Gender and Women's Studies
College of Letters and Science
Department Office: 608 Barrows, (510) 642-2767
Chair: Juana Maria Rodriguez, PhD
Department Website: Gender and Women's Studies
Overview
The Department of Gender and Women's Studies offers interdisciplinary perspectives on the formation of gender and its intersections with other relations of power, such as sexuality, race, class, nationality, religion, and age. Questions are addressed within the context of a transnational world and from perspectives as diverse as history, sociology, literary and cultural studies, postcolonial theory, science, new technology, and art.
The undergraduate program is designed to introduce students to gender and women's studies, focusing on gender as a category of analysis and on the workings of power in social and historical life. The department offers an introduction to feminist theory as well as more advanced courses that seek to expand capacities for critical reflection and analysis and to engage students with varied approaches to feminist scholarship. The curriculum draws students into interdisciplinary analysis of specific gender practices in areas such as feminism in a transnational world, the politics of representation, feminist science studies, women and work, women and film, gender and health, and the politics of childhood.
The department offers an undergraduate major and minor. It also houses an undergraduate minor in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) studies, a program whose courses overlap productively with feminist and gender studies. Faculty in the department collaborate with an extensive group of extended faculty through the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality, which provides graduate students across campus with a site for transdisciplinary learning and teaching. The department is now in the process of developing a PhD program in Transnational Studies of Women and Gender. The department fosters connections with scholars in feminist and sexuality studies throughout the campus by cross-listing courses, collaborating in research, and participating in the Gender Consortium, which links research and teaching units that focus on gender.
Major Requirements
Prerequisites
To declare the gender and women's studies major, students must have completed GWS 10 and GWS 20 and have a minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.0.
Upper Division Requirements
The requirements for a gender and women's studies major consist of a minimum of eight upper division courses on gender and women's issues (30-32 units) distributed as follows:
- Core courses (20 units): 101, Doing Feminist Research; 102, Transnational Feminisms; 103, Identities Across Difference; 104, Feminist Theory; 195, Senior Seminar.
- Electives (10-12 units): Three electives, at least one in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies; the other two may be fulfilled by classes offered by other departments that are listed in Courses on Gender and Women, published each semester by the Department of Gender and Women's Studies.
Honors Program
To be eligible for the GWS Honors Program (GWS H195), students must have an overall 3.3 GPA, a 3.5 GPA in the major, and receive an A in GWS 195.
To receive honors in GWS, students must have a 3.6 for honors, a 3.8 for high honors, or a 3.9 for highest honors. In addition, the student must receive a minimum of an A- in GWS H195.
Minor Requirements
Gender and Women's Studies
Students in the College of Letters and Science may complete one or more minors of their choice, normally in a field both academically and administratively distinct from their major. To be admitted to the minor in gender and women's studies, students must complete GWS 10. Minors in gender and women's studies must complete five upper division courses as follows: any three of the core courses (GWS 101, 102, 103, 104) plus two electives in gender and women's studies. A minimum GPA of 2.0 is required for the minor program.
LGBT Studies
LGBT Studies works to establish sexuality as a crucial category of analysis in the humanities and social sciences. It draws on disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, psychology, history, literature, and cultural studies, in order to document the extent to which sexuality itself is a complex cultural and historical phenomenon that bears careful examination. Just as Women's Studies, for instance, is not only by, about, and for women, LGBT Studies is not only by, about, or for lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trangendered people, but includes all humanity in its purview.
This minor is organized around four core courses: an introductory overview of LGBT culture and history in the US; a visual and literary studies course; a cross-cultural studies course; and a history of sexuality course. In addition to these core courses, students are required to take two electives, which are approved each year by the director and posted online. Teaching is largely done by about 12 ladder-rank faculty.
Prerequisites for Nonmajors and Minors
Students who are not majoring or minoring in gender and women's studies but wish to take gender and women's studies core courses (101, 102, 103, and 104) must take GWS 10, GWS 20, or their equivalent beforehand.
