Gender and Sexuality Studies

Department Website:
https://www.haverford.edu/gender-and-sexuality-studies

Students choosing a minor or independent major in gender and sexuality plan their programs in consultation with the Gender and Sexuality Director. Members of the Gender and Sexuality steering committee serve as their individual mentors. All students in the program take the core courses, "Introduction to Feminist and Gender Studies" and "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality." Other courses in the program allow them to explore a range of approaches to gender and sexual difference: critical feminist theory; women's studies; transnational and third-world feminisms; the experiences of women of color; gender and science; the construction of masculinity; gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, and transsexual studies; the history and representation of gender and sexuality in a global context.

Learning Goals

Students in the Program in Gender and Sexuality will:

understand how social hierarchies related to gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity have developed historically, cross-culturally, and transnationally.
develop a high level of fluency and rigor in understanding how issues of gender and sexuality shape our lives as individuals and as members of larger communities, both local and global.
gain competence in applying theory to practical experience for social transformation and citizenship.
become critically conversant with theories of gender and sexuality, and their intersectionality with issues of race and class.
draw upon and speak to feminist theory; women’s studies; transnational and third-world feminisms; womanist theory and the experiences of women of color; the construction of masculinity and men’s studies; lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and transgender studies; and theories of gender as inflected by class, race, religion, and nationality.

Haverford’s Institutional Learning Goals are available on the President’s website, at http://hav.to/learninggoals.

Curriculum

Students choosing a minor or independent major in gender and sexuality plan their programs in consultation with the Gender and Sexuality Director. All students in the program take the core course, “Introduction to Feminist and Gender Studies.” Other courses in the program allow them to explore a range of approaches to gender and sexual difference including: critical feminist theory; women’s studies; transnational and third world feminisms; the experiences of women of color; gender and science; the construction of masculinity; gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, and transsexual studies; the history and representation of gender and sexuality in a global context.

Major Requirements

Students wishing to construct an independent major in Gender and Sexuality Studies should file a petition with the Committee on Student Standing and Programs.

Minor Requirements

Six courses distributed as follows are required for the minor at Haverford College:

An introductory course GSST H190 Introduction to Feminist and Gender Studies (offered in the fall semester).
The junior seminar: GSST H290 , Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Gender (offered in the fall semester), will alternate focus between Queer Theory and Feminist Theory.
Four additional approved courses from at least two different departments, two of which are normally at the 300 level. Units of Independent Study (480) may be used to fulfill this requirement.
Of the six courses, no more than two will also form part of the student’s major. This requirement can be waived with approval of the Director, Dr. Gina Velasco.
No more than two of the six minor credits may come from institutions outside of the Bi-Co.

Neither a senior seminar nor a senior thesis is required for the minor; however, with the permission of the major department, a student may choose to count toward the minor a senior thesis with significant content in gender and sexuality.

Study Abroad

Courses taken abroad may be counted for the minor with consent of the Director. Upon returning to the Bi-Co, students must present a syllabus, reading list, and short narrative description of the course for the Director's evaluation.

Faculty

Below are the Gender and Sexuality Studies faculty. Many other faculty also contribute courses to the program; see the Courses section for a full listing.

Benae Beamon
Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Gina Velasco
Associate Professor and Director of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Affiliated Faculty

Laura Been
Associate Professor of Psychology; Director of Neuroscience

Imke Brust
Associate Professor and Chair of German

Charles Goldhaber
Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Pika Ghosh
Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion

Marla Kohlman
Visiting Professor of Sociology

Jess Libow
Visiting Assistant Professor in the Writing Program

Anne McGuire
The Kies Family Professor of Humanities; Associate Professor of Religion; Coordinator of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies

Connie McNair
Professor of the Writing Program

Lindsay Reckson
Associate Professor of English

Debora Sherman
Assistant Professor of English; Director of Writing Program

Emily Sterk
Consortium for Faculty Diversity Fellow and Visiting Instructor of Spanish

Linda Strong-Leek
Provost; Professor of African and Africana Studies; Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Katheryn Whitcomb
Visiting Assistant Professor of History

Terrance Wiley
Assistant Professor of Religion and Coordinator of African and Africana Studies

Susanna Wing
Associate Professor of Political Science

Nikki Young
Vice President for Institutional Equity and Access

Steering Committee

Kathryne Corbin
Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies

Molly Farneth
Associate Professor of Religion

Gina Velasco
Associate Professor and Director of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Courses at Haverford

Africana Studies Courses

AFST H319 BLACK QUEER SAINTS: SEX, GENDER, RACE, CLASS AND THE QUEST FOR LIBERATION (1.0 Credit)

Terrance Wiley

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

Drawing on fiction, biography, critical theory, film, essays, and memoirs, participants will explore how certain African American artists, activists, and religionists have resisted, represented, and reinterpreted sex, sexuality, and gender norms in the context of capitalist, white supremacist, male supremacist, and heteronormative cultures. Crosslisted: Africana Studies, Religion Prerequisite(s): 200-level Humanities course, or instructor consent

(Offered: Fall 2023)

Anthropology Courses

ANTH H212 FEMINIST ETHNOGRAPHY (1.0 Credit)

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This course delves into the historical development and utility of feminist anthropology. Feminist Ethnography is both methodology and method that seeks to explore how gender, race, sexuality, and subjectivity operate in a variety of contexts. We will explore articulations and critiques of feminist ethnographic methods that engage researcher positionality and the politics of research. This course is one part analytic and another part how-to. Participants will read classic and contemporary ethnographies while learning to craft auto-ethnographic research. Prerequisite(s): One ANTH course or instructor consent

ANTH H271 THE BODY AND EMBODIMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST (1.0 Credit)

Zainab Saleh

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This course surveys anthropological and historical approaches to the body and embodiment in the Middle East, with a focus on themes of representation and power. Our aim is to read up, across, and through prisms of class, gender, and colonialism to better grasp at the stakes of politics and to question the contours and limits of the normal, the healthy, the able, and the pious. Pre-requisite(s): one 100-level course in Anthropology, Political Science, Sociology, or History

ANTH H314 FEMINIST FILMMAKING STUDIO (1.0 Credit)

Emily Hong

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression; B: Analysis of the Social World

Through engagement with intersectional and decolonial feminist theory, students will work to deconstruct and challenge dominant gazes in film. Students will translate theoretical and autoethnographic insights to filmmaking practice by producing a short film.. Crosslisted: Visual Studies, Anthropology Prerequisite(s): any course in anthropology, visual studies, or gender and sexuality studies or instructor consent

ANTH H319 DEVIANT BODIES: THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF GENDER AND RACE (1.0 Credit)

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

What is the relationship between white supremacy, racial capitalism, and the construction of gender difference, gender deviance, and racial hierarchy? How can we think about gender non-normativity as a challenge to racial capitalism and its regimes of value, while simultaneously recognizing the dangers of recuperating white gender nonconformity into the ruling racial regime? In this course, students will encounter scholars from a range of disciplines—anthropology, Black studies, history, performance studies, and comparative literature—exposing the colonial invention and imposition of race/sex difference as a foundational move of colonialism, transatlantic slavery, and capitalism. In the second half of the course, taking cues from Ferguson’s Aberrations in Black, Williamson’s Scandalize My Name, and McMillan’s Embodied Avatars, we will consider the (trans) liberation politics that coalesce through antinormative gendered positions refuting racial capitalism’s regimes of value. Prerequisite(s): 100 level course in Anthropology or Instructor consent

ANTH H326 WHITENESS IN ANTHROPOLOGY (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

The violence of whiteness is occluded and concealed by treating whiteness and white people as normative, rational, and inevitable. In this class, we will turn our analytic gaze upon whiteness itself, exposing its insidious modes of self-and-other construction, and destabilizing its ocular power to define others. We will pay special attention to how the white, “colonial gaze” has operated in the purportedly-liberal discipline of anthropology, and explore ethnographic methods for studying whiteness and white supremacy. Pre-requisite(s): Two prior courses in Anthropology, or permission of the instructor.

Comparative Literature Courses

COML H220 MEDIEVAL MUSIC: WOMEN, AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Course explores music and its cultural uses in Medieval Europe. We will study the main genres and forms of music in secular and sacred contexts, from monasteries, convents, and cathedrals, to courts and cities. We will trace the changing character of music itself, from plainsong to polyphonic and from troubadour tunes to art song of the 14th century, in works by figures like Hildegard, Leonin, Machaut, Landini, and Vitry. We will study transformations in musical notation, theoretical underpinnings of musical time and counterpoint, and the status of music itself in the divine cosmos. We will also pause to put all of this in the context of current scholarship and historical performance practice. Prerequisite(s): Any full-credit course in Music, or instructor consent.

COML H231 CARIBE QUEER: SEXUALITIES AND NARRATIVES FROM THE HISPANIC CARIBBEAN (1.0 Credit)

Lina Martinez Hernandez

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

The course will look at different narrative and artistic productions regarding alternative sexualities in the Hispanic Caribbean. We will take as a point of departure the Cuban revolution and move to the present. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102

COML H245 PERFORMANCE, LITERATURE AND THE ARCHIVE (1.0 Credit)

Lindsay Reckson

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

The ‘archive,’ as both an institutional and performance practice and a theoretical concept, has been one of the most studied sites in performance and literary studies. The hegemonic, patriarchal institution of the archive that constructs and perpetuates the canon and the master narratives of history while, marginalizing, silencing, and erasing the subaltern and the subcultural has been contested by the poststructuralist philosophers and critical theorists of the late 20 th and early 21 st century. A new concept of the archive transpired in the interdisciplinary fields of postcolonial, gender, cultural, and performance studies, one that is more utopian and more inclusive and is not limited by dominant repressive power structures and ideologies. This archive does not merely revisit the past to excavate the eradicated traces and silenced voices, but also, perhaps more importantly, opens the potential for a formerly unimaginable, and yet-to-be-imagined future.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

COML H262 EUROPEAN FILM (1.0 Credit)

Imke Brust

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course will explore what role film plays in the conceptualization of the European Union. After a brief historical overview, we will familiarize ourselves with a variety of important European film movements after 1945. Our class discussion will cover important European film movements such as German Expressionist Film, Italian Neorealism, French New Wave, Czech New Wave, New German Cinema, and Dogma 95. In addition, we will be watching films from Poland, the Netherlands, and the Balkans. Towards the end of the semester we will discuss how the accelerated integration of the European Union since the 1990s has affected film production within the European Union and what aesthetic, and political ideas shape contemporary European films. Furthermore, this class also aims to highlight transnational aspects of European film in particular in light of the recent European refugee crisis. This course is taught in English with an extra-session in German. (Taught in English with an extra session in German.) Crosslisted: Coparative Literature, German

