Women’s & Gender Studies

The course aims to reflect on the construction of Otherness as a political theoretical problem, through interdisciplinary readings that involve the fields of political philosophy, Latin American studies and feminist theory. We will pay special attention to analyzing the production of different figures of Otherness whose historicity shows a turning point in the rise of nineteenth-century racial and sexual theories about the body and nature.

This is a special studies course involving an internship with a corporate, public, governmental, or private organization, arranged with the Study Center Director or Liaison Officer. Specific internships vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. A substantial paper or series of reports is required. Units vary depending on the contact hours and method of assessment. The internship may be taken during one or more terms but the units cannot exceed a total of 12.0 for the year.

This course applies a critical lens to representations of gender and identity in contemporary media. Taking gender and sexuality as a critical starting point, students examine the construction of identities under the simultaneous influence of race, class, and nationality. By focusing on popular representations in both the US and the country where the course is taking place, students gain a deeper understanding of identities as both culturally specific and influenced by global media. Instead of suggesting that contemporary identities are determined by what is on TV screens, computers, and in local movie theaters, the course seeks to describe the complex interactions between national audiences and concrete media productions. It analyzes how different audiences reproduce or challenge traditional concepts and stereotypes of gender, race, sexuality, and class. By combining the study of theoretical texts with examples from the advertisement industry, television, movies, and other forms of contemporary cultural expression, it offers a comprehensive and thorough introduction to contemporary studies of the media and identity.

The contemporary world is facing many challenges in promoting peace, justice and reconciliation, ranging from armed conflicts to social inequality, from environmental degradation to interfaith tensions. These complex challenges continue to afflict many parts of the globe. In this context, some fundamental questions may be asked: how do we define life?; What does it mean to live a life of integrity?; How does my life relate to just, sustainable and inclusive peace?; How do the ideas for making the world more just and peaceful shape our own lives and careers of purpose and vice versa? Seeking to explore these questions deeply, this course presents foundational theories behind peace and social justice and applies these concepts to specific fields of inquiry and practice, including: colonization, violence, oppression, racism, sexism, human trafficking, poverty, climate change and complex issues of peacebuilding, humanitarian aid and development. Various strategies and attempts to create social change for the greater good through different individual and organizational platforms are analyzed and assessed too. Throughout the course, students gain an understanding of the strengths and constraints on theory and practice in the context of the creation of a culture of “human flourishing”, particularly in post-conflict societies, and engage in a variety of topics with self-reflective approach.

This course examines the idea of family as a social institution that is both historically and culturally situated and investigates how the family unit both shapes and is shaped by transformations in the economy, the state, and other social institutions, as well as the systemic forces of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, nationalism, and other structural factors.  

The course critically evaluates theoretical frameworks and current research on family dynamics in the West and examines the challenges encountered by contemporary families in Korea. Moreover, it facilitates reflection on the underlying structural factors contributing to and potential resolutions for other social problems unique in the Korean context. 

Some topics covered in the course will include: how the nuclear family came to be treated as natural; how the concept of family has historically evolved; how contemporary sexuality and dating has transformed family formations; the inequality of race, gender, and class in family forms; the emergence of diverse families and changes in the roles of family members; an increase in small households and single-person households; the rise in the age at first marriage and the decline in birth rates; the dynamics of parent-child relationships, parenting practices, household labor, and the distribution of household chores; population aging; transnational and immigrant families; and other related topics. 

This course examines gender, sex and sexuality across a range of cultural settings seeking, in the process, to question most of what we - including most theorists of sex/gender - take for granted about the gendered and sexed character of human identity and difference. Topics explored include: the saliency of the categories man and woman; the relationships between race and gender; the role of colonialism and neocolonialism in the representation of gender, sex and sexuality; the usefulness of the notion of oppression; the relationship between cultural conceptions of personhood and cultural conceptions of gender; and the ethnocentricity of the concepts of gender, sex and sexuality themselves. To assist these explorations we will make use of cross-cultural case studies in a number of areas including rape, prostitution, work and domesticity, the third sex and homosexuality.

This is an independent research course with research arranged between the student and faculty member. The specific research topics vary each term and are described on a special project form for each student. A substantial paper is required. The number of units varies with the student’s project, contact hours, and method of assessment, as defined on the student’s special study project form.

The course explores how the regional Catalan cinema (Catalan language productions), which encounters a disadvantage in the broader market dominated by Spanish-speaking audiovisuals, achieves distinctiveness, with a focus on the representation of women, social inequality, diverse minorities, and sustainability. Emphasizing the intersection of these issues, the course delves into the complexities of current Catalan social struggles on and off the screen. The course is divided into lectures, screenings, readings, discussions, group presentations, creative work in groups and field trips to filming locations and Catalan production firms.

This course will investigate the ways in which the policing of gender and sexuality intersected with the policing of (ethno) national boundaries in Central-Eastern Europe, with a focus on the state-socialist period (1945-1990) but including the interwar period and the post socialist period as contextual bookends. At the same time, it will explore the ways in which the socialist ideologies of gender equality and internationalism were actually (and selectively) implemented in these countries, the effect this had on women and men from both ethnic majority and minority populations in these countries. Finally, it takes a transnational approach, looking at the role of gender and sexuality in positioning Central Eastern Europe within the (white) West, and in the West’s perception and ‘othering’ of the region.

This course presents special advanced studies in selected areas of Gender and Queer Theory. It aims to strengthen students' knowledge of Gender and Sexuality Studies from the philosophical and aesthetical points of view, as well as their knowledge of Gender and Queer Studies from a historical and a thematic perspective (with a special interest in the French Theory).