Summer 2020

How has current thinking about sex, gender, and sexuality formed our experiences and understandings of ourselves, the world we inhabit, and the world we envision? This course investigates basic concepts about sex, gender, and sexuality and considers how these categories intersect with issues of race, class, ethnicity, family, religion, age, and/or national identity. The course also considers the effects of sex, gender, and sexuality on participation in the work force and politics, on language, and on artistic expression. In addition to reading a range of foundational feminist texts, materials for analysis may be drawn from novels, films, the  news, popular culture, and archival resources. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.

Professor Ayubi
ARR

Examining the intersections between gender, religious practice, cultural identity, and personal belief, this class will draw upon contemporary gender theory, religious texts and contemporary interpretations of Jewish thought and culture to examine the construction of Jewish identity through a feminist lens.  Authors will include Alder, Boyarin, Heschel, Gilman, Peskowitz, Levitt and Biale.  The class will also investigate questions of race, ethnicity, assimilation and Jewish gender issues in popular culture, including films and the work of performers Cantor, Benny, Berg, Midler, and Sandler. Dist: TMV; WCult: CI.

Professor Greenblatt
2A Hour

This course introduces students to major contemporary racial justice debates. It also considers how theories of racial justice might better include the concerns of women of color as well as LGBT and trans persons of color. Throughout the course we will examine quesitons such as: What constitutes racial injustice? How is gender implicated in said injustice? What, if anything, do blacks and other people of color owe to one another? Should political possibility and pragmatism bound thinking regarding corrective racial justice?

Professor Threadcraft
10A Hour

This course introduces students to the diversity of feminist approaches on a transnational scale, by examining the movements, activism, media, literature, and Islamic debates produced in predominantly Muslim countries and beyond. We will interrogate concepts of transnationalism, feminism and modernity in terms of historical developments, theoretical usage, the context of colonialism, Islamic theologies, and the modern Muslim nation states. We will explore similarities and differences in women's experiences and feminist methodologies across global Muslim contexts. Course materials will be made up of several primary sources in translation that deal with intersectional issues such as religious and cultural practices, educational systems, politics, race and racism, socioeconomic class, legal rights for men and women, and marriage and the family.

Professor Ayubi
ARR

This seminar is designed to provide an overview of significant themes and debates within feminist theory. It is organized around several topic areas - most centrally Intersectionality and the Body (including the racially marked body, the covered body and the body in motion, across both national and gender boundaries). Dist: SOC.

Professor Threadcraft
3B Hour

This course focuses on the histories and experiences of Latinx transnational migrants—from Mexico, Central America, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba—living in the United States.  You will study the historical, political, and economic processes that have led to these migrations, as well as the varying ways in which rach/ethnicity, class, gender/sexuality, and citizenship affect Latinx migrant lived experience.  Given our focus on “crossing,” readings will foreground subjects that capture this theme, from the literal movement of people, to the constant back and forth that shapes Latinx lives, to the adjustments Latinx people make given their language, their proximity to other immigrants and communities of color, and their varying acceptance within the United States.

Professor Gomez
10A Hour

In this course, we will study the relationship between feminism and philosophy, focusing on the ways in which feminist theorists have rethought some basic concepts in ethics, epistemology, political philosophy, and philosophy of law. We will examine such topics as: feminist methodologies and critiques of the Western philosophical canon; intersections of feminist theory with critical race theory, decolonial theory, queer theory, and trans philosophy; the sex/gender distinction and social construction; epistemic injustice; pornography, speech, and silencing; gender-based violence and the ethics of consent. Dist: TMV; WCult: CI. NOTE: The 20X offering of this course is open to all classes and there is no prerequisite. 

Professor Brison
3A Hour but open to students in all time zones