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5801 South Ellis Ave. Chicago, IL 60637
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Catalog Home › The College › Programs of Study › Gender and Sexuality Studies
Contacts | Program of Study | Program Requirements | Summary of Requirements | Grading | Honors | Advising | Minor Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies | Courses
http://gendersexuality.uchicago.edu
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. The plan of study, designed with the assistance of the Director of Undergraduate Studies, can take the form of a gender-track in a traditional academic discipline, interdisciplinary work on a gender-related topic, or a combination thereof. Students can thus create a cluster of courses linked by their attention to gender as an object of study or by their use of gender 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. Information follows the description of the major.
The major requires eleven courses, a BA Essay Seminar, and a BA research project or essay that can count as a thirteenth course. The Center for Gender Studies recognizes two main paths by which students might develop an undergraduate concentration. Path A is for students whose central interest lies in the interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality; it is designed to provide students with a range of conceptual and historical resources to pursue such study with creativity and rigor. Path B is for students whose interest in gender and sexuality is primarily organized around a specific other discipline or field such as History, English, or Political Science; it is designed to provide students with the conceptual and methodological resources to pursue Gender and Sexuality Studies within such a field. Within those goals, each path is meant to provide students with the opportunity to design a course of study tailored to their particular interests. Each path consists of the two required introductory Problems in Gender and Sexuality Studies courses, a group of nine electives (chosen in consultation with the Director of Undergraduate Studies), a BA Essay seminar for fourth-year students, and a BA paper written under the supervision of an appropriate faculty member.
Path A: GNSE 10100 Problems in the Study of Gender; GNSE 10200 Problems in the Study of Sexuality; nine electives, which must meet the following chronological, geographical, and methodological distribution guidelines: at least one course with a main chronological focus that is pre-1900 and at least one course with a main chronological focus that is post-1900; at least one course with a main focus that is North America or Europe and at least one course with a main focus that is Latin America, Africa, or Asia; at least two courses in the Humanities and at least two courses in the Social Sciences. Any given course may fulfill more than one distribution requirement; for instance, a course on gender in Shakespeare would count as fulfilling one course requirement in pre-1900, Europe, and Humanities.
Path B: GNSE 10100 Problems in the Study of Gender; GNSE 10200 Problems in the Study of Sexuality; five Gender and Sexuality Studies courses in a primary field; and four supporting field courses. Courses in the primary field focus on gender and/or sexuality in a single discipline or in closely related disciplines and develop a gender track within that discipline. Supporting field courses provide training in the methodological, technical, or scholarly skills needed to pursue research in the student's primary field.
Problems in Gender and Sexuality Studies (GNSE 10100 Problems in the Study of Gender and GNSE 10200 Problems in the Study of Sexuality)
A substantial essay or project is to be completed in the student's fourth year under the supervision of a Gender Studies Adviser who is a member of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Affiliated Faculty in the student's primary field of interest. Students must submit the essay by May 1 of their fourth year or 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). A consent form, 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.
| GNSE 10100 | Problems in the Study of Gender | 100 |
| GNSE 10200 | Problems in the Study of Sexuality | 100 |
| Nine courses distributed according to the requirements of Path A or Path B | 900 | |
| GNSE 29800 | BA Seminar | 100 |
| GNSE 29900 | BA Essay | 100 |
| Total Units | 1300 | |
| GNSE 10100 | Problems in the Study of Gender | 100 |
| GNSE 10200 | Problems in the Study of Sexuality | 100 |
| GNSE 15600 | Medieval English Literature | 100 |
| GNSE 20100 | The Family | 100 |
| GNSE 20202 | Women Mystery Writers: From Page to Screen | 100 |
| GNSE 21400 | Advanced Theories of Sex/Gender: Ideology, Culture, and Sexuality | 100 |
| GNSE 21805 | Gender and Writing at the Fin de Siècle | 100 |
| GNSE 23102 | Love, Conjugality, and Capital: Intimacy in the Modern World | 100 |
| GNSE 23302 | Writing Postcolonial History | 100 |
| GNSE 23503 | Women in Modern Africa | 100 |
| GNSE 28605 | Feminist Theory | 100 |
| GNSE 29800 | BA Seminar | 100 |
| GNSE 29900 | BA Essay | 100 |
| Total Units | 1300 | |
| GNSE 10100 | Problems in the Study of Gender | 100 |
| GNSE 10200 | Problems in the Study of Sexuality | 100 |
| GNSE 20100 | The Family | 100 |
| GNSE 20170 | The Sociology of Deviant Behavior | 100 |
| GNSE 21001 | Cultural Psychology | 100 |
| GNSE 23303 | Bombay/Mumbai: Urban Life/Urban Politics | 100 |
| GNSE 25104 | Sexology and Queer Theory | 100 |
| GNSE 27100 | Sociology of Human Sexuality | 100 |
| GNSE 31400 | Advanced Theories of Sex/Gender: Ideology, Culture, and Sexuality | 100 |
| SOCI 20001 | Sociological Methods | 100 |
| SOCI 20111 | Survey Analysis I | 100 |
| GNSE 29800 | BA Seminar | 100 |
| GNSE 29900 | BA Essay | 100 |
| Total Units | 1300 | |
Two of the supporting field courses may be taken for P/F grading. All other courses must be taken for a quality grade.
