin' became conceptually connected in Christianity, and finally interrogate the effects of this relation for medieval and modern politics. Over the course of these readings, we will trace the relation between the concepts and their effects to discern the histories of sexuality that lie at the root of contemporary debates on freedom, power, resistance, and desire. No prerequisites.

Instructor(s): Maureen Kelly     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 24803, FNDL 24806, MDVL 24803, HIPS 24803

GNSE 23154. Is It Ethical to Have Children in the Climate Crisis? 100 Units.

Climate change is not just an urgent environmental crisis for scientists, engineers, and policy makers: it is a moral problem that also informs individual and intimate aspects of human life, including choices about reproduction and parenting. For example, a 2018 survey published in the New York Times found that young adults in the U.S. are having fewer children than they would otherwise prefer, in part due to concerns about climate change and overpopulation. In this course, we examine the moral dimensions of having and raising children in an era shaped by climate change, looking closely at two main questions: 1) Is it ethical to have children in light of the world that the next generation will inherit, which may include more extreme weather events, unvoluntary human migrations, diminished access to resources, and heightened insecurity? 2) Is it ethical to have children in the context of the affluent West, where consumptive human populations disproportionately contribute to the effects of climate change that impact the world's most vulnerable? We will examine various points of view on these questions, engaging material from the disciplines of environmental studies and ethics, science and technology studies, and religious and philosophical ethics. Responses from feminist, queer, Indigenous, Black, and religiously diverse authors (and intersections therein) will shape our course readings and discussions.

Equivalent Course(s): CEGU 24000, CCTS 21023, RLST 24000, HIPS 24100, ENST 24000, HLTH 24000

GNSE 23155. Reproductive citizens: sex, work, and embodiment. 100 Units.

In this class, we focus on literature, film, history, and theory that deal with biological and social reproduction, motherhood and the politics of the home and family, and domestic and sexual labor. Our readings and viewings are centered in the U.S. and span the early twentieth century through the present-and we approach the above themes and structures in relation to the troubled and uneven histories of race, gender, and class that shape them. To this end, we will learn about the history of eugenics and sterilization; the afterlife of slavery and racist (anti-Asian) U.S. immigration policy; settler colonialism and the Native American reservation system; state policing of family and kinship structures; developments in reproductive and gender-affirming biotechnology; and the thorny politics of sex work. At the same time, we will be equally interested in the ways that activists, theorists, and other cultural producers have pushed against oppressive policies and structures to imagine and fight for reproductive justice and liberation at the intersection of race, labor, and gender. We spend time, for example, with Black and Native feminists, Marxist social reproduction theorists, family abolitionists, and sex worker's rights activists. Readings and viewings may include: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Tillie Olsen, Gayl Jones, Fae Myenne Ng, Louise Erdrich, Lizzie Borden, Barbara Loden, Amy Heckerling, and the International Wages for Housework Campaign. (Theory; 20th/21st)

Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 47714, CRES 27714, MAPH 47714, ENGL 27714, ENGL 47714

GNSE 23156. Empowering the Solo Voice: A Feminist Exploration of Francophone Theater Performance. 100 Units.

In this course, we will delve into the world of contemporary Francophone theater, focusing on the genre of solo performances, or "seules en scène''. We will examine the lineage, history, and practice of this genre, with a special emphasis on feminist playwrights and performers, such as Typhaine D, Jalila Baccar, Fanny Cabon, and Florence Foresti. We will study the underlying components of solo performances and learn how to integrate them into different modes, including storytelling, one-woman or one-man shows, and standup. The selected plays will illustrate how the art of the solo voice can empower under-represented communities and minorities to share powerful narratives and create a new space for visibility and listening. The class will combine history, practice, and creative writing, and will afford students the opportunity to apply this knowledge in a series of live performances that will allow them to creatively connect to the issues raised in the readings and draw from their own experiences, inspirations, and questions. Students will develop creative and critical tools to fully explore the solo voice as a form of artistic expression, honing their talents in writing, devising, composing, producing, and creating work. Performance recordings will be obtained and shared with the class to further enhance the learning experience. One of the unique opportunities of this course is the opportunity to work with texts obtained directly from the playwrights.

Instructor(s): Khouloud Gargouri     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Reading knowledge of French.
Note(s): Class will be conducted in English with a separate discussion section available for students seeking credit for the major/minor. Readings will be in French and in English.
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 20235, FREN 24724

GNSE 23157. Alone in the Mountains: Tales of Freedom and Violence in Contemporary Catalan Literature. 100 Units.

From witches to "goges" ("water women"), Catalan folklore shows a tradition of women living on their own in the mountains, liberated from societal conventions. These women are portrayed as fascinating yet threatening figures. This ancient imagery has permeated contemporary literature, manifested in novels that depict women who remove themselves from "civilization" to inhabit rural areas of Catalunya, seeking freedom and having to confront at the same time societal norms, abusive partners or even their own personal demons. The mountains, far from ideal and peaceful, are an untamed and often brutal space in which human lives hold no greater value than those of goats, mushrooms, rivers. In this course we shall engage with four novels authored by women: "Solitude (1904) by Victor Català, "Stone in a Landslide" (1984) by Maria Barbal, "When I Sing Mountains Dance" (2019) by Irene Solà, and "Alone" (2021) by Carlota Gurt. Through the analysis of these literary works, we aim to delve into Catalan culture and explore its literary archetypes, while establishing significant connections among these texts and their place in modern and contemporary literature.

Instructor(s): Bel Olid     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Taught in English, but students seeking credit for the HLBS major/minor must do part of the readings and written work in Catalan or Spanish as necessary for their degree.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 23501, GLST 23500, CATA 23500

GNSE 23158. Que otros sean lo Normal": Pertinencia y otredad en la literatura trans en español. 100 Units.

¿Qué nos dicen de una sociedad sus alteridades? Es decir, ¿cómo nos informa de la norma lo que queda fuera de ella? A partir de la lectura y análisis de obras escritas por autores trans, conoceremos más a fondo la actualidad de algunos países hispanohablantes, centrándonos en un elemento básico de cualquier identidad: el género. El curso está organizado a partir de la lectura y visualización de materiales reales y con actividades orales y escritas dirigidas a ampliar el conocimiento de la literatura contemporánea en español (y las sociedades en las que florece), y también a reforzar las habilidades de expresión oral y escrita de les participantes.

Instructor(s): Bel Olid     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Taught in Spanish.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 22770, GLST 22770

GNSE 23159. Alternative Feminisms: Gender, Agency, and Liberation in the Middle East. 100 Units.

This course critically examines gender, agency, and liberation in the Middle East. The course will begin with a discussion of human agency, its relation to sociocultural context, and the feminist literature on the issues of agency, resistance, and liberation. Then, we will explore these relationships in non-Western contexts by drawing examples from Turkey, Iran, and Northern Syria. In the cases of Turkey and Iran, we will focus on the feminist movements and women's collective actions for the right to wear and take off the headscarf. In the case of Northern Syria, we will explore the agencies of Kurdish female guerrillas and their conceptions of empowerment. In each case, we will focus on the moral and ethical principles that guide women's choices and trace their sociohistorical foundations.

Instructor(s): S. Numanbayraktaroglu     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Catalog content areas: 3, C
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 22020, NEHC 22020, GNSE 32020, ANTH 22020, ANTH 32020, CHDV 32020, NELC 32020

GNSE 23160. Contemporary Women Writers in Latin America. 100 Units.