(Offered: Fall 2023)

COML H301 TOPICS IN MIDDLE ENGLISH: RACING ROMANCE, BLACK KNIGHTS AND WHITE CANNIBALS (1.0 Credit)

Maud McInerney

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This seminar will explore the ways race is imagined in the Middle Ages via texts from the Song of Roland to the Travels of Ibn Battuta. Crosslisted: ENGL/COML. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): Prereqs: 2 courses at the 200 level in English or Comparative Literature or instructor consent.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

COML H322 POLITICS OF MEMORY IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)

Aurelia Gómez De Unamuno

Division: Humanities

This course explores the issue of memory, the narration of political violence and the tension between truth and fiction. A selection of documents, visual archives and documentary films are compared with literary genres including testimonies memories, diaries, poetry, and fiction writing. This course also compares the coup and dictatorship of Pinochet with the repression of the student movement of ‘68 and the guerrilla warfare in Mexico. This course is conducted in Spanish. Cross-listed: Spanish, Comparative Literature, PJHR

(Offered: Spring 2024)

COML H377 PROBLEMS IN POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE: VIOLENCE, TERROR, AND IDENTITY (1.0 Credit)

Rajeswari Mohan

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

An examination of the rhetorical and narrative strategies adopted by postcolonial texts as they negotiate the aesthetic challenges and political complexities of representing violence and terror. Working with fiction, nonfiction, and film, the course will measure the different effects of realism, magical realism, surrealism, and the grotesque as modes of representing the dialectic of violation and violence. Crosslisted: English, Comparative Literature Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent

English Courses

ENGL H101 THEORIES OF THE NOVEL (1.0 Credit)

Laura McGrane

Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This course introduces students to the genre of the novel in English with a focus on desire, loss, and literary form. In order to ask the questions, ‘Why and how do we read novels? What does this experience enable?” we will interrogate theories of the novel, its early formation and contemporary forms. We will also consider changing cultural representations of subjectivity, nation, race, gender, and ways of reading. How is the reader variously constructed as witness to (and participant in) desire and its demise? How do developments in narrative voice influence the idea of fiction as a didactic, pleasurable, speculative and/or imaginative space? What is the novel’s role in effecting social change across centuries and geographies? Open to majors and non-majors—no prerequisites. Limit: 20 students.

ENGL H245 PERFORMANCE, LITERATURE AND THE ARCHIVE (1.0 Credit)

Lindsay Reckson

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ENGL H258 DESIRE AND DOMESTIC FICTION: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NOVEL IN THE 19TH C. (1.0 Credit)

Debora Sherman

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course is designed as an introduction to the novel and to narrative theory in a trajectory loosely inscribed from the late 18th to the mid19th century, beginning with Richardson’s Pamela and culminating in George Eliot’s extraordinary and exemplary Middlemarch. These several novels propose both an epistemology—what we know—as well as an affective sensibility, or a structure of feeling, and we might question their purpose: to amuse, to entertain, certainly, but to educate, to compel, to convince us of a certain understanding of the world. As well, the course will look at the purchase of contemporary critical investments upon the act of reading itself or how reading is inflected through different models of critical and theoretical discourse: how narrative economies shape and determine the nature of our experience or what we can know of our experience; how narrative determines a subject "self" and how these selves are then transected by race, gender, class, and other social and political determinants; how narratives manage the less obvious and sublimated worlds of desire and the body's disruptions; how narratives negotiate the grotesque, the spectacular, and the sensational; and finally, how these variously constituted needs and desires become constructions of “textual knowledge”.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ENGL H277 POSTCOLONIAL WOMEN WRITERS (1.0 Credit)

Rajeswari Mohan

Division: Humanities

This course will focus on contemporary writings by women from a range of postcolonial societies, and examine the ways they intervene in, energize, and complicate the aesthetic and political discourses that shape the norms and hierarchies pertaining to gender and sexuality. In particular, we will explore the ways writers use diverse narrative traditions such as folklore, fable, historiography, and memoir--as well as, more recently, digital writing styles--to give voice to their particular historical, cultural, and political perspectives. We will also trace the play of irony, parody, and mimicry as writers figure their ambivalent positions as women, especially around issues of modernity, immigration, sexuality, religion, nationalism, globalization, development, and neoliberalism.

ENGL H278 CONTEMPORARY WOMEN WRITERS (1.0 Credit)

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Readings in novels, short fiction, poetry, and some non-fictional prose by contemporary women writers. A study of the interrelations between literature written by female authors and the questions, concerns, and debates that characterize contemporary feminsit theory. Readings in Moore, Jordan, Gaitskill, Barry, Rankine, Parks, Ng, Morrison, etc.

ENGL H309 AGAINST DEATH: OPPOSING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE (1.0 Credit)

Lindsay Reckson

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

Advanced inquiry into creative and critical responses to the death penalty in the United States from the 1830s to the 1970s. Our aim is to explore the relationship between art and social protest, and to examine how capital punishment has manifested U.S. histories of race, class, gender, religion, and sexuality. Readings in primary historical materials, literary and cultural analysis, and critical theory. Pre-requisite(s): Freshman writing, plus one 200-level ENG course; or freshman writing plus PEAC101 or PEAC201. Crosslisted: ENGL and PEAC

ENGL H362 TOPICS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: WRITING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE (1.0 Credit)

Gustavus Stadler

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

A seminar on the literary portrait, examining mostly non-fiction by Anglo-American and African American writers from the late 19th century to the present. Topics include the erotics of portraiture, portraiture and the archive, portraiture and personal/historical trauma, collective portraiture, satire/critique, data portraits, modernist/post-modernist portraiture. We’ll frequently refer to visual forms of portraiture, including painting, photography, video art, and cinema. Regular writing assignments will include our own experiments in writing about others.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ENGL H377 PROBLEMS IN POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE: VIOLENCE, TERROR, AND IDENTITY (1.0 Credit)

Rajeswari Mohan

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

German Courses

GERM H320 IMPOSSIBLE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HOLOCAUST IN GERMAN DRAMA AND FILM (1.0 Credit)

Imke Brust

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This course will provide a historical overview of the Holocaust, its origins, process, and outcomes, and how it has served as a mental map for the construction of contemporary German national identity. In this context, we will explore such topics as notions of memory, collective guilt, trauma, and mourning. In addition, the course will critically engage issues of portrayal and representation of historical memory within the context of Holocaust commemoration by discussing several different plays and films that can be contextualized within the German Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung (working through the past) and more recently ‘memory contests’. Lastly, this course will also explore the tragedy and remembrance of the Holocaust as a transnational phenomenon in the contemporary world. The course is taught in English with an extra session in German. Cross-listed: German, Comparative Literature

Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses

GSST H190 INTRODUCTION TO FEMINIST AND GENDER STUDIES (1.0 Credit)

Gina Velasco

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This course introduces students to major debates and issues within the interdisciplinary field of Feminist and Gender Studies. We will explore what feminist scholars have illuminated about the construction of gender and sexuality in multiple historic, present-day, and global contexts. Students will examine feminist debates about how race, class, and religion shape gender and sexuality in unequal ways. And, students will develop the skills to analyze how gender and sexuality have been regulated, reinforced, and transgressed in diverse settings.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

GSST H192 INTRODUCTION TO TRANS STUDIES (1.0 Credit)

Benae Beamon

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Transgender (Trans) Studies is an interdisciplinary field that explores understandings of sex and gender through the discussion of lived trans experiences and theoretical tools to analyze gender, desire, embodiment, and identity. Students will learn to situate and assess assumptions about gender and sexuality, categories of identity, and social location. This course will raise questions about the social, political, cultural, legal, and historical rhetoric surrounding gender diversity in the U.S. context.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

GSST H210 QUEER GLOBALIZATION (1.0 Credit)

Gina Velasco

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Focusing on the relationship between queer genders and sexualities to migration, globalization, and transnational belonging, this course draws mainly on three bodies of interdisciplinary scholarship: queer of color scholarship, queer globalization scholarship, and diaspora and transnational studies. We will begin by exploring the history of LGBT and queer identities in the West. We will then define concepts of nation and diaspora, focusing on the relationship between sexuality, migration, and citizenship. Lottery Preference: Gender and Sexuality Studies concentrators.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

GSST H223 PERFORMATIVE BODY (1.0 Credit)

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression

Performative Body provides an in-depth exploration of creative practice. Drawing on performance art, visual praxis, and dance, Professor Truax leads students in exercises that connect them with their own creative resources and energies. Part laboratory, part playground, part archeological dig; the course is intended to help students experiment, connect, and honor difference as they cultivate habits that will support creativity throughout their lives. Texts include artist's writing, poetry, and theory on embodiment, disability, and performativity. Crosslisted: GSST.

GSST H262 WOMEN AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE EARLY MODERN ERA (1.0 Credit)

Charles Goldhaber

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Women played an important yet often neglected role in the development of early modern philosophical thought. Despite social barriers, they remained at the center of philosophical conversations by writing influential letters and publishing philosophical novels, plays, and poems, in addition to more standard philosophical genres. This course seeks to revive women's voices from 17th-19th century European philosophy. We will cover various topics (mind/body, education, happiness), with a special focus on early modern feminism. Pre-requisite(s): One 100-level course in Philosophy

(Offered: Fall 2023)

GSST H290 INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER (1.0 Credit)

Gina Velasco

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Explore the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, class, religion, and embodiment in our time. Our focus is principally on the USA, though we make some forays into international conversations. Readings are drawn from a smattering of the most recent developments in academic research and theory, as well as from science fiction, activism, popular culture, and new media. We work to bring the personal into the classroom, and to take what we learn out into the world.

(Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2024)

History Courses

HIST H246 HISTORY OF SEXUALITY IN THE U.S. (1.0 Credit)

Lori Ginzberg

Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This 200-level course will explore both "classic" and recent writings on the history of sexuality, focusing on questions of politics, power, and authority in order to understand the regulation of sexual practices, the social implications of sexual activity and identity, and the experiences, ideas, and conflicts that have shaped modern gay, lesbian, and transgender identities. Lottery Preference: History majors, Gen Sex concentrators, then Sophomores

HIST H291 INDIGENOUS WOMEN: GENDER, ETHNICITY AND FEMINISM IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)

Marlen Rosas

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This course gives students an introduction to the themes and debates in the intersectional fields of Gender and Women’s Studies, Race, Ethnic and Indigenous Studies, Latin American History, and Feminist Theory. Pre-requisite(s): None Lottery Preference: History majors, first and second year students, LAILS, and GenSex concentrators, with first priority for History and LAILS.

HIST H303 GENDER, INTIMACY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY (1.0 Credit)

Andrew Friedman

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This course examines the arenas of gender, sex and intimacy as crucial to the formation of U.S. foreign policy and U.S. imperialism in and after two key historical moments, often summarized as the Spanish-American War and the Cold War. The course looks at how U.S. encounters abroad defined personal intimacies and everyday lives. It explores the ways that rhetorical strategies concerning the body, masculinity and femininity, feelings, friendship, and love became central to U.S. geopolitical practice and memory.

HIST H310 POLITICAL TECHNOLOGIES OF RACE AND THE BODY (1.0 Credit)

Andrew Friedman

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This course examines the technologies, ideologies, and material strategies that have created and specified human beings as racialized and gendered subjects in the U.S. Readings cover biopolitics, disability studies, material culture, histories of disease, medicine, violence and industrialization. In our discussions and research, we will aim to decode the production of "reality" at its most basic and molecular level. Crosslisted: History, Health Studies

HIST H354 AMAZONS AND VIRAGOS: GENDER AND POWER IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE (1.0 Credit)

Lisa Jane Graham

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

Seminar meetings, reports and papers. May be repeated for credit with change of topic. Course introduces students to early modern European cultural history through a combination of theoretical texts, secondary literature, and primary sources. Recent topics include: Libertinage and Modernity; The Cultures of Resistance; and Law, Crime and Police in Early Modern Europe.

Health Studies Courses

HLTH H310 POLITICAL TECHNOLOGIES OF RACE AND THE BODY (1.0 Credit)

Andrew Friedman

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

Independent College Programs Courses

ICPR H258 AMERICAN QUEEN: DRAG IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

An interdisciplinary visual studies examination of queer subcultural performance and its influence on contemporary American culture. Readings include live performance, visual art and film as well as historical and theoretical secondary sources. Prerequisite(s): an intro course in Gen/Sex

ICPR H290 INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER (1.0 Credit)

Molly Farneth

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Music Courses

MUSC H220 MEDIEVAL MUSIC: WOMEN, AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Neuroscience Courses

NEUR H357 FEMINIST NEUROSCIENCE (1.0 Credit)

Division: Natural Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World; C: Physical and Natural Processes

As societal conceptions of gender and sex change, so to do scientific approaches to neuroendocrinology (the study of hormones and the brain) and sex differences research. In this seminar, we will trace the history of this scientific field before placing it in conversation with feminist and queer theories. Students will utilize close reading, writing, and presentation techniques to consider sociological concepts and reframings of neuroscience. Crosslisted: NEUR. Pre-requisite(s): Psychology 217: Behavioral Neuroscience or BMC equivalent Lottery Preference: 1) Senior psychology majors and senior neuroscience majors, 2) Junior psychology majors and junior neuroscience majors, 3) Senior psychology minors and senior neuroscience minors, 4) Junior psychology minors and junior neuroscience minors, and 5) all other students by class (senior, junior, sophomore; no first-years)

Peace, Justice and Human Rights Courses

PEAC H211 DECOLONIAL THEORY: INDIGENEITY AND REVOLT (1.0 Credit)

Joshua Ramey

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This course is an introduction to “decoloniality,” a mode of critical theory that examines and attempts to systematically undermine the notion that ascendance to power of European modernity (including contemporary American culture) can be understood without a constitutive and ongoing relation to colonial domination. This includes domination on the basis of race, gender, religion, and a variety of other ways that modern systems of rationality, governance, normalcy, order, and accumulation have been constructed through practices of domination and subjugation. The course focuses specifically on the American context, including the interplay between the African continent and North and South America. Key writers from Afro-diasporic, Afro-Caribbean, and indigenous Latin American perspectives will be studied in depth. While introducing students to salient currents in decolonial thought, the course will also examine relations between decolonial and postcolonial thought, as well as between decolonial theory and recent work in feminist and query theory.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

PEAC H309 AGAINST DEATH: OPPOSING CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE (1.0 Credit)

Lindsay Reckson

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

PEAC H316 WOMEN AND THE ARMED STRUGGLE IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)

Aurelia Gómez De Unamuno

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

An examination of socialist armed struggles in 1970s, women’s rights and feminist movements in Latin America. A comparative study of literary texts, testimonials and documentary films addresses theoretical issues such as Marxism, global feminism, hegemony and feminisms produced in the periphery. This course is conducted in Spanish. Cross-listed: Spanish, Comparative Literature, Gen/Sex, and PJHR Prerequisite(s): One 200-level, preferred 300- level course, or instructor consent

Philosophy Courses

PHIL H214 FEMINISM (1.0 Credit)

Qrescent Mali Mason

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

An examination of feminist philosophy in the lived world through reading Living a Feminist Life, The Argonauts, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, and Freedom is a Constant Struggle to answer, What does it meant to do feminist philosophy? Prerequisite(s): 100 level Philosophy course or instructor's approval

PHIL H236 FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY (1.0 Credit)

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

An inquiry into how ideas about gender affect both the practice of making knowledge and how we think about knowledge, and whether, and if so how, knowledge derived from a specifically female standpoint is distinctive. Prerequisite(s): One 100-level course in philosophy

PHIL H262 WOMEN AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE EARLY MODERN ERA (1.0 Credit)

Charles Goldhaber

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

(Offered: Fall 2023)

PHIL H372 TOPICS IN PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY AND INTERSECTIONALITY (1.0 Credit)

Qrescent Mali Mason

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course will attempt to determine how and to what extent intersectionality may fit into the discipline of philosophy. Focusing on the ethical dimensions of the concept, we will determine the conceptual difficulties philosophy brings to bear on intersectionality. Prerequisite(s): 200 level Philosophy course or Instructor's Approval

Political Science Courses

POLS H235 AFRICAN POLITICS (1.0 Credit)

Susanna Wing

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Analysis of political change in Africa from the colonial period to contemporary politics. Selected case studies will be used to address central themes including democracy, human rights, gender, interstate relations, economic development, and globalization. Prerequisite(s): one course in political science or consent of the instructor.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

POLS H242 WOMEN IN WAR AND PEACE (1.0 Credit)

Susanna Wing

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Analysis of the complex issues surrounding women as political actors and the ways in which citizenship relates to men and women differently. Selected cases from the United States, Africa, Latin America, and Asia are studied as we discuss gender, domestic politics, and international relations from a global perspective. Prerequisite(s): one course in POLS or instructor consent

POLS H342 THE POLITICS OF GENDER AND SEXUALITY (1.0 Credit)

Susanna Wing

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Advanced course explores the politics of gender and sexuality in comparative perspective. Includes readings in feminist theory and methods and examines the state and power structures through a gender sensitive lens. Cases primarily from Africa, Europe and the United States. Crosslisted: Gender and Sexuality concentration. Prerequisite(s): Previous course in gender and sexuality and Domain B (or SO), POLS 242 (Women in War and Peace) recommended.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

Psychology Courses

PSYC H328 NEUROBIOLOGY OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR (1.0 Credit)

Laura Been

Division: Natural Science
Domain(s): C: Physical and Natural Processes

An examination of the neurobiology underlying sexual behavior. This seminar will focus on systems-level understanding of the neural regulation of both pre-copulatory and copulatory behavior, drawing from primary literature in invertebrate, rodent, and human model systems. Prerequisite(s): PSYC 100 and PSYC 217, or instructor consent

(Offered: Fall 2023)

PSYC H357 FEMINIST NEUROSCIENCE (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Natural Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World; C: Physical and Natural Processes

Religion Courses

RELG H104 RELIGION AND SOCIAL ETHICS (1.0 Credit)

Molly Farneth

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course introduces students to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim approaches to contemporary social ethics. Topics may include labor, poverty and economic justice, racism, immigration, incarceration and capital punishment, civil disobedience, gender roles, sexuality, and sexual ethics. Lottery Preference: 15 spaces reserved for incoming first-year students

RELG H119 BIBLE, RACE AND SEXUALITY (1.0 Credit)

Naomi Koltun-Fromm

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

This course focuses on the interpretive history and historical contexts of a selection of biblical passages which form the core of "biblical" understandings of race, gender and sexuality. In comparative and historical textual exploration students will learn the variety of ways these texts have been understood across time and community, as well as how these same texts continue to provoke new interpretations and new understandings of race, gender and sexuality. Lottery Preference: Ten spaces reserved for first years.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

RELG H159 GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN ISLAMIC TEXTS AND PRACTICES (1.0 Credit)

Guangtian Ha

Division: First Year Writing

This course introduces students to the different views of gender and sexuality in Islamic thought, and situates these views within Muslim histories and societies. We will draw on primary sources, historiographical work, ethnographies of Muslim societies, fiction, poetry, and play. One major focus will be on homosexuality in Islam and Muslim societies. In the course of this examination we will also have a chance to question what “homosexuality” is and whether this term can be applied cross-culturally and cross-religiously. To think critically about homosexuality in Islam will thus compel us to reconsider homosexuality and Islam at once. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.