Students with a 3.0 or higher overall GPA and a 3.5 or higher GPA in the major are eligible for honors. Students must also receive a grade of A on their BA project or essay with a recommendation for honors from their faculty adviser.
Each student chooses a faculty adviser for their BA project from among the Gender and Sexuality Studies Affiliated Faculty listed below. At the beginning of their third year, students are encouraged to design their program of study with the assistance of the Director of Undergraduate 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 10100 | Problems in the Study of Gender | 100 |
| GNSE 10200 | Problems in the Study of Sexuality | 100 |
| Four additional courses in Gender and Sexuality Studies | 400 | |
| Total Units | 600 | |
Students who elect the minor program in Gender and Sexuality Studies must meet with the director of undergraduate studies before the end of Spring Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor. Students choose courses in consultation with the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The chair's approval for the minor program should be submitted to a student's College adviser by the deadline above on a form obtained from the adviser.
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 student affairs administrator at 702.2365.
Courses |
GNSE 10100-10200. Problems in the Study of Gender; Problems in the Study of Sexuality.
This two-quarter interdisciplinary sequence is designed as an introduction to theories and critical practices in the study of feminism, gender, and sexuality. Both classic texts and recent conceptualizations of these contested fields are examined. Problems and cases from a variety of cultures and historical periods are considered, and the course pursues their differing implications in local, national, and global contexts. Both quarters also engage questions of aesthetics and representation, asking how stereotypes, generic conventions, and other modes of circulated fantasy have contributed to constraining and emancipating people through their gender or sexuality.
GNSE 10100. Problems in the Study of Gender. 100 Units.
This course addresses the production of particularly gendered norms and practices. Using a variety of historical and theoretical materials, it addresses how sexual difference operates in various contexts (e.g., nation, race, class formation; work, the family, migration, imperialism, postcolonial relations).
Instructor(s): R. Jean-Baptiste, L. Auslander Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter
Note(s): May be taken in sequence or individually.
Equivalent Course(s): CRES 10101,ENGL 10200,HIST 29306,SOSC 28200
GNSE 10200. Problems in the Study of Sexuality. 100 Units.
This course focuses on histories and theories of sexuality: gay, lesbian, heterosexual, and otherwise. This exploration involves looking at a range of materials from anthropology to the law and from practices of sex to practices of science.
Instructor(s): L. Berlant, D. Kulick Terms Offered: Autumn, Winter
Note(s): May be taken in sequence or individually
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 10300,LAWS 72401,SOSC 28300
GNSE 12000. The Biology of Gender. 100 Units.
This course explores the biological evidence and theories that seek to explain gender in humans. This course relies on current research in neuroscience, physiology, and cell biology to address topics such as the genetics of gender; sexual differentiation of the fetus; sexually dimorphic brain regions; the biology of gender identity and gender preference; and hormonal/environmental contributions to gender.
Instructor(s): M. Osadjan Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): BIOS 11119
GNSE 15600. Medieval English Literature. 100 Units.
