Perspectives on Gender: Theory and Practice

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This interdisciplinary seminar provides students with an overview of key concepts and terms in theories about gender and closely related topics. Students will read prominent feminist and queer theorists of gender, analyze their arguments, and learn to critique and apply them. We will explore contemporary theories, including those from outside feminist theory, that expand our understanding of gender beyond the binaries of male/female and masculine/feminine, consider conceptions of kinship beyond heteronormative models, and explore the ways gendered distinctions operate in dynamic interaction with other forms of difference such as race, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic class, sexuality, and religion. Our overriding project will be to understand what these theories mean in their specific sociohistorical contexts and to contemplate their potential implications for our own and others’ lives, and for culture and society at large. This seminar requires close reading and discussion of theoretically rigorous and critically sophisticated texts and thus requires the active participation of committed students.