Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (B.A.)

First-Year Seminars

* WGSS 030a, Neoliberalism and Sexuality  Evren Savci

Sexuality is often imagined as a private and intimate affair, experienced individually, marked by personal histories and preferences. This course argues otherwise. Specifically, we consider the intersections between the current dominant political economic mode, referred to as neoliberal capitalism, and sexuality as a field of power. We analyze how subjectivities are formed under this current system, how desires are produced and discourses incited, and how the particular moralization of economic behavior has implications for a range of issues including reproductive justice, definitions of kinship, sexual liberation movements, and contemporary states of war and emergency. Thinking of sexuality as a field of power that is predicated on notions of normality and abnormality enables us to see what other “undesirable” subjects are produced under conditions of neoliberal capitalist modernity with whom sexual others are always in kinship. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  SO
TTh 12:15pm-1:30pm

* WGSS 032b, History of Sexuality  Maria Trumpler

Exploration of scientific and medical writings on sexuality over the past century. Focus on the tension between nature and culture in shaping theories, the construction of heterosexuality and homosexuality, the role of scientific studies in moral discourse, and the rise of sexology as a scientific discipline. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  WR, HU
TTh 2:30pm-3:45pm

* WGSS 222b / AMST 206b / ER&M 221b, Introduction to Critical Refugee Studies  Quan Tran

Reconfiguring refugees as fluid subjects and sites of social, political, and cultural critiques. Departing from dominant understandings of refugees as victims, consideration instead of refugees as complex historical actors, made visible through processes of colonization, imperialism, war, displacement, state violence, and globalization, as well as ethical, social, legal, and political transformations. Focus on second-half of the twentieth century.  SO
W 9:25am-11:15am

* WGSS 205a, Bodies and Pleasures, Sex and Genders  Joseph Fischel

This seminar engages cultural analyses of embodiment, its pleasures–and by extension its pains–to interrogate sex, sexuality, and gender as analytical categories. Its aim is to critically evaluate formative concepts and theories that have been subject to debates within gender studies, psychoanalysis, philosophy, anthropology, critical race studies, and history. Readings by Freud, Foucault, Berlant, Butler, Rubin, and others help explain how terms like “women” and “men,” “femininity” and “masculinity,” as well as “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality,” "gender" and "transgender" have structured people's experiences and their perceptions of their bodies. The potential our bodies have for “hanging on to ourselves” occupies a central position within scholarly canons, revealing also how these canons are always already imbricated in racialized hierarchies.  SO
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* WGSS 206b, Transnational Approaches to Gender & Sexuality  Evren Savci

Examination of transnational debates about gender and sexuality as they unfold in specific contexts. Gender as a category that can or cannot travel; feminist critiques of liberal rights paradigms; globalization of particular models of gender/queer advocacy; the role of NGOs in global debates about gender and sexuality.  WR
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

WGSS 207b, Gender, Justice, Power, Institutions  Joseph Fischel

Examination of how inequalities based on gender, race, caste, class, sexuality as well as a host of other identities are embedded in institutions that make up our social world. From the family and the home to the workplace, from the University, and the Corporation, to the Military and Media, we track how inequalities emerge and are sustained by power and institutional structures. We also see how they are challenged and what sorts of instruments are needed to challenge them. In particular, we focus on sexual politics and sexual violence as a key issue to understanding the gendered workings of institutions, in order to examine structures that sustain inequality. Through the semester, we hope to consider many domains of life–bedrooms and boardrooms, international borders and feminist movements–to understand the stubborn and sticky forms and hierarchies of power that are challenged and contested by activists, scholars, and communities.  Tr
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* WGSS 398a, Junior Research Seminar  Andrew Dowe

An interdisciplinary approach to studying gender and sexuality. Exploration of a range of relevant theoretical frameworks and methodologies. Prepares students for the senior essay.  WR, SO
W 1:30pm-3:20pm

* WGSS 490a or b, The Senior Colloquium  Andrew Dowe

A research seminar taken during the senior year. Students with diverse research interests and experience discuss common problems and tactics in doing independent research.
HTBA

* WGSS 491a or b, The Senior Essay  Andrew Dowe

Independent research on, and writing of, the senior essay.
HTBA

* WGSS 033a / HIST 033a, Fashion in London and Paris, 1750 to the Present  Becky Conekin

Introduction to the history of Western fashion from the mid-eighteenth century to the present, with a focus on Paris and London. Approaches, methods, and theories scholars have historically employed to study fashion and dress. Enrollment limited to first-year students. Preregistration required; see under First-Year Seminar Program.  WR, HU
TTh 1pm-2:15pm

* WGSS 179a / ENGL 219a / HUMS 149a / ITAL 309a / LITR 179a, Gender and Genre in Renaissance Love Poetry  Ayesha Ramachandran