This course examines the relations among psychology, ethics, and social theory in fourteenth-century English literature. We pay particular attention to three central preoccupations of the period: sex, the human body, and the ambition of ethical perfection. Readings are drawn from Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain-poet, Gower, penitential literature, and saints' lives. There are also some supplementary readings in the social history of late medieval England.
Instructor(s): M. Miller Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 15600
GNSE 18804. 19th Century Segment of the U.S. Survey. 100 Units.
This is where modern America begins. Before there was a Great Recession or an Occupy Wall Street, there was the nineteenth-century roller coaster of prosperity and panic, the robber barons and newfound workers' unions of the Gilded Age; the passionate public debates over the central bank, monetary policy, and the national currency. Before the Tea Party, the Founders themselves debated over which ways to make their Revolution realized, enduring, and meaningful in daily interactions as well as institutions. To understand the debates over the recently concluded Iraq War, we must return to the origins of American imperialism in the 1800s. To appreciate the significance and symbolism of the first African-American president, we have to revisit the nation's long history of slavery, racism, and segregation.
,The nineteenth-century survey will examine the experiences and the conflicts that made up the history of modern American society, as it unfolded over the course of the 1800s. Weather permitting, the class will take at least one short trip to relevant historical site in (or around) Chicago. Requirements include careful reading, active and thoughtful participation, and a series of short written assignments.
Instructor(s): A. Lippert Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 18804,LLSO 22106
GNSE 20100. The Family. 100 Units.
Everyone is a member of a family. The family has been one of the most important social institutions in every society throughout history. But the shape that families take, the functions they fill, and the problems they face vary historically and cross-culturally. So families in Sweden look different from and act differently than families in Saudi Arabia or Brazil. And American families today differ dramatically from a century ago. This course looks at families from a sociological perspective, focusing on the family as a social group, the institution of the family, and differences in families within and across societies. We consider how public policies—such as those aiding needy families (TANF) and recognizing same-sex marriage—affect families and how family members work to influence public policies. We draw on contemporary media representations of families and their challenges in order to evaluate sociological theories. The course follows lecture/discussion format. Students are responsible for three one-page papers on topics drawn from the course, a mid-term, and a final. Prerequisites include one or more general introductory courses in sociology or a related social science or consent of the instructor.
Instructor(s): L. Waite Terms Offered: Winter
Prerequisite(s): At least one prior basic course in sociology or related social science, or consent of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20123
GNSE 20170. The Sociology of Deviant Behavior. 100 Units.
This course examines how distinctions between "normal" and "deviant" are created, and how these labels shift historically, culturally, and politically. We analyze the construction of social problems and moral panics (e.g., smoking, "satanic" daycares, obesity) to explore how various moral entrepreneurs shape what some sociologists call a "culture of fear." Additionally, we investigate the impact on individuals of being labeled "deviant" either voluntarily or involuntarily, as a way of illustrating how both social control and social change operate in society.
Instructor(s): K. Schilt Terms Offered: Not offered in 2012-13
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20175
GNSE 20800. Sexual Identity/Life Course/Life Study. 100 Units.
Equivalent Course(s): SOSC 25900,CHDV 24600,CHDV 34600,PSYC 24600,PSYC 34600,GNSE 30800,HIPS 26900
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. Research findings in cultural psychology raise provocative questions about the integrity and value of alternative forms of subjectivity across cultural groups. This course analyzes the concept of “culture” and examines 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): Third- or fourth-year standing
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 21500,ANTH 35110,CHDV 21000,CHDV 31000,PSYC 23000,PSYC 33000
GNSE 21400. Advanced Theories of Sex/Gender: Ideology, Culture, and Sexuality. 100 Units.
Beginning with the extension of the democratic revolution in the breakup of the New Left, this seminar will expore the key debates (foundations, psychoanalysis, sexual difference, universalism, multiculturalism) around which gender and sexuality came to be articulated as politically significant categories in the late 1980s and the 1990s.
Instructor(s): L. Zerilli Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Completion of GNDR 10100-10200 and GNDR 28505 or 28605 or permission of instructor
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 21400,ARTH 31400,ENGL 21401,ENGL 30201,GNSE 31400,MAPH 36500,PLSC 21410,PLSC 31410
GNSE 21805. Gender and Writing at the Fin de Siècle. 100 Units.
