Courses | Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Summer 2024 Courses

[WST Offerings]

WST 102: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies - CER, DIV, SBS

Session I - ONLINE Asynchronous - Hafza Girdap

Session II - ONLINE Asynchronous - Galia Cozzi-Berrondo

This course is an introductory and interdisciplinary survey that will familiarize students with gender and sexuality theories, histories of women’s and feminist movements, and current debates within Women’s and Gender Studies. We draw on sources from across the social sciences to understand how gender and sex is explained with respect to specific physical bodies; formulates identities within gendered institutions; and influences our everyday personal and political interactions. Critically thinking of these issues can only occur when we include the intersection of racial, class, age, ableist and national identities within our analysis. The overarching theme of power, hierarchy, and privilege in structured(ing) institutions will always guide our study.

WST 103: Women, Culture, Difference - CER, HUM, DIV

Session I - ONLINE Asynchronous - Desiree Self

Session II - ONLINE Asynchronous - Frankie Petronio

Session II - ONLINE Asynchronous - Genie Ruzicka

An introductory humanities survey focusing on women's traditional association with the home and men's association with public life and how writers, artists, philosophers, and religious thinkers have reflected upon those relationships over the past 150 years. Through lectures and critical analyses of novels, poetry, art, philosophy, and religious texts, the course explores how changing intellectual, artistic, and religious precepts have affected gender identity and different genres in the humanities.

WST 111: Introduction to Queer Studies - DIV, CER, HUM

ONLINE Asynchronous - Jade Kai

This course will provide students with a broad overview of queer studies and major theorists and thinkers within the field. Beginning with Foucault before turning to more contemporary theorists, this course will be an interdisciplinary approach to American queer studies. Through the examination of visual culture, literature, and theory, students will learn to read critically through the lenses of queer theory, critical ethnic studies, disability studies, and feminist theory.

WST 291: Introduction to Feminist Theory - DIV, ESI, HFA+

Session II - ONLINE Asynchronous - Callen Zimmerman

An introductory survey of historical and contemporary interdisciplinary theories used in Women's and Gender Studies. Theoretical debates on sex, gender, sexuality, race, class, knowledge, discourse, representation are among the topics to be considered. The course will provide a strong theoretical foundation for further studies in Women's and Gender Studies.

WST 301 - Histories of Feminism - SBS+, DIV

Session I - ONLINE Asynchronous - Jose Flores-Sanchez

An historical study of the theoretical and practical developments that form contemporary feminism. Beginning with the 18th century critiques of women's rights, the course traces the expansion of feminist concerns to include a global perspective, as well as attention to race and class. Representative texts include Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women, poems by Phyllis Wheatley and Sojourner Truth, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas, and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.

Fall 2024 Courses

[WST Offerings]

WST 102: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies - CER, DIV, SBS

IN PERSON - Mon/Wed 11:00-12:20pm - Hayden Cuttone

ONLINE Asynchronous - Jenean McGee; TA's: LaQuette Holmes

ONLINE Asynchronous - Galia Cozzi-Berrondo

WST 103: Women, Culture, Difference - CER, HUM, DIV

IN PERSON - Tu/Th 12:30-1:50pm - Kara Pernicano

ONLINE Asynchronous -Liz Montegary; TA's: Peter Bruno, Gabriella Simpson

ONLINE Asynchronous - Genie Ruzicka

WST 111: Introduction to Queer Studies - DIV, CER, HUM

IN PERSON - Tu/Th 11:00-12:20pm - Kassel Franco-Garibay

WST 210 : Contemporary Issues in Women's and Gender Studies: "Race, Gender, and Media" - CER, DIV, SBS

IN PERSON - Mon/Wed 2:00-3:20pm - Emillion Adekoya

This class will engage, analyze, and assess issues of gender and race and other contemporary configurations of identities such as sexuality, ethnicity, class, immigration status, etc. in traditional media and in various mixed media contents. It will provide students with the tools to scrutinize content, representation, and effects of women, people of color, and historically underrepresented group coverage in media, and its impacts on identity formation and perception in the United States. Together, we will explore a wide range of media formats including films, television shows, games, arts, social media, and digital technology to examine how media shapes culture, influences society, and the psychological and political effects of gendered and racialized stereotypes on groups. We will also examine some resistance technologies employed by groups in challenging, countering, and disempowering the controlling images and stereotypes in media and digital spaces. While this class is an introductory exploration, it aims to help students refine critical thinking skills and to reconsider everyday assumptions on media representations in relation to issues of gender and race.

