courses

Fall 2007
Spring 2008
(click on course titles for syllabi)
Please note: some syllabi may be from previous terms. Current versions should be made available by the start of the semester.

Harvard Course Catalog
(can also link to course syllabi here)

Fall 2007

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1000. Introduction to WGS: The Gender Mystique: An Interdisciplinary Introduction to Fifty Years of Studies on Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Catalog Number: 9620
Alice Jardine
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 12 and a one hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 14
An overview of major questions raised by the interdisciplinary study of women, gender, and sexuality and the challenges thus raised to traditional divisions of knowledge. Our approach will be contemporary and our subjects will range across history, science, economics, literature, and film, moving through feminist, postcolonial, and queer theories, towards an examination of how such fields as public health, medicine, education, and law have been forever changed by gender theory since WW II.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1300 (formerly Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1002). Approaches to Research and Writing in WGS
Catalog Number: 4429 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Afsaneh Najmabadi
Half course (fall term). Tu., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
An analysis of the production of knowledge and research methodologies across a variety of interdisciplinary topics in WGS. Specific research and writing requirements in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences are addressed as interdisciplinary questions are explored. The course is designed to deepen students' thinking about their research questions, their roles and responsibilities as researchers, feminist epistemologies and the challenges of representation in the writing process.
Note: Required of all full and primary concentrators. Strongly recommended for joint concentrators with WGS as the allied field.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1122. The Romance: From Jane Austen to Chick Lit
Catalog Number: 8181
Linda Schlossberg
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 12 and a one hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
A critical investigation of the genre's enduring popularity, beginning with Austen's satirical Northanger Abbey and three novels credited with providing narrative templates for contemporary romances (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights ) . We will then read twentieth-century revisions of these works (Rebecca, The Wide Sargasso Sea , Bridget Jones's Diary) . Topics: the female writer and reader/consumer of literature; moral warnings against romance, “sensation,” and titillation; the commodification of desire; Harlequins; the relationship between high culture and low.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1133. Gender and Performance
Catalog Number: 8829
Robin M. Bernstein
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 3 and a one hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 17
Introduction to performance studies as it intersects with studies of gender, sexuality, and race. What does it mean to say gender is "performed"? How does performance--both on- and off-stage--construct and deconstruct power? Topics include transgressive and normative performances, athletics, feminist and queer theatre, gender in everyday life, drag, Playboy, and weddings. Texts include Tony Kushner, Judith Butler, Anna Deavere Smith, Cherríe Moraga, Eve Ensler, Bertolt Brecht, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Coco Fusco, and Ntozake Shange.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1165. Intimacy and Violence - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 9248
Deborah J. Cohan
Half course (fall term). M., 2–4 and a one hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
This course addresses the problem of violence in intimate relationships from a sociological and feminist perspective. Activist-inspired and community-connected. Close attention paid to the way in which violence against women constitutes a specific form of structured gender inequality. Special emphasis on the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality in the experience and representation of intimate violence. Topics include domestic violence, rape, incest, and pornography. Causes, consequences, and patterns will be examined.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1210qt (formerly Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1003). Queer Theory - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 9232 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Bradley S. Epps
Half course (fall term). W., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
Examines the possibilities and pitfalls of a specifically "queer" understanding of gender, sexuality, culture, history, and politics. Special attention will be given to the international sweep and limits of queerness as conceptual category and identity (and anti-identity) formation in relation to questions of race, ethnicity, nationality, and class as well as artistic production and activism. Works by Butler , Sedgwick, Foucault, Rubin, Halperin, Warner, Wittig, Bersani, Cohen, Lorde, Halberstam, Califia, Stryker, Quiroga, Najmabadi, and many others.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1232. Postcolonial Women's Writing - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 8406 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Katherine Stanton
Half course (fall term). Th., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Rejecting what Anne McClintock calls "bogus universals" like "the postcolonial woman," this course will examine how postcolonial women's writing represents and resists local and imperial power, developing a more complex understanding of agency. But our readings of literary and critical texts will also ask us to scrutinize the very suitability of the term "postcolonial." Our authors will include Michelle Cliff, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Jessica Hagedorn, and Arundhati Roy, among others.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1240. Intersections of Identity in African American Communities: Theory and Practice (New Course)
Catalog Number: 3484 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
This course will familiarize students with theories addressing the intersections of race, gender, and class, and it will focus specifically on the application of these theories for social policy and research on African American communities.  Critical race feminism, womanism, and the Sojourner Syndrome, among other theories, will be highlighted, and particular attention will be paid to the implications of these models for studying issues such as racial discrimination, health disparities, reproductive health, and welfare reform..

*Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1255. Myths of Motherhood: Seminar Course - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 9174
Paula J. Caplan
Half course (fall term). W., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9
Investigation of the social construction of motherhood in the United States; cross-cultural and subcultural variations in expectations of and attitudes toward mothers, especially mothers who often are marginalized (lesbian, teenage, poor, homeless, adoptive, Black, Native American, Hispanic, noncustodial); and research on mother-blame and other aspects of motherhood, including emotional adjustment of children of various kinds and categories of mothers. This is multidisciplinary, because it includes material from psychology, sociology, anthropology, biology, and literature.

