Please contact Academic Program Coordinator Tasha Robles for a PDF copy of this course guide: tmatos@illinois.edu

Gender and Women’s Studies Courses Fall 2022

Courses Offered by the GWS Department

 

(Includes Required Courses and Additional Electives for Majors and Minors. Go to page 5 for other GWS courses)

 

GWS 100: Intro to Gender Women’s Studies

Same as HDFS 140 and SOC 130 - This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for a: UIUC Social Sciences course.

Cano, A.

AD1

CRN 55561

F

10-10:50 a.m.

Cano, A.

AD2

CRN 55562

F

11-11:50 a.m.

Gonzalez, A.

AD3

CRN 55564

R

3-3:50 p.m.

Gonzalez, A.

AD4

CRN 55565

R

4-4:50 p.m.

Barnes, T.

AL1

CRN 55560

MW

2-2:50 p.m.

This course addresses issues such as everyday experience, media and popular culture, femininities and masculinities, family, education, employment, economics, literature and the arts, religion, history, science, and technology. It also explores interrelationships of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, ability, and age from a transnational perspective.

 

GWS 201: Race, Gender and Power

Same as SOC 201 This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for a: Western Comparative Cultures course.

Khan, M.                    GM                              CRN 57507                                 TR                               9:30-10:50 p.m.

Race offers a framework for thinking about gender, sexuality, power, class, identity, and culture, and their multiple intersections. This course explores "race" to examine the relations between self and society, community and culture, and imperial subjects and colonial institutions. By focusing on race and power in the context of film and media, science and technology, religion, colonialism, militarism, indigeneity, sports, museums, and other political, social, and cultural forces, this course offers nuanced understandings of the way gender systems are formed, patrolled, and maintained.

 

GWS 255: Queer Lives, Queer Politics Same as SOC 255

McCarthy, D.            DV                               CRN 57987                                 MW                             4:30-5:50 p.m.

Investigates queer lives in relation to dominant ideas about “deviance” and “equal rights”. Drawing on case studies, the course Investigates questions related to nation, race, economy, bodies, drugs, health identities, agency and action as they intersect with contemporary queer politics. Students will learn conceptual and qualitative methods to investigate issues related to queer lives.

 

GWS 275: The Politics of Fashion

Same as AAS 275 - This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for a: U.S. Minority Cultures Course.

Rijo-Sanchez, A.

AD0

CRN 75110

F

2-2:50 p.m.

Malo, G,

AD1

CRN 71454

R

2-2:50 p.m.

Malo, G.

AD2

CRN 71456

R

4-4:50 p.m.

McKeegan, S.

AD3

CRN 71458

F

9-9:50 a.m.

Rijo-Sanchez, A.

AD4

CRN 71460

F

11-11:50 a.m.

Turner, R.

AD5

CRN 73304

W

3-3:50 p.m.

Turner, R.

AD6

CRN 73307

W

4-4:50 p.m.

McKeegan, S.

AD7

CRN 73310

F

10-10:50 a.m.

`                 Nguyen, M.

AL1

CRN 71452 (Online)

MW

1-1:50 p.m.

Interdisciplinary examination of clothing as a medium for fashioning identities and the political and social tensions embodied in its fabrications. Through the politics of dress, the course investigates the inseparable links between cultures, aesthetics, and politics, as demonstrated in debates about Muslim practices of veiling, the role of clothing in colonialism's "civilizing" mission, immigrant and "third world" sweatshop labor and globalization, fashion policing and subcultural style, and the fashion and modeling industries. Looks at the role of gender, as well as race, nation, and sexuality, as relations of power and as critical factors for social life and creative imagination.

 

GWS 345: Digital & Gender Cultures

Same as INFO 345, MACS 345, and SOC345, See GWS 345

Cole, C.                    CC                                 CRN 61118                             MWF                               12-12:50 p.m.