Graduate Program: Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality
PhD students at Berkeley may add a Designated Emphasis (DE) in Women, Gender, and Sexuality (DEWGS) to their major fields. Designed to enhance interdisciplinary graduate studies at Berkeley, the DEWGS provides curricular and research resources and opportunities to students who are already admitted to graduate degree programs on campus.
The designated emphasis program was developed to accommodate some of the many students who conduct graduate-level research in related topics across numerous fields. Administered by the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, the designated emphasis program provides its students with certification as well as with a context for the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and development of research.
Applicants will be selected according to their academic qualifications, the appropriateness of their interests to the program's teaching resources, and the enrollment capacity of its graduate seminars. To be admitted to the program, applicants must already be accepted into an existing PhD program at Berkeley (master’s students and students at other institutions are not eligible). Graduate students should apply in their third semester for admission to the program in their fourth semester. Students must apply before completing their qualifying examinations.
Students admitted to the designated emphasis program will be enrolled in the required introductory seminar (GWS 200) offered each spring. Students must fulfill the following requirements before completion of the degree: The introductory seminar (GWS 200), an elective seminar (GWS 210), and a dissertation research seminar (GWS 220). A member of the Department of Gender and Women's Studies or it's Affiliated Faculty must be on the qualifying examination committee; a topic on women/gender/sexuality must be on the qualifying examination, and a member of the department or Affiliated Faculty must be on the dissertation committee.
For more detailed information concerning this program, students should consult the department.
Further Information
For further information, see the online Schedule of Classes and the department's course descriptions issued before the start of each semester. The department publication, Courses on Gender and Women, provides detailed, up-to-date information about courses offered by the Department of Gender and Women's Studies.
For further information about the department, events, and links to other sites of interest, please see the department website.
Gender and Women's Studies
GWS N1B Reading and Composition 3 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 6 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 8 weeks. 8 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 6 weeks.
Training and instruction in expository writing in conjunction with reading literature. The readings and assignments will focus on themes and issues in women's studies.
Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement
Formerly known as Women's Studies N1B.
GWS R1B Reading and Composition 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks.
Training and instruction in expository writing in conjunction with reading literature. The readings and assignments will focus on themes and issues in gender and women's studies. This course satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement.
Satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement
Formerly known as Women's Studies R1B.
GWS 10 Introduction to Gender and Women's Studies 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 4 hours of lecture/discussion per week. 7.5 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 8 weeks.
Introduction to questions and concepts in gender and women's studies. Critical study of the formation of gender and its intersections with other relations of power, such as sexuality, racialization, class, religion, and age. Questions will be addressed within the context of a transnational world. Emphasis of the course will change depending on the instructor.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 10.
GWS 14 Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Global Political Issues 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture per week.
The production of gender, sexuality, and processes of racialization in contemporary global political issues. Topics and geographical foci may vary. Examples: the post-9-11 situation in the U.S. and U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Hindu-Muslim conflict in India; the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; the Israel/Palestine situation; global right-wing movements; state and social movement terrorisms and transnational "security" measures.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 14.
GWS 20 Introduction to Feminist Theory 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 4 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Why study theory? How, and from where, does the desire to theorize gender emerge? What does theory do? What forms does theory take? What is the relationship between theory and social movements? This course will introduce students to one of the most exciting and dynamic areas of contemporary inquiry.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 20.
GWS 24 Freshman Seminars 1 Unit
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: The grading option will be decided by the instructor when the class is offered.
Hours and format: 1 hour of seminar per week. 1.5 hours of seminar per week for 10 weeks. 2 hours of seminar per week for 8 weeks.
The Freshman and Sophomore Seminars program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small-seminar setting. Freshman seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to fifteen freshmen.
Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 24.
GWS 40 Special Topics 3 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
The findings of feminist scholarship as they apply to a particular problem, field, or existing discipline. Designed primarily for lower division students and non-majors. Topics vary from semester to semester. Students should consult the Women's Studies announcement of courses for specific semester topics.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 40.
