Women’s and Gender Studies Immersion

Overview for Women’s and Gender Studies Immersion

The women’s and gender studies immersion allows students to explore the significance of gender as it intersects with racial, ethnic, religious, national, class, sexuality, and dis/ability-based identities, past and present. The immersion introduces critical analysis and knowledge-building methods drawn from fields such as women's and gender studies, feminist theories, critical race studies, queer studies, social justice work, and activism. Courses build knowledge about the personal, social, cultural, economic, and historical dynamics that inform gender and intersecting social categories. The immersion provides valuable skills and experiences applying these different lenses to real-world interactions with diverse individuals and communities, to current social challenges that impact multiple parties, and with an eye to improving equity and fair outcomes for everyone concerned.

The plan code for Women’s and Gender Studies Immersion is WGST-IM.

Curriculum for 2023-2024 for Women’s and Gender Studies Immersion

Current Students: See Curriculum Requirements

Course
Electives
Choose three of the following:
   ANTH-325
   Bodies and Culture
Our bodies are more than mere physical entities; they are conditioned by culture, society, and history. We will take a comparative approach to the cultural construction of bodies and the impact of ethnic, gender, and racial ideologies on body practices (i.e. surgical alteration, mutilation, beautification, surrogacy, erotica). We will critically investigate the global formation of normative discourses of the body (regarding sexuality, AIDS/illness, reproduction, fat/food) in medical science, consumer culture, and the mass media. The course features discussion, writing, and project-oriented research, encouraging students to acquire a range of analytic skills through a combination of text interpretation and research. Lecture 3 (Fall or Spring).
   ANTH-425
   Global Sexualities
By exploring issues of gender and sexuality in a global context, students will be introduced to anthropological perspectives on the experience of men and women, as gendered subjects, in different societies and historical contexts, including colonialism, nationalism, and global capitalism. In turn, we will explore how cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity are configured by race, class, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Course materials are drawn from an array of sources, reflecting various theoretical perspectives and ethnographic views from different parts of the world. Lecture 3 (Fall or Spring).
   WGST-200
   Foundations of Women and Gender Studies
Women’s and Gender Studies is the academic manifestation of feminism. This interdisciplinary course interrogates the social constructions, political systems, and historical rhetorics that have produced and maintain hegemonic power structures. In this course you will examine key feminist, queer, and critical race writings and discourses, study the rise of feminist thought, and consider the history of women’s activism and the women’s rights movements from Suffrage to the present day. The course will also consider the application of feminist theory made visible through the rise of new and intersectional social identity movements. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-205
   Feminist Practices of Inquiry
This course aims at introducing students to the diverse ways in which feminist and gender studies practitioners (scholars, writers, artists, and activists) have critically analyzed, challenged, and creatively reinvented predominant methods, models, and practices of knowledge production in various areas of the natural and social sciences, the medical arts, the humanities, and the visual and performing arts. Questions to be considered include: What constitutes feminist practices of inquiry? How do feminist research practices approach issues of objectivity and subjectivity? How does one formulate a feminist question? What key questions guide feminist researchers and how can we apply those questions to a variety of research topics? How do feminist practices of inquiry intersect with race, class, gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexualities, identity-formation processes, (dis)abilities, age? How do feminist research practices produce transformations, emancipation, and increased fairness of representation? Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-206/VISL-206
   Queer Looks
In this course we examine representations of queer sexuality in art, film and popular culture beginning in the repressive 1950s, followed by the Stonewall Riots of 1969. We situate the birth of gay liberation in the U.S. in the context of the civil rights struggles, feminism and the anti-war movement. We turn to the work of Andy Warhol that looms over the post-war period, challenged subsequently by the onset of AIDS and the work of General Idea and Act-Up, on the one hand, and the more graphically provocative work of Robert Mapplethorpe, on the other. We examine the diversification of the queer community as transgendered identity asserts itself and the opening of popular culture to issues of diverse sexual identities. We explore expressions of queer sensibility outside of North America and Europe. We turn finally to the issue of gay marriage, both in the U.S. and abroad. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-210
   Introduction to LGBTQ+ Studies
This introductory course examines a broad range of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues within the historical, psychological, racial, theological, cultural, and legal contexts in which we live. Students will learn the historical and theoretical foundations of LGBTQ+ studies as well as the contemporary implications for family, work, religion, and law for LGBTQ+ people and the mainstream society. Students will have the opportunity to compare the regulation of sexual orientation across different gender, racial, and socioeconomic communities. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-230
   Men, Males, and Masculinities