Latin America has recently seen an explosion of internationally lauded literature by women writers: as one article stated, "The new Latin American Boom is here, and it is being led by women." This course focuses on Latin American women's writing from 1960 to the present, addressing both this recent boom and their literary predecessors. Students will contend with changing trends and historically and culturally specific ideas of representation, womanhood, and feminine sexuality in Latin America, analyze the roles of race, class, and ability in women's writing, and engage with legacies of authoritarianism, political violence, and femicide throughout the region. Texts traverse the region and period, ranging from the 1970s crónicas of Elena Poniatowska (Mexico, 1932-) and the short stories of Isabel Allende (Chile, 1942-) to the concept albums of Rita Indiana (Dominican Republic, 1977-) and the 2017 novel "Temporada de huracanes" by Fernanda Melchor (Mexico, 1982-).

Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 24524, LACS 24524

GNSE 23161. Ladies Errant: Adventure and Gender in Chivalric Literature. 100 Units.

Some of the most enduring stories to come out of medieval literature were undoubtedly knights' tales: stories of King Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, the Holy Grail, and a host of other chivalric figures. We commonly think of these stories as centering on a heroic, knightly male protagonist, and now many modern versions work to challenge this gender dynamic by placing women at the center or calling into question the values attributed to a knightly masculinity. But what if female heroism in chivalric literature isn't a modern invention, but in fact existed from the genre's very beginning? And what if knightly heroics have always been presented with a degree of complexity, humor, and ambivalence? As it turns out, we can find numerous examples of "adventuring ladies" or "ladies errant" in medieval literature, and the figure of the knight has never been simplistic. This class will read several examples of female protagonism in the French tradition of medieval romance, as Old French was the language of the earliest and most influential chivalric romances, and explore questions of gender, adventure, and conventions both social and literary.

Instructor(s): Jacqueline Victor     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Knowledge of French is not required. The texts will be made available in English, modern French, and Old French. Regular class discussion will conducted in English, and coursework may be completed in English or in French. Students wishing to receive FREN credit will complete the readings and work in French and attend supplementary French-language discussions.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 25724, MDVL 25724

GNSE 23162. Histories of Women in Science. 100 Units.

In the mid-1980s, only two female students drew women when asked what a scientist looked like and none of the male students in the study did. Only 8% of STEM workers in 1970 were women; in 2019 that number was still only 27%. This would seem to suggest that the history of women in science is a recent one. Yet historians of science have foregrounded women's involvement in fields ranging from early modern medicine to twentieth century astrophysics. This class introduces students to these histories, investigates how and why science came to be a gendered as male, and asks to what extent gendered values continue to inform modern conceptions scientific achievement or value. In so doing, this course also introduces students to feminist science studies and challenges students to reflect upon their own (gendered) experiences of science. Students are strongly encouraged to develop final research projects that draw upon their own interests, scientific expertise, and linguistic competencies. No prior experience with history is required for this course, although an enthusiasm for history is advised.

Instructor(s): Kristine Palmieri     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): PHSC 27010, HIST 27806, CHSS 37011, HIPS 27011, KNOW 37011, GNSE 37011, ASTR 23700

GNSE 23164. Feminist Documentary Filmmaking. 100 Units.

This course examines the ways that women-identifying documentary makers have given cinematic form to feminist thought. Drawing from film and media theory and history, we will focus on the formal and narrative techniques that have been employed by filmmakers to reflect on questions pertaining to gender and sexuality, with an emphasis on the specific ways that non-fiction filmmaking expanded feminist theoretical frameworks and research methodologies. Considering topics such as cinematic realism, film spectatorship, viewing pleasure, counter-cinema, and theories of intersectionality and diaspora, we will ask questions such as: What are the stylistic devices that feminist documentary films have mobilized, and for what purposes and ends? What is documentary's relation to the history of fiction film, particularly of Hollywood cinema? How have women documentary makers understood cinema's role in social processes of transformation? What are the possibilities and limitations of collaborative methods, appropriation strategies, and oppositional techniques? We will watch films with a critical eye and engage closely with academic and popular writings to survey the aesthetic, social, and political genealogies operating in the history of feminist documentary production. In this discussion-based course, we will cover a variety of non-fiction film and media forms: film diaries, docu-fictions, home-movies, video essays, auto-ethnographies, ethno-fictions, collage, and found-footage films.

Instructor(s): Cinta Peleja     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 28205, MAAD 18205

GNSE 23165. Sexuality in U.S. History to 1900. 100 Units.

In this course we will study the history of changing sexual practices, relations, politics, cultures, and social systems in the region of North America now comprising the United States and 574 sovereign tribal nations. We begin in the pre-colonial period and end in the late twentieth century, focusing on how gendered, racial, economic, religious, medical, and commercial discourses shaped and were shaped by sexual ones. Moving through various contexts, such as occupied indigenous territories, the secret parties of enslaved people, scientific societies, urban drag balls, medical schools, liberatory movements, and popular culture, we will use primary and secondary sources to develop a research-based understanding of how sexual discourses are produced, revised, and remixed among and across generations.

Instructor(s): Red Tremmel     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course counts as a Concepts course for GNSE majors.
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 27807

GNSE 23166. Reading Transnational Early Modern Race through Gender. 100 Units.

Is race an anachronistic expression in Renaissance Europe? What are the stakes for studies of race in premodern periods? How did early modern race operate differently from contemporary racialized epistemologies and in what ways are we continuously influenced by the premodern times? This course tackles these questions by foregrounding two vocabularies in the early modern racial paradigm: gender and transnational constructions. We will read primary texts set and produced both in Renaissance Europe and its colonies in Africa, Americas, and Asia, and ask: how did the structural relationship of race and gender work in tandem with, or against each other? What roles did transnational and transcultural exchanges such as Christian missions, colonization, commerce, and slave trade play in the ideations of race? We will pay close attention to fictionalized female characters and women writers, ranging from the desired white beauties in Shakespeare's Othello and Cervantes's The Bagnios of Algiers, to Nahua (Mexico) and Visayan (the Philippines) women in The Florentine Codex and The Boxer Codex, to the spiritual diaries of indigenous and black nuns in the Colonial Spanish America, to Aphra Behn's depiction of Oroonoko's execution in Surinam, and finally to the unwritten disposable lives of enslaved black women in the Atlantic slave trade.

Instructor(s): Yunning Zhang      Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 31090, GLST 21090, RDIN 21090, CMLT 21090, SPAN 22090

GNSE 23167. Black Girlhood. 100 Units.

First popularized on social media in 2013, the phrase "Black Girl Magic" has expanded far beyond its initial use as a twitter hashtag. It can be seen on (a bunch of different objects and the cover of many children's books and poetry anthologies). However, the visibility of the phrase did not come without controversy. Some critics argued that rather than being an uplifting rallying cry for positive depictions of black girlhood, it instead reinforced dehumanizing stereotypes of the "strong black woman". This debate leads us to question: How do black girls tend to be depicted both popular media and in literature? How might these depictions differ depending on author, type of media, or social context? What do they say about the ways that black girls experience childhood, gender, and friendship? To engage with these questions, this course will explore literary works including The Bluest Eye, Betsey Brown, and Abeng, along with television shows such as Lovecraft Country to examine 20th and 21st century depictions of black girlhood. We will also think with theoretical works of black feminism and black girlhood studies.

Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 33167, RDIN 30400, RDIN 20400, ENGL 30422, ENGL 20422

GNSE 23168. Sex and the Ethnographic Tradition. 100 Units.

This course examines the role sex has played in the formation of ethnographic knowledge, with particular attention to how studies of sex have challenged static notions of identity and illuminated the complex relationship between social behavior and gendered sense of self. We will consider interest in sex as a motivating factor in the ethnographic enterprise and, reading studies on everything from desire, kink, and play to procreation, heritance and power, will examine complex and social construction of sexed, gendered, and raced selves and Others. How has ethnographic research contested the ubiquitous salience of male/female dichotomies, of patriarchy, and of the cross-cultural, trans-historical applicability of concepts like 'third gender? We will also take a methodological eye, querying how sex has moved from a supposedly 'taboo' category of social inquiry to a focal topic in ethnographic work of all kinds. This is an introductory graduate level course.