RELG H221 WOMEN AND GENDER IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY (1.0 Credit)

Anne McGuire

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): ,A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

An examination of the representations of women and gender in early Christian texts and their significance for contemporary Christianity. Topics include interpretations of Genesis 1-3, images of women and sexuality in early Christian literature, and the roles of women in various Christian communities.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

RELG H221 WOMEN AND GENDER IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY (1.0 Credit)

Anne McGuire

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): ,A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

(Offered: Fall 2023)

RELG H301 SEMINAR IN RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS IN CULTURAL CONTEXT: INTERPRETING MYTHS OF CREATION (1.0 Credit)

Anne McGuire

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This seminar explores myths of creation from various cultural and religious contexts. The seminar will bring a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, with a focus on theories of myth and the role of creation myths in shaping conceptions of the cosmos, the divine, and what it means to be human. We’ll employ theories and methods from various fields, including anthropological, historical, psychological, literary, and religious studies.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

RELG H303 RELIGION, LITERATURE AND REPRESENTATION: IMAGES OF KRISHNA (1.0 Credit)

Pika Ghosh

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course approaches the Hindu god Krishna through varied expressions in architecture, sculpture, paintings, textiles, landscape design, poetry, music, dance, and drama. We will ask how these practices were employed to visualize the divine, to nurture faith and passion, and to gain proximity to the transcendent deity. Class work will include field trips to local temples and museums.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

RELG H319 BLACK QUEER SAINTS: SEX, GENDER, RACE, CLASS AND THE QUEST FOR LIBERATION (1.0 Credit)

Terrance Wiley

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

(Offered: Fall 2023)

Sociology Courses

SOCL H106 GENDER, POWER, AND POLICY (1.0 Credit)

Marla Kohlman

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

The primary objective of this first-year seminar is to explore the social construction of gender and violence in the US. Gendered issues of conduct we will focus our attention on this semester include abortion, sexual discrimination in the workplace, rape or sexual assault, and domestic violence. Lottery Preference: First-year and sophomore students have priority over juniors and seniors.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

SOCL H235 CLASS, RACE, AND EDUCATION (1.0 Credit)

Mark Gould

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

An examination of the effects of class and race on educational and occupational outcomes, emphasizing the contemporary United States.

Spanish Courses

SPAN H231 CARIBE QUEER: SEXUALITIES AND NARRATIVES FROM THE HISPANIC CARIBBEAN (1.0 Credit)

Lina Martinez Hernandez

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

SPAN H316 WOMEN AND THE ARMED STRUGGLE IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)

Aurelia Gómez De Unamuno

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

SPAN H322 POLITICS OF MEMORY IN LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)

Aurelia Gómez De Unamuno

Division: Humanities

(Offered: Spring 2024)

SPAN H329 FEMINIST FUTURES: SPECULATIVE FICTIONS OF LATIN AMERICA (1.0 Credit)

Emily Sterk

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

An exploration of twentieth and twenty-first century feminist science fiction from Latin America and the Caribbean. Through novels, short stories, performances, and films, students will evaluate how the genre of science fiction addresses questions of gender, sexuality, race, class, and colonialism. Students will consider how feminist science fictions (re)imagine gender and sexuality in the future and the progression or regression that awaits. Pre-requisite(s): One 200 level Spanish course Lottery Preference: Majors; minors & LAILS concentrators.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

Visual Studies Courses

VIST H108 REAL WORK & DREAM JOBS: VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS AND THEORIES OF WORK (1.0 Credit)

Shannan Hayes

Division: First Year Writing

An entry into theories of work, thinking critically and historically about the role of work in society, the promise of art as an ideal form of work, and the structural persistence of gendered, classed, and racial divisions of labor. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

VIST H115 NOW/THEN: ART AND ABOLITION 1966-2022 (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Domain(s): A: Creative Expression

How have artists developed and sustained abolitionist practices over time? What critical and creative frameworks inform abolitionism as a way of life? In this introductory course, students learn about the significance of art in abolitionist movements from the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966 to the watershed reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022. The course highlights key artists and thinkers, and offers creative workshops for collectively re-imagining relationships, communities, and our world.

VIST H130 INTRODUCTION TO PERFORMANCE STUDIES (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Through readings of theoretical texts, art works, dance, and experimental performance, we will explore performance as an interpretive framework for social behaviors, institutions, and presentations of self. Readings engage philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, race studies, disability studies, and sexuality studies.

VIST H223 PERFORMATIVE BODY (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression

VIST H258 AMERICAN QUEEN: DRAG IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

VIST H307 UNTIMELY ART AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

In this course we will examine artworks and performances that generate a sense of being untimely. Disjointed, de-instrumentalized, and ahistorical, we will consider what transformative undertakings untimely art makes possible and the ethical, social, and political resonances of untimeliness. Prerequisite(s): Any course in Visual Studies, Fine Arts, History of Arts, and/or philosophy or with permission from the instructor

VIST H314 FEMINIST FILMMAKING STUDIO (1.0 Credit)

Emily Hong

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression; B: Analysis of the Social World

Writing Program Courses

WRPR H105 THE POLITICS OF SELF-CARE (1.0 Credit)

Jess Libow

Division: First Year Writing

In this course, we’ll interrogate the relationships between self-care; politics; and physical, mental, and spiritual health by turning to three distinct moments in the history of American self-care: “self-reliance” in the 19th c. as articulated by Emerson and Thoreau; late 20th c activist groups including the Black Panther Party, the Boston Women’s Health Collective, and ACT UP; and contemporary understandings of self-care discourses such as wellness and the perspectives of those living with chronic illnesses. Pre-requisite(s): Placement by the Director of College Writing.

WRPR H106 FEMINISM BEFORE SUFFRAGE (1.0 Credit)

Jess Libow

Division: First Year Writing

Long before they secured the right to vote, women in the United States were actively engaged in an array of political and social debates from abolition and labor reform to marriage and Indigenous sovereignty. In this course we’ll explore this history of American feminist expression by tracing the ways in which women writers from 1776-1920 contested and asserted ideas about sex, race, class, and citizenship. Pre-requisite(s): Placement by the Director of College Writing.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

WRPR H108 REAL WORK & DREAM JOBS: VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS AND THEORIES OF WORK (1.0 Credit)

Shannan Hayes

Division: First Year Writing

(Offered: Spring 2024)

WRPR H126 RADICAL BLACK FEMINISMS AND THE CARCERAL STATE (1.0 Credit)

Division: First Year Writing

With growing calls for the abolition of prisons and all systems of racial-sexual domination, this course will examine a long history of works by and about Black women political prisoners since the Black Power Era. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.

WRPR H139 DOES REPRESENTATION MATTER? (1.0 Credit)

Connie McNair

Division: First Year Writing

In this course, students will explore theories of representation, along with critical race studies, structuralism and poststructuralism, global feminisms and neoliberalism, to think through contemporary discourses (like #Oscarssowhite and Girlboss Feminism) that claim representation matters when it comes to racial and gender justice. Lottery Preference: First year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

WRPR H142 PASSING, MIXING, (RE)PRODUCING: RACE & INTIMACY IN AMERICAN DISCOURSE (1.0 Credit)

Connie McNair

Division: First Year Writing

In this course, students will close-read narrative and filmic depictions of transcending, transgressing, and violating racial borders, thinking about what these narratives reflect and what they produce when it comes to understandings of race, gender and sexuality. We’ll look at the effects of both transgressive and progressive figurations of “racial mixture” and mixed race individuals, considering what functions these discourses play in larger schemas of American politics, ideologies and affects. Lottery Preference: First year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing

(Offered: Fall 2023)

WRPR H159 GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN ISLAMIC TEXTS AND PRACTICES (1.0 Credit)

Guangtian Ha

Division: First Year Writing

WRPR H199 CHILDHOOD AND CHILDREN’S LITERATURE (1.0 Credit)

Division: First Year Writing

Reading children’s literature as well as toys, games, and dolls from the eighteenth century to the present, this first-year writing seminar considers how ideas of childhood have evolved over time in American and British culture. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.

Courses at Bryn Mawr

Anthropology Courses

ANTH B102 INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY (1.0 Credit)

Susanna Fioratta

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This course will explore the basic principles and methods of sociocultural anthropology. Through field research, direct observation, and participation in a group’s daily life, sociocultural anthropologists examine the many ways that people organize their social institutions and cultural systems, ranging from the dynamics of life in small-scale societies to the transnational circulation of people, commodities, technologies and ideas. Sociocultural anthropology examines how many of the categories we assume to be “natural,” such as kinship, gender, or race, are culturally and socially constructed. It examines how people’s perceptions, beliefs, values, and actions are shaped by broader historical, economic, and political contexts. It is also a vital tool for understanding and critiquing imbalances of power in our contemporary world. Through a range of topically and geographically diverse course readings and films, and opportunities to practice ethnographic methodology, students will gain new analytical and methodological tools for understanding cultural difference, social organization, and social change.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ANTH B213 ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD (1.0 Credit)

Susanna Fioratta

Food is part of the universal human experience. But everyday experiences of food also reveal much about human difference. What we eat is intimately connected with who we are, where we belong, and how we see the world. In this course, we will use a socio-cultural perspective to explore how food helps us form families, national and religious communities, and other groups. We will also consider how food may become a source of inequality, a political symbol, and a subject of social discord. Examining both practical and ideological meanings of food and taste, this course will address issues of identity, social difference, and cultural experience.

ANTH B246 THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF LANGUAGE: FIELD RESEARCH IN LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY (1.0 Credit)

Amanda Weidman

Division: Humanities

The goal of this course is to develop an awareness of how language operates in various interactional and other (eg. ritual, performance, political) contexts that we commonly experience. The focus will be on gaining hands-on experience in doing linguistic anthropological data collection and analysis, and putting the results of individual student projects together as part of initiating an ongoing, multi-year project. Topics that students explore ethnographically may include: language and gender; language, race and social indexicality; sociolinguistic variation; codeswitching; register and social stance; language and social media. Student research will involve ethnographic observation, audio-recording of spoken discourse, conducting interviews, and learning how to create a transcript to use as the basis for ethnographic analysis. Students will work in parallel on individual projects cohering around a particular topic, and class time will be used to discuss the results and synthesize insights that develop from bringing different ethnographic contexts together. For the praxis component of the course, students will use the experience they have gained to generate ideas for components of a middle school/high school language arts curriculum that incorporates linguistic anthropology concepts and student-driven research on language.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ANTH B294 CULTURE, POWER, AND POLITICS (1.0 Credit)

Susanna Fioratta

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

What do a country's national politics have to do with culture? Likewise, how are politics hidden below the surface of our everyday social lives? This course explores questions like these through anthropological approaches. Drawing on both classic and contemporary ethnographic studies from the U.S. and around the world, we will examine how social and cultural frameworks help us understand politics in new ways. We will investigate how people perceive the meanings and effects of the state; how nationalism and citizenship shape belonging on the one hand, and exclusion on the other; how understandings of gender, race, and difference converge with political action, ideology, and power; and how politics infuse everyday spaces including schools, businesses, homes, and even the dinner table. Prerequisite: ANTH B102, H103 or permission of the instructor.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ANTH B312 ANTHROPOLOGY OF REPRODUCTION (1.0 Credit)

Melissa Pashigian

Division: Social Science

This course will examine how power in everyday life shapes reproductive behavior and how reproduction is culturally constructed. Through an examination of materials from different cultures, this course will look at how often competing interests within households, communities, states and institutions (at both the local and global levels) influence reproduction in society. We will explore the political economy of reproduction cross-culturally, how power and politics shape gendered reproductive behavior and how it is interpreted and used differently by persons, communities and institutions. Topics covered include but are not limited to the politics of family planning, mothering/parenting, abortion, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, fetal testing and biology and social policy in cross-cultural comparison. Prerequisite: ANTH 8102 (or ANTH H103) or permission of instructor. Haverford: Social Science (SO), Enrollment Cap: 15; Post Bacc Spaces: 2; If the course exceeds the enrollment cap the following criteria will be used for the lottery: Major/Minor/Concentration; Senior; Junior; Permission of Instructor.

