everything.study
21H.983

Gender: Historical Perspectives

3-0-9 units · Graduate

Examines the definition of gender in scientific, societal, and historical contexts. Explores how gender influences state formation and the work of the state, what role gender plays in imperialism and in the welfare state, the ever-present relationship between gender and war, and different states' regulation of the body in gendered ways at different times. Investigates new directions in the study of gender as historians, anthropologists and others have taken on this fascinating set of problems. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Fall 2020

Topics

  • Introduction and course overview
  • What is history and how does it work?
  • The role of agency in historical explanation: Why do people use skin lighteners?
  • Why do we have Women’s & Gender Studies departments and when did they come into existence?
  • How have race and gender intersected around the issue of lynching in US history?
  • How do we read primary sources to deepen our understanding?
  • Guest lecturer: Dr. Susan Ware
  • Guest lecturer: Prof. Mona Siegel , California State University, Sacramento
  • Whose birth is being controlled and who is trying to do the controlling?
  • Gender and climate change
  • When is the personal political and historical?
  • Guest lecturer: Prof. Jennifer Nez Denetdale , University of New Mexico
  • Is it a good thing that in Iran the government pays for sex-change surgeries for transpeople?
  • Why and how did the British try to eliminate third-gender/trans-women in India?
  • Why do the pictures of violated women and children mobilize men into war and the general public into “humanitarian giving”?
  • When and how did genocidal rape become an international crime?
  • How do masculine performances prove useful to populist leaders?
  • How is masculinist populism playing out today?
  • How have US leaders displayed their own machismo?
  • How has the US responded to COVID-19 and what are the gender, race, and class implications?
  • Student presentations
  • Student presentations cont’d
  • View and discuss Left on Pearl . Directed by Susan Rivo. Color and black & white, 55 min. 2017. ( Trailer )

Readings

Spring 2017 · Gender

Topics

  • Introduction to the topic
  • Introduction to Gender
  • The Ideological Work of Gender [EW]
  • Sex, Gender, and the Body [LE]
  • Gender and Intersectionality Guest speaker: Professor Sally Haslanger , MIT, Linguistics and Philosophy Department
  • Gender and the State [EW]
  • “The Woman Question” Guest speaker: Karen Offen , Ph.D., Stanford University, The Clayman Institute for Gender Research.
  • Men and Masculinity [EW] Guest speaker: Professor Betul Eksi , Northeastern University Humanities Center
  • Gender and War Guest speaker: Professor Christopher Capozzola , MIT, History Department
  • Gender and Genocide [LE]
  • Gender and the Welfare State [EW]
  • The State and Gender Policies
  • Student Presentations
  • Queer Theory Guest speaker: Professor Bruno Perreau , MIT, Literature Department

Readings

Prerequisites & course information

Same subject as WGS.310[J] Subject meets with 21H.109[J] , WGS.303[J] Prereq: None G (Spring) 3-0-9 units

Sources