WST 291: Introduction to Feminist Theory - DIV, ESI, HFA+

IN PERSON - Mon/Wed 11:00-12:20pm - AJ Castle

ONLINE Asynchronous - Suzanne Staub

WST 301 - Histories of Feminism - SBS+, DIV

IN PERSON - Tu/Th 3:30-4:50pm - Victoria Hesford

ONLINE Asynchronous - Tasmia Haque

WST 305: Feminist Theories in Context - HFA+

IN PERSON - Tu/Th 12:30-1:50pm - Victoria Hesford

This course offers students an introduction to major traditions in critical and cultural theory while focusing specifically on how feminist scholars have pushed these theories in new directions. The aim of this class is not to provide a comprehensive survey of modern theoretical traditions; instead, we will examine several key theoretical terms that have become central to feminist thought during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In addition to unpacking the ways in which liberalism and neoliberalism have shaped contemporary debates about sex, gender, and sexuality, we will also look at how feminist perspectives have challenged and complicated theories of nationalism and citizenship, labor and consumption, and representation and circulation. In doing so, we will gain insight into how feminist theories inform and are informed by other interdisciplinary fields, such as queer studies, disability studies, transgender studies, postcolonial studies, and critical race and ethnic studies.

WST 390: Special Topics in Women's and Gender Studies in the Humanities: "Graphic Cultures" - DIV, GLO, SBS+

IN PERSON - Tu/Th 2:00-3:30pm - Lisa Diedrich

In recent years, comics and graphic narratives have become a popular and innovative form for telling auto/biographical stories in a medium that artfully combines—co-mixes—words and images. The touchstone text of the form is Maus, Art Spiegelman’s graphic narrative of his parents’ experience of the Holocaust and his own transgenerational trauma. Other key texts in the hybrid genre include Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which, like Maus, have reached a wide readership, garnered popular and critical acclaim, as well as scholarly attention. These texts all share a preoccupation with exploring how selves come into being in relation to experiences and events that are both ordinary and extraordinary—e.g., childhood, sexuality, war, illness, trauma, shame, stigma, love, hope. Our class will take a multi-faceted and interdisciplinary approach to graphic cultures. We will begin with questions about form, exploring how lines, panels, pages, etc. are drawn, read, and interpreted. We will then turn to many examples of the genre, focusing on graphic stories of war and migration, gender and sexuality, and sickness, disability, and caregiving. Through many multi-modal activities, including annotation, drawing, comics making, and creative writing, we will explore the aesthetic multiplicity of comics, as well as the many contexts in which comics are created, shared, read, and studied.

WST 395: Topics in Global Feminism: "Gender, Race, and Muslim Identity" - DIV, GLO, SBS+

IN PERSON - Tu/Th 9:30-10:50am - Hafza Girdap

This course delves into the cultural, political, and social constructions of gender and identity, with a specific focus on Muslim women. Recognizing the fluid nature of identity, we explore how experiences of inclusion, exclusion, oppression, and privilege shape individuals' sense of belonging, identity and agency. Through an intersectional lens and transnational feminist frame, we understand that all women are multifaceted subjects, and intersectionality serves as a tool to combat exclusion and develop nuanced understandings of identity. Rather than treating Muslim women as a homogenous group, we examine their multidimensionality within various contexts, challenging monolithic portrayals. Readings will offer insights into the diverse racialization and immigration experiences of women across different global contexts, questioning binaries such as the Global North and Global South, and the First World and Third World.

WST 398: Topics, in Gender, Race, and Ethnicity: "How to Get Away with Murder" - DIV, SBS+

IN PERSON - Mon/Wed 3:30-4:50pm - TBD

Description TBA

WST 399: Topics in Gender and Sexuality: "Queering Science Fiction" - HFA+, DIV -

IN PERSON Tu/Th 11:00-12:20pm - Ritch Calvin

This course provides an in-depth study of a specific interdisciplinary topic in gender and sexuality studies. Past topics include Feminist Media Studies, Queer Activism and Visual Culture, Sports Studies, Transgender Studies. Students are expected to demonstrate knowledge of the interdisciplinary methods used for the topic focus of the class. In this semester, we will look at Science Fiction Comics and, in particular, how science fiction comics operate as a space for queer expression and representation. We will focus on comics published since 2010, and analyze the ways in which queer creators employ—a reinvent—comics as a means to represent queer characters and queer content. We will also examine some of the ways in which queer creators queer the form of science fiction and the comic. Some possible texts will include Decrypting Rita, Strong Female Protagonist, Inhibit, Merry Men, Open Earth, Cyclopedia Exotica, and Barbalien.

WST 407/WST 408: Senior Research Seminar for Women's & Gender Studies Majors & Minors - EXP+, SPK, WRTD

IN PERSON - Mondays 2:00-4:50pm - Jenean McGee

The senior research seminar is the capstone course for the interdisciplinary major & minor in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Utilizing research skills, concepts, methods, and materials generated from their coursework in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, students conduct interdisciplinary research to produce a research paper and formal presentation on their topic of choice formulated and developed in seminar activities.