This interdisciplinary course uses the lens of gender critique and pairs it with social activism to provide students analytical tools to engage with, reshape, and create digital cultures. Examines recent research and public policies related to the gendered, raced, and classes dimensions of digital cultures and inequality; the broad range of labor issues embedded in the growing income disparity related to digital cultures; the various ways that digital inequality has been defined by public policy, sociologists, and activists, and real examples of collective activism and social change related to emerging technologies.

 

GWS 366: Feminist Disability Studies

This course offering is for Undergraduate Students Only

Explores the complex relationship between gender and disability. Approaching disability as a social and political category rather than a strictly medical one, we will ask: how is the language of disability used to produce and police a variety of gender, sexual, and racial identities as non-normative? How might debates over medicine, technology, and the concept of "natural" pit gender and disability against one another? How have feminist, queer, and transgender scholarship and activism engaged disability?

Beauchamp, T.         TB                               CRN 66123                            TR                                    2-3:20 p.m.

This course examines the historical and contemporary transformations associated with globalization from the perspective of information as a core element of sociotechnical and political economic processes. Drawing on themes of empire, industrialization, big science and data, and ubiquitous information systems, students will focus on questions such as: how and why global social developments came to be centered around information? What role have information organization and communications technologies (ICTs) played historically? What challenges does a globalized and informationally dominated society pose to contemporary life, social stability, and the planet?

 

GWS 370: Queer Theory

Prerequisite: GWS 100, GWS 201, GWS 202, or consent of instructor. Same as SOC 320.

McCarthy D.             A                                           CRN 42909                          TR                                   9:30-10:50 a.m.

Traces the development of queer theory as a mode for understanding queer studies methodologies and the changing intellectual landscape of key issues in the field. As part of the course, students will review key concepts and theoretical schools of thought, navigating important debates guiding the field. Theories will engage questions of the social and cultural through topics including race, gender, nation, family, history, identity formation, sexology, the state, and capital.

 

GWS 387: History of Sexuality in U.S. Same as HIST 387

Somerville, S.          SS                                          CRN 57515                       MW                                    3-4:20 p.m.

Study of the terms, methodologies and theoretical interventions of transnational feminist studies. Transnational is a term that calls attention to circuits of political, economic, and social phenomena across the boundaries of nation-states. Emerging as a response to the shortcomings of overarching, economic theorizations of globalization as well as Western versions of "global feminism," transnational feminist studies is an interdisciplinary critical field that draws from the vocabularies of postcolonial studies, poststructuralism, Third World feminisms, race and ethnic studies feminism in self-reflexive and context-specific ways. Examines recent reconceptualizations of relations between woman and nation; gender and globalization; feminist theory and practice.

 

GWS 395: Queer Migrations

Meets with ENGL 325. See ENGL 325 – Undergrad Students Only

Somerville, S.             D                              CRN 77115                                 MW                                 12 – 1:15 p.m.

This course invites you to explore queer studies approaches to narratives of migration in fiction, memoir, and film. We will explore:

(1) how migration by LGBTQ people has been represented (whether between urban and rural spaces, across national borders, across racialized and gendered boundaries); and (2) how certain migrations might themselves be understood as queer (in the sense of being non-normative). How does migration shape the entangled experiences of sexuality, race, gender, national identity, citizenship, and labor? What aesthetic choices have authors and filmmakers made in their representation of these migrations? In addition to literary texts and films, we will read selected scholarship on migration and narrative, from perspectives including queer of color critique, settler colonial studies, transnational feminist theory, queer indigenous studies, and migration studies.

 

GWS 395: Latinx Feminisms Meets with LLS 396

Velez, E.                         EV                          CRN 73539                                 TR                               11:00-12:20 p.m.

This course examines historical and contemporary Latinx feminist thinking in its complex and uneven genealogies. As a category, “Latinx” spans myriad geographical, cultural, and political contexts. In order to maintain these complexities, tensions, and affinities, we will consider texts from a range differently situated thinkers to think more deeply with and about Latinx feminisms.

