Undergraduate Courses
Complete Offerings
G101: Gender, Culture, and Society (3 cr.) A & H
Examination of the international emergence of the field of womens studies; the achievements and limitations of scholarly work exploring oppression and discrimination based on sex and sex differences; the development of the category "gender" and its uses and abuses; and the relevance of changing understandings of the term "culture" for the study of women, gender, and/or sexuality across diverse historical periods, regions, nations, and societies. Exploration of a series of case studies. Particular attention devoted to the ways in which "gender" as practice, performance, and representation has differed for women and men according to race, class, and other divisions.
G102: Sexual Politics (3 cr.) S & H
Investigation of cross-cultural meaning for the term "sexual politics," from Kate Millet's classic 1970 text to those offered by historians, social scientists, and other critics analyzing political structures, processes and mobilizations around sex, sex differences and sexual practices and statuses, including the inextricable links between sexual politics and "other/ mainstream"politics.
G104: Topics in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.)
Analysis of selected ideas, trends, and problems in the study of gender across academic disciplines. Explores a particular theme or themes and also provides critical introduction to the challenges of analyzing gender within the framework of different disciplines of knowledge. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
G105: Sex, Gender and the Body (3 cr.) S & H
Examines the diverse and historically varying relationships forged between biological sex, culturally formulated discourses of masculinity and femininity, and the sexed body. With variable title and themes, the course may employ a range of different approaches, depending on the instructor.
G205: Themes in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.)
Exploration of a theme or series of themes arising from the study of gender, generally from within a particular discipline or subfield. The course will provide some critical reflection upon the challenges of analyzing gender within the framework of different disciplines of knowledge. Focus on specific instances, topics, or case studies, depending on the instructor. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
G206: Gay Histories, Queer Cultures (3 cr.) S & H
Examines the social, cultural, and political history of same-sex relationships and desires in the United States and abroad, emphasizing the historical emergence of certain American sexual subcultures, such as the modern lesbian and gay "movement" or "community." The course also highlights particular formations such as race, class, and regional difference that interrupt unified, universal narratives of lesbian and gay history.
G215: Sex and Gender in Cross Cultural Perspective (3 cr.) S & H, CSA
Investigation of forms in which gender, gender markings, gender meanings, and gender relations are arranged in different cultures of the world. Assessment of debates concerning the global salience of feminist claims about women's "oppression," political mobilization around gender, body rituals marking masculinity and femininity, indigenous women, and resistance to gender formations beyond Euro-American borders.
G225: Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture (3 cr.) A & H, CSA
Examination of popular cultural "makings" of masculinity, femininity, and sexuality through typical representation of gender within fiction, theater, cinema, radio, music, television, journalism, and other secular mass media. Analysis of the developing international telecommunications "superhighway" and struggles to secure increased representation of women and of feminist perspectives within existing culture industries.
G230: Gendered Relations (3 cr.) S & H
Examines the gendered dynamics of social relations. Explores how gender and sexuality are imagined, constructed, and lived within a diverse set of institutions and cultural locations, such as the military, the antebellum slave plantation, the global sex market, the hospital, and the contemporary workplace.
G235: Scientific Understandings of Sex and Gender (3 cr.) S & H
Interrogates the evolution of scientific approaches to, and conceptualizations of, the terminology of sex and gender from the perspective of the behavioral, medical, and social sciences. Topics may include: femininity, masculinity, and androgyny; femaleness, maleness, intersex, and transgender; heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality.
G290: History of Feminist Thought and Practice (3 cr.) A & H
Introduction to historical and contemporary feminists. Critical focus is placed on criteria by which attributes of identifiable feminist discourses and their contexts may be evaluated. Disputes among feminist theorists with regard to the pertinence of differences ordained by sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, and other political and philosophical adherence emerge as central themes for appraisal.
G300: Gender Studies: Core Concepts and Key Debates (3 cr.) IW
P: G101
Examination of the field of gender studies. Students will explore a series of themes through which gender is discussed, analyzed, and defined. Conceptual frameworks of gender, theories of sexuality, and the cultural and historical construction of the body are emphasized. Examination of gender as a contested category ranging across categories of race, ethnicity, class, and nationality.
G302: Issues in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.)
This topical, variably titled course addresses selected ideas, trends, and problems in the study of gender across academic disciplines. It explores a particular theme or themes and also provides critical reflection upon the challenges of analyzing gender within the framework of different disciplines of knowledge. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
G303: Knowledge and Sex (3 cr.) S & H
Exploration of debates about knowledge as cultural production or representation, implicated in contemporary understandings of gender and sexual difference. Feminist critiques of various disciplines and fields are interrogated, in terms of their justifiability and coherence. Significant differences in interpretations offered by such critics are identified, and their impact upon areas of knowledge during the twentieth century are assessed.
