Print Page
Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS 1101)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This class uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine some of the core themes, questions, and findings of “Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies” scholarship. You will use readings, digital resources, and class discussion to explore the significance of gender and sexuality across a range of human experiences. You will consider women and LGBTQIA+ populations, in particular, and how their lives have been shaped by gender and sex inequities. Focusing on women and LGBTQIA+ populations as a force in social change, you will also explore how persons whose lives are shaped by injustice are also profoundly resilient.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
READ 0200 or
ESOL 0052 or completion of
READ 0100 or
ESOL 0042
MnTC:
Click for more details
Politics of Sex (WGSS 1115)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course explores how debates over sexuality in the U.S. and globally reveal our cultural, political, and economic priorities. You will learn how sex norms emerge and shift over time and across space, often in accordance to changes in population, family and work structures, built environments, and medical discourse. You will examine how the regulation of sexuality in these contexts often targets women and gender/sex outsiders (LGBTQIA+) as problematic, at the same time you will account for how those very populations resist such framing.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
READ 0200 or
ESOL 0052 or completion of
READ 0100 or
ESOL 0042
MnTC:
Click for more details
Introduction to Lesbian Culture (WGSS 1120)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course explores experiences of and theories about lesbians from various cultures in the United States between the late 19th century and the present. You will explore a variety of texts and other media sources to learn about the history, meanings, and representations of relationships between women and to gain a better understanding of lesbian identities and perspectives.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
READ 0200 or
ESOL 0052 or completion of
READ 0100 or
ESOL 0042
MnTC:
Click for more details
Gender, Media, and Pop Culture (WGSS 1140)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course explores the powerful effects of popular literary, artistic, mass and digital media cultures on our lives. You will study how social norms of gender are represented through different media and pop cultural mediums and the varying degrees to which individuals and communities have the power to shape, reform, and even transform those representations.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
READ 0200 or
ESOL 0052 or completion of
READ 0100 or
ESOL 0042
MnTC:
Click for more details
The Female Divine (WGSS 2200)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course presents the ancient roots of our current cultural views of modern women. Drawing upon goddess traditions from around the world, as well as mythology, literature, and art, you will explore archetypal feminine symbolism in the context of matriarchal and patriarchal value systems. You will explore the symbolic and cultural significance of female divinity and the impact of its loss on all aspects of society, and examine women's roles in contemporary religion and spirituality.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
READ 0200 or
ESOL 0052 or completion of
READ 0100 or
ESOL 0042
MnTC:
Click for more details
Resisting Gender Violence (WGSS 2211)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course provides an overview of gender violence and the community-building responses to resisting that violence. You will engage historical, theoretical, sociological, and cultural perspectives on gender violence through scholarship and personal narrative. You will learn how gender violence occurs in a social context of power, where women and LGBTQIA persons experience targeted discrimination. You will consider the differential impacts of gender violence on marginalized and disenfranchised communities, such as migrant women, queer and transgender people of color, women of color, older women, adolescents, and poor women. Lastly, you will envision ways to challenge gender violence.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
READ 0200 or
ESOL 0052 or completion of
READ 0100 or
ESOL 0042
MnTC:
Click for more details
Gender, Health, and Environment (WGSS 2212)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course explores how health and environmental politics intersect with concerns for gender equity. You will learn how growing concern for the protection of the environment and for the health of bodies have led policymakers and scholars to consider the ways in which gender, sex, and race mediate the interactions between and among humans, health, and the environment. You will consider contemporary issues, such as climate change, food and housing security, and healthcare management, as well as the fraught history of women and gender outsiders in medical research and environmental policy.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
ENGL 1110 or completion of
ENGL 0900 or
ENGA 0900 or
ESOL 0051
MnTC:
Click for more details
Engaging Justice: Women's and LGBTQ Social Movements (WGSS 2213)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course examines the role women’s and LGBTQ social movements play in the development of social justice thought and action. You will use the speeches, public dispatches, scholarly and artistic works of important figures and organizations in feminist and LGBTQ social movements to investigate the deep and varied meanings of justice in feminist and LGBTQ activism. You will consider, as well, the relationship between historical and contemporary movements for reproductive justice, workers’ rights, immigration, HIV/AIDS, dis/ability justice, prison abolition, and cultural transformation.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
ENGL 1110 or completion of
ENGL 0900 or
ENGA 0900 or
ESOL 0051
MnTC:
Click for more details
Women Poets of the World (WGSS 2235)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course explores the poetic themes, forms, and styles of the major women poets of the world, including English and non-English writers in translation. You will also examine the relationship between language, creative expression and power as they are experienced by women poets around the world.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
ENGL 1110 or completion of
ENGL 0900 or
ENGA 0900 or
ESOL 0051
MnTC:
Click for more details
Captive Bodies: Gender and Mass Incarceration (WGSS 2240)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course examines the reasons behind the rapidly-growing number of women and/or transgender and gender-nonconforming people incarcerated in the U.S. and globally. You will grapple with the ethical and political implications raised by mass incarceration and other such practices of discipline, punishment, and containment, focusing on issues of gender and sexuality. You will further explore the participation of communities, schools, and non-profit organizations in sometimes furthering but also in creating alternatives to incarceration.
Prerequisites:
Placement into
ENGL 1110 or completion of
ENGL 0900 or
ENGA 0900 or
ESOL 0051
MnTC:
Click for more details