Equivalent Course(s): MAPS 35503, ANTH 25222, GNSE 33168, ANTH 35503

GNSE 23169. Queer/Trans/Media. 100 Units.

This seminar stages a sustained dialogue between theories of queer, trans, and media, exploring how each of these disciplines animate and challenge one another. This course explores the possibilities of an expanded understanding of queerness, following queer scholar Eve Sedgwick's claim that "work around 'queer' spins the term outward along dimensions that can't be subsumed under gender and sexuality at all." More recently, queer scholars like David Eng have read "queerness as a critical methodology based not on content but rather on form and style" while trans scholars like Toby Beauchamp similarly engage "the transgender of transgender studies as a mode of critique" and "not as a predetermined category into which identities or bodies are slotted." What might it mean to consider "queer" and "trans" not as a field with a delimited object of study (sexuality or gender), but as an analytic, a methodology, a critical sensibility, a conceptual strategy, a reading practice, a politics, an aesthetic, etc. Throughout the course, we explore often-unconventional pairings of media objects and scholarly readings to work through these challenging questions. Ultimately, this course is designed to help students read for the similarities within the aesthetic forms of film/media and queer/trans theories to understand their force of expression.

Equivalent Course(s): CMST 20602

GNSE 23170. Cultural History of Women, Family, and Economy in Modern Korea. 100 Units.

This course explores modern Korean history through the lens of gender as a critical analytical tool. In studying social, historical, and cultural changes shaping gender relations, we will extend our understanding of gender dynamics and its relationship to the family, the state, civil society, class, and the economy. By reading and discussing significant scholarly works, this course will help students understand Korean women's history in both local and global contexts. The course will be divided into two parts. The first section will address women's issues and identities, such as women as mothers, wives, and citizens in the framework of family and social institutions, by looking at postcolonialism, patriarchy, and nationalism. Next, the latter half will examine various aspects of women and the economy, including labor, consumption, market economy, governmentality, and class and status.

Equivalent Course(s): HIST 24405, EALC 24406

GNSE 23171. Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. 100 Units.

The topic of this class is feminist epistemology and philosophy of science. Questions we will consider include: Is rationality gendered? Are scientific conceptions of objectivity 'masculine'? What could it mean to make such claims and how could they be justified? What should a feminist conception of knowledge look like? In addressing those questions we will explore the numerous ways that gender, gender roles, and gender identity influence the construction of knowledge and the representation of objectivity. We will investigate competing views about knowledge construction-specifically, empiricism, standpoint theory, and postmodernism-by considering, among other things, how they have informed empirical research in the social sciences, biology, and medicine. A few of the authors we will read are: Sandra Harding, Evelyn Fox Keller, Helen Longino, Louise Antony, Sally Haslanger, Donna Haraway, Patricia Hill Collins, Catherine MacKinnon, Maria Lugones, and Oshadi Mangena. (B)

Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 22965

GNSE 23507. American Religion, Gender, and Race. 100 Units.

This seminar looks at the impact of religious identity on their understandings and performance of racial and gendered identities. This graduate-level course delves into the impact such intersectional identities have on one's movement within personal, political, and community spheres. We will pay particular attention to American religious denominations. Students can also expect to read and reflect on foundational works in the sociological study of religion.

Instructor(s): Painia, Brianne A.     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 23507, MAPS 23504, MAPS 33504, SOCI 30334, GNSE 33503

GNSE 23602. Critical Security Studies. 100 Units.

This graduate-level elective course is designed to introduce students to approaches to global politics beyond the traditional mainstream canon, surveying a range of perspectives that fall under the heading of 'critical.' The main goal is to develop an understanding of what is at stake, politically, with some of the main concepts, theories, methodological approaches, and empirical objects within the study of international relations (IR) and international security. The course is divided into two sections. First, we begin by considering what makes a critical approach critical-that is, how is it set apart from conventional approaches? In particular, we will explore how critical approaches encourage us to question our assumptions, first, about what security, power, sovereignty, and other core concepts mean in global politics, and second, about who or what (individuals, groups, nonhuman animals, states, the planet) can be agents of global politics. Some examples of approaches we cover are: theories from the Global South, approaches to human security, global feminisms, securitization theories, ontological security, emotions and affect, the visual turn, new materialisms, and post-colonial perspectives. In the second half of the course, we apply these approaches to a range of issues, including nuclear weapons, borders and immigration, drone warfare, terrorism, and climate change.

Instructor(s): Kara Ann Hooser     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): INRE 43600, PLSC 23600, GNSE 43602, INRE 23600

GNSE 23702. Sexual Health: Identity, Behavior, and Outcomes. 100 Units.

Sexual health is a growing component of public health outreach. The goal of this course is to provide students with a foundational understanding of sexual health from a public health perspective. Through participation in this course, students will increase their knowledge about the history of sexual health promotion in the public health sphere. They will delve into sexual and gender identity construction and explore identity-behavioral expressions. They will critically examine and discuss common sexual health issues addressed by public health practitioners, their epidemiology, and their underlying social determinants; a global health lens will be applied to such examinations. Additionally, recognition of the key methodological considerations in the measurement of sexual behavior and sexual health outcomes will be elucidated (including strengths and limitations of various methodological approaches -quantitative, qualitative, clinical, and biomedical). By the completion of the course, students should be able to demonstrate knowledge and application of key theoretical foundations of sexual health promotion and sexual health behavior change and be able to promote sexual health messages through marketing and dissemination. From a policy perspective, student can expect an increased knowledge about issues related to social and legislative policy analyses, their applications, and implications.

Instructor(s): David Moskowitz     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HLTH 23700, PBHS 33700, GNSE 33702, PBHS 23700

GNSE 23750. Race, Gender and Religion in Medieval and Early Modern France. 100 Units.

From the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, France sees the development of several genres and literary movements that are foundational to the French literary tradition: the epic, the fable, the narrative genre, the essay, poetry, tragedy, comedy, and the fable are the various genres of premodern France that we will study. What was France at the time? Most of these texts are not originally written in a version of French you would recognize easily. How to build a nation, and how to live together, were also key questions for medieval and early modern writers. Some of the concepts developed in those texts undeniably led to a version of France that made Versailles but also the Code Noir - which defined the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire - possible. In addition to race, gender, and class, we will discuss the themes that were important to premodern French authors and cultures, not least of them medievalism, Renaissance, and classicism. What makes these texts classics, and what do they still have to say for our time?

Instructor(s): Pauline Goul     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): FREN 20300
Note(s): Taught in French. This is an introductory-level course.
Equivalent Course(s): FREN 23750, MDVL 23753

GNSE 23809. Pain, Truth, and Justice. 100 Units.

Why should the truth hurt? Does pain guarantee the truth told? Is pain the price of exposure to the truth? Does that make punishment just? In this course, we will take a historical and philosophical approach to examine the relations between pain, truth, and justice. In the premodern period, we will draw from Genesis, Sophocles' Oedipus, Augustine, Tertullian, martyrdom accounts, and public penance in medieval Christianity. To study the theme in the early modern nation-state spectacles of punishment, colonial contexts, and contemporary scenes of justice, we will turn to the writings of Foucault, Fanon, and others. Over the course of the historical and philosophical examinations, we will trace the themes of body, affect, and performance; truth, law, and ritual; power, religion, and the nation-state. In the end, we will turn a critical eye to contemporary cultural discourses and representations of pain, truth, and justice in the arts, law, literature, philosophy, and politics. No prerequisites.

Instructor(s): Maureen Kelly     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 23809, MDVL 23809, CLCV 23809

GNSE 24006. Embodiment and the Senses. 100 Units.