G304: Constructions of Masculinity (3 cr.) S & H
An interdisciplinary examination of what constitutes (and has historically constituted) masculinity. Designed to illuminate the contested underpinnings of masculinity.
G310: Representation and the Body (3 cr.) A & H
Analysis of scholarship concerned with how the body is perceived, represented, and symbolically charged. This course examines concepts that include sexed bodies, desiring bodies, corporeality, body politics, and sociological bodily rituals. Thematically, the course investigates exterior/interior, solid/fluid, and sex/gender distinctions critical to discussions of the body.
G325: Technologies of Gender (3 cr.) S & H
Investigates "gendered"ways that technological transformations reshape social life, physical space, built environments, or medical research. Familiarizes students with how feminist inquiry remaps such fields as computer technology, urban and development studies, geography, medicine, or health sciences. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
G330:Looking Like a Feminist: Visual Culture and Critical Theory (3 cr.) A & H
Advanced study of feminist film theory which examines gender in popular film from a variety of perspectives. Examines how cinema works as a "technology of gender,"how film constructs subject positions and identities, and what these constructions can tell us about how gender structures our culture.
G335: Explaining Sex/Gender Differences (3 cr.) S & H
Compares biological, psychological, and social theories regarding the development and maintenance of gender differentiated behavior, gender and sexual identities, and the meaning of sexed bodies. The course scrutinizes the social and cultural forces that magnify, minimize, or subvert the expression of gender differences.
G340: Gender, Geography, Sex, and Space (3 cr.) S & H
Examines the crucially important role that space and place play in the construction and maintenance of gender norms and sexual practices. Subjects may include the gendered history of the domestic domain, feminist critiques of architecture and urban planning, the modernist art of flaneurie, or the gendered and racial politics of imprisonment in the United States.
G350: Queer Theory (3 cr.) A & H
Examines queer theory, particularly in relation to other intellectual/political movements (post-structuralism, critical race studies, feminism, gay and lesbian studies) which it both borrowed from and challenged. Focus on the ways in which queer theory articulates a radical transformation of the sex/gender system in opposition to normalizing and essentializing impulses.
G399: Regulating Gender (3 cr.) S & H
Explores the regulation of gender relations through the institutions of state, church, and/ or civil society, including: public policies; laws and their enforcement; religions; ethical and moral norms; and other social conventions and cultural norms. Strong focus on cross-cultural and transnational comparisons. May be thematically concentrated around case studies.
G402: Problems in Gender Studies (1-3 cr.)
Topical seminar in gender studies. Analysis of a particular issue or problem that has generated debate within gender-related scholarship in a particular discipline, or across several disciplines/fields of inquiry. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
G410: International Feminist Debates (3 cr.) CSA
Investigation of debates among feminists as to whether aspirations towards global feminism are possible and desirable. The course compares concerns about the global situation of women, as articulated by international bodies such as the United Nations, with concerns articulated by feminists in different parts of the world.
G425: Gender and Science: The Sexual Politics of Truth (3 cr.) S & H
Examination of interdisciplinary interaction of feminist perspectives on science. Perspectives are diverse and have implications for different scientific disciplines medical, physical, natural, and social. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
G430: Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953): Genealogies and Legacies (3 cr.) S & H
Examines Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) by undertaking an examination of the text itself, and its scientific, cultural, and sexual politics context, as well as its place in the genealogy of sexology and sex research and its impact and influence after Kinsey's death in 1956.
G435: Health, Sex, and Gender (3 cr.) S & H
Examines health as it relates to female and male sexuality and to the roles and status of men and women in society. It explores public policy decisions related to medical research practices. Topics may include research about adult sexuality and personal health, contraception, sexual abuse, gender-specific diseases, and sexually transmitted diseases.
G440: Feminism Between Woman Suffrage and the Pill (3 cr.) S & H
What happened to feminism between the suffrage movement and the "swinging sixties"? Was feminism dead, or did it actually transform? How similar and how different was feminism before 1920 and after? Could a higher understanding of feminism in these decades recharacterize twentieth-century feminism as a whole?
G480: Practicum in Gender Studies (3-6 cr., 6 cr. max.)
P: Junior or senior standing; 12 credit hours of gender studies course work; consent of faculty advisor and department.
Directed study of issues or policies related to gender or sexuality based on a field experience such as an internship. Directed readings, papers and/or an analytical journal may be required.
G485: Gender and Discourse (3 cr.)
