Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program

The newly reconfigured women’s, gender, & sexuality studies program promotes interdisciplinary inquiry across the University, provides a site for collaborative research, and develops new pedagogical approaches to advance the field. Our work fosters understanding of the forces that shape our experiences as gendered and sexed human beings. We examine the social, political, and economic positions of women and men in diverse cultures and historical moments worldwide. We seek to understand the ways in which our bodies, social and cultural experiences, and imaginative constructions affect what it means to be women and men. Feminist theory, gender analysis, and queer theory help us understand how assumptions and beliefs about femininities, masculinities, and sexualities shape human institutions, including the science and scholarship that inform our understanding.

The program offers a variety of courses and an undergraduate minor, and sponsors public lectures, film screenings, and discussions. Boston University faculty interested in women’s, gender, & sexuality studies participate in a lively intellectual community as part of the Faculty Network on Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Interested graduate students from across Boston University take courses not only at BU but also through the Boston-area Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies (GCWS), to which we belong.

Program History

Our program began in the 1970s and emerged in the 1980s as the Boston University Women’s Studies Program, a site of intellectual inquiry and feminist consciousness-raising concerning women’s lives. At that time, studying women remedied newly recognized omissions across the academy. Beginning in the 1970s, the women’s studies faculty created a rich array of courses in the humanities and social sciences concerning women in diverse cultures, societies and institutions throughout the world. The field of women’s studies soon grew to include inquiry into the gendered experiences of men alongside the continuing study of women. Scholars began to problematize the very notion of sex as a biological given or social reality and focused concern on topics in sexuality that could not be reduced to concerns with gender. Current scholarship in the field examines the extent to which sexuality and gender have been linked together historically (through the recruitment of sexuality as the “performance” or “proof” of gender, for instance) as well as aspects of sexuality that are distinct from gender. This approach has led to important new insights, while also contributing to an understanding of how gender and sexuality intersect with other categories such as race and class. Our current program name, women’s, gender, & sexuality studies, makes it clear that Boston University is a place at which the study of sexuality is welcomed and encouraged, both in conjunction with and alongside the study of gender.

Minor in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

The interdisciplinary minor in women’s, gender, & sexuality studies introduces students to scholarship relating to women, gender, and sexuality in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, and enhances their understanding of traditional academic disciplines. In consultation with the directors of undergraduate studies, students develop a minor that is suited to their fields of interest and complements their major.

Students must complete six WS or other approved courses in women’s, gender, & sexuality studies with a grade of C or higher. Two of those six courses must be taken at the 300 level or higher. For students who declare the minor in or after September 2011, the six courses for the minor must include the two-course sequence WS 101/102 Gender and Sexuality: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. Students who declared the minor prior to September 2011 may substitute WS 113 and WS 114, if already taken, for WS 101/102. Neither WS 113 nor WS 114 can be taken for credit toward the minor in addition to WS 101/102. Currently there are over 50 courses from 14 departments or programs that provide credit toward the women’s, gender, & sexuality studies minor.

Consult departmental listings or the department director for women’s, gender, & sexuality studies courses in American & New England studies, anthropology, biology, classics, economics, English, history, history of art & architecture, modern languages and comparative literature, philosophy, psychology, religion, and sociology. Some women’s studies courses may be taught as departmental seminars. Courses offered by Metropolitan College or other University schools and colleges may be taken as electives with the permission of the director of undergraduate studies. Check departmental listings to ascertain that specific courses are being offered in the current year.

For further information, contact Professor Deborah Belle, director of women’s, gender, & sexuality studies, at 704 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 101.

