Women’s & Gender Studies

This course examines the global condition of women and girls through a political-economic lens; specifically, the sexual politics that underpin the global economy. It canvasses different perspectives on women's place in the global economy starting in the 19th century and examines topics like the labor market; class, and waged-based exploitation that exemplify the sexual politics of the capitalist economy and the harmful results on women and girls.

This course examines how frameworks/concepts/tools of social justice are deployed in the context of globalization, and examine to what extent they are effective vehicles for social changes, in what ways, and for whom. Through keywords and themes on coloniality, class, race, gender, and sexuality, it analyzes structural oppressions across borders and generations, while envisioning a less exploitative, more sustainable, and more just world.

In this course, student participants will analyze how ideas about gender and sexuality influenced left-wing revolutionary movements and right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America since 1959, considering both political history and the experiences lived by contemporary people in the cases of Cuba, Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Nicaragua, among others.

This interdisciplinary course examines how gender and sexuality were experienced, represented, and contested in Weimar-era Germany (1918-1933). Drawing on a diverse array of primary sources - including theater, visual art, literature, film, and theoretical texts - students explore how marginalized individuals and communities navigated, expressed, and politicized their identities. Key topics include the emergence of sexual science and the conceptualization of the "third sex"; the proliferation of queer spaces, subcultures, and social movements in 1920s Berlin; intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and disability; artistic and literary depictions of gender fluidity and erotic desire; medicalization, criminalization, and the state's response to gender/sexual nonconformity; the rise of fascism and the violent backlash against LGBTQ+ rights. Through close engagement with primary sources and cutting-edge scholarly work, students gain a nuanced understanding of the complex, often contradictory dynamics that defined gender and sexuality in Weimar Germany. This course equips students with the critical tools to analyze the interplay between cultural production, social movements, and the politics of identity.

This course starts with the question of what is understood by “gender” in gender studies and a systematization of the field of gender studies in STEM/planning. In the second part students examine studies of gender studies in STEM and planning in different disciplines. The course concludes with a project phase in which students are in working groups on topics from the field of gender studies on STEM/planning using the materials provided and present the results.

This seminar explores the interface between queer identity, music, and history and investigates how musical spaces may serve as mirrors and critiques of societal norms. Students investigate the experiences of queer artists through a historical perspective and see how they use music as a form of social critique and expression. Beginning with operatic roles in the 17th century, through contexts like the 19th century cakewalk, the cabaret of the Weimar republic in the 1920s-1930s, as well as hip-hop culture, the seminar uncovers how gender transgressivity and performance art are reflected in music. Students analyze queer and transgressive music scenes as “heterotopias” (Foucault) – places of resistance against societal norms – and discuss the role of music in the construction of community and identity. Important texts by Audre Lorde, Michael Foucault, and Theodor W Adorno offer theoretical foundations through which the interventional power of music in the negotiation of identity and difference can be understood. Students develop their own case studies of queer artists and their visual, cultural, musical, and/or social moments of intervention.

Students will consider hegemonic understandings of the body as essentially linked to histories of colonialism and power. They will investigate frameworks about the body proposed by minoritized groups, developed out of collective struggle and political movements, found in feminism and critical indigenous studies. Students will recognize the essential differences between these frameworks as well as how they intermingle and intersect.

This course explores the dynamic interplay between gender, space, and state policies in Iran, focusing on how women navigate and resist the gendered narratives imposed by the state. By examining both historical and contemporary contexts, the course delves into the ways Iranian women, from various backgrounds and walks of life, have engaged with modernity, anti-modernity, and state-driven agendas. Through a mix of theoretical frameworks and case studies, students gain insights into the strategies used by women to resist and negotiate oppressive structures, with an emphasis on the spatial aspects of their resistance.

Experimental writing is often counterposed to writing that emphasizes voice, experience, and identity. Exploring the relationships between literary form and subjectivity, between abstract systemic forces and our concrete lived experiences of the world, the course considers how contemporary writers have turned to experimental techniques to channel modes of solidarity, joy and refusal, and to make legible forms of gendered and racial violence. In this way, literary experimentalisms have also provided crucial tools for anti-racist and feminist critique. But what makes a literary text experimental? What does experimental writing have to say about class? And what does it mean to ‘queer’ a text? Asking these and other questions, the course will considers what the literary critic Anthony Reed calls "literature’s means of expanding the domain of the intelligible and thinkable."

This course offers a comprehensive exploration of the intersections between gender and religion, examining how religious beliefs, practices, and institutions shape and are shaped by constructions of gender identity, roles, and power dynamics in international and local politics. Moreover, the course critically evaluates the role of gender and religion in shaping law, diplomacy, and conflict resolution strategies. It analyzes the ways in which governments, constitutions and laws, international organizations, and non-state actors incorporate gender and religious considerations into their policies and practices. Some questions therefore regularly returned to are: How have norms for gendered individuals in religious, non-religious, beliefs, and spiritual traditions been negotiated over time? Whose voices matter, when deciding which gendered actions are acceptable (or not)? What happens if we read religious traditions according to the voices of women, queer people, or people who identify with other marginalized gender and sexual identities? This course tackles these questions, showing how gender and sexuality—how they are taught, performed, and regulated—are central to understanding religious communities and international politics.