Introduction to the poetic genres of lyric, epic, and pastoral in the European Renaissance. Focus on questions of desire, love, and gendered subjectivity. The historical contexts and political uses of discourses of eroticism and pleasure in Italy, Spain, France, and England. Written exercises include poetic imitations of Renaissance texts.  HU
HTBA

WGSS 207b, Gender, Justice, Power, Institutions  Joseph Fischel

Examination of how inequalities based on gender, race, caste, class, sexuality as well as a host of other identities are embedded in institutions that make up our social world. From the family and the home to the workplace, from the University, and the Corporation, to the Military and Media, we track how inequalities emerge and are sustained by power and institutional structures. We also see how they are challenged and what sorts of instruments are needed to challenge them. In particular, we focus on sexual politics and sexual violence as a key issue to understanding the gendered workings of institutions, in order to examine structures that sustain inequality. Through the semester, we hope to consider many domains of life–bedrooms and boardrooms, international borders and feminist movements–to understand the stubborn and sticky forms and hierarchies of power that are challenged and contested by activists, scholars, and communities.  Tr
TTh 11:35am-12:50pm

* WGSS 209a / CLCV 216a / LITR 239a / MGRK 216a, Dionysus in Modernity  George Syrimis

Modernity's fascination with the myth of Dionysus. Questions of agency, identity and community, and psychological integrity and the modern constitution of the self. Manifestations of Dionysus in literature, anthropology, and music; the Apollonian-Dionysiac dichotomy; twentieth-century variations of these themes in psychoanalysis, surrealism, and magical realism.  HU
F 1:30pm-3:20pm

WGSS 219a / AFAM 231a or b / ANTH 211a or b / WGSS 436b, Sex and Gender in the Black Diaspora  Riché Barnes

A critical survey of images, rhetorics, experiences, and practices of gender and sexuality formation of black subjects in Africa, the Caribbean, western Europe, and the United States. Construction of class, nationality, race, color, sexuality, and gender.  SO
TTh 1pm-2:15pm

* WGSS 220a / PLSC 220a / PLSC S220, Gender Politics  Andrea Aldrich

Exploration of theoretical and empirical work in political science to study the relationship between gender and politics in the United States and around the world. Topics include women's representative in legislative and executive branch politics in democratic regimes; the impact of gender stereotypes on elections and public opinion; conditions that impact the supply and demand of candidates across genders; and the underrepresentation of women in political institutions.  WR, SO
T 9:25am-11:15am

* WGSS 245a / FILM 243a / MGRK 218a, Family in Greek Literature and Film  George Syrimis

The structure and multiple appropriations of the family unit, with a focus on the Greek tradition. The influence of aesthetic forms, including folk literature, short stories, novels, and film, and of political ideologies such as nationalism, Marxism, and totalitarianism. Issues related to gender, sibling rivalry, dowries and other economic factors, political allegories, feminism, and sexual and social violence both within and beyond the family.  WR, HU  Tr
HTBA

* WGSS 251a / ENGL 251a, Experiments in the Novel: The Eighteenth Century  Jill Campbell

The course provides an introduction to English-language novels of the long eighteenth century (1688-1818), the period in which the novel has traditionally been understood to have "risen." Emphasizing the experimental nature of novel-writing in this early period of its history, the course foregrounds persistent questions about the genre as well as a literary-historical survey: What is the status of fictional characters? How does narrative sequence impart political or moral implications? How do conventions of the novel form shape our experience of gender? What kind of being is a narrator? Likely authors include Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence Sterne, Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, Jennifer Egan, Colson Whitehead, and Richard Powers.  WR, HU
TTh 1pm-2:15pm

* WGSS 260a, Food, Identity and Desire  Maria Trumpler

Exploration of how food—ingredients, cooking practices, and appetites—can intersect with gender, ethnicity, class, and national origin to produce profound experiences of identity and desire. Sources include memoir, cookbooks, movies, and fiction.
Th 9:25am-11:15am

WGSS 282b / HSAR 282b / HSHM 237b, Renaissance Bodies: Art, Magic, Science  Marisa Bass

An introduction to issues surrounding the representation of the body in both art and science, spanning from the late Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, and with a particular focus on the Northern Renaissance. Topics include medicine, reproduction, witchcraft, the gender spectrum, torture, race, disability, desire, dreams, and theories of imagination and invention. Sections and assignments will make ample use of the Yale collections. Previous experience with art history welcome but not required.  HU
MW 10:30am-11:20am

* WGSS 293b / CLCV 319b / HIST 242Jb / MGRK 300b, The Olympic Games, Ancient and Modern  George Syrimis

Introduction to the history of the Olympic Games from antiquity to the present. The mythology of athletic events in ancient Greece and the ritual, political, and social ramifications of the actual competitions. The revival of the modern Olympic movement in 1896, the political investment of the Greek state at the time, and specific games as they illustrate the convergence of athletic cultures and sociopolitical transformations in the twentieth century.  HU
W 9:25am-11:15am