GWS 50AC Gender in American Culture 3 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks. 7.5 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
A multi-disciplinary course designed to provide students with an opportunity to work with faculty investigating the topic gender in American culture.
Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 50AC.
GWS 97 Internship 2 - 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: Individual conferences and 10 hours of internship required per week. Individual conferences and 10 hours of internship per week for 6, 8, and 10 weeks.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
Internship Program: Field work in an organization concerned with women's issues plus individual conferences with faculty. Students must present a written scope of work to the supervising faculty members before enrolling. Credit earned depends on the amount of written work completed by students that interprets the experience through diaries, historical reports, and creative work done for the organization. Faculty supervisor and student must agree on assignments.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
GWS 98 Directed Group Study for Undergraduates 1 - 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: 1 to 4 hour of Directed group study per week for 15 weeks.
Seminars for the group study of selected topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses. Topics will vary from year to year.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Enrollment is restricted; see the Introduction to Courses and Curricula section of this catalog. Formerly known as Women's Studies 98.
GWS 99 Supervised Independent Study and Research 1 - 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: 3 to 12 hours of tutorial or fieldwork per week.
Prerequisites: Freshmen or sophomores only.
Individual research by lower division students only.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 99.
GWS 100AC Women in American Culture 3 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks. 7.5 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
This course is designed to provide students with an opportunity to work with faculty investigating the topic women in American culture.
Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
Formerly known as Women's Studies 100AC.
GWS 101 Doing Feminist Research 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Prerequisites: 10 and 20.
In this course, students will learn to do feminist research using techniques from the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The teaching of interdisciplinary research skills will focus on practices of gender in a particular domain such as labor, love, science, aesthetics, film, religion, politics, or kinship. Topics will vary depending on the instructor.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 101.
GWS 102 Transnational Feminism 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 4 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
An overview of transnational feminist theories and practices, which address the workings of power that shape our world, and women's practices of resistance within and beyond the U.S. The course engages with genealogies of transnational feminist theories, including analyses of women, gender, sexuality, "race," racism, ethnicity, class, nation; postcoloniality; international relations; post-"development"; globalization; area studies; and cultural studies.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 102.
GWS 103 Identities Across Difference 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Fall
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 4 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Prerequisites: 10.
The course studies identity as a product of articulation and investigation of self and other, rather than an inherited marking. Emphasis, for example, may be placed on the complexities of the lived experiences of women of color in the United States and in diverse parts of the world.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 103.
GWS 104 Feminist Theory 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Prerequisites: 10 and 20.
Feminist theory examines the basic categories that structure social life and that condition dominant modes of thought. Feminist theory engages with many currents of thought such as liberalism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, and transnational feminist theory. In this course, students will gain a working knowledge of the range and uses of feminist theory.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 104.
GWS 111 Special Topics 1 - 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 1 to 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course is designed to provide students with an opportunity to work closely with Gender and Women's Studies faculty, investigating a topic of mutual interest in great depth. Emphasis in on student discussion and collaboration. Topics will vary from semester to semester. Number of units will vary depending on specific course, format, and requirements.
Course may be repeated for credit as topic varies. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 111.
GWS 115 Engaged Scholarship in Women and Gender 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 2 hours of lecture/discussion and 3 hours of internship per week. 5 hours of lecture/discussion and 5.5 hours of internship per week for 6 weeks.
This class provides students the opportunity to do supervised community service with an organization that relates to women and gender. Students will be placed in an organization and complete an internship throughout the course of the semester. Students will also spend time reflecting on their internship experiences, connecting their service with concepts learned in gender and women's studies classes, and meeting as a group to evaluate and assess issues such as volunteer/unpaid labor, activism and the academy, and the political economy of gender and women's services.
