Courses - Spring 2025
WGSS
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Open Seats as of
11/20/2024 at 10:30 PM
WGSS115
Restriction: Must not have taken CMSC216 or higher.
Cross-listed with: CMSC115.
Credit only granted for: WGSS115 or CMSC115.
Race and gender have shaped computing from its earliest histories to contemporary debates over bias in search algorithms, surveillance, and AI. As computational processes shape ever more dimensions of everyday life from the personal to the global scale, understanding how they operate and how power operates within them grows ever more important. Combating racism and sexism is not as simple as ensuring the pool of programmers and engineers is more diverse; structures of power are embedded in digital technologies as they are in all aspects of our society, and we must learn to perceive their operation if we hope to transform them. We will examine how racism and sexism operate in the field of computer science and in everyday uses of digital technologies, while studying how feminist and racial justice movements have created alternative approaches. This class is for anyone who wishes to better understand the relationships between digital technology, structural power, and social justice.
WGSS200
Introduction to WGSS: Gender, Power, and Society
Credit only granted for: WMST200 or WGSS200.
Formerly: WMST200.
Examines constructions of race, class, sexuality, ability, and gender relations from a social science multi-disciplinary perspective. The course interrogates the ways that systems of hierarchy and privilege are created, enforced, and intersect through the language of race, class, sexuality, and national belonging. The course will provide students with the skills to examine how systems of power manifest in areas such as poverty, division of labor, health disparities, policing, violence. In addition to examining the impact of systems of power, students will reflect on their own location within the exercise of racialized, and gendered power relations. This course encourages students to understand and critique these systems both personally and politically.
WGSS205
Developed by feminists of color, reproductive justice frameworks offer a roadmap for economic, social, and medical justice advocacy attentive to the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. This course reviews the historical, legal, and social bases of reproductive rights in the U.S.; discusses the history of feminist organizing for reproductive freedom; surveys critical theories of reproductive justice that go beyond abortion law to advocate for broader social transformation; and evaluates the possible futures of intersectional feminist activism after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
WGSS211
Cross-listed with: HIST211.
Credit only granted for: HIST211, WMST211 or WGSS211.
Formerly: WMST211.
An examination of women's changing roles in working class and middle class families, the effects of industrialization on women's economic activities and status, and women's involvement in political and social struggles, including those for women's rights, birth control, and civil rights.
WGSS250
Credit only granted for: WMST250 or WGSS250.
Formerly: WMST250.
Provides students with a critical introduction to the ways that art and art activism have served as a conduit to understanding and challenging systems of inequity and practices of normativity. Interrogating the categories of gender, sexuality, race, class, ability, the course will provide students with an examination of how artists have responded to pressing social justice issues of their eras. While the course centers visual art, students will also engage genres such as music, plays, literature, digital and performance art as arenas of social change.
WGSS255
Cross-listed with: ENGL250.
Credit only granted for: ENGL250, WMST255 or WGSS255.
Formerly: WMST255.
Explores literary and cultural expressions by women and their receptions within a range of historical periods and genres. Topics such as what does a woman need in order to write, what role does gender play in the production, consumption, and interpretation of texts, and to what extent do women comprise a distinct literary subculture. Interpretation of texts will be guided by feminist and gender theory, ways of reading that have emerged as important to literary studies over the last four decades.
WGSS265
Constructions of Manhood and Womanhood in the Black Community
Cross-listed with: AAAS265.
Credit only granted for: WMST265, AASP298B, AAAS265, WGSS265 or AASP265.
Formerly: WMST265.
Investigates the ways that African Americans are represented and constructed in public and private spheres and explores the social constructions and representations of Black manhood and womanhood from various disciplinary perspectives.
WGSS275
Cross-listed with: CMLT275.
Credit only granted for: WMST275, CMLT275 or WGSS275.
Formerly: WMST275.
Comparative study of selected works by women writers of several countries, exploring points of intersection and divergence in women's literary representations.
WGSS280
Isaac Azimov once said of science fiction that it is the genre that "deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology." With this definition in mind, we will embark on a critical exploration of sci-fi film and other media, using it as a lens for analyzing society's deepest fears and most furtive hopes. Our investigation will center on the liminal space between hegemonic culture and its prescribed excesses. These liminal spaces--between self and other, disability and enhancement, cultural hybridization, and gender crossing--shift in response to real-world sociopolitical tensions. We will consider feminist and anti-racist media scholars' concerns over representation, authorship and ideology alongside questions of technological change. Students will use analytical and creative assignments to explore not only how the scientific imaginary serves as fertile ground for feminist, disability, and anti-racist critique, but also provides a locus for alternative futures.
Cross-listed with ENGL289I. Credit will be only granted for ENGL289I or WGSS280.
WGSS290
Credit only granted for: WMST298D or WGSS290.
Formerly: WMST298D.
Explores the contributions of feminist scholarship in framing and resolving contemporary controversies concerning gendered bodies. It includes the ways in which knowledge about the human body has been shaped by cultural ideas of gender, race, sexuality and ability.
WGSS302
Feminist, Critical Race, and Queer Theories
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud
Prerequisite: 6 credits in LGBT, WMST, WGSS or courses that are cross-listed with these.
Credit only granted for: WMST302, WGSS302 or WMST400.
Formerly: WMST302.
