Catalog

Gender Studies

  • Director: Melissa M. Wilcox, Gender Studies and Religion
  • Susanne Beechey, Politics (on Sabbatical, Spring 2013)
  • Andrea K. Dobson, Astronomy
  • Suzanne Morrissey, Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies (on Sabbatical, Spring 2013)
  • Zahi Zalloua, Frenchand Interdisciplinary Studies

Gender studies courses focus upon gender identity and gendered representation as central categories of analysis. Gender studies uses the concept of gender to analyze a wide range of disciplines. Although many lines of argumentation in gender studies are inspired by feminism, a broad variety of theoretical approaches are used to study the categories of gender. Gender studies includes women’s studies, men’s studies, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender studies.

The Gender Studies major: All gender studies majors must take Gender Studies 100, Gender Studies 490, and Gender Studies 497 or 498. Gender studies majors must complete at least 28 additional credits; at least 12 of these additional credits must be at the 300 to 400 level. Students will work closely with an adviser to select courses, which meet the following two criteria:

At least one course must be taken in each of the following five areas: gender studies in global context (e.g., Anthropology 358, History 325, Politics 359, General Studies 245), history (e.g., History 300, History 325, Classics 140), humanities (e.g., Religion 358, Rhetoric Studies 240), social sciences (e.g., Anthropology 358, Politics 357, Psychology 239, Sociology 258), theory (e.g., Politics 328, Philosophy 235). Courses that fulfill the global context requirement may also fulfill other area requirements.

At least three courses at or above the 200 level must be closely related in topic or methodology. This concentration can be achieved by taking three courses from one department (e.g., history) or by taking three courses with the same focus (e.g., Latin America) from different departments. In all courses, the student’s work should focus on issues of gender, even if the course itself is not a gender studies course. Before pre-registration for the senior year the major adviser must agree that the student has proposed an acceptable means of meeting the concentration requirement.

A course in biology (e.g., Biology 120 or 125) is recommended. Students considering graduate programs are strongly advised to complete a minor in a related discipline (e.g., anthropology, history, politics, psychology, sociology).

In the final semester the student must pass a senior assessment consisting of a senior thesis and an approximately one-and-a-half-hour oral examination, which will include questions concerning the thesis and coursework taken for the major.

No more than 12 credits earned in off-campus programs and transfer credit, nor more than four credits in independent study, may be used to satisfy the gender studies major requirements. Courses completed in gender studies apply to the humanities, social sciences, cultural pluralism, and fine arts distribution areas. Students who enter Whitman with no prior college-level coursework in gender studies would need to complete 40 credits to fulfill the requirements for the gender studies major.

The Gender Studies minor: A minimum of 20 credits to include Gender Studies 100 and at least four hours of coursework at the 100 or 200 levels and at least eight hours at the 300 or 400 levels. The student, in consultation with a gender studies adviser, will plan a program which will meet requirements of special interest and intellectual coherence, and will include courses in the social sciences, humanities and, when possible, the sciences.

The following courses are available for a gender studies major or minor. GC (global context), Hi (history), Hu (humanities), SS (social sciences), or Th (theory) indicates the cluster area within the major to which a course may be applied.

  • Anthropology 358 (GC, SS), Sex and Gender in Anthropological Perspective
  • Classics 140 (Hi), Women in Antiquity
  • Classics 200/Environmental Studies 368 (Hi), ST: Mothers, Witches, and Nymphs: Concepts of Women and Nature in the Ancient World
  • English 337 (Hu), ST: Sex, Love, and Power in the English Renaissance
  • Film and Media Studies 251 (Hu), ST: Gender/Sexuality/Media
  • French 401 (GC, Th), French Feminism
  • French 427 (GC, Hu), Subjectivity and Otherness in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
  • History 254 (Hi), The Social History of Stuff: Power, Technology, and Meaning in the United States from the Cotton Gin to the Internet
  • History 300 (GC, Hi), Gender in Chinese History
  • History 319 (GC, Hi) Women in Africa
  • History 325 (GC, Hi), Women and Gender in Islamic Societies
  • History 370 (Hi), Interrogating Sisterhood: Women and Gender in the United States
  • History 393 (Hi), Gender and Sexuality in the Middle Ages
  • Music 354 (Hu), Women as Composers
  • Philosophy 235 (Th), Philosophy of Feminism
  • Philosophy 332 (Hu), Reproduction
  • Politics 236 (GC, SS), Concepts of the Political in Southeast Asia: An Introduction
  • Politics 254 (SS), Gender and Race in Law and Policy
  • Politics 307 (Th), Political Theory and the Body Politic
  • Politics 311 (SS), Deservingness in U.S. Social Policy
  • Politics 325 (SS), Queer Politics and Policy
  • Politics 328 (Th), Contemporary Feminist Theories
  • Politics 337 (GC, SS), Globalizing Southeast Asia
  • Politics 351 (GC, SS), Necropower and the Politics of Violence
  • Politics 359 (GC, SS), Gender and International Hierarchy
  • Politics 365 (SS), Political Economy of Care/Work
  • Psychology 239 (SS), Psychology of Women and Gender
  • Religion 287 (Hu), Queer Religiosities
  • Religion 358 (Hu), Feminist and Liberation Theologies
  • Religion 359 (Hu), Gender, Body, and Religion
  • Rhetoric Studies 240 (Hu), Rhetorical Explorations: Race, Class and Gender
  • Sociology 257 (SS), Sociology of the Family
  • Sociology 258 (SS), Gender and Society
  • Sociology 287 (SS), Sociology of the Body
  • Spanish 411 (GC, Hu), Desperate Housewives: Feminism in Latin American Fiction
  • Spanish 439 (GC, Hu), The Horror, the horror: Gore, Sex, and Politics in Peninsular Film and Literature
  • Spanish 447/World Literature 329 (Hu), Familias y Fronteras: Contemporary Chicana Literature
  • Spanish 450 (GC, Hu), Night Chicas: Sex Workers in Film from Spain, Mexico, and Brazil
  • Spanish 455 (GC, Hu), Vagos y maleantes: Queer Iberian Literature and Film
  • SSRA 328, Women and Sport
  • World Literature 343 (GC, Hu) Women Writers in Imperial China: In Search of the “Real” Female Voice
  • World Literature 395 (Th), Contemporary Literary Theory

