Women’s & Gender Studies

In modern society, where uncertainty is increasing, the importance and necessity of intimate relationships—such as romantic partnerships, marriage, and family—are being increasingly emphasized. In particular, phenomena related to love, marriage, and family are changing more rapidly than ever before. A broad examination and understanding of these intimate relationships not only help individuals respond flexibly to such changes, but also contribute to the formation of healthy values regarding love, marriage, and family. Ultimately, this fosters individual happiness and promotes the well-being of families and society as a whole.

This course introduces students to the history of gender and sexuality from the medieval period to the present. Students look at a variety of textual and visual sources, and consider global perspectives on gender and sexuality and how they intersect with structures of power and social hierarchies. Students explore themes such as gender fluidity, women's reproductive health, sexualities, family structures, women at work, women's rights and oppression, gender violence and feminism(s). The course offers an opportunity for global comparison between societies of the past and our modern world, helping students to understand how categories such as gender are not fixed but rather develop over time.

In 1394, John Rykener, having been detected in women’s clothing and calling themself 'Eleanor’, was arrested in London for ‘committing that detestable, unmentionable, and ignominious vice’ with John Britby. This case went unremarked for decades despite the printing of a calendar of these records, because the editor summarized it only as ‘Examination of two men charged with immorality’. This course takes this case as a starting point and asks: was Eleanor Rykener a trans woman? Was John Rykener a man in drag? Were they genderfluid? Are these terms applicable in the Middle Ages? Did this case even happen or was it all a political satire? Students read comparable cases from elsewhere, recent scholarship on the issue, other sources relating to queer identities in the Middle Ages, and historical fiction focusing on Rykener as a character.

This course examines gender studies within the field of media including how gender shapes representation, identity, and power through film, visual culture, and digital media. Topics include: gender as social construction, performance, and technology; representations of violence; the impact of new media, social networks, and AI on gender identities and narratives. 

The course explores genders and sexual diversity in the modern society. Students discuss and investigate challenges in international politics, economics that different gender groups including, men, women, and LGBTQ face as the world becomes globalized. The course will contribute to the development of students’ ability to conceptualize their understanding of genders and sexuality with a global perspective. 

This course serves as the first transgender focused gender studies course in the Gender Studies Program. The course introduces and discusses the concepts and theories of transness, transgender and otherness using some of the Western literature while incorporating and focusing on the Asian perspectives with Thailand, Hong Kong and the Philippines as focus. This course covers narratives and history of transness and otherness in 3 Asian contexts: Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines. The course looks into the evolution of gender identities, roles and expressions and sexualities in these societies and weave the intersections in these narratives. It covers current situations of trans, non-binary and "other" people in these societies and how their transness and otherness impede them from being fully integrated in their societies. It considers ways colonization (Hong Kong, Philippines) and non-colonization (Thailand) affect their transness and collectiveness. Finally, the course invites social justice allies to help map action plans to help improve their states in their respective societies. Prerequisite: GEND1001.

This course introduces Performance Studies and Transnational Feminist concepts to examine how women and non-conforming bodies are marked in films and what they reveal about power structures and societal attitudes. It  unpacks how the body performs gender, sexuality, and race by considering the role film plays in producing both authentic lives and stereotypes. It addresses whose bodies are seen and how they are framed. It critically questions what it means to perform and interrogate who the real performers are in the framing of marginalized individuals on screen in the last half a century. By applying the body as a site of knowledge, students explore a broad range of narrative and documentary films from Asia and across the globe to develop a deeper and more layered lens around the power and politics of production. This course provides an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach that embraces multiple viewpoints while recognizing entangled spaces that complicate the narrative. There are robust in-class discussion to develop powerful communication skills while encouraging creative modes of engagement that expand beyond scholarly text. Prerequisite: GEND1001.

This course examines the historical and contemporary oppression of women through a global and comparative lens. It explores the use of witchcraft accusations in European, American, and African contexts as a means of suppressing assertive or powerful women, as well as other gendered practices such as foot binding, sati, and female genital mutilation. The course introduces key concepts of gender, sex, and patriarchy, analyzes the marginalization of women in patriarchal societies, and examines women’s rights in the contemporary world. Attention is given to differing understandings and enforcement of women’s rights at national and global levels, including the roles of international organizations such as the United Nations and the International Labor Organization, and extends the discussion of gender rights to include LGBTQ+ communities.

This course brings together frameworks and methods from multiple disciplines to think about crisis, a hegemonic and deeply polyvalent concept. Using seminal ideas from queer, trans, and cultural theory, students consider how moments of crisis are often rife with contradictions and ambivalences and how the language of crisis has become ubiquitous in the contemporary world. Students also discuss seminar theories that situate crisis as endemic to capitalism, and think about how we might think about crisis as ordinary rather than exceptional. Throughout the course, students work through myriad texts and disciplines to consider the notions of crisis and catastrophe, and use different examples to research how crises often unfold in drastically different ways. Topics may include climate change, migration, epidemics and pandemics, moral panics around trans rights and bodies, and settler colonialism.