Gender and Sexuality Studies
Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses
GSS 100 Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies (1 Credit)
This interdisciplinary course brings historical and cross-cultural perspectives to contemporary debates over sex, gender, and sexuality. Throughout, we attend to dynamic relations of race, class, ethnicity, age, (dis)ability, sexuality, citizenship, colonialism, and religion.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Gender)
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
GSS 109 Anime: Shojo and Society in Japanese Animation (1 Credit)
Some refer to shojo animation as "girls' anime," but the figure of the shojo--an adolescent somewhere between girlhood and womanhood, has a complex role in Japanese storytelling and society. Who is the shojo? Is the shojo a "third gender?" Does the shojo hold a special role compared with other age and gender categories? Why is the shojo so often chosen as a figure who confronts social crises or bridges social gaps? This class will explore the age and gender category known as "shojo" primarily through the lens of animation, but occasionally making use of literature and manga as well. The class will focus on how adolescent girls in Japanese animation interact with social problems and crises such as gender role limitations, environmental crisis, natural disaster, and urbanization.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C046
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Instructor: Justine Wiesinger
GSS 151 Gender, Race, and Social Class in French and Francophone Film [in English] (1 Credit)
In today’s visual culture, shaped by Facebook, Instagram, Memes, everyone is to a certain degree versed in the art of mise-en-scène, simultaneously occupying the positions of director, narrator, actor, and character! Similarly, this course explores how French and Francophone filmmakers represent gender, race, and class, including the intersectionality and historical evolution of these categories of difference. Students will analyze how personal memory, national history, gender relations, and colonial and postcolonial gazes are staged, how Francophone postcolonial cinema questions social norms and values, and how filmmakers address social change and capture shifting identities. Students will acquire conceptual tools to articulate the language of cinema to the rhetorical craft of filmmakers in their desire to advocate for certain social representations while contesting others. Course and reading materials are in English; films are in the original with English subtitles. Not open to students who have earned credit for FRE S15.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C019, C037
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Instructor: Mary Rice-DeFosse
GSS 155 Gender, Power, and Politics (1 Credit)
This course scrutinizes several sites where power is produced-constitutions, international politics, social movements, and globalization- in order to assess the impact of gender on the status, behavior, and authority of different political actors. Recognizing how race, class, sexuality, and citizen status matter, students consider why women are under-represented in nearly all governments and how differences in national and international settings occur. Students examine questions, concepts, and theories that acknowledge women's political agency and help assess their influence across a range of political systems.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C008, C037
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): PLTC 155
Instructor: Seulgie Lim
GSS 201 Race, Ethnicity, and Feminist Thought (1 Credit)
This course focuses on race, ethnicity, and national power at their intersections with gender. Acknowledging the realities of white supremacy and patriarchy, students develop their understanding of these systemic and interlocking oppressions, while exploring the resistance to such oppressions that continues to give rise to critical feminist theory. Using a range of transdisciplinary perspectives, students examine the work of BIPOC feminist scholars and activists and encounter modes of critical and liberatory theorizing that productively challenge notions of what constitutes theory. Additionally, students practice ongoing self-reflection, or awareness of their own positionality and the ways it affects their journey through the course.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C037, C038, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Gender)
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): AFR 201
Instructor: Ian-Khara Ellasante
GSS 202 Queer and Trans Sports Studies (1 Credit)
This course brings queer studies and trans studies perspectives to sport, looking at practice, representation, discourse, and relations among them. Topics include the reach into the lives of all athletes of gender binarism and gender segregation; the regulation of transgender, gender nonconforming, and intersex athletes, including through the delineation of those categories, in the context of other discourses around human variation in sport; the roles of raced masculinities, femininities, heteronormativities, and homonormativities in the valuation of athleticism, athletes, and sports; and issues from pleasure to pink-washing. Recommended background: one course on the study of gender, sexuality, queer studies, trans studies, and/or sports studies.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): C027, C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Gender)
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Erica Rand
GSS 207 Eve, Adam, and the Serpent (1 Credit)
How are interpretations of the Bible’s creation stories informed by contemporary cultural understandings of right and wrong, sex and gender, power and privilege, human and non-human? And, conversely, how do interpretations of these stories - ancient and modern - shape our sense of how the world works and what is possible now and in the future? Close readings of ancient texts paired with a wide array of later interpretations and commentary provide the basis for our studies.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C001