This course approaches bodies as points of insight into governance, the varied experiences of being governed, and efforts to evade and reconfigure institutional expressions of authority. First, we will examine bodies as targets of governance, objects to be reformed, regulated, contained, disciplined, educated, incarcerated, treated, trained, and "cared" for. Next, we will consider how bodies accrue power as sites of resistance, refusal, and critique. Certain bodies in certain places elicit discomfort, unsettling familiar divisions such as of private and public space, of developed and backward, of religious and secular, of reason and madness, of citizenship and (often racialized) non-citizenship. Finally, we will ask how bodies and sensory practices figure in ethical projects of crafting exemplary kinds of subjectivity or collectivity. In this way, the course will introduce students to anthropological approaches to embodiment as well as related questions of bio-politics, gender and race, political subjectivity, care and self-making, post/colonialism, sensory politics and the aesthetic. Along the way, students will gain a new appreciation of the political potency of bodies and bodily practices near and far-from Lenin's preserved body to Trump's "small" hands, reproductive labor to sex work, dirty protest to women's marches, indigenous eco-rituals to queer intimacies.

Instructor(s): Mareike Winchell
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26006, ANTH 20006

GNSE 24026. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Feminist Biography. 100 Units.

The personal is political - that slogan of Women's Liberation - has long been understood, among other things, as a call for new forms of storytelling. One of those forms, feminist biography, has flourished in publishing since the 1970s, and it continues to evolve today, even as the terms of feminism and of biography are continually re-negotiated by writers and critics. In this workshop, we read some of those writers and critics. And we read illustrative examples of contemporary feminist biography (and anti-biography) in various nonfiction genres, including magazine profile, trade book, Wiki article, audio performance, personal essay, cult pamphlet, avant-garde art piece. Mostly, we try out the form for ourselves, in our own writing. Each workshop writer will choose a biographical subject (single, collective, or otherwise), and work up a series of sketches around that subject. By the end of the quarter, workshop writers will build these sketches into a single piece of longform life-writing. The workshop will focus equally on story-craft and method (e.g. interview and research techniques, cultivating sources); indeed we consider the ways that method and story are inevitably connected. This workshop might also include a week with an invited guest, a practicing critic or biographer.

Instructor(s): Avi Steinberg     Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Open bid through my.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory. Contact the instructor for a spot on the waiting list. Course requires consent after add/drop begins.
Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 44026, GNSE 44026, CRWR 24026

GNSE 24205. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Queering the Essay. 100 Units.

In Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Queering the Essay, we'll approach the essay as a vehicle for queer narratives, as a marker of both individual and collective memory, and as a necessary compliment to the journalism and scholarship that have shaped queer writing. Through readings and in-class exercises, we'll explore tenets of the personal essay, like narrative structure and pacing, alongside considerations of voice and vulnerability. After a brief historical survey, we'll look to contemporary essayists as our guides--writers like Billy-Ray Belcourt, Melissa Faliveno, Saeed Jones, Richard Rodriguez, and T. Fleischmann-- alongside more familiar writers like Alison Bechdel and Maggie Nelson. And through student-led workshops, we'll wrestle with concerns that often trouble narratives of otherness: What does it mean to write a personal narrative that has a potential social impact? How can we write trauma without playing into harmful stereotypes? How can our writing work as--or make demands toward--advocacy, rather than voyeurism?

Instructor(s): Victoria Flanagan     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Instructor consent required. Apply via creativewriting.uchicago.edu. Attendance on the first day is mandatory.
Equivalent Course(s): CRWR 24025, CRWR 44025, GNSE 44205

GNSE 24220. Anxious Spaces. 100 Units.

This course explores built (architectural), filmic, and narrative spaces that disturb our bearings, un-situate us, and defy neurotypical cognition. In the sense that "angst" is a mode that can be understood as both stalling and generative, we analyze spaces and representations of spaces such as corridors, attics, basements, canals, viaducts, labyrinths, forests, ruins, etc., spaces that are 'felt' as estranging, foreboding, in short, anxiety-provoking, in order to understand why-despite or because these topoi are hostile-they are produced, reproduced, and craved. We will pay special attention to abject spaces of racial and sexual exclusivity, sites of spoliation, and of memory and erasure. Among our primary texts are films by Kubrick, Tarkovksy, and Antonioni, and Chytilová, short fiction by Borges, Kafka, Nabokov, and selections from the philosophical/theoretical writings of Bachelard, Deleuze & Guattari, Debord, Foucault, Kracauer, and the edited volume, Mapping Desire, Geographies of Sexuality.

Instructor(s): Malynne Sternstein     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): REES 24220, REES 34220, ARCH 24220, GNSE 34220

GNSE 24299. Topics in Medical Anthropology: Troubling Adolescence. 100 Units.

Many theories of "adolescence" have often emphasized it as a development period of rapid change, risk taking, and experimentation. This course will take on some of key health-related concerns of adolescence, such as mental health (eg. depression, anxiety) and risk behaviors (eg. substance use, sexuality) asking after the phenomenological experience of such concerns as well as exploring their cultural specify. Furthermore, this course will review key historical and development frameworks for understanding "adolescence," reading them alongside anthropological and queer theories of temporality. Ultimately, the course asks, how do the troubles of adolescence play out in different contexts? And what happens if we trouble the concept of adolescence itself?

Instructor(s): P. Martin     Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): CHDV distribution: B
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 24299, HLTH 24299, ANTH 24299, HIPS 24299

GNSE 24511. Kawaii (cuteness) culture in Japan and the world. 100 Units.

The Japanese word kawaii (commonly translated as "cute" or "adorable") has long been a part of Japanese culture, but, originating from schoolgirl subculture of the 1970s, today's conception of kawaiihas become ubiquitous as a cultural keyword of contemporary Japanese life. We now find kawaii in clothing, food, toys, engineering, films, music, personal appearance, behavior and mannerisms, and even in government. With the popularity of Japanese entertainment, fashion and other consumer products abroad, kawaii has also become a global cultural idiom in a process Christine Yano has called "Pink Globalization". With the key figures of Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma as our guides, this course explores the many dimensions of kawaii culture, in Japan and globally, from beauty and aesthetics, affect and psychological dimensions, consumerism and marketing, gender, sexuality and queerness, to racism, orientalism and robot design.

Instructor(s): Nisha Kommattam     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 24510, ENGL 24510, MAAD 14510

GNSE 24526. Forms of Autobiography in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. 100 Units.

This course examines the innovative, creative forms autobiography has taken in the last one hundred years in literature. We will study closely works written between 1933 and 2013 that are exceptional for the way they challenge, subvert and invigorate the autobiographical genre. From unpublished sketches to magazine essays and full-length books, we will see autobiography take many forms and engage with multiple genres and media. These include biography, memoir, fiction, literary criticism, travel literature, the graphic novel and photography. Producing various mutations of the autobiographical genre, these works address some of the same concerns: the self, truth, memory, authenticity, agency and testimony. We will complement discussions of these universal issues with material and historical considerations, examining how the works first appeared and were received. Autobiography will prove a privileged site for probing constructions of family narratives, identity politics and public personas. The main authors studied are Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, Vladimir Nabokov, Roland Barthes, Paul Auster, Doris Lessing, Marjane Satrapi and W.G. Sebald. (20th/21st)

Instructor(s): Christine Fouirnaies     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 34526, ENGL 24526, ENGL 34526

GNSE 24903. Religion and Human Rights. 100 Units.

