Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

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  • CAS WS 330: Transforming Life: Anthropology of New Medical Technologies
    Seminar anthropologically compares the role of science and medicine in society and troubles what is natural and moral, e.g., about gender, person hood, kinship, and community, using case studies of new reproductive technologies in Asia, the Middle East, and North America. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Writing- Intensive Course.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS WS 335: Sociology of Race, Class & Gender
    No one of us is one thing, one identity, nor motivated by one singular interest, nor privileged or subjugated by one singular form of power, but how do those multiple forms of ourselves affect how we are advantaged, disadvantaged, viewed, and understood by the social world? Our social world, is, by default, a vast web of social intersections between and across groups with shared, overlapping, and conflicting identities. Race, class and gender affect nearly all of our lived experiences and greatly complicate and nuance concepts of diversity and difference. Also offered as CAS AA 335 and CAS SO 335. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, The Individual in Community, Historical Consciousness.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • The Individual in Community
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • CAS WS 340: Women, Race, and Gender in Mass Media
    Develops students' media literacy through hands-on analysis of media and pop culture representations of women, femininity, and race; their relation to women's lived experience; and the place of "feminine" values in contemporary culture.
  • CAS WS 346: Women and Film
    Study of principally American films, exploring how the medium has shaped and been shaped by cultural perceptions of women. Readings provide background for interpretation of films ranging from screwball comedy to film noir, "women's films," and films by women directors. Also offered as CAS CI 373.
  • CAS WS 347: Feminist Inquiry
    A survey of feminist theories and development of strands of feminist inquiry in the academy, movements, and politics. Considers the commonalities and contrast in gender relations across cultures and tensions between major feminist schools of thought.
  • CAS WS 350: Women and Politics
    Readings, discussion, and field research on issues of women's relationship to the processes of political influence, change, and empowerment. Analysis of public policy related to women and children. Also offered as CAS PO 309.
  • CAS WS 352: American Masculinities
    Considers the biological and social organization of masculinities; the ways culture reproduces/articulates masculinities, particularly with regard to race and class; how masculine identities are expressed; male privilege; alternative masculinities; and what is at stake in negotiating contemporary masculinities. Also offered as CAS SO 352.
  • CAS WS 356: Women and Comedy in America
    Considers how comedy is marked by gender and allows women to defy the expectations of femininity and transmute aggression into humor; what women find funny; and how women use the power of humor for survival, resistance, subversion, and truth-telling.
  • CAS WS 375: Growing Up in Korea
    Examining memoirs, prose fiction, film, television dramas, and graphic narratives to ask: how have the conventions of Korean coming-of-age narratives evolved? What does this say about changes in Korean identity? What roles have gender and sexuality played in Korean stories of growing up? Also offered as CAS LK 375 A1. Effective Spring 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • CAS WS 380: Gender and Identity in Contemporary Middle Eastern Film
    An exploration of representations of gender and identity in contemporary Middle Eastern films by male and female directors reflecting on the impact of modernization, globalization, war and trauma through different visual genres. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Digital/Multimedia Expression.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • CAS WS 393: Technoculture and Horizons of Gender and Race
    Explores new media theory, postmodernist thought, social media, and video games to confront gender, race, and sexuality. Through critical reading, writing, and hands-on digital technology use, students consider how race, sexuality, and gender live in virtual worlds. Also offered as CAS EN 393. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Digital/Multimedia Expression.
    • The Individual in Community
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • CAS WS 396: Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality
    Analyzes notions of gender and sexuality. Questions include: Are gender and sexual identity natural, or are they social constructions? How are they related to love and desire? Also offered as CAS PH 256 and CAS PO 396. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings, The Individual in Community, Critical Thinking.
    • Philosophical Inquiry and Life's Meanings
    • The Individual in Community
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS WS 403: Seminar: Gender Stratification
    Considers how the social production of gender contributes to various forms of gendered inequalities in employment, the family, dating markets, media representation, etc., with a special emphasis on how race, class, sexuality, and disability mediate the process. Also offered as CAS SO 403.
  • CAS WS 405: Topics in Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
    May be repeated for credit as topics change.
  • CAS WS 420: Queer Theory
    Surveys major texts and arguments in queer theory from Butler's Gender Trouble to contemporary discussions of cisnormativity, homonationalism, affect, pinkwashing, crip theory, and queer-of-color critique. Explores different uses of queer theory in legal debates, literary analysis, and cultural criticism.
  • CAS WS 425: Seminar: Sex and the City
    Sex and the City explores the relationship between sexualities and place. Taking us from big city "gayborhoods" to rural hamlets, the course considers how sexual identities and behaviors interact with place ecologies and processes, from gentrification to suburbanization.
  • CAS WS 430: Global Maternal & Child Health
    Provides a global perspective on maternal and child health. Major topics include early life influences on later life health, maternity care practices worldwide, and the role of both human evolutionary history and sociopolitical structures in shaping health outcomes for women and children.
  • CAS WS 431: Seminar: Genders, Sexualities, and Youth Cultures
    Investigates the social construction of gender and sexuality in adolescence. Engaging critical approaches to youth cultures, the course examines the structural conditions that shape gender and sexuality norms, and the ways youth navigate and redefine their social worlds.
  • CAS WS 434: Monarchy in Modern Britain
    A seminar probing seminal moments in the history of modern British sovereignty, when the politics of the court intersected with the politics of the people. Particular consideration is given to how monarchy has survived as an institution. Also offered as CAS HI 434. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS WS 450: Internships: Women, Gender, and Social Change
    A seminar which introduces students to the practices/ideas of social change organizations through local internships and weekly discussions related to class, race, sexuality, women and gender.

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