GWS 116AC Queer Theories: Activist Practices 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 2 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Internship per week for 15 weeks. 5 hours of Lecture and 2.5 hours of Internship per week for 6 weeks.
This class will examine various forms of activist practices and create possibilities for students to participate in community projects that allow them to explore their own definitions of activism, community engagement, and social transformation. As a class, we will consider different types of interventions -- art, law, advocacy, and direct action -- and examine the limits and possibilities of these different forms of social engagement.
Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
GWS 120 The History of American Women 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
This course will survey the history of women in the United States from approximately 1890 to the present, a century of dramatic and fundamental change in the meaning of gender difference. We will examine such topics as work, the family, sexuality, and politics and be attentive to variations in the structure and experience of gender based on race, ethnicity, and class.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 120.
GWS 125 Women and Film 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture and 2 hours of screening per week. 7.5 hours of lecture and 5 hours of screening per week for 6 weeks.
Prerequisites: 10 and 20.
This course explores the role of women both in front of and behind the camera. It examines the socially constructed nature of gender representations in film and analizes the position of women as related to the production and reception of films. Emphasis is on feminist aproaches that challenge and expose the underlying working of patriarchy in cinema.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 125.
GWS 126 Film, Feminism, and the Avant-Garde 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks. 7.5 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
Focusing on the creative process while engaging in critical debates on politics, ethics, and aesthetics, the course explores the site where feminist film-making practice meets with and challenges the avant-garde tradition. It emphasizes works that question conventional notions of subjectivity, audience, and interpretation in relation to film making, film viewing, and the cinematic apparatus.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 126.
GWS 129 Bodies and Boundaries 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Examines gender and embodiment in interdisciplinary transnational perspective. The human body as both a source of pleasure and as a site of coercion, which expresses individuality and reflects social worlds. Looks at bodies as gendered, raced, disabled/able-bodied, young or old, rich or poor, fat or thin, commodity or inalienable. Considers masculinity, women's bodies, sexuality, sports, clothing, bodies constrained, in leisure, at work, in nation-building, at war, and as feminist theory.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 129.
GWS 130AC Gender, Race, Nation, and Health 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
Examines the role of gender in health care status, in definitions and experiences of health, and in practices of medicine. Feminist perspectives on health care disparities, the medicalization of society, and transnational processes relating to health. Gender will be considered in dynamic interaction with race, ethnicity, sexuality, immigration status, religion, nation, age, and disability, and in both urban and rural settings.
Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as 130.
GWS 133AC Women, Men, and Other Animals: Human Animality in American Cultures 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Explores various ways that human groups and interests, particularly in the United States, have both attached and divorced themselves from other animals, with particular focus on gender, race, ability, and sexuality as the definitional foils for human engagements with animality.
Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
GWS 134 Gender and the Politics of Childhood 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks. 7.5 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
Explores gender and age as interrelated dimensions of social structure, meaning, identity, and embodiment. Emphasis on the gendered politics of childhood--for example, in the social regulation of reproduction; child-rearing, motherhood, fatherhood, care, and rights; the changing global political economy of childhoods and varied constructions of "the child"; child laborers, soldiers, street children; consumption by and for children; growing up in schools, neighborhoods, and families.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 134.
GWS 139 Women and Work 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course uses gender as a lens to examine the nature, meaning, and organization of women's work. Students learn varied conceptual approaches with which to probe such issues as gender divisions of labor, the economic significance of caring and other forms of unpaid labor, earnings disparities between men and women, race and class differences in women's work, transnational labor immigration, and worker resistance and organizing.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 139.
GWS 140 Feminist Cultural Studies 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of feminist cultural studies. Drawing upon contemporary theories of representational politics, the specific focus of the course will vary, but the emphasis will remain on the intersections of gender, race, nation, sexuality, and class in particular cultural and critical practices.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 140.