Religion played a crucial, but often overlooked, role in the development of post-World War II conceptions of human rights, providing principles and ideas that continue to influence contemporary human rights debates in the fields of law, public policy, and international relations. This no-prior-knowledge-necessary course explores the complex, sometimes fraught, relationship between religion and human rights from World War II to the present. We will begin by juxtaposing the role religious ideas played in the drafting of core post-war human rights documents (e.g. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, etc.) with the decision by drafters to omit direct references to the divine or the beliefs of specific religious communities. Using case study analysis and close reading of primary religious texts, scholarly commentary, and historical accounts, we will examine the ways in which individuals and groups from multiple religious (and non-religious) traditions both apply and push back against existing human rights norms. Throughout the course we will discuss the role religion might play in debates surrounding emerging, but still contentious, conceptions of human rights. This includes: universal healthcare, LGBTQIA+ rights, ever more complex manifestations of religious freedom, as well as whether human rights as conceived of in the mid-20th Century can be reconciled with decolonial and post-colonial perspectives.

Instructor(s): John Sianghio     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course counts as an approved course for the Democracy Studies minor.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 24901, GLST 24902, HMRT 24901, DEMS 24901

GNSE 25020. Opera Across Media. 100 Units.

Open to all undergraduates. Over the course of the last hundred and twenty years, opera and cinema have been sounded and seen together again and again. Where opera is commonly associated with extravagant performance and production, cinema is popularly associated realism. Yet their encounter not only proves these assumptions wrong but produces some extraordinary third kinds-media hybrids. It also produces some extraordinary love affairs. Thomas Edison wanted a film of his to be "a grand opera," and Federico Fellini and Woody Allen wanted opera to saturate their films. Thinking about these mutual attractions, "Opera across Media" explores different operatic and cinematic repertories as well as other media forms. Among films to be studied are Pabst's Threepenny Opera (1931), Visconti's Senso (1954), Powell and Pressburger's Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Zeffirelli's La traviata (1981), De Mille's Carmen (1915), Losey's Don Giovanni (1979), Bergman's The Magic Flute (1975), and Fellini's E la nave va (1983). No prior background in music performance, theory, or notation is needed. Students may write papers based on their own skills and interests relevant to the course. Required work includes attendance at all screenings and classes; weekly postings on Canvas about readings and viewings; attendances at a Met HD broadcast and a Lyric Opera live opera; a short "think piece" midway through the course; and a final term paper of 8-10 pages.

Instructor(s): Martha Feldman     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): Open to all undergraduates
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 25020, CMST 24617, SIGN 26058, TAPS 26516, MAAD 13020, MUSI 25020

GNSE 25118. Islam, Politics and Gender. 100 Units.

This course examines the relationship Islam and politics with a focus on gender and sexuality. For this class, politics is broadly construed, including religious law, family law, social issues, and war. Gender is an inextricable part of Islamic law, and the connection between Islam and the state pervades scholars' understanding and interpretation of political development in the Muslim world. While many texts and discussions will focus on women, gender is considered expansively. We will consider the role of sex in religious law, as well as sexual identity, gender identity, and sexual orientation. We will also incorporate areas outside of the Islamic "heartland" of the Middle East, such as Europe and Asia.

Instructor(s): Hannah Ridge, Pozen Center for Human Rights Postdoctoral Instructor     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 35118, HMRT 35118, HMRT 25118

GNSE 25180. Women Writing God. 100 Units.

This course examines imaginative works by women that take on the task of representing divine or supernatural being from the medieval era to the present. Drawing on the work of critics such as Luce Irigaray, Caroline Walker Bynum, and Judith Butler, we explore what strategies these writers employ to depict an entity simultaneously understood to be unrepresentable and to have a masculine image. Texts range from premodern mystics such as Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila to Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. (Med/Ren)

Instructor(s): Sarah Kunjummen     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Instructor consent required for first and second year undergraduates.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 40180, GNSE 45180, MAPH 40180, ENGL 20180

GNSE 25300. Autobiog Writ: Gender& Modern Korea. 100 Units.

This course explores the intersections between gender, the genre of autobiography, forms of media (written; oral; visual; audiovisual) and historical, cultural, and political contexts of modern Korea. The students read theoretical writings on autobiography and gender as well as selected Korean autobiographical writings while being introduced to Korean historical contexts especially as they relate to practice of publication in a broader sense. The focus of the course is placed on the female gender-on the relationship between Korean women's life-experience, self-formation, and writing practices in particular while dealing with the gender relationship in general, although some relevant discussions on the male gender proceeds in parallel.

Instructor(s): K. Choi     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): Not offered in 2023-24.
Equivalent Course(s): EALC 34305, EALC 24305, GNSE 35305, CRES 24305

GNSE 25311. The Harem: Gender, Family and Power in Early Modern and Modern South Asia. 100 Units.

Even today, the word "harem" evokes orientalist imaginings of an exotic east. Popular images drawn from colonial-era representations continue to define our understanding of this complex institution. In this course we will work to complicate this understanding through considering the harem as a site of interplay between gender, family ties, and power. Taking into account influences from the larger Islamicate world as well as more local, Indic practices, we will historicize the harem, tracking its changes over the course of this long period, and critiquing its various (mis)representations. We will explore how the harem constituted a diverse space including not only elite women and their male relatives, but also other figures such as slave girls, eunuchs and guards. We will furthermore look at how this space was transformed in the era of European expansionism and colonial rule in the subcontinent, becoming a flash point over questions of social reform and Indian nationalism. Materials will include not just secondary literature but also excerpts from contemporary historical accounts, paintings, short stories, photographs, and films. No prior knowledge of South Asian history required.

Equivalent Course(s): SALC 25311, HIST 26612

GNSE 25403. The Bible in U.S. Politics: The Use and Abuse of Sacred Texts in the Public. 100 Units.

People across the political spectrum continue to cite the Bible to justify their viewpoints. Black Lives Matter protestors carried signs citing scriptural support for the rights of African Americans to life and justice, while some of those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th first marched around their state capitols in recreation of biblical Israel's circling of the doomed city Jericho. How can the same book serve the political ends of such ideologically distinct movements? In this course, we will explore the variety of ways in which the Bible, especially the Christian New Testament, informs contemporary political discourse. We will discuss what the Bible is and where it comes from, and how an interpreter's social location and culturally and historical-bound assumptions shape their interpretation. We will build upon this foundation by examining several contentious political issues in which the Bible is commonly invoked, including abortion, sexuality, immigration, and gun rights. We will analyze the key passages used by supporters of various policy positions to support their claims, situating these texts in their original contexts and highlighting the historical distance that problematizes their use today. Prior familiarity with biblical literature is not required.

Instructor(s): Douglas Hoffer     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 25400, RLST 25400, KNOW 25400, FNDL 25405

GNSE 25408. Pregnancy and Motherhood. 100 Units.

Pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood have been relatively neglected as topics for philosophical exploration, and yet they are ripe for philosophical inquiry from multiple angles, including metaphysics, epistemology, normative ethics, medical ethics, and social and political philosophy. Throughout our inquiry we will pay particular attention to the first-hand, embodied experiences of women. For example: What is it like to be pregnant? How can we make metaphysical sense of this experience? And how is it informed by the socio-political landscape? Moreover, what is the moral significance of giving birth, and what are the ethical and political requirements for a good birth? And finally, what does it mean to be a good mother, and how might this conception of motherhood play into women's oppression? These are just a few of the questions we will explore, placing philosophical texts alongside memoir and film.

Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 25407

GNSE 25560. Race, Religion, and the Formation of the Latinx Identity. 100 Units.

In this class, we will focus on the conditions of possibility, development, and problems surrounding the formation of the Latinx identity. We will pay special attention to how such an identity is expressed through and informed by religious experience, and to how religious experience is theoretically articulated in Latinx theology and religious thought. To pursue this task, we will devote the first part of the class to the examination of the conditions of possibility of latinidad by focusing on the formation of the Latinx self. What makes Latines, Latines? Is this a forcefully assigned identity or one that can be claimed and embraced with pride? Is there such a thing as a unified Latinx self or shall we favor approaches that stress hybridity or multiplicity? In the second part of the class, we will shift from self-formation to community-formation by examining the experience of mestizaje (racial mixing) and its theoretical articulation in Latinx theology. Is this concept useful to describe the Latinx experience or does it romanticize the violence of European colonialism? Lastly, we will return to the formation of Latinx identity considering the ambiguities of religious ethnic identity through the examples of tensions between Catholic and Evangelical Latinos, and those emerging from the experiences of Latinos converting to non-Christian religions. No prerequisites.