Department/Program Attribute(s): (REL: Judaism & Christianity)
Class Restriction: None
Instructor: Cynthia Baker
GSS 232 Samurai: Ethics, Gender, and Orientalism (1 Credit)
Swords, honor, and cherry blossoms—or something more complicated? This course dives into the world of the samurai to uncover the truths behind the legends. We’ll ask what bushidō really meant, explore the lives of both male and female members of the warrior class, and untangle the power dynamics between shoguns and emperors. From civil wars to centuries of “Great Peace,” and from testing swords on passersby to inspiring global pop culture, students will challenge myths and discover how samurai shaped—and were reshaped by—history. This course is taught in English, and no Japanese language abilities are required.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): (History: Asia), (History: Early Modern), (History: Premodern)
Class Restriction: None
Instructor: Hanna McGaughey
GSS 236 Race Matters: Tobacco in North America (1 Credit)
This course explores race and the history of tobacco in North America. With a primary focus on the intersection of tobacco capitalism and African American history and settler colonialism the course introduces students to the impact of tobacco on the formation of racial ideologies and lived experiences through a consideration of economic, cultural, political, and epidemiological history. Recommended background: at least one course on the study of race, settler colonialism, US history, capitalism, and/or gender and sexuality.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C037, C065
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Historical Persp.), (History: Modern)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Instructor: Melinda Plastas
GSS 240 African American Women’s History: The United States at 250 (1 Credit)
What new perspectives emerge when Black women are placed at the center of U.S. history rather than at its margins? This course examines African American women’s history from slavery to the present day and considers how Black women's lives have been enduring sites of contested citizenship, labor, and belonging. It begins in the waters off the West African coast, tracing enslaved women's struggles and strategies for survival and freedom in colonial America, and considers slavery and Reconstruction through the lens of sexuality, motherhood, and resistance. In the 20th and 21st centuries, we examine the contributions of club women, revolutionaries, literary icons, visual artists, and political leaders.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Gender), (Africana: Historical Persp.)
Class Restriction: None
GSS 250 Interdisciplinary Studies: Methods and Modes of Inquiry (1 Credit)
Interdisciplinarity involves more than a meeting of disciplines. Academic practitioners stretch methodological norms and reach across disciplinary boundaries. Through examination of a single topic, this course introduces students to interdisciplinary methods of analysis. Students examine what practitioners actually do and work to become contributing practitioners themselves. Prerequisite(s): AFR 100, AMST 200, or GSS 100, and one other course in Africana, American studies, or gender and sexuality studies.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
GSS 256 Feminist Political Thought (1 Credit)
What is the point of feminism? This course brings an emphasis on the big questions about gender to political science while bringing a specifically political theoretical mode of questioning to gender and sexuality studies. Students evaluate and reshape their own beliefs about feminism and its political demands while reading and discussing feminist theories and writing their own feminist theory. Themes may include feminist epistemology, intersectionality, Black feminisms/womanisms, lesbian and trans feminisms, democratic feminist theory, ecofeminism, Indigenous feminist theory, transnational feminism, feminist theories of work and labor, and anti-pornography feminism. Students will examine feminist political thought as both a practice (what should feminist politics be?) and a methodology (how do we theorize and practice feminist politics?). Recommended background: PLTC 121, 191, or a GSS course.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C037, C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): PLTC 256
Instructor: Lucy Britt
GSS 262 Feminist Philosophy (1 Credit)
What is gender? What is race? What is oppression? What does it mean to experience discrimination or oppression? Feminist philosophy uses philosophical methods to think carefully about gender, the way gender intersects with other identities, the lives of historically marginalized voices, and the concepts employed in feminist political movements and similar social movements such as those centered around race, class, sexual identity and orientation, and disability. Additional areas of study may include science and society; gender and science; sex and sexuality; reproduction; family; gender in popular culture; and the body and appearance.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C031, C042, C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): PHIL 262
Instructor: Susan Stark, Lauren Ashwell
GSS 267 Blood, Genes, and American Culture (1 Credit)
Places recent popular and scientific discussions of human heredity and genetics in broader social, political, and historical context, focusing on shifting definitions of personhood. Topics include the commodification of human bodies and body parts and the emergence of new forms of biological citizenship and belonging.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C027, C037, C065, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Historical Persp.)
Class Restriction: None
Instructor: Rebecca Herzig
GSS 270 Sociology of Gender (1 Credit)
This course focuses on the social construction of gender through a consideration of a series of interrelated social institutions and practices central to gender inequality. Emphasis is placed on the intersections between gender inequality and inequalities of race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, and nation. Recommended background: one previous course in gender and sexuality studies or sociology.