This course stretches the chronological boundaries of the fin de siecle to examine British and Irish writing from c. 1880 to 1922. This is a period of turmoil in gender relations that witnesses the rise of the so-called New Woman—the iconic figure of women's growing professional, sexual, and financial independence. Traditional ideas of masculinity and femininity become unstuck, jeopardizing what Adrienne Rich calls the "compulsory heterosexuality" underlying the institutions of marriage and the family.
Instructor(s): M. Ellmann Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 22206
GNSE 22205. Anglo-American Gothic Fiction in the Nineteenth Century. 100 Units.
In the nineteenth century, gothic fiction in English is an Anglo-American phenomenon. America’s first internationally recognized literary masterpiece, Rip Van Winkle, is written in England and appears the same year as Frankenstein. Our course will study the transatlantic aspect of the gothic tradition, while we also give full attention to the particular qualities of individual texts. Close reading will be central to our project. Attention to textual intricacies will lead to questions about gender and psychology, as well as culture. Our authors will include Washington Irving, Mary Shelley, James Hogg, Poe, Hawthorne, Emily Bronte, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Thomas Hardy.
Instructor(s): W. Veeder Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 26000
GNSE 22401. Latina/o Intellectual Thought. 100 Units.
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 22804,LACS 22804,SPAN 22801,CMLT 21401
GNSE 22505. Money and Literature. 100 Units.
This course explores a set of imaginative, anthropological, and economic writings about money. Topics will include economic rhetoric and genres, market values, housework, and ancient and modern economies. We will read Gide’s The Counterfeiters, Adiga’s White Tiger, biographies of coins, Chinese economic dialogues, and watch an episode of Suze Orman’s Money Class. Critical readings will include Mauss, Simmel, Marx, Goux, Rubin, Spivak.
Instructor(s): Tamara Chin Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 22504
GNSE 23100. Foucault and The History of Sexuality. 100 Units.
This course centers on a close reading of the first volume of Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, with some attention to his writings on the history of ancient conceptualizations of sex. How should a history of sexuality take into account scientific theories, social relations of power, and different experiences of the self? We discuss the contrasting descriptions and conceptions of sexual behavior before and after the emergence of a science of sexuality. Other writers influenced by and critical of Foucault are also discussed.
Instructor(s): A. Davidson Terms Offered: Autumn
Note(s): One prior philosophy course is strongly recommended.
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 24800,CMLT 25001,FNDL 22001,HIPS 24300
GNSE 23102. Love, Conjugality, and Capital: Intimacy in the Modern World. 100 Units.
A look at societies in other parts of the world demonstrates that modernity in the realm of love, intimacy, and family often had a different trajectory from the European one. This course surveys ideas and practices surrounding love, marriage, and capital in the modern world. Using a range of theoretical, historical, and anthropological readings, as well as films, the course explores such topics as the emergence of companionate marriage in Europe and the connections between arranged marriage, dowry, love, and money. Case studies are drawn primarily from Europe, India, and Africa.
Instructor(s): J. Cole, R. Majumdar Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course typically is offered in alternate years.
Equivalent Course(s): ANTH 21525,ANTH 32220,CHDV 22212,CHDV 32212,SALC 23101,SALC 33101
GNSE 23302. Writing Postcolonial History. 100 Units.
What has postcolonial theory meant to the writing of history? When did postcolonial history writing begin? This course addresses these and other related issues. Starting with the Subaltern Studies collective, we chart the career of postcolonial history writing in such varied fields as medieval studies, histories of colonialism, and gender studies.
Instructor(s): R. Majumdar Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20703
GNSE 23303. Bombay/Mumbai: Urban Life/Urban Politics. 100 Units.