ANTH B329 THE POLITICS OF BELONGING AND EXCLUSION IN INDIA (1.0 Credit)

Amanda Weidman

Since India's economic liberalization in the early 1990s, the globalizing dynamics of cultural and economic liberalization have been accompanied by renewed articulations of who belongs in the "New India" and who doesn't. In this context, caste, class, religious community, language, and gender have become crucial sites for claiming citizenship, articulating distinctions among people, and constructing senses of what and who can inhabit the public sphere. Using materials from different regions of India, our focus will be on how fine-grained ethnographic study can be a tool to examine the broader dynamics of belonging and exclusion and its political and social effects. This course fulfills the BMC Anthropology major/minor ethnographic area requirement.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ANTH B331 MEDICAL ANTHRO SEMINAR: CRITICAL THINKING FOR CRITICAL TIMES (1.0 Credit)

Melissa Pashigian

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Advanced Medical Anthropology: Critical Thinking for Critical Times explores theoretical and applied frameworks used in medical anthropology to tackle pressing problems in our world today. Coupled with topical subjects and ethnographic examples, this seminar will enable students to delve deeply into sub-specialization areas in the field of medical anthropology, including: global health inequalities, cross-border disease transmission, genomics, science and technology studies, ethnomedicine, cross-cultural psychiatry/psychology, cross-cultural bioethics, and ecological approaches to studying health and behavior, among others. No prior experience in medical anthropology is required. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing and higher.

ANTH B354 POLITICAL ECONOMY, GENDER, ETHNICITY AND TRANSFORMATION IN VIETNAM (1.0 Credit)

Melissa Pashigian

Division: Social Science

Today, Vietnam is in the midst of dramatic social, economic and political changes brought about through a shift from a central economy to a market/capitalist economy since the late 1980s. These changes have resulted in urbanization, a rise in consumption, changes in land use, movement of people, environmental consequences of economic development, and shifts in social and economic relationships and cultural practices as the country has moved from low income to middle income status. This course examines culture and society in Vietnam focusing largely on contemporary Vietnam, but with a view to continuities and historical precedent in past centuries. In this course, we will draw on anthropological studies of Vietnam, as well as literature and historical studies. Relationships between the individual, family, gender, ethnicity, community, land, and state will pervade the topics addressed in the course, as will the importance of political economy, nation, and globalization. In addition to class seminar discussions, students will view documentary and fictional films about Vietnamese culture. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher or first years with ANTH 102.

Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology Courses

ARCH B254 CLEOPATRA (1.0 Credit)

Evrydiki Tasopoulou

This course examines the life and rule of Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, and the reception of her legacy in the Early Roman Empire and the western world from the Renaissance to modern times. The first part of the course explores extant literary evidence regarding the upbringing, education, and rule of Cleopatra within the contexts of Egyptian and Ptolemaic cultures, her relationships with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, her conflict with Octavian, and her death by suicide in 30 BCE. The second part examines constructions of Cleopatra in Roman literature, her iconography in surviving art, and her contributions to and influence on both Ptolemaic and Roman art. A detailed account is also provided of the afterlife of Cleopatra in the literature, visual arts, scholarship, and film of both Europe and the United States, extending from the papal courts of Renaissance Italy and Shakespearean drama, to Thomas Jefferson’s art collection at Monticello and Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1963 epic film, Cleopatra.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

Classical Studies Courses

CSTS B175 FEMINISM IN CLASSICS (1.0 Credit)

This course will illustrate the ways in which feminism has had an impact on classics, as well as the ways in which feminists think with classical texts. It will have four thematic divisions: feminism and the classical canon; feminism, women, and rethinking classical history; feminist readings of classical texts; and feminists and the classics - e.g. Cixous' Medusa and Butler's Antigone.

CSTS B219 POETIC DESIRES, QUEER LONGINGS (1.0 Credit)

Staff

This course places poetry that considers love and desire from Greco-Roman antiquity in conversation with modern poetry and critical theory (queer, feminist, and literary). How are the roles of lover and beloved constructed through gender? How does queer desire and sexuality manifest in different cultural contexts? How have poets sought to express desire through language, and in what ways does language fail to capture that desire? Students in this course will face the difficulties of articulating desire head-on through both traditional literary analysis papers and a creative writing project. Texts will include love poetry by Sappho and Ovid, Trista Mateer’s Aphrodite Made Me Do It, Anne Carson’s Eros the Bittersweet, and Audre Lorde’s “The Uses of the Erotic.”

CSTS B240 (RE)PRODUCTIONS FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY (1.0 Credit)

Staff

How might Ancient Greek and Roman values regarding leisure time, labor, poetic production, and reproduction intersect with those of modern capitalism? Why are texts considered the children of ancient (male) authors, and where do women fit into this textual reproductive activity? What does a queer (i.e. non-essentialist, non-binary) reproduction look like? What makes art art, and does the reproduction of art, such as Roman copies of Greek statues, entail the loss of some special uncapturable quality? This course considers the above questions, investigating ancient and modern cultural attitudes towards (re)production through intersectional feminist and queer theory. Students will explore modern textual and filmic representations of pregnancy, abortion, creation, domestic labor, and artistic labor to enrich their readings of ancient texts. Texts will include Ancient Greek tragedies such as Euripides’ Medea and Sophocles’ Antigone, Latin poetry such as Horace’s Ars Poetica and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, novels such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, films such as My Fair Lady, and modern poetry by Johanna Hedva and Dionne Brand.

East Asian Languages and Cultures Courses

EALC B240 TOPICS IN CHINESE FILM (1.0 Credit)

Shiamin Kwa

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

EALC B264 HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA (1.0 Credit)

Yonglin Jiang

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This course will examine China’s human rights issues from a historical perspective. The topics include diverse perspectives on human rights, historical background, civil rights, religious practice, justice system, education, as well as the problems concerning some social groups such as migrant laborers, women, ethnic minorities and peasants.

Economics Courses

ECON B324 THE ECONOMICS OF DISCRIMINATION AND INEQUALITY (1.0 Credit)

Andrew Nutting

Division: Social Science

Explores the causes and consequences of discrimination and inequality in economic markets. Topics include economic theories of discrimination and inequality, evidence of contemporary race- and gender-based inequality, detecting discrimination, identifying sources of racial and gender inequality, and identifying sources of overall economic inequality. Additionally, the instructor and students will jointly select supplementary topics of specific interest to the class. Possible topics include: discrimination in historical markets, disparity in legal treatments, issues of family structure, and education gaps. Writing Intensive. Prerequisites: At least one 200-level applied microeconomics elective; ECON 253 or 304; ECON 200.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

English Courses

ENGL B212 RENAISSANCE EROTIC POETRY (1.0 Credit)

Colby Gordon

Division: Humanities

Even when it was concerned with elevated topics like religion, politics, or community, Renaissance poetry was deeply embodied, working through abstract topics in frank and fleshy figures. This class will serve as an introduction to Renaissance lyric, focusing on the erotic dimensions of early modern poetics. Along the way, we’ll discuss topics of interest within gender and sexuality studies and queer theory. Authors will include Wyatt, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Marvell, Herbert, Rochester, and Milton.

ENGL B217 NARRATIVES OF LATINIDAD (1.0 Credit)

Jennifer Harford Vargas

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course explores how Latina/o writers fashion bicultural and transnational identities and narrate the intertwined histories of the U.S. and Latin America. We will focus on topics of shared concern among Latino groups such as struggles for social justice, the damaging effects of machismo and racial hierarchies, the politics of Spanglish, and the affective experience of migration. By analyzing a range of cultural production, including novels, poetry, testimonial narratives, films, activist art, and essays, we will unpack the complexity of Latinidad in the Americas.

ENGL B231 THEORIZING AFFECT, WATCHING TELEVISION (1.0 Credit)

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course examines television through the lens of affect theory. Within humanities scholarship, the turn toward affect has offered new ways to study the cultural, economic, and political functions of literature and art. In our wider cultural moment, television programming has become a source of shared fascination. The course will pair readings from affect studies (by scholars such as Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai) with select examples of television shows (including Black Mirror, Mad Men, and The Wire). We will also read scholarly and public writing about television and consider the interplay between cultural feelings and televisual forms such as seriality, situation comedy, and bottle episodes.

ENGL B237 CULTURAL MEMORY AND STATE-SANCTIONED VIOLENCE IN LATINX LITERATURE (1.0 Credit)

Jennifer Harford Vargas

Division: Humanities

This course examines how Latinx literature grapples with state-sanctioned violence, cultural memory, and struggles for justice in the Americas. Attending to the histories of dictatorship and civil war in Central and South America, we will focus on a range of genres—including novels, memoir, poetry, film, and murals—to explore how memory and the imagination can contest state-sanctioned violence, how torture and disappearances haunt the present, how hetereopatriarchal and white supremacist discourses are embedded in authoritarian regimes, and how U.S. imperialism has impacted undocumented migration. Throughout the course we will analyze the various creative techniques Latinx cultural producers use to resist violence and imagine justice.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ENGL B270 AMERICAN GIRL: CHILDHOOD IN U.S. LITERATURES, 1690-1935 (1.0 Credit)

Bethany Schneider

Division: Humanities

This course will focus on the “American Girl” as a particularly contested model for the nascent American. Through examination of religious tracts, slave and captivity narratives, literatures for children and adult literatures about childhood, we will analyze U. S. investments in girlhood as a site for national self-fashioning.