Modes of Inquiry: [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C008, C027, C037, C091, C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): SOC 270
Instructor: Emily Kane
GSS 273 US Immigration: Rise of the Immigration Regime (1 Credit)
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" encapsulates the belief that the United States is a nation of immigrants, yet that can be an oversimplification of a deeply complex issue. This course explores the various reasons people migrate, acculturate, and what it means to be an "American" and an immigrant. Students review immigration records to examine how issues of poverty, sexual orientation, gender, race, and political affiliation affected how people "breathe free" and navigated the US immigration regime from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): (History: Modern)
Class Restriction: None
Instructor: Erik Bernardino
GSS 281 Upstairs, Downstairs, and Outside: Gender, Class, and the Household in British History (1 Credit)
If the home was the “Englishman’s castle,” its walls were porous. Liberal culture called for separating private from public life, yet households were key sites for negotiating classed, gendered, and racial relationships. Fear that family units might break down spurred social movements and governmental reform. Modern life tends to be understood as the rise of the presumptively white, male individual, someone independent of his surroundings. By flipping the script, this course demonstrates the centrality of women, family, and community in defining and redefining society. Topics explored include work, motherhood, property rights, and the everyday life of politics, capitalism, and empire.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): (History: Europe), (History: Modern)
Class Restriction: None
Instructor: Caroline Shaw
GSS 282 Constitutional Law II: Rights and Identities (1 Credit)
An introduction to constitutional interpretation and development in civil rights and race equality jurisprudence, gender equality jurisprudence, sexual orientation law, and matters related to privacy and autonomy (particularly sexual autonomy involving contraception and abortion access). Expanding, contracting, or otherwise altering the meaning of a right involves a range of actors in a variety of venues, not only courts. Therefore, students consider rights from a "law and society" perspective, analyzing judicial rulings as well as evaluating the social conceptualization, representation, and social movement mobilization around these rights. Prerequisite(s): PLTC 216, PLTC/SOC/GSS 238, or any course in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C013, C037, C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): PLTC 282
Instructor: Steve Engel
GSS 287 Picturing Gender (1 Credit)
So much about how we understand gender depends on how we picture it. Is evidence about gender inside or outside? What do we, and can we, see or envision? How are interconnected matters such as race and sexuality involved? This course considers the visual aspects of gender, using a wide range of objects and activities ranging from art and pop culture to the pleasures and politics of everyday life.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): (AVC: History and Criticism), (AVC: Power and Privilege), (Africana: Gender)
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): AVC 287
Instructor: Erica Rand
GSS 301D Regulating Intimacy: Histories of the Labor of Sex in North America (1 Credit)
Despite being referred to as the “world’s oldest profession,” sex labor is often excluded from traditional discussions of “work.” To understand sex work’s exclusion, this course focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries efforts by the United States, Canada, and Mexico to control, regulate, and end sexual commerce. The course will pay particular attention to how race, class, and gender ideologies have influenced the regulation and perception of sex labor. Students will learn to analyze historical sources, understand scholarly debates in the field, and conduct original research, culminating in a final research paper.
Modes of Inquiry: [HS]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): (History: Modern)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Instructor: Erik Bernardino
GSS 301F Half the Sky: Women in Chinese History (1 Credit)
What did China’s history of turmoil, revolution, and transformation look like for women? How was the female body conceptualized in early China? What did it mean to be a “good” Confucian woman in the Ming and Qing, or a “new woman” in the Republican era? How did Maoist ideals reshape gender, and how did both men and women write about it? This seminar critically examines representations of Chinese women and gender across time, using historical, literary, and scholarly texts. Students will explore a wide range of sources, from philosophy to film, and engage with the voices of women from different periods and backgrounds. Together, we will analyze how ideas about women were constructed, contested, and repurposed, and how historians work to recover them. The course provides a distinctly gendered perspective on Chinese history and develops a cross-cultural approach to the study of gender. Recommended background: knowledge of Chinese is not required; some prior knowledge of Chinese history is recommended.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): C047, C050, C053
Department/Program Attribute(s): (CHI: Cultural), (History: Asia), (History: Modern)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Instructor: Sarah Bramao-Ramos
GSS 301Z Intersectionality and Feminist Social Movements (1 Credit)
This course considers how racial formations have developed in and influenced gendered and feminist movements. Movements examined may include woman's suffrage, anti-lynching, civil rights, Black Power, LGBTQ+, moral reform, welfare rights, women's liberation, and peace. Topics examined include citizenship, colonization, immigration, reproductive justice, and gender-based violence. Cross-listed in gender and sexuality studies, history, and politics.