The Indian city of Bombay and the Mumbai it has now become has been referred to as the “imagined” city, the “kinetic” city, the “cosmopolitan city,” and “the city of slums.” What do these labels mean to the practice of sociality and politics in Bombay/Mumbai; how does the urban experience in South Asia differ from that in other parts of the world; and how do gender, religion and class influence the different experiences of the city? Bombay/Mumbai: Urban Life/Urban Politics is an interdisciplinary course that will address these and several related issues. Using the city of Mumbai as its lens it introduces students to the ways in which urban subjects and urban life are constituted in a globalizing South Asia. The course explores the city of Mumbai through an urban-culturalist perspective and problematizes the ways in which the built environment of the city: its transportation, streets, slums, neighborhoods, tenements, markets, malls and businesses animate and are animated by the everyday life and politics in the metropolis. It encourages students to think about the ways in which Mumbai’s past and present patterns of urban informality, capitalism, consumption, criminality and urban dislocations mediate very particular experiences of politics, sociality, class, gender and globalization. The course uses a range of historical, theoretical, literary, and ethnographic readings as well as films, photography, and music to highlight the connections between place, space and everyday life in Mumbai.
Instructor(s): T. Bedi Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): INST 28550,PBPL 28510,SALC 28510
GNSE 23304. Documents of Work Migration. 100 Units.
This class is an interdisciplinary exploration of the ways in which women’s work and international migration is documented and represented in the twenty-first century media, law, and culture. The globalization of markets, coupled with the financialization of capital and the development of digital technologies, has triggered changes in labor migration. This change is perhaps best reflected in the emergence of so-called global cities with their large migrant labor force concentrated in the service and maquila industries. Migrant women supply the majority of labor in these globalized urban spaces, a phenomenon to which scholars often refer as the “feminization of labor.” Taking into consideration these economic and social transformations, this class inquires into cultural and legal representations of women’s work migration, focusing on the production and global circulation of a wide variety of narratives of migration, such as discourses on domestic and sex work, human trafficking, undocumented migration, and mail-order marriages. An important emphasis will be on practices of documentation and representation as instances of knowledge production that can both offer alternative understandings of labor migration and reinforce the socio-economic status quo.
Instructor(s): Roxana Galusca Terms Offered: Spring 2013
GNSE 23700. Medieval Women's Religious Writing. 100 Units.
The purpose of this course is to read different types of writing on religion by medieval women to investigate the relationship between gender and genre. We consider hagiography, letters, autobiography, theology, didactic treatises, and visionary writing by individuals such as Baudonivia, Hildegard of Bingen, Heloise, Christine de Pisan, and Teresa of Avila.
Instructor(s): L. Pick Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): RLST 20700
GNSE 23804. Marcel Proust In Search of Lost Time, Part I. 100 Units.
This two-quarter course is focused on reading and discussing the entire six volumes of Proust’s monumental novel in English translation. Topics of conversation will depend on the interests of participants, but are sure to include questions of ethics and aesthetics and the relations among consciousness, memory, fictionality, and narrative. Reading assignments will be approximately 120 pages per class meeting. For Fundamentals, Gender Studies, and MAPH students, no knowledge of French is required. French students will read selected parts of the text in the original, meet weekly for a French-language discussion, and write a term paper in French for each quarter. The first (Winter) quarter of the sequence may be taken for a grade without taking the second (Spring) quarter. Assignment for the first meeting: read the introduction and first 121 pages of Swann’s Way in the Modern Library edition, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and T. Kilmartin, revised by D. J. Enright.
Instructor(s): D. Wray Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 23804,FREN 23804
GNSE 23805. Marcel Proust In Search of Lost Time, Part II. 100 Units.
This two-quarter course is focused on reading and discussing the entire six volumes of Proust’s monumental novel in English translation. Topics of conversation will depend on the interests of participants, but are sure to include questions of ethics and aesthetics and the relations among consciousness, memory, fictionality, and narrative. Reading assignments will be approximately 120 pages per class meeting. For Fundamentals, Gender Studies, and MAPH students, no knowledge of French is required. French students will read selected parts of the text in the original, meet weekly for a French-language discussion, and write a term paper in French for each quarter. The first (Winter) quarter of the sequence may be taken for a grade without taking the second (Spring) quarter. Assignment for the first meeting: read the introduction and first 121 pages of Swann’s Way in the Modern Library edition, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and T. Kilmartin, revised by D. J. Enright.
Instructor(s): D. Wray Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 23805,FREN 23805
GNSE 24001. Love and Eros: Japanese History. 100 Units.
Equivalent Course(s): GNSE 34001,HIST 24001,HIST 34001,JAPN 24001,JAPN 34001
GNSE 24401. Reading Freud. 100 Units.