GWS 141 Interrogating Global Economic "Development" 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
An introduction to women and gender in "development." Addresses theories of "development" (modernization, demographic transition, dependency, world systems, post-development, postcolonial, and transnational feminist): productions and representations of "underdevelopment"; national and international "development" apparatuses; "development" practices about labor, population, resources, environment, literacy, technologies, media; and women's resistance and alternatives.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 141.
GWS 142 Women in the Muslim and Arab Worlds 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
Examines differences and similarities in women's lives in the Muslim/Arab worlds, including diasporas in Europe and North America. Analysis of issues of gender in relation to "race," ethnicity, nation, religion, and culture.
GWS 143 Women, Proverty, and Globalization 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course examines new patterns of inequality as they relate to the feminization of poverty in a global and transnational context. It will give students the opportunity to enhance their critical knowledge of new forms of globalization and their impact on the least-privileged group of women locally and globally. It also provides an opportunity for students to work with a local or global non-governmental or community organization with a focus on gender and poverty, and to engage in a systematic analysis of the strategies and practices of these organizations.
GWS 144 Alternate Sexualities in a Transnational World 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course engages with contemporary narrations produced by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual postcolonial subjects through genres such as autobiography, fiction, academic writing, film, journalism, and poetry. Each semester the focus is geopolitically limited to no more than two countries to allow students to consider the conditions out of which the narrations are produced. Sites and subjects may vary from semester to semester.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 144.
GWS C146A/LGBT C146A Cultural Representations of Sexualities: Queer Literary Culture 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course examines modern literary cultures that construct ways of seeing diverse sexualities. Considering Western conventions of representation during the modern period, we will investigate the social forces and institutions that would be necessary to sustain a newly imagined or re-imagined sexual identity across time.
GWS C146B/LGBT C146B Cultural Representations of Sexualities: Queer Visual Culture 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course examines modern visual cultures that construct ways of seeing diverse sexualities. Considering Western conventions of representation during the modern period, we will investigate film, television, and video. How and when do "normative" and "queer" sexualities become visually defined?
Formerly known as Women's Studies C146.
GWS 155 Gender and Transnational Migration 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of lecture/discussion per week for 6 weeks.3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
What economic, social, and cultural forces impel women to migrate and shape their experiences as immigrants? How does gender, together with race/ethnicity and class, affect processes of settlement, community building, and incorporation into labor markets? This course examines gender structures and relations as they are reconfigured and maintained through immigration. It emphasizes the agency of immigrant women as they cope with change and claim their rights as citizens.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 155.
GWS 195 Gender and Women's Studies Senior Seminar 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Term course may be offered: Fall
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: 101.
This seminar is required for all seniors majoring in gender and women's studies. The goal of the course is for students to produce a research paper of 25-30 pages that reflects feminist methods, interpretations, or analysis.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 195.
GWS H195 Gender and Women's Studies Senior Honors Thesis 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: Individual conferences.
Prerequisites: 15 upper division units in Gender and Women's Studies; 3.3 GPA in all University work and 3.3 GPA in courses in the major.
Entails writing a bachelor's honors thesis pertaining to the student's major in gender and women's studies. Each student will work under the guidance of a faculty adviser who will read and grade the thesis.
Formerly known as Women's Studies H195.
GWS C196A/HISTART C196A/HISTORY C196A/MEDIAST C196A/POL SCI C196A/POLECON C196A/SOCIOL C196A/UGIS C196A UCDC Core Seminar 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; History; History of Art; Media Studies; Political Economy; Political Science; Sociology; Undergrad Interdisciplinary Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 4.5 hours of Lecture and 1.5 hours of Discussion per week for 10 weeks.
Prerequisites: C196B (must be taken concurrently).
This course is the UCDC letter-graded core seminar for 4 units that complements the P/NP credited internship course UGIS C196B. Core seminars are designed to enhance the experience of and provide an intellectual framework for the student's internship. UCDC core seminars are taught in sections that cover various tracks such as the Congress, media, bureaucratic organizations and the Executive Branch, international relations, public policy and general un-themed original research.
