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LGBTQ Studies
GSF 202S
CZ
Lauren Henschel
What is sexuality and what is its power in the current world? What do we desire and why do we desire it? What is the relationship between love and desire, or love and sex? If we wanted to change our sexuality, could we? These questions, and others, are often on the tips of tongues. This course surveys a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches to these questions. Drawing from literature, anthropology, biology and medicine, sociology, history, and feminist and queer theory, we will investigate the role that sexuality plays in structuring identity, gender and race, everyday life, popular culture, and national and geopolitical controversies. In addition to scholarly readings, students will draw from popular media and their own experiences to explore topics that include: the politics of sexual identities; representations of sexuality in media and film; pornography and erotica; technologies of pleasure; reproductive rights; erotic labor; sexual violence; sexuality, state violence, and mass incarceration; and the geopolitics of sexuality.
Introduction to Digital Feminism
GSF 265S
R, STS, SS
Nicki Washington
How can we as users and producers critically and effectively analyze digital culture from a feminist and gender studies perspective? This course will help by focusing on digital innovation and its history, unpacking and questioning them through the insights and tools offered by gender, sexuality and feminist studies. We will discuss subjects such as the rise of the Silicon Valley, gaming culture, social media, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, extraction of data applied to biotechnology, macroeconomic development of IT platforms and the impact of technology on ecology using a current event or debate to give a historical, ethical, sociological, theoretical, literary or cinematographic perspective.
Sexuality and the Law
GSF 272S
CCI, EI, CZ, SS
Juliette Duara
This course will introduce students to legal and ethical issues at the intersection of law, gender and sexuality. The course will use interpretive methods used in jurisprudence, as well as conceptual tools developed by feminist, critical race and queer theoreticians to explore such issues as the criminalization of gay sex, the equal protection of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and the role of the state in resolving perceived conflicts between that right to equal protection and the right to religious freedom. The course will take a cross-cultural / multi-jurisdictional comparative approach to these issues.
Gender and Media
GSF 273S
CCI, SS
Lauren Henschel
This seminar critically examines media and communication, exploring innovations and their histories through feminist, queer, and intersectional lenses. Topics include radio, print media, journalism ethics, visual culture, fandom, celebrity, social media, digital activism, and pop culture. We will explore how Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies challenge power structures, representation, and the evolution of both analog and digital media. Students will also learn a variety of media creation techniques to help express course ideas. The course will focus on U.S. media culture within global contexts and analyze how our politics and identities shape emerging platforms.
Selected topics: 60s and 70s New York Feminism
GSF 290S
R, STS, SS
This class opens in a particular place and time: CUNY in the late sixties. Three poets teaching a course titled Basic Writing to a newly diverse and empowered student body sought to revolutionize and reimagine what introductory university courses could accomplish. In so doing, each drew upon the rich feminist and lesbian countercultures that were emerging within New York during the period. This class reads the poetry and prose of Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and June Jordan with reference to broader historical and theoretical contexts of second-wave feminism. In so doing, it not only recovers the textures of 1960s and 70s feminism but also presses towards an investigation of how feminist thought shaped twentieth-century literature, education, and culture more broadly.
Sex Work: The Politics of Sexual Labor
GSF 352S
CCI, SS
Kathi Weeks
Sex work from the perspective of the labor and the purchase. Controversies over questions of gender and power, consent and coercion, sexual practices and labor contracts, trafficking and migration. Cultural representations of sex workers and their clients. Legal regimes from abolition to regulation and decriminalization.
Feminist Reproductive Ethics
GSF 367S
CCI, EI, SS
Intimacies
GSF 382S
CCI, EI, CZ, W
Anna Storti
A deep dive into the theoretical concept of intimacy, this seminar touches upon the racial, sensorial, and sexual life of nations and the state. Through discussions about citizenship, religion, migration, political economy, belonging, community, and activism, we consider what it means for bodies to exist in relation not only to other bodies, but also within the larger body of the nation-state. We examine theoretical writing alongside film, performance and installation art, law, and pop culture, bringing sexuality to bear on indigenous genocide, the Antebellum South, anti-immigration and miscegenation law, US militarism in Asia and the Pacific, LGBTQ rights, and political scandal.
Senior Capstone
GSF 499S
CCI, R, W
Jennifer Nash
Advanced research course for majors in Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies. Topics vary by semester. Students produce a significant research paper. Consent of instructor required.
Interdisciplinary Debates
GSF 960S
Anna Storti
Designed for advanced graduate students, this course will highlight current debates in feminist studies through a topical approach that draws on faculty research and expertise.