The fate of Freud’s writings in the late 20th and early 21st century has been a peculiar one. On the one hand, his work had been declared by many to be unscientific, intellectually bankrupt, and morally suspicious. On the other, his writings continue to be a source of inspiration and provocation, both directly and indirectly, not only to psychoanalytic theory, but to feminism, queer theory, film theory, literary and cultural studies, and throughout the arts and popular culture. This is clearly a situation that calls for some rethinking of what Freud’s work amounts to. The purpose of this course will be to take some initial steps towards such a rethinking, by returning to a careful consideration of Freud’s texts. We will mainly be concerned with Freud not as the source of a theory of the psyche, much less a theory capable of yielding a therapeutic practice, but with Freud as a speculative thinker concerned with the ontology of desire, a thinker nagged by questions with respect to which he remained restless and uncertain. As such, we will to a large extent set to the side some topics that many have taken to be the central ones for understanding psychoanalysis, including Freud’s various psychic topographies, the Oedipus complex, traumatic and developmental narratives generally, and the therapeutic situation; and when these do concern us, they will be as sites of disturbance rather than the production of perspicuous theory. The exact reading list is yet to be determined, but it will most likely include Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Civilization and its Discontents, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, a case study or two such as Dora or the Wolf Man, selections from The Interpretation of Dreams, “Mourning and Melancholia,” “The Economic Problem of Masochism,” and “A Child is Being Beaten.”
Instructor(s): M. Miller Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): ENGL 22202
GNSE 24900. Nabokov: Lolita. 100 Units.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 25300
GNSE 24903. Mimesis. 100 Units.
This course introduces the concept of mimesis (imitation, representation), tracing it from Plato and Aristotle through some of its reformulations in recent literary, feminist, and critical theory. Topics include desire, postcolonialism, and non-Western aesthetic traditions. Readings may include Plato, Aristotle, Euripides’s Bacchae, Book of Songs, Lu Ji’s Rhapsody on Literature, Auerbach, Butler, Derrida, and Spivak.
Instructor(s): T. Chin Terms Offered: Spring
Note(s): This course meets the critical/intellectual methods course requirement for students who are majoring in Comparative Literature.
Equivalent Course(s): CMLT 24902,EALC 24902
GNSE 25200. Happiness. 100 Units.
From Plato to the present, notions of happiness have been at the core of heated debate in ethics and politics. Is happiness the ultimate good for human beings, the essence of the good life, or is morality somehow prior to it? Can it be achieved by all, or only by a fortunate few? These are some of the questions that this course engages, with the help of both classic and contemporary texts from philosophy, literature, and the social sciences. This course includes various video presentations and other materials stressing visual culture.
Instructor(s): B. Schultz Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): PHIL 21400
GNSE 25900. Austen: Pride and Prejudice/Emma/Persuasion. 100 Units.
Equivalent Course(s): FNDL 25500,HUMA 21600
GNSE 26102. Sexuality Studies in American Art. 100 Units.
Taking the recent, controversial exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference & Desire in American Portraiture as our springboard, this course examines the plural strategies by which sexuality studies (in modes ranging from feminist history to psychoanalysis to queer theory) have been brought to bear on the canon of modern American art over the past thirty years, and the ways they have refigured our investigative methods, our objects of study, and the canon itself. Treating sexuality as a multivalent force in the creation of modern art and culture (rather than merely as subject), our topics will range from the 1870s to the 1960s—the years before artistic engagements with sexuality and gender were radically transformed by postmodernism and contemporary identity politics. Case studies will include the work of, and recent scholarship about, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, the Stieglitz circle (Charles Demuth, Georgia O'Keeffe), the trans-Atlantic "New Women" of the 1920s (Berenice Abbott, Romaine Brooks), the downtown bohemian and uptown Harlem Renaissance scenes of 1920s-30s New York, Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns & Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Eva Hesse. Readings are drawn from recent art historical and key theoretical texts, with an emphasis on methodological analysis.
Instructor(s): S. Miller Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Any course in modern or American art history or ARTH 10100 or a course in gender studies.
Equivalent Course(s): ARTH 24030,ARTH 34030
GNSE 27100. Sociology of Human Sexuality. 100 Units.