Modes of Inquiry: [HS]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): C037, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Gender), (Africana: Historical Persp.), (History: Modern)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Instructor: Melinda Plastas
GSS 302 Black Feminist Activist and Intellectual Traditions (1 Credit)
This seminar examines the intersections of gender with Black racial and ethnic identities as they have been and are constructed, expressed, and lived throughout the anglophone and francophone African/Black diaspora. The course not only pays special attention to U.S. women and the movements where they lead or participate; but it also devotes substantial consideration to African, Caribbean, Canadian, European, and Australian women of African descent. The course combines approaches and methodologies employed in the humanities, social sciences, and arts to structure interdisciplinary analyses. Using Black feminist (womanist), critical-race, and queer theories, students examine Black women’s histories; activism; resistance; and cultural, intellectual, and theoretical productions, as well as digital literacy. Prerequisite(s): one course in Africana, American studies, or gender and sexuality studies.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Diaspora), (Africana: Gender), (Africana: Historical Persp.)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
GSS 303 Birthing while Black (1 Credit)
This course explores the complex and intense history of Black reproduction in the United States and abroad. Students examine the social value of Black life both during and after enslavement. They mine contentious topics such as welfare caps, compulsory sterilization, abortion access, and the disparate experiences of Black mothers in the U.S. healthcare system that have led to maternal death rates twice the national average. The course considers both the ordinary experiences of Black women birthing as well as the sensationalized experiences of mothers such as activist Erica Garner, athlete Serena Williams, and pop icon Beyoncé.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C065, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Gender)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): AFR 303
GSS 305 College for Coming Times (1 Credit)
Why attend class in the era of instantaneously streaming information? What purposes might educational institutions such as Bates, created as seminaries in the nineteenth century, hold for lives framed by the pressing global challenges of the twenty-first century? This advanced discussion-based seminar addresses these and related questions. Drawing insight from multiple disciplinary approaches, students consider the role of small residential colleges in confronting issues such as pandemic preparedness, generative AI, and climate change. Prerequisite(s): GSS 100.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Rebecca Herzig
GSS 306 Reimagining Africana (1 Credit)
This course examines the debates among authors, politicians, religious leaders, social scientists, and artists in Africa, the African Americas, and Afro-Europe about non-normative sexualities, throughout the diaspora. While the course analyzes histories of sexualities, legal documents, manifestos by dissident organizations, and anthropological and sociological treatises, it focuses primarily on textual and cinematic representations, and proposes methods of reading cultural productions at the intersection of sexualities, race, ethnicities, and gender. Recommended background: at least one course offered by the Program in Africana, the Program in gender and sexuality studies, or one course in literary analysis.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C037, C086, C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Diaspora), (Africana: Gender), (Africana: Historical Persp.), (English: JR-SR Seminar), (English: Post-1800), (English: R, E, DL)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
GSS 310 Gender, Race, and Judaism (1 Credit)
In this course, we explore aspects of Jewish culture and images of Jews and Judaism through intersectional lenses, with a particular focus on gender, sexuality, and race with an eye to the ways these are constructed, maintained, contested, transformed, and queered in Jewish contexts. Feminist/womanist scholars and practitioners of Judaism serve as sources for insight and critique as well as a constructive resource for religious reflection, ritual, and visions of Judaism's future.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C037, C094, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): (REL: Judaism & Christianity)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): REL 310
Instructor: Cynthia Baker
GSS 311 Buddhism and Gender (1 Credit)
This course examines the role of gender in Buddhist communities from the inception of the religious tradition to the modern day. How has gender identity influenced the development of this tradition? Where do we see gender in Buddhist literature, doctrine, and art? How do modern ideas of what "Buddhism" is affect change in the North American context, and how is this different from the Buddhist past? The course draws on a variety of sources, including literary, cinematic, and visual materials, to answer these questions. Special attention is given to how gender is presented in doctrinal texts, and the (dis)connection between these documents and the lived experiences of Buddhist people, as presented in interviews and autobiographies by Buddhist practitioners from a variety of moments and communities.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): C001, C002, C050
Department/Program Attribute(s): (REL: Asian Religions)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): REL 311
Instructor: Alison Melnick
GSS 312 Transgender Narratives (1 Credit)
Many transgender and gender-expansive authors have written about navigating the experiences of childhood, coming out, transition, passing or not passing, or not trying to pass, and living within a cis-normative society. What is compelling or relatable about these narratives? Are there similar patterns or arcs among them? How do these differ from the trans experiences depicted by cisgender authors? Using memoir, blogs, vlogs, prison letters, interviews, poems, and diary entries, students examine the narratives that transgender and other gender-expansive people construct and present about their experiences. This interdisciplinary course considers the telling of one’s own story and the impetus to do so for people embodying marginalized genders, especially those who are multiply marginalized by such factors as race, socioeconomic class, ability, citizenship, and place. Recommended background: one course on the study of gender, sexuality, queer studies, and/or trans studies. Prerequisite(s): One course in GSS.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C037, C091, C094, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Ian-Khara Ellasante
GSS 317 Beyond Human: Cyborgs and Technology (1 Credit)