Spring 2008

WGS 97. Tutorial-Sophomore Year: Dreams of a Common Language: Feminist Conversations Across Difference
Catalog Number: 7217 Enrollment: Limited to concentrators.
Robin M. Bernstein
Half course (spring term). Th., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 17, 18
An introduction to foundational concepts and analytical tools in the study of gender and sexuality. Focus on the ways in which diverse people have understood gender, sexuality, race, and nationhood as categories of knowledge. Case studies of activists and theorists forging complex alliances across unstable differences. Readings include Gloria Anzaldúa, Adrienne Rich, Simone de Beauvoir, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Donna Haraway, Patricia Hill Collins, Inderpal Grewal, Judith Butler, Monique Wittig, Alison Bechdel, and Michel Foucault
Note: Required of, and limited to, Women, Gender, and Sexuality concentrators in their first year in the concentration.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1123. Women and Work in the U.S. , 19th Century to the Present - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 9575
Karen P. Flood
Half course (spring term). W., 1–3 and a one hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
This course examines patterns of American women's labor from the nineteenth century to today, with a focus on debates over the definition of "work" or "women's work" over time. Attention paid to divergent experiences of labor (and labor exploitation) according to race, class, ethnicity, and immigrant status. Emphasis placed on the analysis of primary sources (including archival material, literary texts, and photography) to recover women's experiences of work and representations of female labor.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1125. Gender and Health
Catalog Number: 4563
Mary Ruggie ( Kennedy School )
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 1 and a one hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 6
Based on theoretical debates between feminism and science and different understandings of health, illness, and healing, we explore the role of women, the medical profession, and various social institutions in constructing knowledge about gender and health. Among the issues we discuss are health behaviors, reproductive health, STDs, mental health, cancer, and aging. Throughout, we identify differences among women and men of different class, race, and ethnic groups.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1136. Food, Culture, and Gender - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 1391
Linda Schlossberg
Half course (spring term). M., W., at 12 and a one hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 5
Examines the relationship between gender and hunger from historical, socioeconomic, and literary perspectives. Topics to include eating disorders and body image issues; poverty and malnutrition; domesticity; hunger strikes and fasting; ritual and etiquette; and hunger as metaphor.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1161. The Psychology of Girls and Women Over the Life Span - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 8325
Paula J. Caplan
Half course (spring term). W., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9
Examination of traditional theories about the development of human females from the beginning to the end of life, and contrasting of these with newer perspectives, primarily feminist relational theories.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1175. Theorizing Activism, Or How to Change the World - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 4954
Janet Jakobsen
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 1 and a one hour section to be arranged. EXAM GROUP: 15
What is the state of activism today? What visions of social transformation are available for tomorrow? These questions will be addressed in the context of genealogies of social movement, especially the theoretical perspectives built in and through activist practice and upon which activism draws. In addition to feminist, queer, anti-racist, and anti-colonial organizing, the course will explore the various contemporary movements working on questions of globalization, including those arrayed around the World Social Forum.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1200fh. Our Mothers, Ourselves: A Brief History of Postwar American Feminist Thought - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 3042 Enrollment: Limited to 35.
Alice Jardine
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 12. EXAM GROUP: 14
At once assumed as givens and reviled as aberrations, the classics of American postwar, mainstream feminist thought are rarely re-read. In this seminar, we will read critically across four decades of influential feminist texts, keeping constantly in view the philosophical and political, psychological and historical, legal and ethical questions at the heart of women, gender, and sexuality studies today.
Prerequisite: Prerequisite: Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

*Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1409. Transsexuality, Transgenderism, and the Rest - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 3822
Afsaneh Najmabadi
Half course (spring term). Th., 4–7 p.m. EXAM GROUP: 18
This course will cover narrative, anthropological, historical, and theoretical texts (including films) about transsexuality and transgenderism. We begin with transsexuality before and beyond identity politics and its transformation in the light/shadow of identity politics and theories of gender. While the course will remain located in the Americas and Europe , we will consider how trans-subjectivities produced in other socio-cultural formations inform histories and politics of transsexuality and transgenderism in so-called Western contexts.
Note: Please see syllabus for prerequisite reading. Permission of instructor required.

Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1456. Ethics and Social Policy - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 3499 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Janet Jakobsen
Half course (spring term). Tu., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 17, 18
Why are gender and sexuality in all of their manifestations such contentious issues for public policy? And yet, why are gender and sex so rarely treated as relevant to the "real" issues of the day, including war, economics, or immigration? This advanced seminar considers the contributions of feminist and queer ethics to a range of contemporary social issues. Students will do intensive work developing ethical positions and researching an issue of their choosing