Instructor: Cain
GWS C196B/HISTART C196B/HISTORY C196B/MEDIAST C196B/POL SCI C196B/POLECON C196B/SOCIOL C196B/UGIS C196B UCDC Internship 6.5 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; History; History of Art; Media Studies; Political Economy; Political Science; Sociology; Undergrad Interdisciplinary Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: 20-4 to Thirty hours of Internship per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: C196A (must be taken concurrently).
This course provides a credited internship for all students enrolled in the UCDC and Cal in the Capital Programs. It must be taken in conjunction with the required academic core course C196A. C196B requires that students work 3-4 days per week as interns in settings selected to provide them with exposure to and experienc in government, public policy, international affairs, media, the arts or other areas or relevance to their major fields of study.
Instructor: Cain
GWS C196W/HISTART C196W/HISTORY C196W/MEDIAST C196W/POL SCI C196W/POLECON C196W/SOCIOL C196W/UGIS C196W Special Field Research 10.5 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; History; History of Art; Media Studies; Political Economy; Political Science; Sociology; Undergrad Interdisciplinary Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 240-300 hours of work per semester plus regular meetings with the faculty supervisor.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
Students work in selected internship programs approved in advance by the faculty coordinator and for which written contracts have been established between the sponsoring organization and the student. Students will be expected to produce two progress reports for their faculty coordinator during the course of the internship, as well as a final paper for the course consisting of at least 35 pages. Other restrictions apply; see faculty adviser.
Course may be repeated for a maximum of 12 units.Course may be repeated for a maximum of 12 units. Formerly known as 196W.
GWS 197 Internship 2 - 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: Individual conferences and 10 hours of internship required per week. Individual conferences and 10 hours of internship per week for 6, 8, and 10 weeks.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
Internship Program: Field work in an organization concerned with women's issues plus individual conferences with faculty. Students must present a written scope of work to the supervising faculty members before enrolling. Credit earned depends on the amount of written work completed by students that interprets the experience through diaries, historical reports, and creative work done for the organization. Faculty supervisor and student must agree on assignments.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 197.
GWS 198 Directed Group Study for Advanced Undergraduates 1 - 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: 1 to 4 hour of Directed group study per week for 15 weeks. 1 to 4 hour of Directed group study per week for 8 weeks.
Prerequisites: Gender and women's studies major.
Seminars for group study of selected topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses. Topics will vary from year to year.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 198.
GWS 199 Supervised Independent Study for Advanced Undergraduates 1 - 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: Zero hours of Independent study per week for 15 weeks. 1 to 4 hour of Independent study per week for 8 weeks. 1 to 5 hour of Independent study per week for 6 weeks.
Prerequisites: Gender and women's studies major.
Reading and conference with the instructor in a field that does not coincide with that of any regular course and is specific enough to enable students to write an essay based upon their studies.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 199.
GWS 200 Theory and Critical Research 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 2 to 3 hours of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor, 104, or the equivalent.
This course will provide an opportunity for the examination of diverse feminist theories produced in different disciplines and across disciplines. The course will ground contemporary philosophical and theoretical developments in the study of gender to specific histories of class, race, ethnicity, nation, and sexuality. Participants in the class will be urged to draw upon their own disciplinary and interdisciplinary backgrounds and interests to produce multifaceted analyses of how feminist theory has acted to delimit the study of women in some instances as well as how it may be used critically and imaginatively to open the field in complex and dynamic ways. Graduate students research and write a substantial (25-50 page) paper for the course. They will also participate in organizing and leading class discussion on a rotating basis.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 200.
GWS 210 Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: 104 or equivalent and consent of instructor.
A cross-disciplinary examination of specific problems in the study of gender, women, and sexuality. Topics will vary; for example, representations of motherhood, women in the public sphere, work and gender, globalization of gender, and the history of sexuality.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 210.
GWS 220 Research Seminar 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: Open to graduate students advanced to Ph.D. candidacy.