Please check the Gender Studies website for updates to this list and for information about gender studies courses offered in alternate years.

Note: A course cannot be used to satisfy both major and minor requirements, e.g., History 370 cannot be used to apply toward the 38-credit requirement for the gender studies major and history minor or vice versa.

100 Introduction to Gender Studies
4, 4 Fall: Morrissey; Spring: Wilcox

This interdisciplinary course is designed to introduce students, particularly those intending to complete a gender studies major or minor, to questions in which gender is a significant category of analysis. Topics will include the construction of gender identity and sexuality and the relationship of gender to past and present social and cultural institutions, gendered representations in the arts and literature, and feminist and related theoretical approaches to various disciplines. Open to first- and second-year students; others by consent of instructor.

110-119 Special Topics
4, 4

This course explores selected topics in gender studies.

238 Men and Masculinities
4; not offered 2012-13

From A-Rod to Arnold, Obama to O’Reilly, masculinity is presented and represented in a variety of ways in the contemporary United States. Across cultures and historical periods, this variety becomes even greater. This class focuses on the task of analyzing hegemonic and counter-hegemonic masculinities. Students will undertake a critical, interdisciplinary examination of the social construction of men and masculinities in multiple cultural and historical contexts.

291, 292 Independent Study
1-4, 1-4 Staff

Discussion and directed reading on a topic of interest to the individual student. The project must be approved by the staff. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

300-309 Special Topics
4

This course explores selected topics in gender studies. Any current offerings follow.

300 ST: Gender/Sexuality/Media
x, 4 Petersen

What are the differences between the silent film comedians and the men of Call of Duty 4? Between Jane Fonda and the teen fashionistas of Pretty Little Liars? This course will attempt to answer those questions, exploring the multiple intersections of gender and sexuality in film, television, and digital culture. Working through texts spanning the last century, we will unpack the historical and contemporary representations of “feminine,” “masculine,” “queer,” and “feminist.” Final projects will interrogate the ways in which our exposure to these texts influences the way that we participate in media culture as artists, bloggers, and participants in social media. Lectures, discussion, final projects, and required weekly screenings. Open to first-years, sophomores, and Film and Media Studies majors; others by consent only. May be elected as Film and Media Studies 251. Distribution area: humanities.

326 The Femme Fatale: the Question of “woman” in Modern Japanese Fiction
4; not offered 2012-13

Women have often been represented as idealized, seductive, and dangerous femme fatales in Japanese literature. In this course we shall trace and analyze various literary configurations of femme fatales specifically in the context of late 19th century and 20th century Japan. The questions we shall engage with will include: what are the implications of the femme fatale in the construction of male subjectivity and what constitutes a modern subject? We shall also investigate how some literary works, particularly those written by women writers, offer understandings of female subjectivity that are irreducible to an idealized object of male desire or to a marginalized figure lacking full-fledged selfhood. The writers whose works we will read include Mori Ôgai, Izumi Kyôka, Tanizaki Jun’ichirô, Kawabata Yasunari, and Enchi Fumiko. We will bring primary works of fiction into dialogue with supplementary critical and theoretical materials. May be elected as World Literature 326.

328 Queer Studies
4, x Wilcox

Queer studies, in the guise of queer theory, developed in the early 1990s out of the conjunction of feminist theory, sexuality studies, and queer activism. This course introduces students to some of the key authors and texts in queer theory, as well as the next generation of works that brought about the establishment of queer studies as a field. It is recommended that students who take this class have previous college-level exposure to theoretical writing in either the humanities or the social sciences.

490 Senior Seminar
4, x Wilcox

Taught by a gender studies faculty member with guest participation by others, this seminar is intended to engage senior majors in sustained discussion of contemporary gender issues. Readings, discussion, and papers, including a proposal for the thesis. Required of and limited to senior gender studies majors. (Fall degree candidates should plan to take this seminar at the latest possible opportunity.)

491, 492 Independent Study
1-4, 1-4 Staff

Directed study and research on a topic of interest to the individual student. The project must be approved by the staff. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

497 Thesis
x, 4 Staff

Completion of a thesis based on the previous semester’s plan.

498 Honors Thesis
x, 4 Staff

Completion of an honors thesis. Required of and limited to senior honors candidates in gender studies. Prerequisite: admission to honors candidacy.