Gender and Sexuality in the US., 1945-present

4.0 credits

The latter half of the 20th century was a period of dramatic societal change in the United States in which gender and sexuality played a key role. Surveying significant developments in this period including the Women’s movement and rise of feminism, the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights, the sexual revolution, the gender and sexual politics of the civil rights movement, the conservative backlash, and the AIDS/HIV epidemic, this course examines the struggle over rights, freedom, and competing worldviews that continues into our present moment. Moreover, we will consider how gender and sexuality are themselves socially constructed and historically contingent as well as deeply embedded in matters such as race and U.S. imperialism.