Who and what defines a man? What challenges might the process of manhood present? How does one’s masculine expression align or not align with family or societal definitions? How are men harmed by unattainable ideas of manhood? What advantages and privileges come along with embodying maleness? What impacts does masculinity have on men’s relationships (with women, with other men, as fathers, as sons)? What does it mean to be a man of color, a working-class man or a gay man? Is masculinity innately violent or aggressive? This course uses a critical approach to examine individual, institutional, and societal understandings of what it means in general to be a man. It explores models of masculinity in conjunction with analyses of race, class, disability, and sexuality. It analyzes the common and diverse experiences of how some human beings are socialized and/or choose to express their masculinity in healthy, unique, hegemonic and sometimes problematic ways. It probes how some models of (toxic or hegemonic) masculinity promote hierarchies of power and privilege in groups, organizations, and institutions. And it investigates ways in which toxic forms of masculinity can be broken down and rewritten to work toward a healthier, more just (and less oppressive) society for all. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-235/SOCI-235
   Women, Work, and Culture
In this course, we analyze historical and contemporary patterns of gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and the organization of work. Using the theoretical perspectives we analyze the work historically undertaken by women in societies and its relationship to broader political and economic structures. While our primary focus is on the U.S., we will also conduct a cross-cultural analysis of gender and work in developing and industrializing societies. Specific issues include gender discrimination (e.g., wage discrimination, sexual harassment), sexuality, reproduction, and women organizing to control their work and working conditions. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring, Summer).
   WGST-237/PSYC-237
   Psychology of Women
The purpose of this course is to examine the psychology and lives of girls and women. In addition to the influence of culture, biological and genetic differences will be highlighted for each of the different topics. The topics covered include gender stereotypes, the development of gender roles, gender comparisons, love relationships, sexuality, motherhood and violence against women. (Prerequisites: PSYC-101 or PSYC-101H or completion of one (1) 200 level PSYC course.) Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring, Summer).
   WGST-240/PSYC-240
   Human Sexuality
This course provides an overview of human sexuality through the lenses of biology and psychology. What causes sexual behavior and why do some individuals display different sexual behaviors than others? Human sexual physiology, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are highly diverse. Coursework will examine the ways in which human sexuality varies among individuals, across groups, and throughout the lifespan. Multiple explanations for sexual behavior will be considered, drawing from evolutionary psychology, learning theory, social psychology, and biology. Atypical and harmful sexual behaviors will be addressed as well. Throughout the course, students will learn how social science research techniques have been used to expand the field of human sexuality and how empirical inquiry can differentiate myths from facts. (Prerequisites: PSYC-101 or PSYC-101H or completion of one (1) 200 level PSYC course.) Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-245/CRIM-245
   Prostitution and Vice
This course will examine prostitution and vice in the United States and globally. Through empirical scholarship, various issues will be examined including issues faced by sex workers including crime, victimization, health and safety, and law and policy issues. Quality of life issues for communities will also be examined. (Prerequisites: CRIM-110 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-246/STSO-246
   History of Women in Science and Engineering
Using biographical and social-historical approaches, this course examines the history of women's involvement in science and engineering since the birth of modern science in the seventeenth century; the historical roots of gender bias in the Western scientific enterprise; and the influx of women into science and engineering since the mid-to-late 20th century. Cross-listed with women's and gender studies. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-250/CRIM-250
   Domestic Violence
This course focuses on domestic violence in the United States and globally. Various types of domestic violence will be examined, including intimate partner violence, child abuse, and elder abuse. The course will also examine criminal justice responses to domestic violence, including police, court processing of domestic violence cases and punishment of domestic violence offenders. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-255/CRIM-255
   Seminar on Sexual Violence
This course focuses on sexual violence in the United States and globally. Various types of sexual violence will be examined, including incest, elder abuse, and male victimization. The course will also examine criminal justice responses to sexual violence, including police, court processing of sexual violence cases and punishment and treatment of sexual offenders. (Prerequisites: CRIM-110 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-265/CRIM-265
   Women and Crime
This course deals with women as criminal offenders and as victims of crime, focusing upon theories about women in crime, types of crimes committed, patterns of criminality and the treatment of women offenders. Also examines the role of women as law enforcement officers, judges, lawyers and correctional officers in the criminal justice system. (Prerequisites: CRIM-110 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-282/HIST-282
   Women, Gender, and Computing
Popular attention often focuses on a few prominent women in computing history, such as Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, and the ENIAC programmers. But many more women were part of this history: as inventors, programmers, operators, and users of information and communication technologies. Investigating their legacies, we will discuss in this course how computing turned into an increasingly masculine field, what it meant for women and men to work in a male-dominated field, how the gendering of computing technologies and algorithms affected the identities and lives of their users, and how gender intersected online and offline with other dimensions of diversity, such as class, race, and ability. This course provides the theoretical concepts and historical overview that allow for a historically informed discussion of women, gender, sexuality, and computing today. Seminar 3 (Spring).