What is a cyborg, and how does this political and cultural concept evolve through various historical periods? How are transformative relations between humans, animals, and machines imagined across cultural texts? What is post- and transhumanism? The course examines changing ideas of constructing, enhancing, and technologizing body and mind in the Soviet Union and modern Russia. Students engage with ideas of the biopolitical remaking of humans, rejuvenating bodies surgically, prosthetically, pharmacologically, and digitally. Topics discussed include technologies of gender and gender technologies, identity politics, immortalization narratives, and geopolitics. Conducted in English. Recommended background: prior coursework in literature or film.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C069, C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Instructor: Marina Filipovic
GSS 318 Sex, Gender, Islam, Power (1 Credit)
This course examines Muslim texts, histories, figures, stories, and lived experiences in the context of gender and sexuality studies. Students will learn to identify the complexities, and at times the instability of gender in foundational Muslim texts, such as the Qur’an and the Hadiths. Students will also learn to recognize central theories, paradigms, and assumptions shaping not only the study of Islam and gender, but also the lived experiences of Muslims on the margins. Such concepts include orientalism, intersectionality, decolonizing mainstream feminism, and queer theories. We will engage with a range of academic sources from varying disciplines, including anthropology, history, feminist qur’anic studies, and scholarship interrogating the concept of masculinity in Muslim contexts. We will also consider a variety of “non-academic” materials, such as short stories, graphic novels, films, and works by queer Muslim activists, which bring to life the dynamic nature of gender and Islam.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C001, C090
Department/Program Attribute(s): (REL: Islam)
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): REL 318
GSS 321 Representations of Gender, Labor, and Craft in the Mediterranean (1 Credit)
The history of the modern Mediterranean has often been described as a history of fragmentation, fueled by nation-building and divided by the forces of colonialism. This course will approach this history through the architecture of transcultural studies, examining narratives of twentieth-century migration. It will explore how material culture visualizes intersections of gender, imperial hegemony, and systems of labor, seeking to expand our understanding of work, homeland, and womanhood. Through object-based research, museum visits, and digital humanities projects, students question what role does “women’s work” play in histories of migration, cross-pollination, and connectivity? How do gendered representations of labor (paid and unpaid) or craft codify differences even inflicting segregation around the Mediterranean after 1900? This class illuminates an understudied and marginalized group – the female migrant - as an active agent in regional and trans-regional art history.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): C090
Department/Program Attribute(s): (AVC: History and Criticism)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): AVC 321
Instructor: Erin Nolan
GSS 323D Feminist Epistemology (1 Credit)
In this course, students read feminist accounts and critiques of how we know what we know as well as how and what we value, and why. Students consider questions such as: Is rationality gendered? Are conceptions of philosophy "masculine"? What role do "subjects" play in knowledge production? What epistemic role does ignorance play in knowing and unknowing? What role does epistemic responsibility play in being justified? What is epistemic injustice and how can such injustice be addressed? Prerequisite(s): two courses in philosophy; or two courses in gender and sexuality studies; or one course in philosophy and one course in gender and sexuality studies. Recommended background: PHIL 236 and GSS/PLTC 262.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): PHIL 323D
Instructor: Lauren Ashwell
GSS 324 Stories of (In)Justice: Gender and Violence in Spanish Literature (1 Credit)
How has literature portrayed gender-based violent crimes over time? In this course, we will analyze a selection of works from Spanish literature through the lens of the relationship between law and literature. The texts highlight and exemplify what are now called “gender-based violence crimes,” which are acts of violence—whether physical, psychological, or sexual—committed within power and gender inequality. The course is organized as a series of weekly debate seminars to discuss works that explore issues such as domestic violence, rape, forced marriage, the defense of “honor,” crimes within the confessional, jealousy, and workplace harassment. Through close reading and critical analysis, we will examine the legal handling of these offenses in their specific historical and social contexts, the fight for women’s agency, and the continuing relevance of these works’ core messages today. Prerequisite(s): HISP 210.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): HISP 324
Instructor: Cristina Morales Segura
GSS 325 Black Feminist Literary Theory and Practice (1 Credit)
This seminar examines literary theories that address the representation and construction of race, gender, and sexuality, particularly, but not exclusively, theories formulated and articulated by Afra-diasporic women such as Spillers, Ogunyemi, Carby, Christian, Cobham, Valerie Smith, Busia, Lubiano, and Davies. Students not only analyze theoretical essays but also use the theories as lenses through which to explore literary productions of women writers of Africa and the African diaspora in Europe and in the Americas, including Philip, Dangarembga, Morrison, Gayl Jones, Head, Condé, Brodber, Brand, Evariston, Zadie Smith and Harriet Wilson. Cross-listed in Africana, English, and gender and sexuality studies. Strongly recommended: at least one literature course.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C038, C086, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Diaspora), (Africana: Gender), (English: JR-SR Seminar), (English: Post-1800), (English: R, E, DL)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
GSS 340 Poverty, Policy, and Social Inclusion (1 Credit)
This seminar explores debates in the research and policy literature on poverty and intersecting inequalities, particularly in the United States. Topics include policy related to housing, health, education, and food access; care work; and the integration of work and family. These topics are addressed with attention to social inclusion and exclusion on the basis of systemic inequalities, including race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation, as well as critical analysis of neoliberal approaches to poverty policy. Prerequisite(s): AFR/AMST/GSS 250 or SOC 205 or SOC 250 or GSS/SOC 270.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): C008, C037, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): SOC 340
Instructor: Emily Kane
GSS 341 Family, Youth and Childhood (1 Credit)
This seminar explores the history and structure of the family as a social institution, as well as youth and childhood as socially constructed life stages, particularly in the United States. This exploration attends to dynamics of privilege, exclusion, and marginalization, including systemic racism, capitalism, and inequalities of gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, nationality and citizenship. Students consider how these dynamics shape family structure, and how intersecting dimensions of inequality are reproduced and resisted through families. Prerequisites: SOC 205, AMST/AFR/GSS 250, GSS/SOC 270, SOC 250, or SOC s14.