ENGL B275 QUEER AMERICAN POETRY (1.0 Credit)

Jess Shollenberger

Division: Humanities

What does poetry have to say about the history of sexuality? How do queer voices, expansively defined, disrupt poetic norms and forms? How has poetry been congenial to the project of imagining and making queer communities, queer spaces, and even queer worlds? In this course, we survey the work of queer American poets from the late nineteenth century to the present, as we touch on major topics in the history of sexuality, queer studies, and American cultural history. This course provides an overview of American poetry as well as an introduction to queer studies concepts and frameworks; no prior experience with these fields is necessary.

ENGL B305 EARLY MODERN TRANS STUDIES (1.0 Credit)

Colby Gordon

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course will consider the deep histories of transgender embodiment by exploring literary, historical, medical, and religious texts from the Renaissance. Expect to read about alchemical hermaphrodites, gender-swapping angels, Ethiopian eunuchs, female husbands, trans saints, criminal transvestites, and genderqueer monks. We will consider together how these early modern texts speak to the historical, theoretical, and political concerns that animate contemporary trans studies. We will read texts by Crashaw, Donne, Shakespeare, Lyly, and Dekker as well as Susan Stryker, Dean Spade, Mel Chen, Paul Preciado, and Kadji Amin. Prerequisite: Students must have completed at least one 200-level class.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ENGL B333 LESBIAN IMMORTAL (1.0 Credit)

Kate Thomas

Division: Humanities

Lesbian literature has repeatedly figured itself in alliance with tropes of immortality and eternity. Using recent queer theory on temporality, and 19th and 20th century primary texts, we will explore topics such as: fame and noteriety; feminism and mythology; epistemes, erotics and sexual seasonality; the death drive and the uncanny; fin de siecle manias for mummies and seances.

ENGL B336 TOPICS IN FILM (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This is a topics course and description varies according to the topic.

ENGL B337 MODERNISM AND THE ORDINARY (1.0 Credit)

Jess Shollenberger

Division: Humanities

Modernism is consistently aligned with innovation: making things new and making things strange. Yet modernist writing is preoccupied with habit, repetition, sameness, boredom, and the banal—with “things happening, normally, all the time,” as Virginia Woolf once put it. This course explores the modernist fascination with the ordinary, from the objects in a kitchen to the rhythms of a day. Our primary task will be to understand the stakes of paying attention to the ordinary world for queer and women modernist writers, whose work reveals the ordinary as a site of deep ambivalence as well as possibility. Likely authors include: Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Marianne Moore, and Jean Rhys.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ENGL B339 LATINA/O CULTURE AND THE ART OF MIGRATION (1.0 Credit)

Jennifer Harford Vargas

Gloria Anzaldúa has famously described the U.S.-Mexico border as an open wound and the border culture that arises from this fraught site as a third country. This course will explore how Chicana/os and Latina/os creatively represent different kinds of migrations across geo-political borders and between cultural traditions to forge transnational identities and communities. We will use cultural production as a lens for understanding how citizenship status, class, gender, race, and language shape the experiences of Latin American migrants and their Latina/o children. We will also analyze alternative metaphors and discourses of resistance that challenge anti-immigrant rhetoric and reimagine the place of undocumented migrants and Latina/os in contemporary U.S. society. Over the course of the semester, we will probe the role that literature, art, film, and music can play in the struggle for migrants’ rights and minority civil rights, querying how the imagination and aesthetics can contribute to social justice. We will examine a number of different genres, as well as read and apply key theoretical texts on the borderlands and undocumented migration.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ENGL B342 THE QUEER MIDDLE AGES (1.0 Credit)

Jamie Taylor

Division: Humanities

This course examines medieval queer history, focusing on literary depictions of non-normative sexual identities and expressions. From monastic vows of celibacy to same-sex erotic love, from constructions of female virginity to trans identity, the Middle Ages conceptualized sexuality in a range of ways and with a range of attached assumptions and anxieties. Readings will include chivalric romance, rules for monks, cross-dressing saints' lives, and legal tracts worried about unmarried women.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ENGL B358 GERTRUDE STEIN: DIFFICULT GENIUS (1.0 Credit)

Jess Shollenberger

Division: Humanities

As a radical modernist writer, theorist of language, and self-styled “genius,” Stein looms large in literary history. In this course, it is our task to read (and enjoy!) Stein’s difficult, genre-breaking writing. We will study Stein’s eclectic body of work, which spans the first half of the twentieth century (and two world wars, Stein’s move to Paris, a lesbian marriage, shifting ideas about gender and sexuality), against its cultural backdrop. Among the questions we will ask are: How does Stein’s work redefine reading? What are the politics of “radical” and “experimental” language use? What is a queer text? What is a genius?

ENGL B363 TONI MORRISON AND THE ART OF NARRATIVE CONJURE (1.0 Credit)

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

A comprehensive study of Morrison’s narrative experiments in fiction, this course traces her entire oeuvre from “Recitatif” to God Help the Child. We read the works in publication order with three main foci: Morrison-as-epistemologist questioning what it is that constitutes knowing and being known, Morrison-as-revisionary-teacher-of-reading-strategies, and Morrison in intertextual dialogue with several oral and literary traditions. In addition to critical essays, students complete a “Pilate Project” – a creative response to the works under study.

French and French Studies Courses

FREN B201 LE CHEVALIER, LA DAME, ET LE PRÊTRE: ÉTUDES DE FEMMES, DE CLASSES SOCIALES ET D'ETHNIES (1.0 Credit)

Grace Armstrong

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

Using literary texts, historical documents and letters as a mirror of the social classes that they address, this interdisciplinary course studies the principal preoccupations of secular and religious female and male authors in France and Norman England from the eleventh century through the fifteenth. Selected works from epic, lais, roman courtois, fabliaux, theater, letters, and contemporary biography are read in modern French translation. Prerequisite: FREN 102 or 105.

FREN B302 LE PRINTEMPS DE LA PAROLE FÉMININE: FEMMES ÉCRIVAINS DES DÉBUTS (1.0 Credit)

Grace Armstrong

Division: Humanities

This study of selected women authors from Latin CE-Carolingian period through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and 17th century—among them, Perpetua, Hrotswitha, Marie de France, the trobairitz, Christine de Pisan, Louise Labé, Marguerite de Navarre, and Madame de Lafayette—examines the way in which they appropriate and transform the male writing tradition and define themselves as self-conscious artists within or outside it. Particular attention will be paid to identifying recurring concerns and structures in their works, and to assessing their importance to women’s writing in general: among them, the poetics of silence, reproduction as a metaphor for artistic creation, and sociopolitical engagement. Prerequisite: two 200-level courses or permission of instructor.

German Courses

GERM B217 REPRESENTING DIVERSITY IN GERMAN CINEMA (1.0 Credit)

Qinna Shen

German society has undergone drastic changes as a result of immigration. Traditional notions of Germanness have been and are still being challenged and subverted. This course uses films and visual media to examine the experiences of various minority groups living in Germany. Students will learn about the history of immigration of different ethnic groups, including Turkish Germans, Afro-Germans, Asian Germans, Arab Germans, German Jews, and ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. We will explore discourses on migration, racism, xenophobia, integration, and citizenship. We will seek to understand not only the historical and contemporary contexts for these films but also their relevance for reshaping German society. Students will be introduced to modern German cinema from the silent era to the present. They will acquire terminology and methods for reading films as fictional and aesthetic representations of history and politics, and analyze identity construction in the worlds of the real and the reel. This course is taught in English

(Offered: Spring 2024)

GERM B245 INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO GERMAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE (1.0 Credit)

Margaret Strair

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Taught in German. Course content varies. Previous topics include, Women’s Narratives on Modern Migrancy, Exile, and Diasporas; Nation and Identity in Post-War Austria.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

GERM B321 ADVANCED TOPICS IN GERMAN CULTURAL STUDIES (1.0 Credit)

Margaret Strair

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Recent topic titles include: Asia and Germany through Film; The Letter, the Spirit, and Beyond: German-Jewish Writers and Jewish Culture in the 18th and 19th Century.

(Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2024)

General Studies Courses

GNST B108 INTRODUCTION TO GENDER AND SEXUALITY STUDIES (1.0 Credit)

Bridget Gurtler

This course will introduce students to major approaches, theories, and topics in gender and sexuality studies, as a framework for understanding the past and present—not only how societies conceive differences in bodily sex, gender expression, and sexual behavior, but how those conceptions shape broader social, cultural, political, and economic patterns.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

GNST B290 INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON GENDER AND SEXUALITY (1.0 Credit)

Dale Booth

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course offers a rigorous grounding for students interested in questions of gender and sexuality. Bringing together intellectual resources from multiple disciplines, it also explores what it means to think across and between disciplinary boundaries.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

Greek Courses

GREK B201 PLATO AND THUCYDIDES (1.0 Credit)

Carman Romano

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course is designed to introduce the student to two of the greatest prose authors of ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, and the historian, Thucydides. These two writers set the terms in the disciplines of philosophy and history for millennia, and philosophers and historians today continue to grapple with their ideas and influence. The brilliant and controversial statesman Alcibiades provides a link between the two texts in this course (Plato’s Symposium and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War), and we examine the ways in which both authors handle the figure of Alcibiades as a point of entry into the comparison of the varying styles and modes of thought of these two great writers. Suggested Prerequisites: At least 2 years of college Greek or the equivalent.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

History Courses

HIST B102 INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS (1.0 Credit)

Kalala Ngalamulume

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

The course is designed to introduce students to the history of African and African Diaspora societies, cultures, and political economies. We will discuss the origins, state formation, external contacts, and the structural transformations and continuities of African societies and cultures in the context of the slave trade, colonial rule, capitalist exploitation, urbanization, and westernization, as well as contemporary struggles over authority, autonomy, identity and access to resources. Case studies will be drawn from across the continent.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

HIST B156 THE LONG 1960'S (1.0 Credit)

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

The 1960s has had a powerful effect on recent US History. But what was it exactly? How long did it last? And what do we really mean when we say “The Sixties?” This term has become so potent and loaded for so many people from all sides of the political spectrum that it’s almost impossible to separate fact from fiction; myth from memory. We are all the inheritors of this intense period in American history but our inheritance is neither simple nor entirely clear. Our task this semester is to try to pull apart the meaning as well as the legend and attempt to figure out what “The Sixties” is (and what it isn’t) and try to assess its long term impact on American society.