After briefly reviewing several biological and psychological approaches to human sexuality as points of comparison, this course explores the sociological perspective on sexual conduct and its associated beliefs and consequences for individuals and society. Substantive topics include gender relations; life-course perspectives on sexual conduct in youth, adolescence, and adulthood; social epidemiology of sexually transmitted infections (e.g., AIDS); sexual partner choice and turnover; and the incidence/prevalence of selected sexual practices.
Instructor(s): E. Laumann Terms Offered: Spring
Prerequisite(s): Introductory social sciences course
Equivalent Course(s): SOCI 20107,SOCI 30107
GNSE 27502. Indian Cinema: An Introduction. 100 Units.
This introductory course on Indian cinema starts with the works of Dadsaheb Phalke and then maps out the trajectories taken up by the different cinemas of the subcontinent. It is divided into analyses of “art cinema,” “regional cinemas,” and “Bollywood.”
Instructor(s): R. Majumdar Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): SALC 20507
GNSE 27702. Gender in the Balkans through Literature and Film. 100 Units.
This introductory course examines the poetics of femininity and masculinity in some of the best works of he Balkan region. We contemplate how the experiences of masculinity and femininity are constituted and the issues of socialization related to these modes of being. Topics include the traditional family model, the challenges of modernization and urbanization, the socialist paradigm, and the post-socialist changes. Finally, we consider the relation between gender and nation, especially in the context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. All work in English.
Instructor(s): A. Ilieva Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): SOSL 27610
GNSE 28202. U.S. Latinos: Origins and Histories. 100 Units.
An examination of the diverse social, economic, political, and cultural histories of those who are now commonly identified as Latinos in the United States. Particular emphasis will be placed on the formative historical experiences of Mexican-Americans and mainland Puerto Ricans, although some consideration will also be given to the historians of other Latino groups—i.e., Cubans, Central Americans, and Dominicans. Topics include cultural and geographic origins and ties; imperialism and colonizations; the economics of migration and employment; legal status; work, women, and the family; racism and other forms of discrimination; the politics of national identity; language and popular culture; and the place of Latinos in U.S. society.
Instructor(s): R. Gutierrez Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 28000,CRES 28000,HIST 38000,LACS 28000,LACS 38000
GNSE 28601. Outsiders I: Elsa Morante. 100 Units.
One of the most innovative and original writers of the twentieth-century Italy, Elsa Morante (1912-1985) did not enjoy canonization and full integration into the modern Italian novel tradition during her life. From the late 1940s to her death, her works stimulated numerous critical debates, but she remained fundamentally an “outsider” whose art could not find a comfortable place in the prevailing niches into which her more “insider” contemporaries were placed. In this course we shall read and analyze in detail her novels and essays, and consider the earlier and more recent critical reception of her corpus. We shall also consider her influence on subsequent writers, and the ways in which her poetics and practice interact in important ways with feminist, queer, and political theories of current interest. Given that her major novels are translated into English, the course is open to non-specialists of Italian literature, although students concentrating on Italian literature will read the original versions.
Instructor(s): R. West Terms Offered: Winter
Equivalent Course(s): ITAL 24803,ITAL 34803
GNSE 28604. Law and Social Movements in Modern America. 100 Units.
This course traces and examines the relationship of law and social movements in the United States since 1865. We examine how lawyers and ordinary citizens have used the law to support the expansion of social, political, and economic rights in America. We also look at how the state and civic organizations have shaped and deployed law to criminalize the strategies of social reform movements and stifle dissent.
Instructor(s): J. Dailey Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 28604,HMRT 28604,LLSO 28604
GNSE 28605. Feminist Theory. 100 Units.
Feminist theory has been the basis of both appropriation and criticism within disability theory. The purpose of this course is to investigate the problems feminist theory presents to disability and disability studies presents to feminism. Both strains of thought share a concern for the status of the subject and identity, a focus on rights-based politics and its limitations, and questions of how power and norms create repressive forms of social relations. Traditional politics focus on rationality, maximizing personal interests, and remediation of discrimination. We will look at how these norms are both critiqued and adopted, sometimes simultaneously, in feminism and disability. How are the simultaneous desires for accommodation and transformation theorized? Can feminism help resolve the tensions in disability studies concerning the status of identity, autonomy, and social relations? Can disability point to new understandings of the subject, social justice, and interdependency? And are disability and feminism fundamentally compatible strains of thought or are certain domains fraught with irresolvable conflict? We will examine both conceptual discussions and several cases where feminism and disability confront each other and dominant political and social norms.