Members of the seminar will present their ongoing dissertation research and mutually explore the interdisciplinary dimensions and implications of their work.
Formerly known as Women's Studies 220.
GWS 230 Transnational Feminist Theories 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
The aim of this course is to provide graduate students with an understanding of transnational feminist theories so that they may more effectively engage with this area of scholarship, but moreover so that they may critically and creatively contribute to it through their own writing.
GWS 231 Proseminar in Transnational Gender and Women's Studies 1 Unit
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Offered for satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade only.
Hours and format: 1 hour of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
Designed to encourage dialogue around themes related to transnational gender and women's studies, this proseminar is organized around colloquia, panels, and conferences sponsored by the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, the Beatrice Bain Research Group, the Center for Race and Gender, the Center for the Study of Sexual Cultures, and (as relevant) other campus units.
GWS 232 Transnational Feminist Approaches to Knowledge Production 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
This course focuses on incorporating the analytic power of transnational feminist studies in academic reserch projects and practices. It examines the ways in which interdisciplinary and transnational approaches to gender and wormen replicate, challenge, reconfigure, and transform the emergence of new knowledge frames, analytics, and research practices. Students in this course will explore these and other questions in the context of their own research projects.
GWS 236 Diaspora, Border, and Transnational Identities 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
This course will study debates around the notions of home, location, migrancy, mobility, and dislocation by focusing on issues of gender and sexuality. We will examine the ways in which various cultural flows have fundamentally challenged and changed the nature of global economy by expanding mobility of capital, labor, and systems of representations in a transnational context. We will also look at the impact of new technologies in production, distribution, communication, and circulation of cultural meanings and social identites by linking nationalism, immigration, diaspora, and globalization to the process of subject formation in a postcolonial context.
GWS 237 Transnational Science, Technology, and New Media 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks.
This is a core class of the new Ph.D in Transnational Gender and Women's Studies. It will expose students to critical thinking about science, technology, and new media. The class explores intersections of gender and women's studies with science, technology, engineering, medicine, and new media around the world; including women in science; transnational feminist science and technology studies; technologies of reproduction, production and destruction; divisions of scientific and technical labor; embodiment and subjectivity; digital divides, digital consumption, embodiment, and circulation; modernist projects of categorization; and the making and breaking of gendered bodies. It mixes secondary sources with primary sources, and among the primary sources, mixes scientific and technical documents with new media and the arts.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
GWS 238 Feminist Bio-Politics 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
This course is divided into three sections, Theorists and Methods, The Sciences of Life, and Bio-and-Necro-politics, and within each section there are further thematic headings. The course serves both to introduce graduate students to science and technology studies and to introduce new works and directions in the field. The syllabus foregrounds the life and biomedical sciences, and thematizes space and trans-place, time and genealogy, disciplines and inter-disciplines, method and/as theory, identity and governance, ethics and objectivity, knowledge and stratification, security and transparency.
GWS 250 Queer Translation 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
This seminar aims for both a familiarization and a potential reworking of selected contemporary debates in queer theory: those concerning migration, race, globalization, and movements of theory. How do queer theories, queer theories-as-practice, queer practices travel? Furthermore, do critiques of stability found in queer theory invite presumptions of mobility? We will interrogate the shadow of "mobility" in queer theory by considering queer tourism, gender identity, sub-class labor migration, and the outer zones of citizenship.
GWS 299 Individual Study and Research 1 - 9 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies
Course level: Graduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: Regular meetings to be arranged with instructor.
Prerequisites: Consent of instructor.
For students engaged in individual research and study. May not be substituted for available graduate lecture courses.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Formerly known as Women's Studies 299.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies
LGBT 20AC Alternative Sexual Identities and Communities in Contemporary American Society 4 Units
Department: Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion per week. 7 hours of lecture and 3 hours of discussion per week for 6 weeks.