   WGST-290/HIST-190
   American Women’s and Gender History
This course surveys women’s history in the United States from the colonial period to present. The course moves chronologically and thematically, focusing on the diversity of women’s experiences across race, class, and geography as well as the construction of dominant gender norms. Topics include Native American, African American, and Euro-American women in colonial America; the Industrial Revolution and the ideology of domesticity, Women in the American West; women’s paid and unpaid work; sexuality and reproduction; women’s activism; and women’s experiences of immigration and family life. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-291/HIST-191
   The History of Families and Children in the U.S.
The family is at the center of contemporary political debates involving social policies, gender roles, citizenship, marriage, and the role of the state. Politicians and commentators frequently invoke a mythical American family, one that is conflict-free, independent, and unchanging. These idealized depictions mask a far more complicated and richer historical reality of the development of family structures in the U.S. This course will examine both the diverse experiences of actual families in the American past, including queer families, and changing ideologies about the family and childhood. Students will have the opportunity to write a history of their own family, or to complete an alternative research paper. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-300
   Feminist Leadership, Gender Equity and Empowerment
This course explores contemporary leadership styles through the lens of gender diversity. Relying upon a feminist social justice framework alongside models of intersectionality, students will actively engage with a wide variety of gender and culture-informed literature and visual media sources, defining—in both theory and practice—what it means to be an inclusive and empowering leader in modern society. Some questions to consider will include: In a work environment, who is responsible for ensuring gender equity? Where does inclusion begin? How does our personal identity shape our view of leadership? How does our view of leadership shape our identity? Why does gender matter in a professional environment? What role does feminism play in the construction of societal norms? What is the relation between leadership, power relations, and authority? How does a feminist social justice framework affect and reorient traditional notions of leadership? How do leadership styles and models vary across cultures? What styles of leadership are needed to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces, organizations, and societies? Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-305
   Feminist Activism for Gender Justice
This course focuses on the many forms of feminist activisms and feminist strategies of grassroots social resistance in the U.S. and beyond. It centers women as agents of social change in the struggle to challenge gender stereotypes, sexism, and oppressive policies; organize to reduce social issues such as poverty, racism, homophobia, and violence; work to expand opportunities for gender equity and social justice; and confront barriers in education, the criminal justice system, and politics. Topics of investigation include feminist struggles against domestic and sexual violence (including emergent forms of sexual regulation and slavery, agendas of incarceration, and politics of immigration and housing) as well as the fight for personhood, citizenship, legal rights, property rights, rights to the land, water, and clean air, disability rights, personal freedom, suffrage, education, reproductive rights, workplace equality, and more. As there is a personal element to all forms of feminist social activism, the course will also engage questions such as: How do you envision yourself as an empowered, effective activist for gender justice? What strengths, resources, and commitments can you bring to your gender justice work? What social issues are you most passionate about? Students in the course will also create or participate in some activist project concerning a particularly pressing local, national or global social issue thereby melding theory and practice for increased gender justice in the world we live in. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-309/PHIL-309
   Feminist Theory
This course examines the main currents in contemporary feminist thought. Feminist theory explores the nature and effects of categories of sex and gender upon our ways of living, thinking and doing, while also challenging how gendered assumptions might shape our conceptions of identity and inquiry more generally. Different conceptions of sex and gender will be discussed, and the course will investigate how these concepts affect our lives in both concrete and symbolic ways. Special attention will be paid to how gendered assumptions color our understanding of knowledge production, experiences of embodiment and emotion, public and private activities, and the nature of ethical decision making. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring, Summer).
   WGST-318/PHIL-318
   Philosophies of Love, Sex, and Gender
Love is indeed one of the most central concerns in everyone’s life; yet, we spend very little time thinking conceptually about love in its various forms, aspects, implications, nuances, benefits, detriments, and harms. In this course, we will examine views from classical, medieval, modern, and contemporary thinkers on various kinds of love, including some controversial versions of it; we will consider the relation of love in its various forms to desire, emotions, physical intimacy, seduction, sex, sexuality, sexual orientation, and the construction of personal identity; and we will analyze how the various forms of love affect and are affected by gender norms, roles, and images. Lecture 3 .