Instructor(s): Raul Zegarra     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 25560, CRES 25560, LACS 25560, KNOW 25560

GNSE 25724. Yes, but make it fashion!" Fashion, Culture, and Identity. 100 Units.

In this course, we will explore the role of fashion in socio-cultural life, and the ways in which fashion simultaneously expresses and is shaped by identity. How do communities on the margins challenge dominant ideas of beauty, modesty, freedom, desire, and fashion? Conversely, how does fashion on the margins become mainstream? Drawing on studies across disciplines and the world, we will use fashion as a lens to examine among other things, blackness, queerness, masculinities, caste, Islam, and occupation.

Equivalent Course(s): GLST 25724

GNSE 25910. bell hooks and Cornel West: Education for Resistance. 100 Units.

Cornel West and bell hooks are two of the most influential philosophers and cultural critics of the past half-century. Their writings-including their co-authored book-address pressing questions about politics, religion, race, education, film, and gender. In different ways, they each find resources for hope, love, and liberation in an unjust social order. In this course, we will read selections from their writings over the last forty years alongside the authors who influenced their thinking (including Du Bois, Freire, Morrison, King, and Baldwin). We will pay special attention to how hooks and West communicate to popular audiences, how they engage religious traditions (their own and others'), and the role of dialogue in their thought and practice. The goal of the course is not just to think about hooks and West, but to think with them about ethics, writing, American culture, and the aims of education. No prior familiarity with either author is required.

Instructor(s): Russell Johnson     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 22910, FNDL 25911, RLST 25910

GNSE 25997. Three Comedies of Sexual Revolution. 100 Units.

This seminar will discuss three comedies of sexual revolution from three different times and places. Aristophanes's Assemblywomen recounts how under the leadership of the able Praxagora the women of Athens take over the Assembly and legislate a new regime in which private property is replaced by communism and sexual equity is achieved in favor of the old and unattractive at the expense of the young and attractive. Machiavelli's Mandragola dramatizes the tricks by which young Callimaco manages with the aid of the trickster parasite Ligurio to have sex with Lucrezia, the beautiful young wife of the elderly lawyer Nicomaco, with the consent of both her and her husband, ushering in a new regime in which all are satisfied. In Shakespeare's Measure for Measure Angelo the interim duke of Vienna institutes a repressive sexual regime in which the brothels are closed and extramarital sex is a capital crime. What might we learn about sexual relations from these diverse plays? Why are they comedies?

Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 35997, SCTH 25823, CLCV 27623, CMLT 25823, PLSC 35997, CMLT 35997, SCTH 35997, CLAS 37623, FNDL 21772, PLSC 25997

GNSE 26240. Black Experimentation in Dance. 100 Units.

In this course, experimentation is explored as a choreographic approach to dancing and making dances. Grounded in process, practice, inquiry, and improvisation, experimentation has a long history in Black expressive culture. This class pairs readings at the intersection of Black performance theory, feminist and queer of color theory, and Black dance studies with examples of dance performances and artists interrogating topics such as the problem of aesthetic categorization, navigating racial visibility/invisibility onstage, and the politics of Black dancing bodies. The class focuses on concert dance in the United States, but may cover examples from social dance, popular entertainment, performance art, and global contexts.

Instructor(s): Tara Aisha Willis     Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): TAPS 26240, TAPS 36240, GNSE 36240, CRES 26240

GNSE 26305. Moral Reasoning Between Church and State: The Case of Abortion. 100 Units.

What is the moral reasoning of those inspired by Christianity to overturn Roe v. Wade? Given constitutional blocks on the state's establishment of religion, how do Christians justify legislating religiously-grounded moral beliefs? How do these Christians imagine the role of the church in secular democratic space? What is the nature of their religious lives? Under what mandates do they operate? What scriptures do they read? What worship do they participate in? This course takes a close look at those vocationally-even, "spiritually"-called to severely limit women's reproductive rights. Specific attention will be given to how these communities understand God, scripture, gender, family, government, democracy, law, freedom, etc. While much of the course's attention will be given to arguments and rationales (including legal and judicial arguments and rationales), equal attention will be given to ethnographically understanding the lived experience of ardent pro-life advocacy. The course will conclude by examining religiously-inspired pro-choice alternatives to pro-life positions, with specific attention to how carefully pro-choice advocates attend to the arguments and worldviews of their pro-life counterparts. A wide range of texts and types of texts will be considered.

Instructor(s): Jonathan Tran     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the CS Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 36305, THEO 36305, RLST 26305

GNSE 26311. Worlding Otherwise: Speculative Fiction, Film, Theory. 100 Units.

Worlding Otherwise: Speculative Fiction, Film, Theory This course examines literary and cinematic works of speculative fiction in a comparative context. An expansive genre that encompasses science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, horror, as well as utopian and dystopian literature, speculative fiction envisions alternate, parallel, possible, or imagined worlds. These worlds often exhibit characteristics such as: scientific and technological advancements; profound social, environmental, or political transformations; time or space travel; life on other planets; artificial intelligence; and evolved, hybrid, or new species. Speculative works frequently reimagine the past and present in order to offer radical visions of desirable or undesirable futures. We will also consider how this genre interrogates existential questions about what it means to be human, the nature of consciousness, the relationship between mind/body, thinking/being, and self/other, as well as planetary concerns confronting our species. Fictional works will be paired with theoretical readings that frame speculative and science fiction in relation to questions of gender, race, class, colonialism, bio-politics, human rights, as well as environmental and social justice. In addition to studying subgenres-such as Afrofuturism-we will explore speculative fiction as a critical mode of reading that theorizes other ways of being, knowing, and imagining.

Instructor(s): Hoda El Shakry     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 26312, CMLT 26311

GNSE 26313. Judaism, Medicine, and the Body. 100 Units.

For centuries the "Jewish doctor" has existed as an archetype, but is there such a thing as Jewish medicine? Does Judaism teach a distinct approach to the body, illness, and healing? And more significantly, why should religion have anything to do with one's health today? In this course we will grapple with our assumptions regarding modern Western medicine by discussing topics in Jewish medical thought and ethics. We will study how Judaism - its texts, history, laws, and traditions - intersect with issues of science, medicine, and the body. In particular we will think about how a Jewish approach to medicine, and more broadly a religious approach, might complicate contemporary assumptions about the body and healing. We will also consider how Jewish bodies have been imagined and stereotyped, and think about how that might affect Jewish approaches to disease and medical ethics. This course will thus offer students a way to think about alternatives to assumptions about medicine, the body, and ethics in the secular West, which will be explored both in class materials and in personal projects. No prior work in Jewish studies, medical ethics, or religious studies necessary.

Instructor(s): Ranana Dine     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 26313, JWSC 26313, CCTS 21022, KNOW 26313, HIPS 26313, HLTH 26313

GNSE 26624. Repression, Resilience, and Gender Politics in Basque Cultural Memory. 100 Units.

This course aims to explore the resilient character of contemporary Basque artistic and cultural production, with a particular focus on the increasing presence of strong female voices. One of the goals will be to explore forms of Basque cultural resistance that question the silencing and homogenizing tendencies of political institutions and their cultural hegemony, thus shedding light on both the dialectic between culture and counterculture and the mechanisms and agents of artistic censorship that come into play. Significant attention will also be given to the narrative poetics of the post-ETA period, during which works by female authors have played a leading role in examining the gender policies that have governed the so-called Basque conflict. The link established between the female figure and the transmission of a "dangerous" memory must be interpreted in the light of the current historical moment characterized by the struggle for the telling of the past and the interrogation of gender. Thus, with a focus on memory and gender, and drawing upon a diverse range of materials -including literary texts, sculptural works, music, and films- the course will provide students with a broad overview of contemporary culture in the Basque Country.

