Program Description

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Note: The former women’s studies curriculum has been revised and the major has been retitled as gender studies, effective Fall 2011.

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The Gender Studies Program, which offers a major leading to the BA degree as well as a minor, examines gender using an interdisciplinary approach. Consisting of a variety of courses drawn from across the College, the program offers students the opportunity to study gender in a variety of historical periods and geographical areas using different academic, political, and feminist perspectives. The program equips students with reading, writing, research, and analytical skills that enable them to:

• identify and analyze the links among gender, sexuality, identity, power, and social justice;
• identify and analyze intersections among gender and sexuality and other categories of difference, such as class, race, religion, nationality, and physical ability;
• situate gender and sexuality in broader historical and geopolitical contexts;
• write or otherwise present (depending on the field of study) analyses of gender and sexuality in specific visual, literary, and theoretical works; and
• design and execute a senior project that demonstrates these competencies within a theoretical framework of gender and sexuality.

Program Faculty

Requirements for the Major

• Introduction to Gender and Sexuality
• Four electives in gender studies, with no more than three chosen from one school or conservatory
• One upper-level theory course
• One upper-level course on gender across time or cultures
• Gender Studies Junior Seminar
• Senior Project

Representative Elective Courses

American Women Writers
Birth and Death
Citizens Living Under Islamic Laws
Feminist Approaches to Art and Theory
Gender and Health: International Issues
Gender and Popular Culture in South Asia
Gender and Power
Gender Politics and Islam
Global Sexualities
History of Gender and Sexuality in the U.S.
Human Sexuality
Identity and Difference: Studies in Feminist Philosophy
Masculinities: Feminist Perspectives
Psychology of Gender
Psychology of Women
Queer Media Convergence
Race, Gender, and the Law
Riot Grrls and Radical Women
Seminar in Buddhism and Feminist Philosophy
Sex, Politics, and Health
Sexuality and Society
Sexuality in Western Culture
The Islamic State, Gender, and Sexuality
The Lives of Women
Theories of Sexuality
The Political Economy of Women
Women and Film
Women and Politics
Women Artists and Feminist Criticism
Women in America
Women in the Biblical/Ancient World
Women in China
Women in Developing Countries
Women’s Rights as Human Rights

Representative Alumni

• Allison Fradkin ’07, playwright and author of Dykechotomous and The Dykeutante Ball; editor, Off the Rocks, NewTown Writers; literary coordinator, Pride Films and Plays, Chicago, Illinois
• Simone Varadian ’05, MS.Ed, Baruch College, City University of New York; admissions counselor, Purchase College

For more information, visit the Gender Studies site in Academic Programs.

Updated Sept. 8, 2011

 

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