Feminist Activism
GSF 177CN
Tuesday/Thursday, 11:45 AM-1:00 PM
Constellation Course, IJ
Anna Storti
An introduction to feminist activism and feminist contributions to social movements. Topics include decoloniality, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, abolition, reproductive justice, and organizing against sexual violence, authoritarianism, and climate change. Course materials engage scholarship, art, and political demonstration. Includes a comparative dimension that emphasizes cross cultural analysis and humanistic inquiry.
Gender, Media, and Sports
GSF 196
Wednesdays, 10:05 AM-12:35 PM
ALP, CCI, IJ
Jennifer Nash and Lauren Henschel
This class examines the role of media in our collective understanding of gender and sports, and the place of representation (social media, televised games, television, documentary films, etc.) in shaping gendered perceptions of athletes, sports, coaches, and fans. Over the course of the semester, we will examine media coverage of sports, with a particular attention to how media both represents and reproduces gendered inequalities in sport. While paying close attention to figures including Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark, Billie Jean King, Serena Williams, Imane Khelif, and Caster Semenya, we will study topics including Title IX, the growth of the WNBA, debates over pay equity in professional sports, NIL, and debates over trans athletes.
Women at Work
GSF 221/SOCIOL 331/MMS 331/ECON 232
Tuesday/Thursday, 11:45 AM-1:00 PM
CCI, STS, SS, SB
Tania Rispoli
The course examines how gender, race, and class shape access to work, labor conditions, and workplace inequality across sectors and global contexts. Topics include care work in and outside families, domestic labor, informal economies, gig economies, entrepreneurship, and imagining a life that does not require so much work. Designed for students interested in the experiences of work as well as relevant systems and institutions.
Representing Breast Cancer: Feminist Literature, Art, and Film
GSF 263S/AAAS 265S/ARTSVIS 263S/LIT 260S
Monday/Wednesday, 1:25 PM - 2:40 PM
CCI, W, ALP, CZ
Kimberly Lamm
Analyzes representations of breast cancer in feminist literature, art, and film. Drawing on health feminism, feminist medical ethics, and disability studies, explores what those representations tell us about the intersections among gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability in both the Global North and South. Sets artistic representations of breast cancer against the hyper-sexualization of breasts in capitalism's visual cultures and the spectacles of breast cancer activism. Shows how literature, art, and film can reveal health care's material conditions as well as breast cancer's psychic complexities.
Food, Farming, and Feminism
GSF 2775/ENVIRON 209/GLHLTH 225/HISTORY 221
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:05 AM-11:20 AM
CCI, EI, SS
Saskia Cornes
Viewing "agriculture," "nature," and "consumption" as pressing feminist themes and exploration of various dimensions of the cultural and political ecology/economy of producing, processing, circulating, preparing, and consuming sustenance. Particular focus on the ethical impact of US policy on rural farm communities and developing nations.
Faith and Feminism in North Carolina
GSF 290S-02
Mondays, 1:40 PM-4:10 PM
CZ, IJ
This course is on the words of women, written and spoken, who practice both feminism and a religious faith. North Carolina has a deep, diverse history of feminist collaboration and activism, from within particular faith communities and bridging different faiths. This course is intentionally introductory, providing students with skills in 1) archival research, 2) close reading of imagery and word choice in historical and cultural context, 3) ethical reasoning across different religious practices, and 4) attention to the authority of women inside and outside traditional, institutional leadership in North Carolina. Students will gain practical knowledge of library resources at Duke and UNC-CH, and use of the Robertson Express Bus. Grading based on participation and weekly, close reading papers (2-3 pp).
Feminist Theory
GSF 299S/ICS 298S/LIT 299S/ENG 283S/SOCI 299S
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:05 AM - 11:20 AM
CCI, W, SS, HI
Frances Hasso
The feminist theory seminar introduces key debates and theoretical frameworks in gender and sexuality studies and histories of feminist thinking. Students will learn to theorize their lives and the world and become increasingly comfortable with the material as we build a shared repertoire of language and understanding. The assignments are all relatively short, creatively structured to apply theory, and a few are done collaboratively. The seminar is required for the GSF major, the GSF minor, and the Interdepartmental Major with GSF. It is a prerequisite for GSF 499S, offered in fall term for seniors in the GSF major or IDM.
Gender and Popular Culture
GSF 362S/VMS 331S
Monday/Wednesday, 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM
CCI, W, SS
Kimberly Lamm
Popular culture—which includes everything from television and film to fashion, videogames, images, and tweets—is a rich and deceptively simple arena for analyzing how ideas about gender proliferate, become visible, and shape everyday life. In Gender and Popular Culture, we will examine a range of cultural and theoretical texts produced during the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries that allows us to think about gender, popular culture, and the multiple ways they inflect each other. We will learn to analyze the representations of gender that popular culture makes available, and in turn, we will begin to think about how ideas about gender figure into definitions and understandings of popular culture.
Race, Gender, and Sexuality
GSF 364S/AAAS 242S/AADS 364S/SOCIOL 364S
Tuesday/Thursday, 3:05 PM - 4:20 PM
CCI, SS
Anna Storti
Gender's relationship to race and sexuality explored through a variety of issues, including health, intimacy, family, the state, economic practices, transnational communities and identities, and social movement.
Foundations in Feminist Theory
GSF 701S
Wednesdays, 10:20 AM - 12:50 PM
Kathi Weeks
Required for all students pursuing the graduate certificate in Women's Studies, this course serves as an in-depth introduction to the various theoretical frameworks that have and continue to inform scholarship in the field of Women's Studies. It explores differences between distinct feminist theoretical traditions (Marxist feminism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, queer theory) and seeks to historicize accounts of identity, difference, social movement, globalization, nationalism, and social change. Consent of instructor required.