[Fall 2024 WST-Related Electives]

(course still being added)

(If you see a course not listed here that you think might qualify as a WST elective, email Professor Hiemstra: nancy.hiemstra@stonybrook.edu)

AFH /WST 205 - Contemporary African Literature

T/Th 11:00-12:20pm - Tracey Walters

Introductory course on fictional and nonfictional works by canonized African writers from the African continent and the diaspora. Close readings of literature by authors from the 1950s to the present day, such as Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, and Chimamanda Adichie unveil literary traditions, themes, and motifs specific to African writing. An examination of the writers' attention to topics such as (colonialism, ethnic war, gender oppression, migration, and Afropolitanism) allows for a critical analysis of the historical, social, and political issues on the African continent. The authors' discussions about globalization and its impact on African nations, particularly in relationship to the global marketplace, highlight the paradoxical nature of Africa's rich natural resources (oil, diamonds and coltan) against the continent's economic dependency on global investors. Postcolonialism, Feminism, and Psychoanalytic theory will enrich students' interpretation and analysis of the texts.

AFH /WST 382 -Black Women's Literature of the African Diaspora

T/Th 9:30-10:50pm - Tracey Walters

Black women's literature presents students with the opportunity to examine through literature the political, social, and historical experiences of Black women from the African Diaspora. The course is structured around five major themes commonly addressed in Black women's writing: Black female oppression, sexual politics of Black womanhood, Black female sexuality, Black male/female relationships, and Black women and defining self.

AFS 308/POL 308 - Women, Islam, and Political Change in Africa

Mon/Wed 6:30-7:50pm - Adryan Wallace

Explores the impact of Islam on political institutions and representation in Africa. Using the example of how Muslim women in West, North, Southern, and East Africa are mobilizing to address gender inequality, explores variations in the formation of Islamist movements and examine the influence of moderate, progressive, and more radical forms of political Islam on the experiences of women. In order to provide students with a comprehensive picture, Islam and politics is contextualized by focusing on the experiences of selected countries from East and West Africa including Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal.

AFS 346 - Political and Social History of Africa

Tues/Thurs 12:30-1:50pm - Abena Asare

An exploration of theoretical perspectives in the historical sociology and comparative politics of Africa. Topics include the crisis of state legitimacy; the patriarchal society; ethnicity, religion, and politics; the politics of modernization; development and the environment; population growth and underdevelopment; globalization, neo-liberal economic policy and the postcolonial state; and the history of state and society relations.

ARH 390 - Topics in European Art: "Women in Early Modern Art"

T/Th 2:00-3:20pm - Karen Lloyd

Past topics have included titles such as Mythology in Art; European Popular Art; and Italian Renaissance Sculpture. Designed for upper-division students, this course provides an in-depth study of a specific topic relating to Western civilization. Students will be expected to demonstrate knowledge of the development of the distinctive features of the history, institutions, economy, society, and culture of Western civilization, and relate it to that of other regions in the world.

COM 346 - Race. Class, and Gender in Media

Mon/Wed 9:30-10:50am - Matthew Salzano

A critical examination of race, class, and gender in contemporary media. The class will explore traditional and social media to understand how identity and social configurations shape and are shaped by media. Participants will analyze how media industries and media representations relate to national and global diversity and explore theories that seek to explain media's role in representing race, class, and gender and how media influence our experience of diversity. Course participants will produce a collaboratively designed media project that comments on and challenges misrepresentations.

HIS 383 - The World of Jane Austen; Jane Austen in the World

Tues/Thur 11:00 - 12:20pm - Kathleen Wilson

An examination of the social, political and cultural milieux and legacies of Jane Austen's famous novels, including the contours of English provincial and gentry society in the Revolutionary, Napoleonic and Regency periods (1792-1820). Topics will include class and sociability; the functions of the country house; gender and family relations; the pleasures and dangers of urban culture; fashion and leisure pursuits, including tourism; women, theatre and print culture; the impact of empire, war and radical politics on social and political relations of the day, and the details of Jane Austen's own life, along the ways in which Austen novels were appropriated and used by subsequent generations and in different cultural contexts, from the Victorian critics to twentieth-century Bollywood film adaptations to twenty-first century blogs.

POL 347/WST 347 - Women and Politics

Wednesdays 6:30-9:20pm - Saadet Konak Unal

Analysis of the role of women in current American politics -- their electoral participation, office seeking, and political beliefs -- and policy issues that have special relevance to women. The course traces the history of American women's political involvement and the historical trajectory of gender-related policy from the mid-19th century to today. This course is offered as both POL 347 and WST 347.

PSY 347/WST 347 - Psychology of Women

Mon/Wed 11:00-12:20pm -Bonita London

The psychological impact of important physiological and sociological events and epochs in the lives of women; menstruation, female sexuality, marriage, childbirth, and menopause; women and mental health, mental illness and psychotherapy; the role of women in the field of psychology. This course is offered as both PSY 347 and WST 347.

SOC 340/WST 340 - Sociology of Human Reproduction

Wednesdays 6:30-9:20pm - Catherine Marrone

A study of the links between biological reproduction and the socioeconomic and cultural processes that affect and are affected by it. The history of the transition from high levels of fertility and mortality to low levels of both; different kinship, gender, and family systems around the world and their links to human reproduction; the value of children in different social contexts; and the social implications of new reproductive technologies. This course is offered as both SOC 340 and WST 340.

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