Course Descriptions

An opportunity to experience and reflect analytically in writing on the diverse cultural and intellectual life of Wake Forest, with an emphasis on women’s, gender, and sexuality studies events and topics.

Explores the principles of feminist leadership to deepen self-awareness about personal leadership skills and gain tools for creating feminist social change. This highly interactive class welcomes students who are new to feminist thought/activism as well as those seeking to deepen their engagement with feminism. Pass/fail only.

This class is open to participants in the LGBTQ Center’s Change Agent Program. Participants will explore principles of identity development (individual and community), queer and feminist theories of leadership and change, understanding gender and sexuality as frameworks for community organizing and social change, and development and implementation of a final change related project. POI Pass/fail only.

A reading course designed to introduce students to classic and contemporary feminist texts. Emphasis on close reading, discussions, and writing. May be repeated for credit if texts differ.

This course provides students with an overview of the social, emotional, and legal issues related to sexual violence, and teaches them to design and implement educational programs on this topic. Pass/fail only.

Introduction to feminism as a lens of analysis; gender, sexuality, and other social categories as social constructs; sexism, heterosexism, and other social systems as systems of oppression; and intersectionality as a lens of analysis. Topics of the course will vary based on the instructor. (D)

Examines the value of film as a source for understanding the past. Includes viewing and discussing historical films in relation to primary and secondary source texts. May be repeated for credit if topic varies.

Introduces the global and historical breadth of gender and sexual systems. Foundational and current approaches to cross-cultural historical analysis of masculinity, women’s rights, and differences between LGBTQ identities and other models. (CD, D)

This course is designed to provide an introduction to many of the key topics, debates, and theoretical paradigms in the field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The course will address questions such as: What are gender and sexuality and how do gender and sexual norms influence the lives of people in society? What is the relationship between gender and sexuality and other social categories such as race and class? What is power and how is power distributed differently according to gender, race, class, and sexuality? The course strives to train students in analytical thinking and presses them to think critically about gender and sexuality in the past, present, and future. (CD)

Provides an interdisciplinary grounding in the foundations of queer culture and studies, with a critical interrogation of sex, gender, sexuality, pleasure, and embodiment in popular culture, literature, health, science, and politics. (CD)

This seminar-style reading course surveys classic and new works in queer theology. Queer theology transgresses dominant constructions of gender identity and sexuality; and as such, it can be seen as an expression of the Christian gospel that subverts human understandings of life, community, and the divine. The course explores biblical and Christian theological perspectives on sexuality, social constructions of sexuality, and issues such as power, marriage equality, and sexual ethics.

Addresses ways in which gender and literacy practices intersect in various cultures and historical periods. Attention will be paid to the role of literature in formulating, subverting, or resisting gender norms. May be repeated for credit if topics differs.

This class will examine how conflicts around gender and sexuality played out from the 1950s to the 1970s in both the popular and high culture of the time: in bestselling novels and poems as well as canonical literature, and in television as well as in experimental film. We will consider the 1950s twice: once through the art produced at that time, and then through art produced about the 1950s after the mainstream gender norms had shifted.

Different race and ethnic experiences are examined through an institutional approach that examines religion, work, schooling, marriage patterns, and culture from cross-cultural perspectives. Grand theoretical schemes like the “melting pot” are critiqued for their relevance in an age of new cultural expectations among the many American ethnic groups. Also listed as AES 251. (CD)

Inquiry into the news literacy from a feminist perspective, with the intention to indentify gender bias and consider questions of empowerment, exclusions, consumerism, and how to navigate the digital landscape to distinguish verified, reliable news from propaganda.

Introduction to feminist thought and its implications for the study and practice of political theory. Topics include feminist critiques of the Western political tradition and schools of feminist political theory. (CD)

Examination of feminist approaches to philosophical theorizing. Topics may include feminist critiques of the scope and methods of mainstream philosophy, feminist approaches to ethics, epistemology and philosophy of language, and feminist conceptions of the self, sexuality, and moral agency. Also listed as PHI 379. P—One PHI course or POI.

This course explores the experiences of and responses to transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex (TGI) people in nineteenth-and twentieth-century America. We will examine how scientific/medical authorities, legal authorities, and everyday people have understood and responded to various kinds of gender non-conformity. (CD) Same as HST 371.