HIST B226 TOPICS IN 20TH CENTURY EUROPEAN HISTORY (1.0 Credit)

Anita Kurimay

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

(Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2024)

HIST B237 THEMES IN MODERN AFRICAN HISTORY (1.0 Credit)

Kalala Ngalamulume

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This is a topics course. Course content varies

(Offered: Spring 2024)

HIST B238 FROM BORDELLOS TO CYBERSEX HISTORY OF SEXUALITY IN MODERN EUROPE (1.0 Credit)

Anita Kurimay

This course is a detailed examination of the changing nature and definition of sexuality in Europe from the late nineteenth century to the present. Throughout the semester we critically examine how understandings of sexuality changed—from how it was discussed and how authorities tried to control it to how the practice of sexuality evolved. Focusing on both discourses and lived experiences, the class will explore sexuality in the context of the following themes; prostitution and sex trafficking, the rise of medicine with a particular attention to sexology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis; the birth of the homo/hetero/bisexual divide; the rise of the “New Woman”; abortion and contraception; the “sexual revolution” of the 60s; pornography and consumerism; LGBTQ activism; concluding with considering sexuality in the age of cyber as well as genetic technology. In examining these issues we will question the role and influence of different political systems and war on sexuality. By paying special attention to the rise of modern nation-states, forces of nationalism, and the impacts of imperialism we will interrogate the nature of regulation and experiences of sexuality in different locations in Europe from the late nineteenth century to the present.

HIST B243 TOPICS: ATLANTIC CULTURES (1.0 Credit)

Ignacio Gallup-Diaz

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

HIST B274 TOPICS IN MODERN US HISTORY (1.0 Credit)

Kelly O'Donnell

Division: Social Science

This is a topics course in 20th century America social history. Topics vary by half semester

(Offered: Fall 2023)

HIST B280 HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC (1.0 Credit)

Dale Booth

Division: Social Science

This course examines the social, cultural, and legal history of witchcraft and magic throughout European history. We will examine the values and attitudes that have influenced beliefs about witchcraft and the supernatural, both historically and in the present day. This course will pay specific attention to the role of gender and sexuality in the history of witchcraft, as the vast majority of individuals charged in the witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were indeed women. We will also study accusations of witchcraft, breaking down the power dynamics and assumptions at play behind the witch trials, and the effects of these trials on gender relations in European society. This class will track the intersections of magic and science throughout the early modern period, and the reconciliation of belief systems during the Enlightenment. We will carry our analysis into the modern period, touching on Victorian spiritualism and mysticism, the emergence of Neo-Paganism, and the return to the figure of the goddess. Our final foray will be and examination of the political “witch-hunts” of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the enduring trope of the “witch” in modern political culture.

HIST B284 MOVIES AND AMERICA: THE PAST LIVES FOREVER (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Movies are one of the most important means by which Americans come to know – or think they know—their own history. We look to old movies to tell us about a world we never knew but think we can access through film. And Hollywood often reaches into the past to tell a good story. How can we understand the impact of our love affair with movies on our understanding of what happened in this country? In this course we will examine the complex cultural relationship between film and American historical self-fashioning.

HIST B292 WOMEN IN BRITAIN SINCE 1750 (1.0 Credit)

Madhavi Kale

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Focusing on contemporary and historical narratives, this course explores the ongoing production, circulation and refraction of discourses on gender and nation as well as race, empire and modernity since the mid-18th century. Texts will incorporate visual material as well as literary evidence and culture and consider the crystallization of the discipline of history itself.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

HIST B325 TOPICS IN SOCIAL HISTORY (1.0 Credit)

Kelly O'Donnell

Division: Social Science

This a topics course that explores various themes in American social history. Course content varies. Course may be repeated.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

HIST B337 TOPICS IN AFRICAN HISTORY (1.0 Credit)

Kalala Ngalamulume

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This is a topics course. Topics vary.

(Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2024)

Italian and Italian Studies Courses

ITAL B213 THEORY IN PRACTICE:CRITICAL DISCOURSES IN THE HUMANITIES (1.0 Credit)

Daria Bozzato

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

What is a postcolonial subject, a queer gaze, a feminist manifesto? And how can we use (as readers of texts, art, and films) contemporary studies on animals and cyborgs, object oriented ontology, zombies, storyworlds, neuroaesthetics? In this course we will read some pivotal theoretical texts from different fields, with a focus on race&ethnicity and gender&sexuality. Each theory will be paired with a masterpiece from Italian culture (from Renaissance treatises and paintings to stories written under fascism and postwar movies). We will discuss how to apply theory to the practice of interpretation and of academic writing, and how theoretical ideas shaped what we are reading. Class conducted in English, with an additional hour in Italian for students seeking Italian credit.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

ITAL B315 A GENDERED HISTORY OF THE AVANT-GARDE (1.0 Credit)

Giulio Genovese

The very concept of ‘avant-garde’ is steeped in a masculine warlike imagery, and the founding manifesto of Futurism even glorifies ‘contempt for the woman’. Yet, feminine, queer, androgynous, and non-binary perspectives on sexual identity played a central role — from Rimbaud to current experimentalism — in the development of what has been called ‘the tradition of the new’. In this seminar we will explore such a paradoxical anti-traditional tradition through texts, images, sounds, and videos, adopting a historical prospective from early 20th century movements to the Neo-Avant-Garde. We will unearth the stories and works of great experimentalists who have been neglected because of their gender. We will deal with poems made up entirely of place names, of recorded noises, of typographical symbols. Taking advantage of the college’s collection and library, we will try to read texts with no words, surreal stories, performances, objects, and we will make our own avant-garde experiments. Course taught in English, no previous knowledge of Italian required.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

ITAL B324 DIVERSITY, GENDER, AND QUEERNESS IN MODERN ITALIAN POETRY (1.0 Credit)

Luca Zipoli

This course offers an overview of one of the great literary traditions of post-unification Italy: that of modern and contemporary poetry. Our readings will center mostly on some major protagonists of this genre, like the Nobel prize-winning Eugenio Montale, Umberto Saba, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, but we will also look at a series of much lesser-known works by female, queer and transgender poets, like Sandro Penna, Amelia Rosselli, and Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto, who negotiated their own voices within this tradition. While thinking, discussing and writing in Italian, we will examine poetic texts in the original and with a specific focus on the representation of religious and racial “otherness”, the language of expression, and gender perspectives. Our authors and texts will be contextualized in their historical and social background, in order to have an in-depth interdisciplinary exploration of Italy’s 20th-21st century cultural life and gain insight on Italian Modernity as a whole. Elements of metrics and rhetoric will be used and explained in order to analyze poetry in its own essence.

ITAL B335 THE ITALIAN MARGINS: PLACES AND IDENTITIES (1.0 Credit)

Luca Zipoli, Roberta Ricci

Thompson Fullilove’s scholarship will be the theoretical foundation of this survey of 20th century topics—from literary representations of mental health to the displacement of marginalized communities, from historical persecution in Europe to contemporary domestic violence in Italy. The main goal of the seminar will be to challenge the rhetoric of ‘otherness’, ‘encounters’, ‘marginalization’, ‘anti-canon’, and ‘exoticism’ that is typical of broader readings of Italy’s modern traditions, adopting Thompson Fullilove’s inter-sectional and trans-historical paradigms to re-imagine Italian Studies, to center the gender gap, and overcome the stigma of mental illness and madness. Rooted in the perspectives of trans-codification, trans-historical tradition, and cultural translation, this course attempts to address such questions both in theory and practice using Freudian literary criticism (The interpretation of Dreams, 1899; The Uncanny, 1919; Beyond the Pleasure Principle, 1920; The Ego and the Id, 1923; Civilization and its Discontents, 1930). We will start with a seminar, devoted to the analysis and discussion of primary sources and then follow with a scholarly (and creative) workshop. Tailored activities related to social activism (Praxis) will also fulfill the course requirements. Prerequisite: 200 level course or permission of instructor.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

Philosophy Courses

PHIL B221 ETHICS (1.0 Credit)

Macalester Bell

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

An introduction to ethics by way of an examination of moral theories and a discussion of important ancient, modern, and contemporary texts which established theories such as virtue ethics, deontology, utilitarianism, relativism, emotivism, care ethics. This course considers questions concerning freedom, responsibility, and obligation. How should we live our lives and interact with others? How should we think about ethics in a global context? Is ethics independent of culture? A variety of practical issues such as reproductive rights, euthanasia, animal rights and the environment will be considered.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

PHIL B225 GLOBAL ETHICAL ISSUES (1.0 Credit)

Michael Gadomski

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

The need for a critical analysis of what justice is and requires has become urgent in a context of increasing globalization, the emergence of new forms of conflict and war, high rates of poverty within and across borders and the prospect of environmental devastation. This course examines prevailing theories and issues of justice as well as approaches and challenges by non-western, post-colonial, feminist, race, class, and disability theorists.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

Political Science Courses

POLS B221 GENDER AND COMPARATIVE POLITICS (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Social Science

This is an upper-level course for students interested in learning about feminist political science. We will cover the major topics of comparative politics from a gender perspective through a mix of lecture and seminar-style discussion. The topics include social movements, institutions, political parties and elections, welfare systems, democracy, and authoritarianism. The goal of the course is to teach students how to apply gendered and intersectional frameworks to contemporary political events and actors around the world. Suggested pre-requisite: a 100 or 200 level comparative politics course, political theory course, or gender & sexualities course.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

POLS B242 GENDER AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (1.0 Credit)

Elizabeth Corredor

Employing a multi-disciplinary feminist lens, this class examines women’s and LGBTQ+ rights within the United Nations system, with a primary focus on human rights, international develop-ment, and peace & security. This course seeks to expose students to the complex issues - social, political, economic, and legal - that characterize women’s and LGBTQ+ rights around the globe. The theoretical foundations are in the area of gender mainstreaming, which is the practice of inte-grating a gender equality perspective across all governing systems including but not limited to policy development, political representation, institutional regulations, program building, and budgeting. Students will be asked to conduct research on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights within a country of their choice and to present their findings to class participants. The course will provide students with an introduction to and assistance in utilizing the web as a tool for conducting research on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. Prerequisite: Introductory Political Science Course or Instructor's permission.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

POLS B277 CREATING QUEER STUDIES (1.0 Credit)

This class tackles the origins and development of queer theory in academia. We begin with an overview of late 1980s feminism before turning to the creation of queer theory. During class discussions, students will evaluate the ways that feminist, queer, and trans politics overlap and diverge. The purpose of the course is to enrich students’ understanding of critical knowledge production in academia. Throughout the semester we will ask about the implications of “origin stories” and the ways that such narratives shape future directions of queer scholarship.