   WGST-330/PRFL-330
   Performing Identity in Popular Media
This class is a critical, theoretical, and practical examination of the constitution and performance of personal identity within popular media as it relates to identity politics in everyday life. Through lectures, readings, film, and critical writing, students will examine elements of personal identity and diversity in popular media in order to foster a deeper understanding of how identity is constructed and performed in society. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-335/HIST-335
   Women and the Deaf Community
Deaf history, as a field, has often neglected the story of deaf women. Scholar Arlene B. Kelly has recently asked, Where is deaf herstory? This course seeks to correct that gender imbalance in deaf history. We will study deaf women's history. This will include a consideration of deaf-blind women, as well, as women like Helen Keller were often the most famous deaf women of their era. But this course also seeks to look at the role of hearing women in deaf history. Hearing women dominated the field of deaf education in the late nineteenth century. They had a tremendous impact on the lives of deaf children and the events of deaf educational history. Hearing women were also important figures in deaf history as mothers. As mothers of deaf children, hearing women were frequently asked to behave as teachers in the home. Their embrace of this role often led them to endorse oral education, and oppose the sign language. Hearing mothers in this way were pitted against their adult deaf daughters, who frequently went on to learn sign language against their mothers' wishes. The historically complex relationship between women and the deaf community will be explored in this course. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-342/STSO-342
   Gender, Science, and Technology
This course explores the importance of gender within Western science and technology. It considers how masculine and feminine identities are socially and culturally shaped, how sex and gender are being significantly transformed, and how rethinking gendered practices may help make science and technology fairer and more responsive. Cross-listed with women's and gender studies. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-351/MLSP-351
   Gender and Sexuality in Hispanic Studies
This course introduces students to the study of gender and sexuality in cultural production from the Hispanic world. Students will read, view, and discuss diverse works from a variety of historical periods and geographical regions that deal with gender identity, sexuality, and interrelated social movements. This course refines students' skills through discussions, presentations, and writing exercises on readings, lectures, and film screenings. Students will also develop research skills as they complete a project on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor. The critical approach that will inform this course is feminist thought. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-352/MLCH-352
   Globalization and Gender through Chinese Cinema: From Kungfu to World Factory
This course surveys Chinese cinema from its beginning to the present with special attention to its transnational connections and gender representation. Films from the mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong will be examined in-depth for their aesthetic quality and techniques, and equally important, against their socio-historical, political, economic, and cultural contexts. Topics include Kungfu films, women's cinema, documentation of globalization, independent filmmaking and social activism, and more. The class is conducted in English. Assigned films will be in Chinese with English subtitles. Lecture 3 (Biannual).
   WGST-357/COMM-357
   Communication, Gender, and Media
This course examines the relationship between gender and media communication with specific attention to how gender affects choices in mass media and social media practices. Students explore how gender, sexual orientation, sexuality and social roles, affect media coverage, portrayals, production and reception. They consider issues of authorship, spectatorship (audience), and the ways in which various media content (film, television, print journalism, advertising, social media) enables, facilitates, and challenges these social constructions in society. The course covers communication theories and scholarship as it applies to gender and media, methods of media analysis, and topics of current interest. Lecture 3 (Biannual).
   WGST-361
   Queering Gender
This course begins with the concept that sexuality, gender and gender identity is neither fixed nor innate. Many people who adopt a definition or expression of gender different from society often identify themselves as queer. The study of this movement is referred to as queer theory. This course examines the concepts of sex, gender, and gender expression of straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of all ages, races, and socioeconomic classes within the context of the larger society in which we live. Students will explore the unique political, legal, and interpersonal challenges faced by those embracing queer identity as well as the diversity of gender identities and expressions. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-383/VISL-383
   Traumatic Images
This course investigates visual culture and its imagistic response to life's crises. Problems of identity and identification will be explored and confronted through works of photography, painting, mixed media, new media and film of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Beginning with the late 19th Century vogue for images of hysterical women, crippled black-sheep family members and dead loved ones (as corpses and as ghosts), we then move on to consider the last century's fascination with pain and suffering, disease and violence, struggle and survival and then the 21st century's emphasis on terrorism. Specifically, we will focus on the gendering of images and imaging as disturbing pictures work to defy the formal and theoretical distinction between private and public, personal, and collective experience and manage the often conflicting responsibilities to self, family, religion, race, nation, and society. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-384/VISL-384
   Art of Dying
This course explores the experience of dying a profoundly human and universal experience as it is represented by artists who are themselves facing immanent death. The unique and deeply personal process of each dying artist is crucially informed by social, cultural and historical as well as artistic contexts. The course will focus primarily on visual artists and writers living with and dying of disease - such as AIDS, cancer and cystic fibrosis as well as mortality and age. Topics such as aesthetics, artistic media, representation, grief, bereavement, illness, care-giving, aging, and the dying process will be considered within the context of issues of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and community values. Some of the artists covered will be Jo Spence, Hannah Wilke, Elias Canetti, Bob Flanagan, Herve Guibert, Tom Joslin, Laurie Lynd, Audre Lorde, Charlotte Salomon, Keith Haring, Frida Kahlo, Bas Jan Ader, Ted Rosenthal, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Keith Haring, Eric Steel, Derek Jarman, Eric Michaels, and David Wojnarowicz. We will also explore some of the critical theory of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Elaine Scarry, Susan Sontag, and Ross Chambers. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-388
   Gender and Contemporary Art
This course traces the historical development of women’s activism in the art world from the 1970s to the present. We will interpret how this art activism, which artists and scholars alike have referred to as the feminist art movement, has examined how gender informs the ways art is made, viewed, conceptualized in history and theory, and exhibited in museums and visual culture, in a range of cultural contexts. We will also analyze how current artists, critics, and curators continue to build on this history, in particular how they use the concept of gender intersectionality to develop a variety of new creative practices, theories, modes of exhibition and social engagement. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).