Explores how public history projects (oral histories, museums, archives, documentaries) document gay, lesbian, and queer communities in the U.S. Discusses how historical and contemporary LGBTQ stories have been collected and examines the various queer identities that emerge through this process. Same as HST 372.

Survey of the global spread of Environmentalism, with an emphasis on its evolution as a disciplinary field that includes eco-feminism and feminist perspectives on the environment. Examination of national and international case studies in an investigation of women’s roles in environmental history and the construction of global environmental narratives. Same as HMN 292.

A research-centered study of various issues related to violence, power, and gender in American society. Emphasizes sociological analysis of competing theoretical explanations of violence with respect to race, class, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. (CD)

Viewing, dissecting, and analyzing films. Fosters the skills to create complex cinematic analyses and explore feminist theoretical issues related to spectatorship.

Examination of selected plays and/ or performance texts by women. Focus varies, for example, looking at works by contemporary American women or early women dramatists such as Hrosvitha, Sor Juana, and Aphra Behn. Also listed as THE 373. (CD).

Examines major topics in Christian theology from African American (womanist), Latina/Hispanic (mujerista), and queer perspectives.

This course will use an interdisciplinary approach to address fundamental issues of female leadership by examining recent developments in long – and short-form narratives about women (biography, essays, profiles) and employing journalistics tools to interview and write profiles of women entrepreneurs, activists, and thought leaders. Also listed as ENT 326.

Examines cultural constructions of gender and sexuality from a cross-cultural perspective and the relationship between feminism and cultural rights activism through time. Emphasizes how varied forms of feminisms are constituted within diverse social, cultural, and economic systems. Students consider how feminists are negotiating positions at the intersection of cultural and human rights. Also listed as ANT 329.

This course examines the intersections of gender, medicine, health, and illness, with focus on the U.S. context. Topics include: reproduction, mental illness, breast cancer, heart disease, and HIV/AIDS, among others. We explore the following questions: How have women and men interacted differently with the field of medicine, as healers, patients, and subjects of medical research? How do social and cultural norms about gender influence the definition of illness categories? What role does medicine play in defining and enforcing the boundaries of what is considered socially acceptable in therms of gender? How does gender as a social role affect health outcomes?

This course offers an introduction to the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of masculinity studies. Students will explore the social, historical, and cultural construction of masculinity and male roles (as fathers, sexual and romantic partners, and workers) and how these constructions differ according to race, class, sexuality, etc. In addition, the course will examine how norms about masculinity simultaneously empower men as a group and many individual men, while also disadvantaging many individual men and regulating the behavior of all men. Students will explore possibilities for challenging hegemonic forms of masculinity and for creating new types of masculinity.

This course explores the politics of sexuality in the United States. Drawing on feminist scholarship, queer theory, and lesbian, gay, and transgender studies, we will explore different historical and theoretical approaches to thinking about issues of power and sexuality. We will discuss sexual identities and cultures, state regulation of sexuality, sexual commerce, and cultural representations of sexuality, among other topics. Throughout we will examine how other social categories such as race, class, gender, and disability intersect with the politics of sexuality.

This course analyzes what made girls and women “bad” and “wild” in the twentieth-century United States, and how such judgments changed over time. This class engages closely with novels, short stories, movies, comics, podcasts, and an opera with an eye to what behaviors were considered appropriate, and how they interrelated with sexual attraction, with economics, and with love. We examine the relationship between being configured as a sexual object ( a recipient of desire) and a sexual subject (a possessor of desire) and come to a critical understanding of how the “proper” and “improper” forms of both were constantly in flux. We ask how race, ethnicity, and queerness interacted with hegemonic concepts of beauty and desire, and whether “masculinity” and “femininity” are necessarily attached to men and women. We read theories of sex and gender, examine concepts of projection and male hegemony, and ask how men as well as women are shaped by rules of appropriate behavior.

This class investigates the relationship of image, sequence, and story in typography, comics, woodcut novels, and photographic books, and film, as well as fiction and poetry with unusual visual elements, and then asks how these various elements offer different visual and textual expressions of sexuality. Students will conduct formalist analyses and further investigate visual narrative through creative exercises with the goal of developing an aesthetic sensibility and a technical vocabulary that enable them to discuss visual narrative with precision. Please note that some visual narratives will include graphic scenes of sexuality. Same as ENG 345A/645AG

This course examines Didion and White, two of the most important American writers of the past fifty years. Both are known for their journalism as well as their fiction, and their interest in U.S. cultural and political history, especially in terms of gender and sexuality, permeates their novels. This course analyzes three works by each author, developing themes from motherhood, sexuality, imperialism, rebellion and AIDS. Same as ENG 302B/602BG.