Modes of Inquiry: [HS]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): C008, C030
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): SOC 341
Instructor: Emily Kane
GSS 343 Women, Culture, and Health (1 Credit)
This course examines a variety of perspectives on women's health issues, including reproductive health, body image, sexuality, substance use and abuse, mental health, cancer, AIDS, heart disease, violence, access to health care, and aging. Each topic is examined in a sociocultural context, and the complex relationship between individual health and cultural demands or standards is explored. Prerequisite(s): one 200-level psychology course.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C027, C065
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Psychology: IDEA)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): PSYC 343
Instructor: Susan Langdon
GSS 345 Rethinking Visibility (1 Credit)
While many have welcomed the increased visibility of marginalized and minoritized people as a sign of progress, the goals and benefits of visibility have also been highly contested. This course considers the products and issues of visibility, in areas ranging from art and popular culture to history and politics. Recommended background: at least one course with substantial work in Gender and Sexuality Studies or Art and Visual Culture.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): (AVC: History and Criticism), (Africana: Gender)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): AVC 345
Instructor: Erica Rand
GSS 347 Robots & Embodied AI: Critical Digital Studies Seminar (1 Credit)
Robots and other embodied artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as self-driving cars, autonomous drones, robot vacuum cleaners, and smart home technologies, are increasingly present in our lives. What is the purpose of embodied AI technologies? Why do they exist? Who decides how they should look and act? How do these systems impact individuals and communities? In this interdisciplinary seminar, students will engage with theories from critical digital studies to critically examine embodied AI technologies through an intersectional lens.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C093
Department/Program Attribute(s): (DCS: Critical Digital St.)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): DCS 347
Instructor: Andy Elliot Ricci
GSS 352 Preserving the Vibration: Digitizing the Life of Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor (1 Credit)
This course introduces public and digital humanities through the life and work of noted journalist, food anthropologist, and public broadcaster Vertamae Grosvenor. Public humanities is concerned with facilitating conversations on topics of humanistic inquiry with the community at large. Digital studies provide unconventional ways to engage communities in public dialogues for the greater good. Drawing from books, operas, NPR audio segments, interviews, cookbooks, and other artifacts of Grosvenor, students create and curate a digital archive. Themes include Gullah culture, African American migration, foodways, memoir, public memory, and monuments. Leading theories and methods of black feminism, material culture, race, food studies, new media, and digital humanities are foregrounded.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [CP]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C093
Department/Program Attribute(s): (DCS: Community Engagement), (DCS: Critical Digital St.)
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Instructor: Myron Beasley
GSS 357 Feminist Foreign Policy (1 Credit)
Since Sweden declared a Feminist Foreign Policy (FPP) in 2014, the concept has gained significant traction, and fourteen countries have subsequently adopted the term to describe their own global engagements. However, there is little consensus regarding what an FPP means in practical terms. Can a feminist approach to foreign policy be truly realized in the modern international state system? Through the use of case studies and consideration of policy areas including migration, development, humanitarian intervention, climate change, and security, students will critically engage the concept of FPP and grapple with the tensions, contradictions, and possibilities it presents. Prerequisite(s): one of the following: PLTC 155, 171, 256, or GSS 100.