We begin in Unit 1 by considering the multiplicity of Latinx identities and their relationship to Latinidad. We consider the “X” in Latinx as a site of woundedness, the racial dimensions of Latinx identity, and the complicated relationship between Latinidad and other intersecting identities, paying special attention to Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ identity and experience. In Unit 2, we turn our thinking to Latinx bodies in motion through geopolitical forces such as borders and consider how Latinx feminists’ attention to multiplicity and in-betweenness that complicates easy binaries between North/South. Unit 3 examines Latinx feminist critiques of Empire and the legacies of colonization which include the imposition of binary gender systems. In particular, we will consider how Latinx feminists have developed a unique tradition of decolonial feminism in their calls for decolonial imaginaries and decolonizing coalitions. The course ends as we put our own decolonial imaginaries to work through our final podcast project that responds to the idea that otro mundo es posible/another world is possible.

 

GWS 470: Transgender Studies

Kim, A

SKG

CRN 51269

M

3-5:50 p.m.

Kim, A

SKU

CRN 51268

M

3-5:50 p.m.

This course is intended to familiarize students with the emergence of the field of transgender studies, its major concepts and frameworks, and the central debates animating current transgender studies work. Rather than inquiring into the “truth” of transgender identities or bodies, or taking them as pre-existing objects of study, we will consider how transgender subjects have been produced historically and socially. That is to say, instead of seeking facts about transgender people (or identities, or bodies), one aim of this course is to understand how and why they come to be subjects of fact-finding missions in the first place. We will spend the first half of the semester critically examining the term “transgender” through two units: one focused on classification and naming practices, and one focused on how specific institutions produce the category of transgender. The second half of the course is dedicated to key concepts and conversations in the field. Throughout, we will pay particular attention to questions of nationalism, colonialism, citizenship, race, labor, and embodiment.

 

GWS 475: Queering Legal Cultures

Nadeau, C.

CNG

CRN 76918

T

3:00-5:50 p.m.

 

CNU

CRN 76919

T

3:00-5:50 p.m.

Exploration of the many forms of address that legal language can take, and how these legal forms affect subjects who are barely legible before the law. We will look at state laws, supreme-court decisions, policy publications, literature and social commentaries, fictional texts - as mobbed through social media platforms - to try to understand how queer (as verb, noun, adjective) emerges as a way in and out of legal spaces. Topics will include historical formations, current debates, and landmark cases in both national and transnational contexts.

 

GWS 478: Sex, Power and Politics Same as PS 413

Nadeau, C.

G

CRN 61104

R

3:00-5:50 p.m.

 

UG

CRN 61103

R

3:00-5:50 p.m.

Examines representations of the relationship between sex, power, and subjectivity and how they have shaped feminism. Explores critical approaches to feminist analyses of women's oppression and debates about sexuality, including issues such as consent, rape and prostitution.

 

GWS 540: Intersectional Pedagogies

Beauchamp, T.       TB                                          CRN 76886                             T                                  10-12:50 p.m.

Examines the link between political movements and pedagogies, including feminist, critical, critical multicultural, critical race, and queer pedagogies. Students will analyze pedagogical theories and implement practical techniques and strategies. 4 graduate hours. No professional credit. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and previous coursework in Gender and Women's Studies; or consent of instructor.

 

GWS 550: Feminist Theories & Methods

Prerequisite: At least one graduate-level humanities course or consent of instructor. Please email Tasha Robles @ tmatos@illinois.edu

Velez, E                     1                                          CRN 30426                            R                                 2-4:50 p.m.

Interdisciplinary study in diverse feminist theories and methods produced in and across various disciplines. Study in contemporary philosophical and theoretical developments in the study of gender to specific histories of class, race, ethnicity, nation and sexuality.

 

GWS 575: Transnational Feminisms

Prerequisite: At least one graduate-level humanities course or consent of instructor. Please email Tasha Robles @ tmatos@illinois.edu

Kashani, M.             MK                                      CRN 62768                          W                                   2-4:50 p.m.

