This introduction to women's studies in the humanities emphasizes feminist analysis and critical thought as a way of making knowledge. We will draw from arts, literature, popular culture, and history, to analyze forces that shape women's lives. We will take apart "common sense" notions of sex and gender, and look at how ideas of womanhood are constructed through society, race, and class.

Study of women writers' strategies for articulating experiences and using literature as a lens for social reality and catalyst for social and political change.

This course explores how popular culture generates and articulates our understandings of gender and sexuality and their intersections with race and class. We will investigate the popular images and stories that shape our gender/sexual identites and standards, paying particular attention to their racial specificity and class markers. We will study a variety of theories and methods used in contemporary gender/sexual scholarship on popular culture, and we will examine a numer of popular media texts.

This course is a critical survey of the representation of women in Hollywood cinema with examples drawn from different historical periods (from the 1930's to the present). The goals of the course are to understand how the film medium has functioned, historically and aesthetically, in its representations of women and to understand how and why women have created alternative visions of women in film.

This course is designed to provide the student with a comprehensive overview of the emergence and development of fiction written by Arab women through translated works. Emphasis will be laid on differences and similarities between Western and Arab feminist theories as reflected in literature. These objectives will be achieved through reading and discussion of representative novels

The course explores the social and cultural diversity found among women through an examination of the ways in which gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and physical ability intersect to influence the status of women. We will consider how individuals learn gender, how culture shapes the way we think about gender, and how law, public policy, and economics affect gender and the struggle for equality.

This course will enhance students' critical and analytical reading and writing skills through an interdisciplinary study of women's literary representations of critical issues in United States social history. The emphasis will be on women writers' strategies for articulating female experience and on the role of literature as a metaphor for social reality and catalyst for social and political change. Avoiding any claims to "universal women's experience," the content of the course will include a multicultural cross section of women's experience as women, authors and members of diverse social groups. Although gender will serve as the primary category of analysis, we also will analyze race, class, ethnicity, social identity, age and the intersections among these categories throughout the course.

This course will enhance students' critical and analytical reading and writing skills through an interdisciplinary study of Latina representations of critical issues in the social history of the Americas. Patterns and events of Latina American history will help contextualize many of the readings, but the focus of the course is on U.S. Latina writers and their own representations of their cultures (now part of U.S. culture through annexation, invasion, immigration, emigration, U.S. occupation). We will explore Latina writers' strategies for articulating Latina experience (through intersections of race, class, and gender), and on the role of literature as a metaphor for social reality and catalyst for social and political change. The course will highlight a multi-racial women's literature of dissent and alternatives. Topics covered may include the Spanish conquest, Yankee imperialism, slavery, historic Latino settlements in the "U.S. Southwest", U.S. foreign Policy, immigration, territories and possessions, civil rights, citizenship, and contemporary Latina feminisms. Along with race, gender and ethnicity, analysis of social class and sexuality will be critical components of the course.

A course in writing and analysis of U.S. Lesbian experiences with emphasis on interdisciplinary relationships between literature and U.S. Lesbian socio-political history.

The interdisciplinary content of this course - a combination of literary, social, political and cultural readings - will enable the student to read, discuss, and write about how African American female authors have historically depicted and interpreted their own socio-political and cultural status in the USA. We will also explore the notion of an African American woman's literary tradition. We will consider the notion of "intersectionality" to posit the ways in which race, culture and gender intersect the most common and universal literary themes and structures. Although gender will be the primary category of analysis, analysis of race, class, ethnicity, and sexual identity will also be important components of the course.

This course uses an historical approach to understand the experiences of lesbians in various cultures in the United States throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. Films are used to expand on readings. For one assignment, students can choose a fictional text to analyze. Another assignment allows students to develop an activist project if they wish. This a core course in the Sexuality Studies minor.

This course will examine women's movements and organized activism in the United States. Through primary source documents and monographs, we will look at a diverse assortment of women, examining female public activism from the standpoints of race, ethnicity, class, sexual identity, and more. This course is intended for students who have completed either Women's Studies 101/201 or 101/210 plus preferably one other Women's Studies course.

This course focuses on contemporary black feminist writings on citizenship, leadership, political activism, and democratic politics. We will consider the political roles of African American women and multiple perspectives on the importance of race and gender in modern US politics.