Courses that may be selected for the minor include:

Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

• CAS WS 101 Gender and Sexuality I: An Interdisciplinary Introduction†
• CAS WS 102 Gender and Sexuality II: An Interdisciplinary Introduction†
• CAS WS 113 Women, Society, and Culture: Social Sciences†
• CAS WS 114 Women, Society, and Culture: Humanities†
• CAS WS 305 Critical Issues in Women’s Studies
• CAS WS 340 Women, Race, and Gender in Mass Media
• CAS WS 342 Law and Gender in the United States
• CAS WS 344 Images of Women in Popular Fiction
• CAS WS 346 Women and Film
• CAS WS 348 Gender and International Development
• CAS WS 350 Seminar: Women and Politics
• CAS WS 360 Global Feminism: Race and Gender in International Perspectives
• CAS WS 491, 492 Directed Study: Women’s and Gender Studies

Other courses (offered intermittently):

African American Studies

• CAS AA 304 Introduction to African American Women Writers (meets with CAS EN 370)
• CAS AA 504 African American and Asian American Women Writers (meets with CAS EN 371)
• CAS AA 588 Women, Power, and Culture in Africa (meets with CAS HI 588)

Anthropology

• CAS AN 260 Sex and Gender in Anthropological Perspective
• CAS AN 263 Behavioral Biology of Women
• CAS AN 290 Children and Culture
• CAS AN 305 Comparative Family Systems in Asia (meets with CAS SO 305)
• CAS AN 320 Women in the Muslim World
• CAS AN 344 Modern Japanese Society: Family, School, and Workplace
• CAS AN 505 Asian Development: The Case of Women
• CAS AN 519 Kinship
• CAS AN 554 Human Reproductive Ecology
• CAS AN 558 Human Sex Differences: Behavior, Biology, and Ecology

Archaeology

• CAS AR 262 Asian Gods and Goddesses

Biology

• CAS BI 442 Physiology and Biochemistry of Reproduction

Classics

• CAS CL 206 Women in Antiquity
• CAS CL 314 Women in Ancient Rome

English

• CAS EN 326 Voices of Women (meets with CAS WS 305)
• CAS EN 370 Introduction to African American Women Writers (meets with CAS AA 304)
• CAS EN 371 African American and Asian American Women Writers (meets with CAS AA 504)
• CAS EN 476 Critical Studies in Literature and Gender
• CAS EN 576 Studies in Literature and Gender

History

• CAS HI 216 Women and Gender in European History
• CAS HI 301 A History of Women in the United States
• CAS HI 425 Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe
• CAS HI 488 Life Histories of African Women
• CAS HI 588 Women, Power, and Culture in Africa (meets with AA 588)

Modern Languages & Comparative Literature

• CAS LC 284 Introduction to Chinese Women’s Writing (in English translation)
• CAS LJ 451 Topics in Japanese Literature
• CAS LJ 480 Japanese Women Writers (in English translation)
• CAS LL 381 Topics in Gender and Literature (in English translation) (meets with CAS WS 305)
• CAS LY 282 Qur’anic Negotiations: Contemporary Muslim Writers and The Holy Book (in English translation)
• CAS LY 283 Contemporary Arab Women Writers (in English translation)
• CAS XL 381 Topics in Gender and Literature (in English translation) (meets with CAS WS 305)

Philosophy

• CAS PH 256 Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality

Political Science

• CAS PO 342 Women and Politics (meets with CAS WS 350)

Psychology

• CAS PS 352 Women and the Life Cycle
• CAS PS 361 Racism, Sexism, and Prejudice
• CAS PS 370 Psychology of the Family
• CAS PS 472 Family Violence: Theories and Research
• CAS PS 552 Topics in Family Research
• CAS PS 572 Psychology of Women

Religion

• CAS RN 224 Women and Religion
• CAS RN 302 Early Christian Women
• CAS RN 337 Gender and Judaism
• CAS RN 413 Gender in Medieval Christian Mysticism
• CAS RN 435 Women, Gender, and Islam

Sociology

• CAS SO 205 The American Family
• CAS SO 240 Sexuality and Social Life
• CAS SO 241 Sociology of Gender
• CAS SO 403 Seminar: Gender Stratification
• CAS SO 404 Seminar: The Family
• CAS SO 420 Seminar: Women and Social Change in the Developing World