This class explores the history of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, the transgendered, and other queers through fiction by and about them written over the last century in the United States. We also consider biography, artifacts of popular culture, comics, drama, and film. Topics include the relationship between homosexual desire and queerness in a broad sense; LGBTQ children; biological and psychological understandings of sexual orientation; and how social construction informs sexual identity and desire.

A course that examines literature, psychology, and feminist theories on motherhood and the mother-daughter relationship.

This course introduces the student to the intersection of theater and feminism and experience its interdisciplinary lineage and academic interventions. Students will learn and apply feminist theory, which looks beyond the conventional theater for a continuum of performance that includes play, ritual, sport, everyday life and social roles, as well as performance art, global and intercultural performance. Engaging with various feminist theoretical approaches from radical and liberal feminism to intersectional and transnational feminism, students will be encouraged to critically examine race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality expressed on and offstage. Through readings, discussions, lectures, research and creative assignments, indoor and outdoor classroom activities, and campus events, students will explore historical and socio-political factors entangled with representation, identification, and spectatorship, and strengthen their capacity to exercise feminist practice in theater and performance.

This course will examine gender and sexuality in Korean TV, film, K-pop, protests, and everyday performances, focusing on diverse socio-political issues within and beyond the Korean Peninsula. Topics include: the evolution of feminism, #metoo movement, LGBTQ cultures, sex work, aging, plastic surgery industry, postcolonial and post-Korean war conflicts, and transpacific affinities.

This course examines historical and contemporary issues and current events affecting the lives of African American, Asian American, Latina, and Native American women. Exploring major theoretical and practical viewpoints in women’s studies scholarship, the course will reveal the importance of intersectionality between race, gender, sexuality, class, and/or ethnicity in the everyday lives of multicultural women. Through arts-based civic engagement projects and activities, this course will also encourage students to formulate their own language of resistance against multiple forms of oppression.

This course will analyze historical, socio-political, and cultural events as well as contemporary issues structuring the lives of Asian American women and queer community. Students will learn intersectional and transnational feminist approaches to examine race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, and kinship in Asian American art and activism. Same as AES 390.

Includes such women’s, gender and sexuality studies topics as gender issues in the twenty-first century, critical approaches to women’s issues, and the emergence of feminist thought. May be repeated for credit if topics differs.

Explores a wide variety of issues related to sexual identity and orientation by looking at the ways in which the law can constrict social development as well as act as a catalyst for change. Examines how religion and popular morality shape the law and are shaped by it.

This course will examine how the law affects women’s lives in a number of contexts. The class will consider a number of different areas, including but not limited to employment, education, family responsibilities, violence against women, and other issues affecting women’s bodies, including pornography and prostitution. The class will also review a number of feminist legal theories and issues relating to the intersection of gender with race and class. Same as LAW 647.

Examines the impact of state and federal court cases upon the evolution of race and gender relations in the U.S. from 1789 to the present. Each case is placed within the political, economic and social historical context for the given time periods. Race includes Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latino Americans. This class will analyze government intervention, inaction, and creative interpretation. Same as HST 358.

Using a feminist and post-colonial perspective, and taking into account the histories, experiences, and lives of South Asian women, this course, examines the intersection of religion, race, and gender from both a theoretical and practical point of view. It focuses on issues of representation and identity formation, recognizing how categories such as “South Asian” and “woman” become tools for a simultaneous understanding of both culture and gender, creating a place for both oppression and empowerment. Same as REL 388/688G.

Independent projects in women’s and gender, and sexuality studies which either continue study begun in regular courses or develop new areas of interest. Course may be repeated, but a maximum of 3 hours may apply to the minor. By prearrangement.

An opportunity for students to engage in work and research that is shared with the broader public, either on campus or in a local community. A maximum of 3 hours may apply to the major or minor. (POI only)

Examines the major themes and terminology in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, with focus on its diverse and multicultural expressions through time. Themes to be explored include schools of feminism, interlocking systems of oppression and the connection between theory and practice.

A capstone, research-centered course in which students complete a significant research or creative project of their choosing situated within the field of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.