An introduction to varied dimensions of alternative sexual identities in the contemporary United States, with a focus ranging from individuals to communities. This course will use historical, sociological, ethnographic, political-scientific, psychological, psychoanalytical, legal, medical, literary, and filmic materials to chart trends and movements from the turn of the century to the present.
Satisfies the American Cultures requirement
Students will receive no credit for 20AC after taking Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies 20AC.
LGBT 98 Directed Group Study for Advanced Undergraduates 1 - 4 Units
Department: Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: Gender and women's studies major.
Seminars for group study of selected topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses. Topics will vary from year to year.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Enrollment is restricted; see the Introduction to Courses and Curricula section of this catalog.
LGBT 100 Special Topics 4 Units
Department: Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 1 to 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course is designed to provide students with an opportunity to work closely with LGBT faculty, investigating a topic of mutual interest in great depth. Emphasis in on student discussion and collaboration. Topics will vary from semester to semester. Number of units will vary depending on specific course, format, and requirements.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes.
LGBT 145 Interpreting the Queer Past: Methods and Problems in the History of Sexuality 4 Units
Department: Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course examines interpretive issues in studying the history of sexuality and the formation of sexual identities and communities. Considering primary documents, secondary literature, and theoretical essays, we investigate specific historiographical concerns and raise questions about historical methodology and practice.
Formerly known as Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies C145.
LGBT 146 Cultural Representations of Sexuality 4 Units
Department: Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 7.5 hours of lecture and discussion per week for 6 weeks.
This course will draw upon a wide range of critical theory, film, music, literature, popular culture, ethnography, theater, and visual art to explore the relationship between cultural forms of representation and individual and collective forms of expression. Central questions for mutual consideration will include: Who/what constitutes the subject of queer cultural production? How are queer theories relevant (or irrelevant) to queer cultural and political practices?
LGBT C146A/GWS C146A Cultural Representations of Sexualities: Queer Literary Culture 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course examines modern literary cultures that construct ways of seeing diverse sexualities. Considering Western conventions of representation during the modern period, we will investigate the social forces and institutions that would be necessary to sustain a newly imagined or re-imagined sexual identity across time.
LGBT C146B/GWS C146B Cultural Representations of Sexualities: Queer Visual Culture 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall, spring and summer
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of lecture/discussion per week.
This course examines modern visual cultures that construct ways of seeing diverse sexualities. Considering Western conventions of representation during the modern period, we will investigate film, television, and video. How and when do "normative" and "queer" sexualities become visually defined?
Formerly known as Women's Studies C146.
LGBT C147B/ANTHRO C147B Sexuality, Culture, and Colonialism 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; Anthropology; Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture per week for 15 weeks. 6 hours of Lecture per week for 8 weeks. 8 hours of Lecture per week for 6 weeks.
Prerequisites: 3 or Sociology 3.
An introduction to social theory and ethnographic methodology in the cross-cultural study of sexuality, particularly sexual orientation and gender identity. The course will stress the relationships between culture, international and local political economy, and the representation and experience of what we will provisionally call homosexual and transgendered desires or identities.
LGBT C148/ETH STD C126 Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality 4 Units
Department: Gender and Women's Studies; Ethnic Studies; Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Letter grade.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 15 weeks. 3 hours of Lecture and 1 hour of Discussion per week for 8 weeks.
Course focuses on the production of sexualities, sexual identification, and gender differentiation across multiple discourses and locations.
Formerly known as 126.
LGBT 198 Directed Group Study for Advanced Undergraduates 1 - 4 Units
Department: Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender St
Course level: Undergraduate
Terms course may be offered: Fall and spring
Grading: Offered for pass/not pass grade only.
Hours and format: 3 hours of Seminar per week for 15 weeks.
Prerequisites: Gender and women's studies major.
Seminars for group study of selected topics not covered by regularly scheduled courses. Topics will vary from year to year.
Course may be repeated for credit. Course may be repeated for credit when topic changes. Enrollment is restricted; see the Introduction to Courses and Curricula section of this catalog.
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