Advanced-level analysis of cultural constitutions of gender in different cultures. Emphasis on understanding how different discourses operate with respect to gender, and how they can have a range of effects, including endorsement, unsettling, and resisting prevailing gender relations. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
G495: Readings and Research in Gender Studies (1-3 cr., 6 cr. max.)
P: Consent of instructor and department.
Individual readings and research available for gender studies major and minor students. May, under unusual circumstances, be repeated twice for credit with a different topic.
G498: Seminar in Gender Studies (3 cr.)
This course will highlight a particular problem, theme, or controversy confronting the interdisciplinary field of gender studies, situated in relation to the development of gender studies since the 1970s and its institutional and discursive setting.
G499: Senior Honors Thesis (3-6 cr.)
P: Consent of faculty honors thesis advisor and department.
Research and preparation of senior honors thesis. May be taken for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
Combined Courses
GNDR G215 & AAAD A298: Sex & Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (3 credits) (S&H, CS)
Sex & Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective investigates and compares different constructions of sex and gender around the world. The course asks how cross-cultural variations force us to rethink assumptions about bodies, sexuality, gendered social roles, and work and family. How do people in different cultures come to consider and express themselves as "men," "women," or something else? What are the social forces that constrain them to act and think as gendered persons? Most importantly, what are the potential consequences of not conforming to those norms? The course will also consider how global forces such as militarism and religious fundamentalism influence sex and gender formations. This course will also focus on the development of structures, meanings, and formations of sex, gender, and sexuality in different historical, national, geo-cultural, racial and class contexts. A main focus will be an assessment of debates in transnational and third world feminisms and queer diasporas concerning the oppression of women, as well as the regulation and suppression of various gender and sexual formations in different cultural sites both within Euro-America and beyond.
Lecture: 4:00pm-5:15pm - TR - Instructor: Bailey, M (section: 17114) BH 005
GNDR G302 & HIST A 300: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits) (S&H)
Topic: American Sexual Histories
What can controversies over sexuality reveal about the history of American culture? How did those contesting sexual behavior, desires, and/or their consequences, narrate their own or others' sexual histories? This course surveys historical changes in American cultural conflicts about sexuality, especially as shaped by gender, race, ethnic, class, religious, and regional dynamics, through examining some well known historical examples - their genealogies and legacies - providing an introduction to the history of gender and sexuality in the United States. Many historical instances of sexuality-related conflicts emerged across the past three centuries. The course may draw some instances from amongst: the 1692 Salem witch panic, eighteenth and nineteenth century "seduction," illegitimacy, and infanticide, the 1874-75 adultery prosecution of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher for adultery, "spinster" Lizzie Borden's 1893 trial for the axe-murder of her father and step-mother; Progressive era regulation of prostitution and venereal diseases, birth control advocate Margaret Sanger's 1915 indictment for obscenity, 1920s and 1930s disputes over rape, lynching, and miscegenation, the 1948 &1953 Kinsey Reports, Christine Jorgenson and transsexualism, the Boston Strangler and other serial killers, the 1960s "Sexual Revolution, the Pill, and censorship challenges the rise of Gay Liberation, the 1973 Roe versus Wade abortion decision, and other 1990s struggles.
Lecture: 12:20pm-1:10pm - TR - Instructor: Allen, J (section: 26750) SW 007
Required Discussion Sections for Dr. Allen's Course (choose one):
T: 2:30pm-3:20pm (section: 26751)
W: 3:35pm-4:25pm (section: 26755)
W: 9:05am-9:55am (section: 26753)
R: 10:10am-11:00am (section: 26757)
GNDR G302 & CMCL C334: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits)
Topic: Queering Sexuality and Gender in the Media
Fulfills COAS Intensive Writing Requirement
Mediated representations of sexuality and gender permeate our daily lives. The moments and ways these representations come together are powerful in shaping how we come to think of who we are and what we should aspire to be. This course will teach students to critically analyze gender and sexuality as they are entwined and encoded in popular media representation. We will examine how these constructs of subjectivity interrelate to commonly held and frequently unquestioned assumptions about race, class, nationality, and ability. We will think about how our assumptions about gender and sexual norms are shaped through and in turn shape several prominent sites of popular culture: advertising, television, film, music, and "cyberculture." Students will learn to decode the messages and meanings in select examples from each of these sites. Students will also learn to understand how political and economic inequalities in the culture industries structure our sexual and gender choices, especially in terms of what it means to be "normal" and/or "queer."