Study of the terms, methodologies and theoretical interventions of transnational feminist studies. Transnational is a term that calls attention to circuits of political, economic, and social phenomena across the boundaries of nation-states. Emerging as a response to the shortcomings of overarching, economic theorizations of globalization as well as Western versions of "global feminism," transnational feminist studies is an interdisciplinary critical field that draws from the vocabularies of postcolonial studies, poststructuralism, Third World feminisms, race and ethnic studies feminism in self-reflexive and context-specific ways. Examines recent reconceptualizations of relations between woman and nation; gender and globalization; feminist theory and practice.

 

*******************************************************************************************************************

 

GWS Crosslisted/Area Elective Courses

 

GWS 218: Intro to Social Issues Theatre Same as THEA 218. See THEA 218

Enslin, M.                 A                                        CRN 49713                    MW                                     1-2:50 p.m.

An introductory exploration/survey of the rich histories, theories, and practices of community-based and social issues theatre. Through discussion, participation, lecture, and performance, representative works, movement, and artists will be explored. Lively connections will be made to an array of social issues in today's world.

 

GWS 226: Black Women in Contemp US Society Same as AFRO 226 and SOC 223. See AFRO 226

McMillion, D.            DMC                                 CRN 58493                 MW                                12:30-1:50 p.m.

Sociological perspective of the experience of African American women in the contemporary United States. Specifically, an examination of relationships between the economy, state policy, culture, work and motherhood for this demographic group.

 

GWS 230: Latina/o Genders & Sexualities Same as LLS 230. See LLS 230

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria for a: Cultural Studies – US Minority

Flores, N.                  A                                      CRN 66518                   TR                                  12:30-1:50 p.m.

Survey of major theories and debates surrounding the gendered and sexualized dimensions of the Latina/o experience in the United States. The course is comprised of three major units: Gender, Sexuality, and Sex. In these units, students will read about and discuss issues pertaining to femininity/marianismo, masculinity/machismo, family/familism, desire, sexual behavior, sex work, sexual and gendered violence, and gendered and sexualized representations in pop culture.

 

GWS 235: Race & the Politics Reproduction Same as LLS 235

Lira, N.                       A                                     CRN 72007                   MW                                  12-1:20 p.m.

Interdisciplinary exploration of the racial politics of reproduction in the United States with an emphasis on how ideologies of race, class, and citizenship shape meanings and experiences of reproduction, pregnancy, and motherhood. Topics include contraception, sterilization abuse, and abortion. Students will also learn how women of color have both been affected by the racial politics of reproduction and how they have advanced the movement for reproductive rights and justice in the United States.

 

GWS 240: Gender & Sexuality in Greco-Roman Antiquity

Same as CLCV 240 and CWL 262 – This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for Cultural Studies – Western and Humanities – Lit & Arts.

Williams, C.              E                                  CRN 33551                     TR                                   11-12:20 p.m.

Study of gender and sexuality in Greco-Roman antiquity. Readings from ancient texts in English translation across a wide range of genres, including epic and lyric poetry, tragedy and comedy, love elegy, epigram, prose fiction, oratory, historiography, biological and medical writing, philosophy; art and material culture; select readings from scholarship.

 

GWS 262: Women’s Lives

Same as ANTH 262 - This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for: Social & Beh Sci - Soc Sci

Erten, N.                    1                                  CRN 64769                    TR                                   2-3:20 p.m.

Perceptions of women, their perceptions of themselves, and their varying roles and statuses in several contemporary societies in diverse countries; supervised ethnographic observation of women's behavior.

 

GWS 270: Sexuality and Literature

Same as GER 270 and CWL 272. See CWL 272. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for: Humanities – Lit & Arts

Niekerk, C.               C                                 CRN 49508                     MWF                              2-2:50 p.m.

