GSF FALL COURSES

nine faculty photos and eight course images in a collage
Girl in dry brush outdoors

First Year Seminar:  Asian American Feminisms 

GSF 89S.03 / AMES 89S / AADS89S
ALP, CCI, W
Anna Storti 

This seminar will investigate the theoretical and political interventions of Asian American feminist thought, activism, and culture. Through interdisciplinary examinations of imperialism and racial justice, the study of 20th and 21st century Asian America has gained new significance; in particular, feminist scholars offer context as we navigate sexual violence, antiblackness, and transformative justice, issues at the crux of today’s movements. We begin by establishing a foundation in Asian American feminism, examining its history as well as the contributions of leaders like Grace Lee Boggs and Yuri Kochiyama. We proceed by interrogating the present-day concerns of Asian American feminists. Here, we consider the impact of migration, disability, indigeneity, policing, and anti-Asian violence, among others. We conclude with poetry and performance art that spotlights queer and trans voices, multiracial solidarity, and climate justice. In doing so, we end with an archive that informs new alliances, directions, and possibilities towards a feminist Asian America.

 

Sloth in a tree looking at the viewer

First Year Seminar:  Critters-Intro. to Animal Studies

GSF 89S.02 
CZ, EI, SS
Gabriel Rosenberg

Some scientists contend that the Earth has entered a new geological age in which human actions and effects are the dominant force shaping the planet, a so-called  "anthropocene." Such a planet offers diminishing possibilities for other creatures to live beyond the influence of Homo sapiens. How do animals fit into human societies when human society is now so inescapable? Do animals still exert agency and shape how we live? And how can humans maintain ethical relationships to nonhuman critters? Can we share landscapes and ecosystems, much less an entire planet? This course explores these questions, surveying different approaches to the critical study of animals from the humanities as well as the natural, environmental, and social sciences. We will pursue these questions through scientific papers, philosophical essays, literature, films, and experiential learning activities.

 

African American Mom and Daughter putting on make up

Thinking Gender

GSF 199S 
CCI, SS
Kimberly Lamm

This course is an introduction to foundational concepts in feminist thought on sex and gender.

 

 

Abstract painting

Introduction to LGBTQ Studies

GSF 202S / SXL 199S-01
CZ
Rachel Gelfand

Topics include homosexuality and theory, history, law, religion, education, the arts and literature, the military, and the health sciences.


 

Two African American women working in a machine shop

Women at Work: Gendered Experience of Corporate Life

GSF 221S/ SOCIOL 331
CCI, SS, STS
Tania Rispoli 

Analysis of gender, class and race in contemporary business organizations and roles of men and women within them.  Management systems, information technology and human resource systems, as artifacts to larger, gendered environment.

 

 

Illustration of Cameras on a Pole and human figures with their fists in the air

Digital Feminism

GSF 265S / SOCIOL 217S /  ISS 265S / VMS 286S / I&E 265S
R, SS, STS
Lucas Power 

The aim of this course is to critically analyze digital culture from a feminist and gender studies
perspective. We will address topics related to digital innovation and its history, unpacking and
questioning them through the insights offered by genders studies
analytical tools. 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 will be discussed
starting from a current event or debate, to which we will give a historical, ethical, sociological,
theoretical, literary or cinematographic perspective.
 

Spanish Writing in black and red.

Transnational Feminism

GSF 369S / ICS 208S / GLHLTH 208S RIGHTS 369S
CCI, EI, R, SS
Frances Hasso 

Explore feminist projects and approaches that cross a variety of borders. Under what conditions is solidarity across difference and inequality possible? This seminar examines this and other questions using relevant theories, film, and scholarship. Topics include activism, human rights, development, capitalism, war/militarization, racism, embodiment, and health. Assigned readings and films largely focus on the Global South but situate the Global North within circuits and relationships. The professor guides each student in preparing an original research paper on a relevant topic of interest to the student.

 

Protesters in Washington with signs about abortion

Reproductive Ethics

GSF 375-01 / ETHICS 375-01
EI, SS, STS
Kathy Rudy

This class examines the role that technology, globalization, late capitalism, ideas about health and ability, and advances in feminist theory play in human reproduction.  It will investigate new frontiers of reproductive technology, and try to understand the many different ways of using and viewing interventions such as IVF, surrogacy, and embryo selection. We will examine popular ideas about “the perfect child,”  and how the issue of abortion intersects and competes with the quest for healthier, able-bodied children.

 

Protesters marching with signs about sexuality, 1960's maybe

Politics of Sexuality

GSF 386S / SXL 386S / RIGHTS 386S / PUBPOL 383S / HISTORY 346S
CCI, CZ, R, SS, W
Gabriel Rosenberg 

This course explores the intersections among sexual identity, desire, and behavior and political institutions, public policy, and concepts of citizenship. Course readings and methods will be interdisciplinary and will examine the politics of sexuality in diverse sociocultural, international, and historical contexts. Course topics may include: social movements; laws, policing, and incarceration; medicalization and eugenics; militarism and geopolitics; immigration and human rights; welfare policies; nationalism and citizenship; and reproductive rights. 

 

Three old photos each with a woman pictured

Special Topic:  Fabricating Race: Art, Clothing, Resistance

GSF 390S.02 / ENGLISH 390S-7.06 / LIT 390S.04 / ARTHIST 390S.02
 
Kimberly Lamm 

Examines a tradition in which Black American artists and writers make clothing a primary theme of their work.  Moving among photographic, painted, and literary portrayals by and of Black Americans to explore fashion and clothing as aesthetic practices of everyday life that defy racism’s flattening and objectifying effects and affirm—often covertly—the value of Black Americans’ lives. Pays particular attention to artwork that explores the multiple resonances of “fabrication”—working with materials, making and fictionalizing—to reveal and reconfigure the psychic consequences of living within the eye of white dominance.