* WGSS 347b / HIST 455Jb / HUMS 287b, The Theory and Practice of Resistance  Terence Renaud

Exploration of the histories and theories of resistance in the modern world. How liberation movements, guerrillas, and oppressed groups appeal to resistance as an organizational strategy and as moral justification. Readings include Kant, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Luxemburg, Lenin, Gandhi, Fanon, Arendt, Marcuse, Foucault, A. Lorde, Said, and J. Butler. Themes include antifascism to terrorism; violence to nonviolence, the New Left to Black Lives Matter.  HU
T 9:25am-11:15am

* WGSS 354a / HIST 191Ja, Women, Gender, and Grassroots Politics in the United States after World War II  Jennifer Klein

American politics and grassroots social movements from 1945 to the present explored through women's activism and through gender politics more broadly. Ideas about gender identities, gender roles, and family in the shaping of social movements; strategies used on the local, regional, national, and international levels. Connections between organizing and policy, public and private, state and family, and migration, immigration, and empire.  WR, HU
W 3:30pm-5:20pm

* WGSS 372b, Theory and Politics of Sexual Consent  Joseph Fischel

Political, legal, and feminist theory and critiques of the concept of sexual consent. Topics such as sex work, nonnormative sex, and sex across age differences explored through film, autobiography, literature, queer commentary, and legal theory. U.S. and Connecticut legal cases regarding sexual violence and assault.  SO
W 9:25am-11:15am

* WGSS 378b / ANTH 381b, Sex and Global Politics  Graeme Reid

Global perspectives on the sexual politics of gender identity, sexual orientation, and human rights. Examination of historical, cultural, and political aspects of sexual orientation and gender identity in the context of globalization.  SO
HTBA

* WGSS 387b, Gender, Sexuality, and Islam  Evren Savci

The use of critical texts that span a wide range of disciplines to examine gender and sexuality in the context of predominantly Muslim countries and cultures, as well as the larger transnational discourses that shape the ways in which Islam is imagined in relationship to gender and sexuality. By putting gender and sexuality at the center of our analysis, we are able to tease out the complex relationships between religion, culture, nation-sates, and racialization, and think about how particular constructions of gender and sexuality have been central to the production and reproduction of each of these social structures. A critical knowledge of Orientalism, colonialism, and global inequalities is crucial for a careful and nuanced understanding of the different roles gender and sexuality have played, and continue to play in representations of Islam, and Muslims. This also underlines the current place of Islam not only as a world religion, or a set of beliefs and practices, but also as a "signifer." Students develop a historical understanding of many contemporary discussions around Islam and what gets referred to as "Muslim cultures" and should be able to critically engage with and complicate the terms and issues such as "cultural difference," "women's and LGBT rights," and "modernity/civilization" that are widely and easily deployed in current political and moral discourses around the Middle East and Islam.
W 3:30pm-5:20pm

WGSS 405a / EALL 211a / EAST 241a / LITR 174a, Women and Literature in Traditional China  Kang-i Sun Chang

A study of major women writers in traditional China, as well as representations of women by male authors. The power of women's writing; women and material culture; women in exile; courtesans; Taoist and Buddhist nuns; widow poets; cross-dressing women; the female body and its metaphors; footbinding; notions of love and death; the aesthetics of illness; women and revolution; poetry clubs; the function of memory in women's literature; problems of gender and genre. All readings in translation; no knowledge of Chinese required. Some Chinese texts provided for students who read Chinese. Formerly CHNS 201.  HU  Tr
TTh 1pm-2:15pm

* WGSS 408a / AMST 345a / ER&M 409a, Latinx Ethnography  Ana Ramos-Zayas

Consideration of ethnography within the genealogy and intellectual traditions of Latinx Studies. Topics include: questions of knowledge production and epistemological traditions in Latin America and U.S. Latino communities; conceptions of migration, transnationalism, and space; perspectives on “(il)legality” and criminalization; labor, wealth, and class identities; contextual understandings of gender and sexuality; theorizations of affect and intimate lives; and the politics of race and inequality under white liberalism and conservatism in the United States.  SO
M 1:30pm-3:20pm

* WGSS 409a / AMST 410a / HIST 166Ja, Asian American Women and Gender, 1830 to the Present  Mary Lui

Asian American women as key historical actors. Gender analysis is used to reexamine themes in Asian American history: immigration, labor, community, cultural representations, political organizing, sexuality, and marriage and family life.  WR, HU
Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

* WGSS 410b / AFAM 410b / AMST 310b, Interdisciplinary Approaches to African American Studies  Crystal Feimster

. An interdisciplinary, thematic approach to the study of race, nation, and ethnicity in the African diaspora