Examination of the historical contexts in which sexuality has been debated during the past three centuries, and to what extent sexuality is perceived differently in diverse cultures. Part one will look at the Western tradition, especially Germany. Part two shifts to the non-Western world, especially to the colonial history of Indonesia. In this class, we challenge the view that sex and sexuality are phenomena that have remained the same over time and all over the world. Instead we investigate to what extent sexuality is perceived differently in diverse cultures. Our thinking about sexuality is very much part of the culture in which we grow up. Readings and discussions in English. Occasional film screenings.

 

GWS 305: Theories of Race, Gender and Sexuality Same as AAS 300 and LLS 305, See AAS 300

Sharif, L.                    A                                  CRN 66831                    MW                                 10-11:20 a.m.

Explores theories for performing interdisciplinary, intersectional and comparative studies within the field of Asian American studies. Follows multiple genealogies of critical work in ethnic and American studies. This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for: Advanced Composition

 

GWS 340: Gender, Relationships and Society

Same as HDFS 340 and SOC 322. - This course will be taught in hybrid format. The Thursday lecture session will meet face to face in a classroom. Students will then be required to log in to Zoom for the Tuesday lecture 11:00 to 12:20.

Oleschuk, M.                 A                                CRN 38499                  TR                                    11-12:20 p.m.

Explores the production of gender through social interaction within families and other specific interpersonal and institutional relationships that change over time. Gender is also linked to race, class, ability, and sexuality.

 

GWS 356 - Sex & Gender in Popular Media

Same as MACS 356. See MACS 356 - This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for: Cultural Studies - Western

Aguayo, A.                                A                                  CRN 47811                TR                                     2-3:20 p.m.

Examines the notion that the mass media influence our development as gendered individuals, looking at those who argue for and against this notion. Considers different forms of feminist theory applied to the study of mass media, the history and scholarly criticisms of the media and their portrayal of women, and feminist attempts to create alternatives to mainstream media images. Throughout, the course considers representation of minorities in the dominant media and examines newly created alternative representations.

 

GWS 357 – Literatures on the Displaced

Same as AAS 357, AIS 357, ENGL 357, and LLS 357. See LLS 357.

de la Garza, J.                  A                                  CRN 75370                   TR                                2-3:20 p.m.

Examines Latina/o, Asian-American, African-American, and Indigenous stories of displacement, (im)migration, and settlement. We will analyze the negotiated and contested narratives about race, gender, and sexuality that the texts evidence in order to form interpretive arguments that address the ways in which the texts unsettle ideas about the nation, nation building, and national belonging.

 

GWS 383 – Hist of Blk Women's Activism

Same as AFRO 383 and HIST 383. See AFRO 383.

McDuffie, E.                   EM                                  CRN 51828                  MW                              3-4:20 p.m.

Examination of the history of twentieth century black women's activism specifically concerned with how African American female activists have been critical to building, sustaining and leading black freedom movements.

 

GWS 395 – Queer Latinx Literature Meets w/LLS 396, See LLS 396

de la Garza, J.              JD                                    CRN 77409              TR                               11-12:20 p.m.

Students in this course will read, analyze, and discuss works by queer Latinx writers with particular attention to the relationship between migration, sexuality, and citizenship. Though Latinx fiction leans into legal mappings of Latinx communities, queer Latinx writers make the implications of unique legal encounters for Latinx communities evident through narrative experimentations that highlight compounded legal and cultural exclusions. Analyzing representations of legal, sexual, and cultural encounters that impact queer Latinx access to the citizenry, students will investigate the cultural and literary histories that inform the ways queer Latinxs navigate the legal underpinnings of queer, Latinx, and queer Latinx life in the 21st century U.S.

 

GWS 415: Africiana Feminisms

Meets w/AFRO 415 and AFST 420 – See AFRO 415.

Prerequisite: AFRO 103 and an additional 300 or 400-level African American Studies course or consent of the instructor.

Harrison, F.

UG1

CRN 77639

T

2-4:50 p.m.

 

G1

CRN 77640

T

2-4:50 p.m.