Equivalent Course(s): BASQ 26624, SPAN 36624, GNSE 36624, BASQ 36624, SPAN 26624

GNSE 27006. Research in Archives: Human Bodies in History. 100 Units.

How have we come to know and experience our bodies? This undergraduate seminar develops humanities research skills necessary to study the body in history. Spanning early modern cultural practices to modern medicine, science, and technology, this course explores how ideas and practices concerning the body have changed over time and how the body itself is shaped by culture and society. A major focus will be learning how to conduct different forms of historical research to produce cutting-edge humanities scholarship about the human body. Readings will introduce key themes and recent scholarship including work on disability, reproduction, race, gender, ethics, extreme environments, and identity. This dynamic research group will grapple with issues at the heart of our corporeal existence by combining perspectives from the history of science, medicine, and technology, cultural history, anthropology, and science and technology studies (STS).

Instructor(s): J. Bimm and I. Clever     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course partially fulfills the research seminar requirement for the IRHUM major.
Equivalent Course(s): HIPS 27706, IRHU 27006, HIST 25513, KNOW 26076

GNSE 27544. Unfinished Business: Revenge and Narrative Form. 100 Units.

What does it mean for something-a concept, an object, a historical inheritance-to "return with a vengeance"? Is revenge motivated by a desire for justice-a clear if ruthless commitment to equivalence-or does it demonstrate a drive towards excess? Does revenge restore order to a system of accounting, or does it compound wrongs that could never have been righted in the first place? Whom exactly is the post-breakup "revenge body" for? As these questions suggest, revenge possesses a special knack for confusing categories of self and other, and resurrecting uncertainties when it comes to cause and effect. Its resistance to closure makes it a complex model for social relation and narrative form. Revenge also has no respect for scale. Making no pretension to being impersonal or detached, revenge is linked to more minor forms like pettiness or grudges. Yet revenge plots often address scales far beyond the personal: events or contexts unfolding at the register of the historical, the intergenerational, the global. Revenge thus undoes unsustainable dichotomies between subject and object, social and individual, and more. We will explore revenge in novels and films alongside theories of revenge: psychoanalytic theories of fixation and the refusal to mourn, queer theorists and affect theorists writing on disaffection and alien affects, and even self-help writers counseling against the self-destructive, corrosive effects of not letting something go.

Instructor(s): Shirl Yang     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 27554, ENGL 27554

GNSE 27608. Women and Islam. 100 Units.

This course is an introduction to the field of women, gender and Islam. We will examine the literature on Islamic legal, historical, Quranic and sacred textual constructs of women as well as critically explore the lived realities and experiences of Muslim women living in Muslim-majority societies and in the west. In centering the work of Muslim feminist scholars, students will gain an understanding of the contemporary debates around women's rights, sexuality, roles, responsibilities and gender relations in the context of Islamic law and the hadith literature. The discursive constructions and social realities of Muslim women are critically examined through historic and literary representations, ethnographic accounts, human rights discourses, sexual politics and secular and Islamic feminism(s). Moreover, this course situates Muslim women as complex, multidimensional actors engaged in knowledge production and political and feminist struggles, as opposed to the oppressed, victim-centered images that have regained currency in the representation of Muslim women in the post 9/11 era.

Instructor(s): Maliha Chishti     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): This course meets the LMCS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 27601, ISLM 37601, GLST 27601, HMRT 27601, GNSE 37608

GNSE 27808. Digital Media & Social Life: Contemporary Methods. 100 Units.

Digital and networked media include forms and social phenomena such as memes, social media, live-streaming platforms, video games, virtual worlds, electronic literature, and online communities. What methods taken from the humanities and social sciences enable the study of these digital media forms and cultures? In order to model a series of methods, this course runs one shared media object (this term, the video game Stardew Valley) through a series of research methods, one per week, taken from the humanities (e.g., close reading, critical theory, response theory, and critical making) and social sciences (e.g., interviews, digital ethnography, discourse analysis, and quantitative analysis) methods. At the end of the course, students will compose a research paper or create a digital project that uses one or more of these methods to analyze a digital or networked media case of their choosing.

Instructor(s): K. Schilt, P. Jagoda     Terms Offered: Winter. Not Offered in 2023/2024
Equivalent Course(s): CMST 27808, SOCI 20523, ENGL 20523, MAAD 10523

GNSE 27880. Gendering Arabs: Embodiment, Agency, Affect. 100 Units.

This course explores the diverse ways that gender and sexuality are represented in contemporary cultural texts-film, fiction, and art-from the Middle East and North Africa. These creative works will be paired with critical writings from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives (gender studies, queer theory, affect theory, literary and cultural studies, anthropology, Islamic studies, and activist literature). While we will attend to the layered histories and legacies of colonialism, orientalism, globalization, military occupation, and war, our goal is to center gender discourses and practices as they are negotiated, performed, and contested by artists, writers, and thinkers in and from the region. Our readings and films emphasize how questions of agency, affect, and embodiment shape the lifeworlds and creative imaginaries of cultural producers from the Middle East and North Africa.

Instructor(s): Hoda El Shakry     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): NB: This course is designed for undergraduates and MA students. PhD Students will not be admitted.
Equivalent Course(s): CHDV 27880, RLST 27880, GNSE 37880, AASR 37880, ISLM 37880, ENGL 27880, ENGL 37880, CMLT 37880, CMLT 27880

GNSE 28122. Diasporic Practices in Contemporary Art. 100 Units.

The class will examine various phenomena of "Diasporic Practices in Contemporary Art", such as fragmented histories, the question of origin(ality), the limits of translation, social belonging and "the chosen family", and (over-)representation of origin. In class we will discuss readings by (a.o.) Grada Kilomba, Adrian Piper, Éduard Glissant, Langston Hughes, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Hito Steyerl. Students will be asked to present on contemporary artists highlighting their diasporic strategies, while also producing creative works through assignments that employ diasporic strategies and that will be discussed in class.

Instructor(s): J. Phillips     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300
Note(s): Please email Julia Phillips juliaphillips@uchicago.edu with a brief description of how your work relates to a diasporic experience and/or your personal investment in the subject (150-300 words).
Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 24122, GNSE 38122, ARTV 34122, ARTH 24122, CRES 24122

GNSE 28498. Women, Development and Politics. 100 Units.

This course will explore the dominant and emerging trends and debates in the field of women and international development. The major theoretical perspectives responding to global gender inequities will be explored alongside a wide range of themes impacting majority-world women, such as free market globalization, health and sexuality, race and representation, participatory development, human rights, the environment and participation in politics. Course lectures will integrate policy and practitioner accounts and perspectives to reflect the strong influence development practice has in shaping and informing the field. Course materials will also include anti-racist, postcolonial and post-development interruptions to dominant development discourse, specifically to challenge the underlying biases and assumptions of interventions that are predicated on transforming "them" into "us". The material will also explore the challenges of women participating in politics and what are the consequences when they do or do not.

Instructor(s): Bautista, M. and Chishti, M.      Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): LACS 28498, PBPL 28498

GNSE 28640. The Book of Ruth: Bible, Literature, Gender. 100 Units.