POLS B330 QUEER RIGHTS AND POLITICS (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Social Science

This is an upper-level course designed to introduce students to the study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer (LGBTQ) politics and activism outside of the US. We will study the formations of LGBTQ identities, state regulation of sexuality and gender, public policy (partnership, healthcare, etc), religious attitudes, political participation by LGBTQ people, and migration and asylum practices. The goal of the course is to familiarize students with the current status of LGBTQ people around the world and help them to hone their independent research and writing skills. Suggested pre-requisite: a 100 or 200 level comparative politics course, political theory course, or gender & sexualities course.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

POLS B351 WOMEN AND AMERICAN POLITICS (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Social Science

This course examines the role of women in American politics the second wave of feminism to present. The course will focus on academic literature from political science and include topics such as partisanship, campaigning, and voter behavior. What has been the role of women in American politics? Are there differences at the federal v. state v. local level? What political changes have they achieved and what strategies were most effective? How do other categories of difference, such as race, ability, sexuality, and class, intersect with our gendered expectations? Prerequisite: One course in US Politics or permission of instructor.

Sociology Courses

SOCL B102 SOCIETY, CULTURE, AND THE INDIVIDUAL (1.0 Credit)

Amanda Cox

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

Sociology is the systematic study of society and social interaction. It involves what C. Wright Mills called the "sociological imagination," a way of seeing the relationship between individuals and the larger forces of society and history. In this course, we will practice using our sociological imaginations to think about the world around us. We will examine how social norms and structures are created and maintained, and we will analyze how these structures shape people's behavior and choices, often without their realizing it. After learning to think sociologically, we will examine the centrality of inequality in society, focusing specifically on the intersecting dimensions of race and ethnicity, gender, and class, and the role of social structures and institutions (such as the family and education) in society. Overall, this course draws our attention toward our own presuppositions-the things we take for granted in our everyday lives-and provides us with a systematic framework within which we can analyze those presuppositions and identify their effects..

(Offered: Fall 2023, Spring 2024)

SOCL B205 SOCIAL INEQUALITY (1.0 Credit)

Amanda Cox

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

In this course, we will explore the extent, causes, and consequences of social and economic inequality in the U.S. We will begin by discussing key theories and the intersecting dimensions of inequality along lines of income and wealth, race and ethnicity, and gender. We will then follow a life-course perspective to trace the institutions through which inequality is structured, experienced, and reproduced through the family, neighborhoods, the educational system, labor markets and workplaces, and the criminal justice system.

SOCL B217 THE FAMILY IN SOCIAL CONTEXT (1.0 Credit)

Nathan Wright

Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

The family represents a fundamental and ubiquitous institution in the social world, providing norms and conveying values. This course focuses on current sociological research, seeking to understand how modern American families have transformed due to complex structural and cultural forces. We will examine family change from historical, social, and demographic perspectives. After examining the images, ideals, and myths concerning families, we will address the central theme of diversity and change. In what ways can sociology explain and document these shifts? What influences do law, technology, and medicine have on the family? What are the results of evolving views of work, gender, and parenting on family structure and stability? Prerequisite of one Social Science Course

SOCL B225 WOMEN IN SOCIETY (1.0 Credit)

Veronica Montes

Division: Social Science

In 2015, the world’s female population was 49.6 percent of the total global population of 7.3 billion. According to the United Nations, in absolute terms, there were 61,591,853 more men than women. Yet, at the global scale, 124 countries have more women than men. A great majority of these countries are located in what scholars have recently been referring to as the Global South – those countries known previously as developing countries. Although women outnumber their male counterparts in many Global South countries, however, these women endure difficulties that have worsened rather than improving. What social structures determine this gender inequality in general and that of women of color in particular? What are the main challenges women in the Global South face? How do these challenges differ based on nationality, class, ethnicity, skin color, gender identity, and other axes of oppression? What strategies have these women developed to cope with the wide variety of challenges they contend with on a daily basis? These are some of the major questions that we will explore together in this class. In this course, the Global South does not refer exclusively to a geographical location, but rather to a set of institutional structures that generate disadvantages for all individuals and particularly for women and other minorities, regardless their geographical location in the world. In other words, a significant segment of the Global North’s population lives under the same precarious conditions that are commonly believed as exclusive to the Global South. Simultaneously, there is a Global North embedded in the Global South as well. In this context, we will see that the geographical division between the North and the South becomes futile when we seek to understand the dynamics of the “Western-centric/Christian-centric capitalist/patriarchal modern/colonial world-system” (Grosfoguel, 2012). In the first part of the course, we will establish the theoretical foundations that will guide us throughout the rest of the semester. We will then turn to a wide variety of case studies where we will examine, for instance, the contemporary global division of labor, gendered violence in the form of feminicides, international migration, and global tourism. The course’s final thematic section will be devoted to learning from the different feminisms (e.g. community feminism) emerging out of the Global South as well as the research done in that region and its contribution to the development of a broader gender studies scholarship. In particular, we will pay close attention to resistance, solidarity, and social movements led by women. Examples will be drawn from Latin America, the Caribbean, the US, Asia, and Africa.

SOCL B235 MEXICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITIES (1.0 Credit)

Veronica Montes

For its unique history, the number of migrants, and the two countries' proximity, Mexican migration to the United States represents an exceptional case in world migration. There is no other example of migration with more than 100 years of history. The copious presence of migrants concentrated in a host country, such as we have in the case of the 11.7 million Mexican migrants residing in the United States, along with another 15 million Mexican descendants, is unparalleled. The 1,933-mile-long border shared by the two countries makes it one of the longest boundary lines in the world and, unfortunately, also one of the most dangerous frontiers in the world today. We will examine the different economic, political, social and cultural forces that have shaped this centenarian migration influx and undertake a macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of analysis. At the macro-level of political economy, we will investigate the economic interdependency that has developed between Mexico and the U.S. over different economic development periods of these countries, particularly, the role the Mexican labor force has played to boosting and sustaining both the Mexican and the American economies. At the meso-level, we will examine different institutions both in Mexico and the U.S. that have determined the ways in which millions of Mexican migrate to this country. Last, but certainly not least, we will explore the impacts that both the macro-and meso-processes have had on the micro-level by considering the imperatives, aspirations, and dreams that have prompted millions of people to leave their homes and communities behind in search of better opportunities. This major life decision of migration brings with it a series of social transformations in family and community networks, this will look into the cultural impacts in both the sending and receiving migrant communities. In sum, we will come to understand how these three levels of analysis work together.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

SOCL B251 QUEERING UTOPIA (1.0 Credit)

Piper Sledge

What if? This question is at the heart of both social theory and speculative fiction. Theory and fiction both serve as ways through which to make sense of social life and to imagine alternatives. Within the traditions of feminist and queer thought, utopian and dystopian fiction have been utilized as a means by which to imagine the outcomes of various social processes and alternative gender/sexuality systems. This medium is also useful for exploring the ways in which gender and sexuality are not only integral to individual identity but also to the structure of social life itself. In this course we will analyze the challenges to the status quo asserted by feminist theorists and queer theorists alongside a comparison with indigenous systems of gender. We will also consider the various implications for everyday life of these theories as presented through the lens of speculative fiction. We will compare works of fiction with works of social theory to think through the ways in which gender and sexuality structure social life as well as the ways in which we do, undo, and resist gender in everyday life. Over the course of the semester, we will contemplate work by Samuel R. Delany; Michael Warner; Margaret Atwood; Ursula Le Guin; Nikki Sullivan; Sara Ahmed, José Esteban Muñoz, Laura Mamo, and more.

SOCL B262 PUBLIC OPINION (1.0 Credit)

Nathan Wright

Division: Social Science

This course will assess public opinion in American politics: what it is, how it is measured, how it is shaped, how it relates to public policy, and how it changes over time. It includes both questions central to political scientists (what is the public, how do they exercise their voice, does the government listen and how do they respond?) and to sociologists (where do ideas come from, how do they gain societal influence, and how do they change over time?). It will pay close attention to the role of electoral politics throughout, both historically and in the current election. It is focused primarily on the United States, but seeks to place the US in global context. If this course is taken to fulfill an elective in the Data Science minor, students will conduct hands-on analyses with real data as a key component to both their Midterm and Final Essays.

(Offered: Spring 2024)

SOCL B276 MAKING SENSE OF RACE (1.0 Credit)

Piper Sledge

What is the meaning of race in contemporary US and global society? How are these meanings (re)produced, resisted, and refused? What meanings might we desire or imagine as alternatives? In this course, we will approach these questions through an array of sources while tracking our own thinking about and experiences of raced-ness. Course material will survey sociological notions of the social construction of race, empirical studies of lived experiences of race, and creative fiction and non-fiction material intended to catalyze thinking about alternative possibilities.

SOCL B326 FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON HLTH (1.0 Credit)

Piper Sledge

Increasingly, an individual's sense of self and worth as a citizen turns on their health identity. In this course we will draw on theories of gender, race, sexuality, medicalization, and biocitizenship to unravel the ways in which gender structures and medical institutions are mutually constitutive and to explore how this relationship, in turn, impacts individual identity. The course will take a global approach to feminist engagement with health issues with an emphasis on human rights and bodily autonomy.

Spanish Courses

SPAN B309 LA MUJER EN LA LITERATURA ESPAÑOLA DEL SIGLO DE ORO (1.0 Credit)

María Cristina Quintero

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

A study of the depiction of women in the fiction, drama, and poetry of 16th- and 17th-century Spain. Topics include the construction of gender; the idealization and codification of women's bodies; the politics of feminine enclosure (convent, home, brothel, palace); and the performance of honor. The first half of the course will deal with representations of women by male authors (Calderón, Cervantes, Lope, Quevedo) and the second will be dedicated to women writers such as Teresa de Ávila, Ana Caro, Juana Inés de la Cruz, and María de Zayas. Prerequisite: at least one SPAN 200-level course. Course fulfills pre-1700 requirement and HC's pre-1898 requirement. Counts toward Gender and Sexuality Studies. Counts toward Latin American, Iberian and Latina/o Studies.

(Offered: Fall 2023)

Academic Catalog 2023-2024

Gender and Sexuality Studies

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