Women’s & Gender Studies

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the complex geographies of gender roles, relations and identities and different type of feminisms in the global South. As well as exploring the theoretical approaches to gender and development thought, and especially different types of feminist thought, the course also examines a series of axes of diversity in relation to people’s lives in the global South. It examines changing social and economic aspects of development on women’s and men’s (and where research exists on trans and non-binary) lives in relation to household transformations, population mobility, poverty, employment, sexualities, gender-based violence, and development policy and practice.

This is a special studies course in the field of women's and gender studies, with projects arranged between the student and faculty member. The specific topics of study vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. The number of units varies with the student’s projects, contact hours, and method of assessment, as defined on the student’s special study project form.

This course examines the role of sexual orientation and gender identity in politics drawing on multidisciplinary research on social movements, transnational rights advocacy, identity politics, public opinion and political behavior, as well as regional studies. 

This course bridges feminist theory, legal studies, and political economy to provide a multidimensional understanding of how gender structures economic and legal systems. It complements existing offerings in political theory, law, and gender studies by integrating critical perspectives on care, welfare, and neoliberalism with emerging debates on digital capitalism and global governance. Drawing on feminist, queer, and postcolonial scholarship, it explores how gender is not merely shaped by legal and economic systems but is fundamentally constitutive of them. The syllabus is designed to be intellectually rigorous yet accessible to undergraduates from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, progressively introducing theoretical frameworks and applying them to concrete economic and policy issues. Indeed, the course investigates how care and reproductive labor sustain markets and states; how institutions of property, finance, and welfare define economic citizenship; and how global processes—including colonialism, migration, and development—reproduce gendered hierarchies. The course also addresses the gendered dynamics of digital capitalism, exploring how contemporary technological infrastructures and platform economies shape labor, value, and power. Through close reading of legal and theoretical texts, class discussions, and media materials, the course connects historical and contemporary debates on work, welfare, sexuality, and governance. It interrogates the ways legal regimes define economic citizenship, moral worth, and bodily autonomy, while also considering feminist strategies for resistance, redistribution, and transformation. By linking feminist thought to law and political economy, the course equips students with conceptual and analytical tools to critically engage with law as both a site of domination and potential social change.

Do feminists everywhere share universal concerns? How have feminists in non-Western societies navigated the twin challenge of responding to patriarchy and to Western imperialism? How have they reacted to feminist scholarship in the West? What specific challenges have feminists in the Arab world and in China been responding to, historically and in the contemporary period? What importance have Islam and Confucianism had, respectively, in the formulation of feminist demands in these two parts of the world? In this course, students consider the question of the convergence and divergence of feminist discourses and ideas, East and West. Students will read primary texts written by feminists in China and in the Arab world, starting with the classical period of each tradition, and moving to the contemporary period.

This course examines the diverse roles Aboriginal women have played in Indigenous and Settler societies and investigates historical and contemporary issues and the activism and leadership that Aboriginal women have undertaken. It covers activism and leadership, agency, and power from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous standpoints. It looks at Aboriginal women in contemporary times as well as from early colonial days and on the missions, Aboriginal women feminism and the making of a nation, Aboriginal women’s literature and roles in higher education, Indigenous women in sport, social and emotional wellbeing, as well as Aboriginal women and criminal justice.

This course examines the interrelationship between gender, sexuality and families in New Zealand and other Western societies. Through an examination of important moments in the life course of families – for example, partnering and parenting – it explores changes and continuities in the gendered norms, identities, practices and patterns that characterize contemporary family life.

This introductory course on feminist theory offers a panoramic overview of the field, while maintaining sensitivity to the historical emergence of gender studies as an academic discipline. After a general introduction, the course begins with a session on women's becoming subjects of research and the implications this had for academic topics and approaches. The course sessions address topics such as: abortion, motherhood and reproductive justice; theories of sexual liberation; feminist, queer and trans materialisms; ecofeminisms; intersectionality; queer and feminist theories of the state and nationalism; sexual violence; the institutionalization of feminist thought; feminist theory at the crossroad of other political sets of theory (liberalism, Marxism, anarchism, Critical Theory and postmodernism) and feminist perspectives on far-right sexual politics. Although the course primarily follows a lecture format, interactive segments are regularly incorporated.

This course explores what gender studies—and feminist studies in particular—teach us about the international sphere, and how they lead us to reexamine traditional subjects such as war, power, and security. To this end, the course uses a selection of foundational and more recent texts to introduce these fields, their questions, and their methods. Sessions are structured around interactive activities (oral exercises, both individual and group, and discussions) and lectures on feminist or gender studies in international relations. Focused on examining diverse cases and contexts, the course analyzes social movements (the #MeToo movement, the Iranian uprising, eco-feminism) and international public policies, whether originating from states (France’s “feminist diplomacy” or the projection of U.S. military power worldwide) or from international organizations (UN documents or European Union policies).

This course offers a reinterpretation of contemporary French history, drawing on the insights of women's and gender history, a field that has developed over the past 40 years. Major periods in French history are revisited from the perspective of women, spanning from the French Revolution in 1789 to May 1968, from industrialization to the tertiarization of society, and examining the evolution of the family and issues related to sexualities. Historical overviews are provided to illuminate current debates within feminist circles and society concerning gender-related questions. By reinserting women into historical narratives, major political (access to citizenship and suffrage), economic, and social (access to work and professions) timelines are re-examined. Significant attention is paid to the historian's sources—from written documents to everyday objects—to write a history of women on the following themes: women's bodies, their place in the family, at school, at work, and in the public sphere.