Lecture: 9:30am-10:45am - TR - Instructor: Gray, M (section : 26701)
GNDR G302 & CMCL C333: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits) (A&H)
Topic: Stigma: Culture, Deviance and Identity
Cultural value systems in every society rely on sets of mutually defining terms -- for example, normal/abnormal, able-bodied/disabled, heterosexual/homosexual, white/non-white -- that largely determine local attitudes of acceptance or ostracism regarding particular categories of persons. Focusing on social stigma allows us to understand how specific cultural value systems affect our most intimate senses of self, and indeed contribute to our very notions of personhood. Stigma theory speaks broadly to the nature of the social relationships that create marked categories of persons, regardless of the particular attributes devalued. In this class we look both at theory and at particular cases of devaluation, since attention to the particularities of a given stigma keys us in to the complex of cultural values that create it. The theoretical centerpiece of this course is Erving Goffman's 1963 study Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. We will read this text closely to appreciate Goffman's insights, and attempt throughout the semester to update the language he uses to convey his points by applying his model to more recent historical and ethnographic case studies of stigmatized persons and groups. Our primary focus will be on the range and efficacy of the various strategies available for managing and/or deflating stigma. We will consider the work of artists and activists that addresses contemporary cases of stigma involving class, race, disability, gender and sexuality. We will view related film clips in class, and full length films at bi-weekly evening screenings. Online postings on a class discussion site helps students participate fully and regularly in class discussions.
Lecture: 11:15am-12:30pm - TR - Instructor: Seizer, S (section : 26725)
GNDR G302 & HIST J 300: Topics in Gender Studies (3 credits) (S&H)
Topic: Marriage and the American Nation
Fulfills COAS Intensive Writing Requirement
What is marriage? Is it a private agreement or a public contract? A legal bond or a religious sacrament? A right or a privilege? Who can enter it? Who determines when it is over, and on what grounds? This seminar examines the long history of American debates about these questions. We will consider the complex ways that beliefs and policies regarding marriage have affected national understandings of gender roles, of racial difference, of the meaning of citizenship, and of the function and reach of government. The chronological emphasis of the course is on the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, although we will conclude by discussing the place of history in the current controversy over gay marriage. Marriage and the American Nation is a methods course, designed to meet the History Department's J300 and the College of Arts and Sciences' intensive writing requirements. As we study the topic, we will attend closely to the ways in which historians use primary sources to construct historical arguments. The assignments will give you guided opportunities to try your hands at different forms of historical research and writing. More information about the course can be found at: http://www.indiana.edu/~marriage/.
Lecture: 2:30pm-4:30pm - R - Instructor: Sword, K (section : 28470) BH 237
GNDR G 402 & ANTH E417: Seminar in Gender Studies (3 credits) (S&H, CS)
Topic: African Women
African women carry heavy, growing responsibilities within their communities that bring them respect but rarely the resources they need. Following themes of autonomy and control of social, cultural and economic resources, we discuss alternatives and radical changes from pre-colonial to contemporary times and consider their relevance to African and US development policy, to African feminist concerns and to our own options. We will talk about how African women fit into important public discussions in Africa on economic development, urbanization, family breakdown, nationalism and religion. Some issues familiar in Western media, including famines, refugees, civil wars, Islamic and Christian fundamentalism, polygyny and AIDS, have special relevance for African women. They also can contribute distinctive experiences and ideas to our discussions of some problems Americans now feel sharply, such as preserving family and religious values, building mutual respect between men and women and between ethnic groups, teen or unwed mothers, budget cuts, unemployment and global economic competition. Basic concepts and analytic skills from this course will help you join in these debates effectively and learn critically from public media such as television and newspapers. By the end of the semester, you will know what major issues African women consider important to their lives, especially family and economic issues. You should be well aware of the broad range of diversity of viewpoints on these issues and familiar with some of the most common perspectives. You will also see the range of diversity in the situations of specific groups of African women, and be able to identify the most important local and international conditions that affect their position. We will concentrate on the factors that give women more or less access to key resources they need to provide security for themselves and their families. We will also consider how our actions and US government policies contribute to these influential factors.
Lecture: 2:30pm-3:45pm - TR - Instructor: Clark, G (section : 26739) SB 150
GNDR G 498 & ANTH E460: Critical Issues in Gender Studies (3 credits) (A&H)
Topic: Dance, Gender & Embodied Discourse
Dance does not exist except as it is realized in the human body. Through its performance and its ability to elicit a kinesthetic response in performer and viewer alike, dance becomes elemental and gendered. Classical performance traditions, popular forms, and communally-embedded dance all address gender and the potential for embodied meanings. Embodied forms of discourse speak through a variety of voices and channels creating meanings that may be ambiguous and contradictory. We will examine form and meaning as we explore the danced body and its dialogic potential across Eastern and Western traditions both classical and popular. Seminar participants may choose any genre or tradition of dance or dance-theatre for their research.
Lecture: 2:30pm-3:45pm - TR - Instructor: Royce, A P (section : 28610) BH 209