   WGST-392/ENGL-392
   Queer and Transgender Creative Writing Workshop
This course is for students who want to practice and explore the vast and varied history, craft, and techniques of queer and transgender creative writing. Through reading and discussion, students will contextualize their own writing in a vital lineage and in the contemporary moment. We will read, analyze, reflect, generate, write, edit, and revise throughout the semester. We will create a polished body of creative works by honing those stylistic and craft techniques general to the field and specific to queer and transgender writers. Peer editors and group critiques will provide regular feedback, which will aid in the refinement of each writer’s own work and improve their capacity for supporting a creative work from germinating idea to final draft. Each class will rely extensively on the creative writing workshop model, and will survey the rich variety of genres, styles, forms, and philosophical approaches that QT literature takes. (Prerequisite: ENGL-150 or ENGL-211 or ENGL-212 or WGST-200 or WGST-205 or WGST-210 or equivalent course.) Seminar 3 (Biannual).
   WGST-399
   Collaborative Learning Seminar in WGSS
This small-group, discussion-oriented, intensive-writing seminar examines some area of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (chosen by the instructor, announced in the course subtitle, and developed in the syllabus). The seminar is based on collaborative learning, discussions, and various forms of formal and informal writing understood as an integral part of the critical exploration of WGSS-related topics. (Prerequisites: Must have completed at least 2 WGST courses (core or co-listed) or equivalent courses.) Seminar 3 (Spring).
   WGST-414/ENGL-414
   Women and Gender in Literature and Media
This variable topic course examines one or more themes, figures, movements, or issues associated with the representation of women and gender in literature and media, and/or associated with the historical, cultural, and theoretical questions provoked by women as producers and consumers of media and texts. The topic for the course is chosen by the instructor, announced in the course subtitle, and developed in the syllabus. The course can be taken multiple times provided that the topic being studied has changed. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring).
   WGST-449
   Topics in Women's and Gender Studies
This variable topic course examines one or more themes, figures, movements, critical questions or issues in the areas of women's and gender studies. The topic for the course is chosen by the instructor, announced in the course subtitle, and developed in the syllabus. Topics in WGST can be taken multiple times provided the topic(s) being studied has changed. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-451/ECON-451/SOCI-451
   Economics of Women and the Family
Women make choices concerning marriage, fertility and labor market participation on the basis of many factors, including government policies targeting those decisions. This course uses economic theory and empirical research in order to describe the changing demographic profile of families, poverty, and the labor force and to explore how economic theory and practice fit into the larger social science goals of describing human behavior by focusing on women and on the family. Lecture 3 (Fall).
   WGST-459
   Topics in LGBTQ+ Studies
This variable topic course examines one or more themes, figures, movements, critical questions or issues in the areas of LGBTQ+ studies. The topic for the course is chosen by the instructor, announced in the course subtitle, and developed in the syllabus. Topics in LGBTQ+ Studies can be taken multiple times provided the topic being studied has changed. Lecture 3 (Spring).
   WGST-481/POLS-481
   Women in Politics
A study of feminist thought as it applies to the political, economic and social status of women and how it has been expressed through the women's political movement. Students study a number of public policies as they apply to and affect women and examine the opportunities for women to participate in the political process. Lecture 3 (Spring).

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  • April 7, 2021

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    The Division of Diversity & Inclusion is highlighting women whose work makes a positive contribution to the RIT community, including Sociology and Anthropology alumna Celeste Brown, who works as the Head Coach for Women's Ice Hockey.