Explores readings and research from the perspective of feminists throughout the African diaspora, with a focus on Black feminist thought emanating from the United States.

 

GWS 417: Leading Post-Perform Dialog Same as THEA 417 – See THEA 417.

Some evening hours required. Junior standing or consent of instructor – Restricted to students with Junior or Senior class standing.

Smith, S.                    LTD                                  CRN 47939               TR                               4-5:50 p.m.

Study of the history, processes, and methods of leading discussions with social issues theatre audiences. Emphasis on the skills and techniques of facilitators/peer educators; artistic considerations; function and application of the dramaturg; and practical experience through facilitation of social issues theatre dialog.

 

GWS 418: Devising Social Issues Theatre Same as THEA 418. See THEA 418

Fay, L.

A3

CRN 35470

MW

11:30-12:50 p.m.

 

A4

CRN 35720

MW

11:30-12:50 p.m.

Focuses on the role of the artist as 'cultural worker' through devising theatre in a community-based context that is explicitly concerned with social and/or health-related issues. While there is substantial research, reading and critique involved, the overall experience will be that of rigorously composing theatrical work vital to the community.

 

GWS 424: Gender & Race in Contemp Arch Same as ARCH 424. See ARCH 424

Anthony, K.              B                                  CRN 41035             TR                                 11-12:20 p.m. (Online)

Analyzes how the built environment reflects social attitudes towards gender and race. Identifies the work of women and people of color in architecture and related disciplines as consumers, critics, and creators of the environment. Provides links with valuable professional networks in Chicago and elsewhere.

 

GWS 432: Gender Communication Same as CMN 432, See CMN 432

Huff, B.

1

CRN 41095

TR

9:30-10:50 a.m.

Huff, B.

2

CRN 41096

TR

11-12:20 p.m.

Study of actual and perceived differences and similarities in the use of language by women and by men; emphasizes the social contexts of speech.

 

GWS 442: Body, Culture & Society

Same as KIN 442 – Meets 08/22/22-10/14/22

Haugen, M.

ONG

CRN 73679

Online (Canvas)

Arranged

 

ONU

CRN 73656

Online (Canvas)

Arranged

Analysis of the significant social aspects of the human body including anthropological, historical, psychological and sociological perspectives. Places emphasis on cross-culture and cross-national studies of bodily behavior with particular stress on exercise, health and sport practices.

 

GWS 445: Latina Literature Topic: "TransX."

Same as LLS 442 and SPAN 442. See LLS 442.

Cervantes-Gomez, X       G

CRN 43899

MW

1:30-2:50 p.m.

U

CRN 43900

MW

1:30 -2:50 p.m.

Centralizing "trans" as not only short for "transgender," "transexual," etc., this course lingers in the possibilities of the "trans" as that which calls us to "move across." Through art, narrative, film, music, and performance art, TransX centralizes work by and about Latinx transgender and gender divergent activists, artists, and writers. Open to both graduate and undergraduate students, we will ask of these works: How does the Latinx trans body move across material worlds where other narratives and feelings also roam and impact larger stakes of gender, sexuality, and race? This course sits with and closely reads larger themes of citizenship, class, disability, displacement, family, migration, and state violence. We will closely study La Bruja de Texcoco, Fantastic Woman, Linn da Quebrada, RuPaul’s Drag Race, La Pajarita La Paul, Pose on FX, Rubby Sexilio/Sexile, Dorian Wood (and others). This course will be taught in English.

 

GWS 454: Social Work with Women Same as SOCW 455. See SOCW 455

Kingery, L                 A                                  CRN 68318               MW (Online)               2:30-3:45 p.m.

Focuses on women and now cultural belief systems related to gender are instantiated through the differential treatment of females and males in our education, mental health, social welfare and health care systems; and the consequences of such practices through the lifespan. Includes consideration of policies and practices that support women emphasizing issues of special concern to women of color, lesbians, older women, impoverished women and disabled women.