Fall Courses

Tesla Cariani
TR 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM

Cati Connell
T/R 5:00 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. 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.

Sandra McEvoy
R 3:30PM – 6:15 PM

Carrie Preston
M/W 11:15 AM – 12:05 PM

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.

Sandra McEvoy
T/R 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM

Prereq: 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, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Creativity/Innovation.

Yoon Sun Yang
T/R 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM

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. Effective Spring 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.

Deeana Klepper
T/R 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM

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. Also offered as RN 337. 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.

Erin Murphy
M/W 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 12:30 PM – 1:45 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
M/W/F 1:25 PM – 2:15 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 12:20 PM – 1:10 PM

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.

Tesla Cariani
W 3:30 PM – 6:15 PM

Bria Dunham
M/W 10:10 AM – 11:55 AM

Prereq: senior standing. 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. Also offered as SAR HS 430.

Sarah Miller
W 2:30 PM – 5:15 PM

Undergraduate Prerequisites: senior standing or consent of instructor. – 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. Also offered as SO 431 , SO 631, and WS 631. Effective Fall 2023 this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Social Inquiry II, Research and Information Literacy.

Kyle Gobrogge
M 8:00 AM – 10:45 AM

Examines neurobiological and genetic factors that influence sex and violence. Students review primary literature from the past century that highlights major scientific discoveries that have reconceptualized our understanding of the origins of sexual-determination, -attraction and – aggression. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Historical Consciousness, Scientific Inquiry II.

Celeste Curington
R 12:30 PM – 3:15 PM

Examines neurobiological and genetic factors that influence sex and violence. Students review primary literature from the past century that highlights major scientific discoveries that have reconceptualized our understanding of the origins of sexual-determination, -attraction and – aggression. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Historical Consciousness, Scientific Inquiry II.

Karen Warkentin
M/W 2:30 PM – 4:15 PM

Undergraduate Prerequisites: senior or graduate standing, WR 120 or equivalent, and at least one of the following courses or equivalent: CAS BI 225, BI 309, BI 315, BI 4 07, or BI 410; or consent of instructor – Examines the integrative and comparative biology of sex and sexes based on readings drawn from recent primary literature, review papers, and book chapters. Also offered as BI 507. Effective Fall 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Oral and/or Signed Communication.

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
R 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.

Nancy Smith-Hefner
F 3:30 PM – 6:15 PM

Undergraduate Prerequisites: advanced undergraduate standing or graduate standing, or consent of in structor. – Explores theoretical and ethnographic approaches to gender, sex, and sexuality as linked to globalizing discourses and transnational mobilities. Readings and discussion emphasize intersections of sex, gender, labor, love, and marriage in a globalized world. Also offered as CAS AN 530.