Modes of Inquiry: [HS]
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Instructor: Alex McAuliff
GSS 360 Independent Study (1 Credit)
Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study per semester.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
GSS 363 Gendered Perspectives in Africa (1 Credit)
The depiction of Africa in Western media is often negative, dealing mostly with civil conflicts, epidemics, lack of resources, and human rights abuses. While these certainly remain a reality, they provide a limited perspective. This course strays away from such preconceptions and examines issues surrounding gender in Africa, including political participation, conflict, women’s rights, and civil society. Students having taken courses in international relations, politics, and gender and sexuality studies may have an easier time understanding the theoretical framework, but such courses are not required. Recommended background: GSS 155 or PLTC 122, 123, 155, 171, or 290. Prerequisite(s): one 100-level PLTC course.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: [W2]
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): PLTC 363
Instructor: Seulgie Lim
GSS 371 Indigenous Women's Social Movements in Latin America (1 Credit)
This course examines Indigenous women’s movements in Latin America. Comparing Indigenous movements throughout Abiyayala (the Americas) requires investigating ethnographic, political, and socio-economic contexts in which Indigenous women’s movements develop, thrive, and sometimes fail. The course pays particular attention to Indigenous women’s responses to marginalization and oppression in the 20th and 21st centuries and entails an applied project through community engaged learning. Recommended background: Prior coursework in the social sciences.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C096
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Instructor: Joyce Bennett
GSS 377 Colon/Colonisé: Récits de l'Expérience Nord-Africaine (1 Credit)
This course studies the colonial, postcolonial, and immigrant experience of North Africans as portrayed in Francophone literature and film. Readings include narratives and journals from the beginning of the colonial period (1830), as well as the contemporary novels, films, and discourse of writers and artists from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, such as Assia Djebar, Malika Mokeddem, Lyes Salem, Rachid Bouchareb, and Leïla Sebbar. Gender and colonialism are highlighted as categories of analysis. Prerequisite(s): FRE 240, 250, or 271; or permission of the instructor.
Modes of Inquiry: [GL]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C037, C090, C098
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): FRE 377
Instructor: Kirk Read
GSS 383 Surveillance and Society (1 Credit)
Surveillance in a pervasive feature of modern societies—indeed, surveillance is often considered part of what defines “modern” social life. In this course, students will explore how personal, everyday uses of surveillance devices and experiences of data collection shape and are shaped by larger efforts to control populations, and how mobile digital connectivity influences those dynamics. Together, we consider foundational texts in academic studies of surveillance; techniques of surveillance found in health, education, and other social spheres; surveillance as a component of modern governance; and persistent stratifications in surveillance practices.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C093
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Instructor: Rebecca Herzig
GSS 400A On Gender and Tyranny (1 Credit)
The contemporary turn toward more authoritarian rule in the Global North has aroused intense popular and scholarly concern. Much of the mainstream commentary on the present tilt toward authoritarianism, however, ignores both longer histories of enslavement, captivity, and colonization, and the complex connections between shifting forms of governance and gendered relations of power and resistance. This reading-intensive seminar is designed to hone students’ engagement with the intricacies of gender, sexuality, tyranny, and freedom now and in coming times.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Rebecca Herzig
GSS 400C Understanding Disease (1 Credit)
Intensive reading seminar examining competing understandings of human disease, illness, and health. Students consider queer, trans, feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial perspectives on biomedical frameworks, and historical and contemporary movements for health equity and healing justice. Prerequisite(s): five core courses in gender and sexuality studies.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C065
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Rebecca Herzig
GSS 400F Gender and Material Culture (1 Credit)
This intensive reading junior/senior seminar explores material culture and the production of gender, sexuality, race, and nation. It examines how identities, circuits of power, and value are constructed and negotiated through commodity culture and capitalism. It considers how objects like hoodies, cigarettes, and vanity license plates come to have meaning, and asks what role material culture plays in expressions of pain, pleasure, grief, and resilience. Prerequisite(s): five courses in gender and sexuality studies.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Melinda Plastas
GSS 457 Senior Thesis (1 Credit)
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: [W3]
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
GSS 458 Senior Thesis (1 Credit)
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: [W3]
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
GSS S12 Gender, Rights, and Power in 21st-Century Argentine Culture and Society (0.5 Credits)
This course examines gender and rights in Argentina from 2000 to present, during which time Argentina has been on the forefront of gender rights, from passing the groundbreaking law of gender identity in 2012 (one of the first of its kind in the world) to legalizing abortion nationwide up to 14 weeks in 2020. Gender equality has in many ways thrived, sustained, and buttressed in no small part by literature, film, and other forms of cultural expression that have shed light on the urgency of gender equality. Students in this course gain a keen appreciation for cultural production's capacity to advocate for, enshrine, and maintain equal rights through close readings of film and literature produced in the context of the struggle for gender rights over the past decades, with particular attention to the ways in which class, race, and geographic location bear on rights and the ability to exercise them.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): LALS S12
