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Courses

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

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  • CAS WS 284: Women in Russian Literature: Past and Present
    Learn about literature by women and about women written in Russian. Understand the differences between Russian and Russophone. Reflect on the role of history, society and gender in literary production. Readings include Russian-speaking authors past and present. Effective Spring 2026, this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU Hub areas: Creativity/Innovation, Social Inquiry 1, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS WS 297: African American Women's History
    Survey of African American women's history from the slave trade to the present, investigating its critical role in shaping the meaning of race, gender, and sexuality during slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights era. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Digital/Multimedia Expression, Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS WS 304: WGS Topics in Global and Transnational Studies
    Topics in women's, gender, and sexuality studies relevant to global and transnational studies. May be repeated for credit as topics change.
  • CAS WS 305: Topics in Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
    May be repeated for credit if topics are different.
  • CAS WS 309: The Politics of Gender and Identity in the US
    This course explores the complexities of gender and sexuality in American Politics, with a focus on how gender anxieties are reflected within nationalist and populist discourses throughout the Trump era. Effective Spring 2026, this course fulfills a single requirement in the following BU HUB area: Ethical Reasoning.
    • Ethical Reasoning
  • CAS WS 317: Gender and Crime
    Examines social forces shaping gender discrepancies in crime. Using a feminist lens, students explore how cultural ideologies about masculinity and femininity shape criminalization, victimization, and offending. Topics include the gendered contexts of crime and punishment, gender-based violence, and intimate labor. Effective Spring 2023 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, The Individual in Community, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • The Individual in Community
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS WS 319: Disability and Queerness in Speculative Fiction
    This course examines how LGBTQ2IA speculative fiction engages with disability and other intersecting frameworks of difference to present alternate, parallel, or invented worlds. This course provides opportunities for students to strengthen ethical reasoning, cultural analysis, and aesthetic exploration. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Ethical Reasoning.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Ethical Reasoning
  • CAS WS 325: Bombs and Bombshells: Gender, Armed Conflict, and Political Violence
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: sophomore, junior, or senior standing. - Delve into the world of Black Widows and Demon Lovers. Using empirical research, case studies, and drama, this course separates fact from fiction to examine gender and its intersections between recruitment, motivations, and conditions under which women behave violently. Effective Summer 2025 fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS WS 326: Arts of Gender
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: at least one prior literature course, or CASWS 101, or junior or senior standing. - Examines representations of gender and sexuality in diverse art forms, including drama, dance, film, and literature, and how art reflects historical constructions of gender. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, The Individual in Community.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • The Individual in Community
  • CAS WS 327: Immigrant Women in Literature: Found in Translation'
    This course explores literature about migration created by women primarily from Eastern Europe. We read autobiographical narratives that focus on the shaping of transcultural identity with an eye to the problem of translation as a linguistic, cultural, and personal phenomenon. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS WS 330: Transforming Life: Anthropology of Gender and Medical Technologies
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120); recommend CASAN 101 and AN 102 - 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. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, The Individual in Community, Writing-Intensive Course.
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS WS 333: Queering Health
    This course is about the unique physical and mental health needs, health disparities, and resiliency within the LGBTQ+ community. Students will learn about the psychology of sexual orientation and gender diversity, intersectionality in LGBTQ+ communities, gender identity and sexual orientation development models, queer families and relationships, minority stress, hetero/cis-sexism, and other relevant topics. Students will also learn about LGBTQ+ affirming therapies, healthcare, public policy, and legislation. This course will take a constructively critical lens to medicalized/pathologizing constructions of sexual and gender diversity and examine topics within historical and modern social context. This course will explore strategies for advocacy, improving the healthcare experience of LGBTQ+ people, and addressing barriers to accessing healthcare from local, national, and global perspectives. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Social Inquiry II.
    • The Individual in Community
    • Social Inquiry II
  • CAS WS 335: Sociology of Race, Class & Gender
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: At least one prior 100- or 200-level sociology course, or CAS WS 101/1 02. - 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. 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.
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Historical Consciousness
    • The Individual in Community
  • CAS WS 341: The Quran
    The emergence of the Quran as a major religious text, its structure and literary features, its principle themes and places within the religious and intellectual life of the Muslim community. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS WS 345: Shariah Law
    Shariah Law looks behind the stereotypes and headlines--despotic rulers, barbaric punishments, women's oppression--to understand the origins, history, and structure of Islamic law. Explores its implementation in various times and places, modern transformations, and contemporary debates over legal reform. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Ethical Reasoning, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS WS 347: Feminist Inquiry
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: sophomore, junior, or senior standing. - 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. Effective Fall 2024 fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Creativity/Innovation, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Social Inquiry I.
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS WS 375: Growing Up as Korean Women
    By exploring memoirs, autobiographies, prose fiction, poetry, films, and graphic novels by (broadly defined) Korean women, this course examines how Korean women’s narratives have evolved and what changes they have enabled. Effective Spring 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy. Effective Spring 2027, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU HUB areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • CAS WS 377: Gender and Sexuality in Judaism
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 100 or WR 120). - Explores the role of gender and sexuality in Judaism and Jewish experience, historically and in the present. Subjects include constructions of masculinity and femininity, attitudes toward (and uses of) the body and sexuality, gendered nature of religious practice and authority. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • 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 382: Women's Literary Cultures
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: one previous literature course or junior or senior standing. - Writings by women in diverse literary forms, including drama, poetry and prose. How does women's literary culture reflect historical constructions of gender and sexuality' How do writers engage with new literary forms, like the lyric, political treatise, or the novel' Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Aesthetic Exploration.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • The Individual in Community

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