Instructor(s): C. McKinney Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Completion of GNSE 10100 or GNSE 10200
GNSE 28703. Race in the 20th Century Atlantic World. 100 Units.
This lecture course will provide an introduction to the workings of race on both sides of the Atlantic form the turn of the 20th century to the present. Topics covered will include: the very definition of the term "race"; politics on the naming, gathering and use of statistics on racial categories; the changing uses of race in advertising; how race figures in the politics and practices of reproduction; representations of race in children's books; race in sports and the media. We will explore both relatively autonomous developments with in the nation-states composing the Atlantic world, but our main focus will be on transfer, connections, and influences across that body of water. Most of the materials assigned will be primary sources ranging from films, fiction, poetry, political interventions, posters, advertisements, music, and material culture. Key theoretical essays from the Caribbean, France, England, and the United States will also be assigned.
Instructor(s): T. Holt & L. Auslander Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 28704,CRES 28704,GNSE 38702,HIST 38704,LLSO 28313
GNSE 28905. 19th Century U.S. West. 100 Units.
"Go west, young man, go west!" newspaper editor Horace Greeley loved to say, although he only visited the region and did not coin the phrase. It referred to the host of opportunities thought to be lying in wait among the uncharted territories out yonder. The West has embodied the American dream; it has also represented an American nightmare. This course will examine the changing definitions, demographics, conceptualizations, and significance of the nineteenth-century North American West. We will cover an exceptionally dynamic period between the Northwest Ordinance and the Spanish-American War—an endpoint that inherently calls into question the very concept of the West itself.
Instructor(s): A. Lippert Terms Offered: Spring
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 28905,ENGL 25417,HIST 38905,LLSO 21103
GNSE 29700. Readings in Gender Studies. 100 Units.
Terms Offered: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring
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. BA 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.
Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and program chairman
Note(s): May be taken for P/F grading with consent of instructor.
GNSE 29900. BA Essay. 100 Units.
The purpose of this course is to assist students in the preparation of drafts of their BA essay. An approved GNSE course may be substituted.
Terms Offered: Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring
Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor and program chairman
Note(s): Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form signed by the faculty BA essay reader.
GNSE 31400. Advanced Theories of Sex/Gender: Ideology, Culture, and Sexuality. 100 Units.
Beginning with the extension of the democratic revolution in the breakup of the New Left, this seminar will expore the key debates (foundations, psychoanalysis, sexual difference, universalism, multiculturalism) around which gender and sexuality came to be articulated as politically significant categories in the late 1980s and the 1990s. (A)
Instructor(s): L. Zerilli Terms Offered: Autumn
Prerequisite(s): Completion of GNSE 10100-10200 and GNSE 28505 or 28605 or permission of instructor.
Equivalent Course(s): PLSC 21410,ARTH 21400,ARTH 31400,ENGL 21401,ENGL 30201,MAPH 36500,PLSC 31410
GNSE 38702. Race in the 20th Century Atlantic World. 100 Units.
This lecture course will provide an introduction to the workings of race on both sides of the Atlantic form the turn of the 20th century to the present. Topics covered will include: the very definition of the term "race"; politics on the naming, gathering and use of statistics on racial categories; the changing uses of race in advertising; how race figures in the politics and practices of reproduction; representations of race in children's books; race in sports and the media. We will explore both relatively autonomous developments with in the nation-states composing the Atlantic world, but our main focus will be on transfer, connections, and influences across that body of water. Most of the materials assigned will be primary sources ranging from films, fiction, poetry, political interventions, posters, advertisements, music, and material culture. Key theoretical essays from the Caribbean, France, England, and the United States will also be assigned.
Instructor(s): T. Holt & L. Auslander Terms Offered: Autumn
Equivalent Course(s): HIST 28704,CRES 28704,GNSE 28703,HIST 38704,LLSO 28313