Instructor: Stephanie Pridgeon
GSS S15 Queer and Trans Reproductive Justice (0.5 Credits)
This course engages the conceptual framework of reproductive justice, as defined by Black feminists, and its principles: the right to parent, the right not to parent, the right to parent in healthy and safe communities, and the right to bodily sovereignty, which includes the right to sexual autonomy and gender self-determination. Students in this course investigate notable convergences between reproductive justice movements and a range of queer and trans rights movements to mark the makings of dynamic coalitions. Topics also include the origins and evolutions of reproductive justice, queer and transgender history in the United States, LGBTQ+ family formation, reproductive healthcare, and trans fertility. Recommended background: one course on the study of gender, sexuality, queer studies, and/or trans studies. Recommended background: one course on the study of gender, sexuality, queer studies, and/or trans studies.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C037
Department/Program Attribute(s): (Africana: Gender)
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): AFR S15
Instructor: Ian-Khara Ellasante
GSS S18 Wilde Times: Scandal, Celebrity, and the Law (0.5 Credits)
Oscar Wilde, an icon today, was popular in his own time as well. His relationship with Alfred Douglas was an open secret despite the fact that homosexuality was at the time a criminal offense. Indeed, Wilde’s sexuality was tolerated until he sued Douglas' irascible father for libel. This course centers on the 1895 trials, seeking to understand cultures of sexuality in a period notorious for sexual repression, and contextualizing issues they raise of scandal and the law, celebrity, gender, and sexuality. In so doing, this course brings to the fore histories often hidden from view. Drawing inspiration from the Reacting to the Past format, students examine this history through different perspectives, staging their own trial at the end of the term. Cross-listed in European studies, gender and sexuality studies, and history. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C013, C094
Department/Program Attribute(s): (History: Europe), (History: Modern)
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): EUS S18
Instructor: Caroline Shaw
GSS S24 Technologies of the Body (0.5 Credits)
This reading-intensive, experimental course examines how specific technologies alter the shape, texture, form, and lived experience of particular bodies, and how altered bodies, in turn, help direct the development and use of new technologies. The course culminates in the presentation of individual research projects. Recommended background: GSS 100.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): C027
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Rebecca Herzig
GSS S25 Bates Unplugged: Rethinking Digital Connectivity (0.5 Credits)
Through nearly all of the college’s long history, students at Bates lived and learned without internet-facilitated communication—much less the ceaseless, worldwide connectivity made possible by mobile devices. What might "college" mean without such constant connectivity? What might we learn—about education, about technology, about the past, and about contemporary society—in the process of trying to find out? Please note: this short course requires enrolled students to refrain from using *all* handheld internet-facilitated devices (computers, tablets, smartphones, watches, and rings) for seven continuous days.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Rebecca Herzig
GSS S31 Smoke Screens: Tobacco, Smoking, and Visual Culture (0.5 Credits)
This course introduces students to the political, social, and cultural history of representations of smoking and the tobacco industry in television series, films, and music videos. Students consider how gender, race, class, and sexuality shape and are shaped by these visual narratives. Prerequisite: one GSS course.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Melinda Plastas
GSS S35 Feminist Political Theory (Taylor’s Version) (0.5 Credits)
Taylor Swift is one of the most influential U.S. cultural products consumed so far in the 21st century, a cultural and political lightning rod. This course takes up the two questions: what does Taylor Swift’s music and cultural impact have to teach us about politics and feminism in the 21st century, and what do political and feminist theory have to teach us about Taylor Swift’s music and cultural impact? The course addresses the complicated relationship between Taylor Swift (her persona, artistic output, and fandom), politics, and feminism. It focuses on topics such as celebrity politics, intersectionality, queer counter-readings, postmodern multiplicity of meaning, and norms of femininity and motherhood. Students will work collaboratively to produce an original research product combining the insights of feminist and/or queer theory with original data collection. Prerequisite(s): PLTC/GSS 256, GSS 100, GSS 201, GSS 262, GSS 302, or permission of instructor.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC], [HS]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): PLTC S35
Instructor: Lucy Britt
GSS S50 Independent Study (0.5 Credits)
Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study during a Short Term.
Modes of Inquiry: None
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: None
Cross-listed Course(s): None
GSS S51E Short Term Innovative Pedagogy: Intersectional and Interdisciplinary Pedagogy (0.5 Credits)
Participants in this Short Term Innovative Pedagogy Course (STIP) will complete a review of the course materials, requirements, and pedagogies used in GSS 301 Intersectionality and Feminist Social Justice Movements. Through this course students will a) assess interdisciplinary and intersectional pedagogies that best create learning pathways for all students and b) explore effective pedagogies for using multimodal materials (poetry, art, theory, etc). Prerequisite(s): INDS 301Z, HIST 301Z, GSS 301Z, or PLTC 301Z.
Modes of Inquiry: [AC]
Writing Credit: None
Concentration(s): None
Department/Program Attribute(s): None
Class Restriction: Not open to: First Year students
Cross-listed Course(s): None
Instructor: Melinda Plastas