The Book of Ruth offers the most elaborate tale of a woman to be found in the Bible, but even this relatively detailed account is astonishingly laconic. The Book of Ruth is not really a book. It is only four chapters long - more of a short story, or a very short story, than a book. And yet, despite its ellipses, Ruth's cryptic tale is remarkable for its capacity to provide, with but few vignettes, a vibrant portrait of one of the most intriguing characters in the Bible. The first part of this course will be devoted to the biblical text itself. We will consider literary and feminist readings of the Book of Ruth while exploring broader issues of biblical poetics. Special attention will be given to questions of migration - to different accounts of the Book of Ruth as a paradigmatic tale of a migrant woman. The second part of the course will be devoted to the reception of the Book of Ruth - from the Midrash and the Zohar to modern literature. Among the modern and contemporary writers to be considered: S. Y. Agnon, Allen Ginsberg, Toni Morrison, and Michal Ben-Naftali. The discussion will also entail an exploration of adaptations of the Book of Ruth in art - from Nicholas Poussin to Adi Nes.

Instructor(s): Ilana Pardes     Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 38640, RLST 22640, BIBL 38640, FNDL 28640, CMLT 38640, CMLT 28640, JWSC 28640

GNSE 28775. Racial Melancholia. 100 Units.

This course provides students with an opportunity to think race both within a psychoanalytic framework and alongside rituals of loss, grief, and mourning. In particular, we will interrogate how psychoanalytic formulations of mourning and melancholia have shaped theories of racial melancholia that emerged at the turn of the twenty-first century. Turning to Asian American, African American, and Latinx theoretical and literary archives, we will interrogate the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality and ask: How do literatures of loss enable us to understand the relationship between histories of racial trauma, injury, and grief, on the one hand, and the formation of racial identity, on the other? What might it mean to imagine literary histories of race as grounded fundamentally in the experience of loss? What forms of reparations, redress, and resistance are called for by such literatures of racial grief, mourning, and melancholia? And, finally, how, if understood as themselves rituals of grief, might psychoanalysis and the writing of literature assume the role of religious devotion in the face of loss and trauma?

Instructor(s): Kris Trujillo     Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): PhD Students in Comparative Literature and Divinity are given priority registration and should email Ingrid Sagor, isagor@uchicago.edu with consent requests.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 28775, CMLT 38775, ENGL 38775, CRES 22775, RLST 28775, ENGL 28775, RLVC 38775, GNSE 38775

GNSE 29000. The American Culture Wars. 100 Units.

Should we tear down statues of Confederate soldiers? Should religious institutions be exempt from public health regulations? How (if at all) should we regulate abortion? These questions are only the latest battlefields in the "culture wars," the long-running conversation-or, more often, shouting match-about how Americans ought to live. This seminar will explore how Americans have wrestled with questions of morality and national identity since the country's founding. Two questions will drive our discussion. First, why do certain issues become the subject of fierce cultural conflict? Second, do these conflicts enrich or undermine American democracy?

Instructor(s): William Schultz     Terms Offered: Winter
Note(s): This course counts as an approved course for the Democracy Studies minor.
Equivalent Course(s): AMER 29000, HIST 27715, CRES 27000, RLST 29000, DEMS 29000

GNSE 29003. Islam Beyond the Human: Spirits, Demons, Devils, and Ghosts. 100 Units.

This seminar explores the diverse spiritual and sentient lifeforms within Islamic cosmology that exist beyond the human-from jinn, angels, and ghosts to demons and devils. We will focus on theological, scientific, philosophical, anthropological, and historical accounts of these creatures across a variety of texts, as well as their literary and filmic afterlives in contemporary cultural representations. In so doing, we consider the various religious, social, and cultural inflections that shape local cosmological imaginaries. We ask how reflecting on the nonhuman world puts the human itself in question, including such concerns as sexuality and sexual difference, the boundaries of the body, reason and madness, as well as the limits of knowledge.

Instructor(s): Alireza Doostdar and Hoda El Shakry     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Enrollment by Consent Only (for both grads and undergrads). Students should send the instructors a paragraph explaining their interest and prior preparation or familiarity with the themes in the course.
Note(s): This course meets the LMCS or SCSR Committee distribution requirement for Divinity students.
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 29003, AASR 49003, CMLT 49003, NEHC 49003, CMLT 29003, NEHC 29003, KNOW 49003, RLST 29003, ISLM 49003, GNSE 49003, ANTH 49003

GNSE 29117. Theater and Performance in Latin America. 100 Units.

What is performance? How has it been used in Latin America and the Caribbean? This course is an introduction to theatre and performance in Latin America and the Caribbean that will examine the intersection of performance and social life. While we will place particular emphasis on performance art, we will examine some theatrical works. We ask: how have embodied practice, theatre and visual art been used to negotiate ideologies of race, gender and sexuality? What is the role of performance in relation to systems of power? How has it negotiated dictatorship, military rule, and social memory? Ultimately, the aim of this course is to give students an overview of Latin American performance including blackface performance, indigenous performance, as well as performance and activism.

Instructor(s): Danielle Roper     Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Undergraduates must be in their third or fourth year.
Note(s): Taught in English.
Equivalent Course(s): SPAN 29117, SPAN 39117, LACS 29117, TAPS 28479, RDIN 29117, GNSE 39117, LACS 39117, TAPS 38479, RDIN 39117

GNSE 29237. Black Social Thought. 100 Units.

This course will familiarize students with social science academic and lay intellectual theorists who speak to and about the political, economic, and gender ways of being within the African Diaspora. Most of the course will highlight the voices of Western scholars, pan-African international scholars and thought will be discussed as well.

Instructor(s): Painia, Brianne     Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 30237, MAPS 30237, SOCI 30339, KNOW 30237, CRES 22237

GNSE 29647. Tutorial: Mathematical Knowledge: Race, Politics and Materiality. 100 Units.

Mathematical knowledge is commonly treated as objective and neutral, even though it is produced through specific societal contexts and in turn impacts those same contexts. In this course we will take a thematic approach to studying how mathematical and quantitative knowledges are produced and used through political processes from which they cannot be separated. We will look at examples such as the connections between plantation slavery and the precise measurement of molasses barrels in the 18th century, the gendered nature of the prestigious Tripos exam in the 19th century, 20th century attempts to quantify and manage reproduction, and 21st century issues of algorithmic policing. We will consider multiple angles for approaching the study of mathematics by connecting mathematical knowledge to topics such as labor, racial sciences, pedagogy, material tools, masculinity, nation-building, and embodiment. This will allow us to move beyond simply considering representation (of women in STEM, for example) to think about how gender and race are part of the construction of mathematical knowledge. In particular, this course will encourage students to think creatively about other possibilities for how we could justly and effectively use mathematics in our lives. There are no mathematical pre-requisites; students with a variety of experiences with mathematics will be able to participate fully in this course.

Equivalent Course(s): HIST 25508, HIPS 29647

GNSE 29700. Readings in Gender Studies. 100 Units.

This is a general reading and research course for independent study not related to the BA thesis or BA research.

Terms Offered: Autumn,Spring,Winter
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and director of undergraduate studies
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. May be taken for P/F grading with consent of instructor. With prior approval, students who are majoring in Gender Studies may use this course to satisfy program requirements.

GNSE 29800-29900. BA Seminar; BA Essay.

GNSE 29800 and 29900 form a two-quarter sequence for seniors who are writing a BA essay.

GNSE 29800. B.A. Paper Seminar. 100 Units.

This seminar provides students with the theoretical and methodological grounding in gender and sexuality studies needed to formulate a topic and conduct the independent research and writing of their BA essay. Students can register in either Autumn or Winter but must attend the Seminar during both quarters.

Instructor(s): Paula Martin     Terms Offered: Autumn Winter

GNSE 29900. BA Essay. 100 Units.

The purpose of this course is to assist students in the preparation of drafts of their BA essay. The grade for this course is the grade the student receives on the completed thesis.

Terms Offered: Autumn Spring Summer Winter
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form signed by the faculty BA essay reader.

 

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Administrative Contacts

Director of Studies
Kris Trujillo


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Assistant Director for Student Affairs and Curriculum
Bonnie Kanter
5733 S. University Ave.
773.702.2365
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