Fall Courses

Sarah Miller, Karen Warkentin, Tesla Cariani
T/R 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM

This course is the introduction to women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, that considers the origins, diversity, and expression of sex and gender. Topics include the evolutionary origin of sexes; evolution, development, and social construction of sex, gender, and sexuality; sexual difference, similarities and diversity in gendered bodies, brains, and behavior. This interdisciplinary introduction is the foundation for the minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, Scientific Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.

Cati Connell
T/R 5:0o PM – 6:15 PM

Introduction to sociological perspectives on sexuality. Historical and comparative analysis of sexuality, with a focus on the social and cultural institutions that shape sexuality in the contemporary U.S. Also offered as SO 240. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking, Digital/Multimedia Expression.

Paula Austin
MWF 10:10 AM – 11:00 AM

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. Also offered as CAS HI 297 and CAS AA 297.

Sarah Miller
R 3:30 PM – 6:15 PM

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. Also offered as SO 317, SO 617, and WS 617. Effective Spring 20223 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.

Tesla Cariani
T/R 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM

Instructor TBD
MWF 9:05 AM – 9:55 AM

Prereq: at least one prior literature course, or CAS WS 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. Topic for Fall 2023: Gendered Utopias, Gendered Dystopias. Is it possible to create spaces where women, non-binary and queer people, and other outsiders thrive, or do all paths lead inexorably to a dystopian future? Texts include non-fiction by Delany and Nelson and speculative fiction by Atwood and Butler. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, The Individual in Community.

TBD Instructor
M/W 2:30 PM – 3:20 PM

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. Also offered as AN 302. 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.

Saida Grundy
T 12:30 PM – 3:15 PM

Prereq: At least one prior 100- or 200-level sociology course, or CAS WS 101. 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.

Erin Murphy
MWF 10:10 AM – 11:00 AM

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? Also offered as EN 328. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Aesthetic Exploration.

Takeo Rivera
T/R 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM

Undergraduate Prerequisites: one previous literature course or junior or senior standing. – 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

Sean Desilets
T/R 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM

Prereq: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., WR 120). This course explores what happens to the “human” at the intersection of feminist theory and cinematic representation. How and why do films assign humanity to some figures and withhold it from others on the basis of race, gender, “ability,” etc.? Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Aesthetic Exploration.

Lida Maxwell
M/W 10:10 AM – 11:25 AM

Introduces students to key texts, problems, and debates in western feminist political theory. Students study major feminist thinkers, and explore diverse approaches to crucial topics in the field: such as “white feminism,” marriage, disability, sex, and pornography. Also offered as PO 398.

Shannon Peters
W 2:30 PM – 5:15 PM

Prereq: CAS WR 120; or equivalent. This course focuses on strengthening students’ knowledge, skills, and ability to construct a critical appraisal of all the determinants, distribution, causes, mechanisms, systems, and consequences of health inequities related to gender including how gender influences and is influenced by healthcare systems. Also offered as SAR HS 400 A1. Effective Summer 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Research and Information Literacy.

Danielle Rousseau
W 6:00 PM – 8:45 PM

This course engages the topics of sexual deviance and sexual trauma through multiple lens. These lenses include psychological, sociological, criminal justice, public health, and social justice perspectives. The course explores multiple facets of understanding sexual deviance and sexual trauma including legal and philosophical perspectives, historical activism, understanding and treatment of sexual offending, and survivor responses. The roles of multiple systems including the media, mental health organization and the criminal justice system are taken into account. This course includes ongoing group work that engages critical inquiry, addressing relevant topics in sexual trauma in practical ways. Students utilize knowledge of theory and research methodology to pursue real world responses to issues of sexual violence and trauma.

Petrus Liu
T 3:30 PM – 6:15 PM

Undergraduate prerequisites: two previous XL, WS, or PH courses; or consent of instructor. Graduate prerequisites: graduate standing. – An intensive study of Judith Butler’s philosophical thought and social theory from the 1990s to the present, with an emphasis on the continuities and discontinuities between Butler’s early work on gender performativity and more recent writings on racial justice, war, and violence. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Philosophical Inquiry and Life’s Meanings, The Individual in Community, and Critical Thinking.

Megan Elias
R 6:00 PM – 8:45 PM

In Food, Gender and Sexuality, we will explore ways in which language and behaviors around food both reinforce and challenge gender hierarchies and restrictive norms around sexuality. Using frameworks developed in gender and sexuality studies, we will interrogate our contemporary foodscape through close readings of many media, including food blogs, magazines, TV shows and advertisements. The course will include reading, research, field work, discussion, and cooking to help us understand why and how food has been gendered and how the process differs across place, time, and culture.