Introduces students to some of the major concepts in feminist, critical race, and queer theories. It examines the questions: What is theory? What forms does theory take? What is the relationship between theory and practice? What is the role of theory in political and social action? In art? In personal life? What does it mean to do theory?
WGSS314
Black Women in United States History
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Restriction: Sophomore standing or higher.
Cross-listed with: AAAS313.
Credit only granted for: AASP313, AAAS313, WMST314 or WGSS314.
Formerly: WMST314.
Black American women's history from slavery to the present. Focused on gaining a fuller understanding of the effect of race, class and gender on the life cycles and multiple roles of Black women as mothers, daughters, wives, workers and social-change agents.
WGSS315
Intro to Fat Studies: Fatness, Blackness and Their Intersections
Examines fatness as an area of human difference subject to privilege and discrimination that intersects with other systems of oppression based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and ability. Though we will look at fatness as intersectional, this course will particularly highlight the relationship between fatness and Blackness. We approach this area of study through an interdisciplinary humanities and social-science lens which emphasizes fatness as a social justice issue. The course closes with an examination of fat liberation as liberation for all bodies with a particular emphasis on performing arts and activism as a vehicle for liberation and challenging fatmisia.
WGSS319E
Workshops in Gender, Race, and Queer Studies; Making Race and Gender in Reality TV
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
You want to be on top?! Why do we love, and love to hate the representations we see on reality TV? What does the intersection of reality TV with race, gender, class, and sexuality help us to understandabout broad US culture? This course examines the representation and production of race and gender in reality TV and considers how our production practices reflect and resist racialized notions of the world around us. Drawing on work from avariety of fields, this class will consider the production, consumption, and distribution of ideas about race and gender in reality television. In doing so we will critically engage how our media consumption and production practices reflect racialized notions of the world around us. The course is scaffolded in a way to help students develop skills in critical analysis and various media production. Students explore the course material in a hands-on way while also working toward the development and completion of a final media project.
WGSS358
Undergraduate Teaching Assistantship
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F
Restriction: Permission of ARHU-Women's Studies department. Repeatable to 9 credits.
Students work under the supervision of a faculty mentor to assist with an undergraduate LGBT or WMST course while also becoming conversant in feminist, critical race, and queer pedagogical debates and approaches.
Students work under the supervision of a faculty mentor to assist with an undergraduate LGBT or WMST course while also becoming conversant in feminist, critical race, and queer pedagogical debates and approaches.
WGSS368
Undergraduate WGSS Internship
Credits:
3 - 6
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F
Restriction: Permission of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
WGSS378
Undergraduate Research and Creative Works Assistantship
Credits:
1 - 3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Restriction: Permission of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Repeatable to 9 credits if content differs. Formerly: WMST378.
WGSS452
Women in the Media
Cross-listed with: JOUR452.
Credit only granted for: JOUR452, WMST452 or WGSS452.
Formerly: WMST 452.
Participation and portrayal of women in the mass media from colonial to contemporary times.
WGSS471
Women's Health
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Restriction: Must be in a program in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; or must be in a major within SPHL-Behavioral & Community Health department.
Cross-listed with: HLTH471.
Credit only granted for: HLTH471, WMST471, or WGSS471..
Formerly: WMST471.
The women's health movement from the perspective of consumerism and feminism. The physician-patient relationship in the gynecological and other medical settings. The gynecological exam, gynecological problems, contraception, abortion, pregnancy, breast and cervical cancer and surgical procedures. Psychological aspects of gynecological concerns.
WGSS487
Advanced Research Seminar in Gender, Race, and Queer Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Prerequisite: WMST300 or WGSS301; and WMST400 or WGSS302.
Credit only granted for: WMST487 or WGSS487.
Formerly: WMST487.
A research seminar that allows students to focus their developed skills on a single topic of their own choosing while meeting regularly in seminar to discuss, critique, support, and learn from their peers' projects and assessments. Students choose a topic based on their own interests and prior coursework, perform advanced research appropriate to the question, and formulate an appropriate method of presentation of their research findings. The culminating presentation may take the form of a written paper or a creative, digital, or activist project.
WGSS488F
Senior Seminar; Blackness, Gender, and Sexuality: Women Writing Self in the African Diaspora
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Restriction: Permission of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women,omen Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
In this broadly configured course, we examine the way that Black women write new narratives and possibilities for themselves in the midst of hierarchies and harms such as trans and homophobia, patriarchy, colonialism, ableism, and white supremacy. Multi-textual in content, we will examine visual art, songs, folklore, film, literature, policy and legislative reform as conduits for how Black women flip the script and imagine new possibilities for self and community. The texts we engage will reflect key moments, movements and events from the mid-twentieth century to the present day.
In this broadly configured course, we examine the way that Black women write new narratives and possibilities for themselves in the midst of hierarchies and harms such as trans and homophobia, patriarchy, colonialism, ableism, and white supremacy. Multi-textual in content, we will examine visual art, songs, folklore, film, literature, policy and legislative reform as conduits for how Black women flip the script and imagine new possibilities for self and community. The texts we engage will reflect key moments, movements and events from the mid-twentieth century to the present day.
WGSS489
Individual Research in Gender, Race and Queer Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg
WGSS489A
Individual Research in Gender, Race and Queer Studies; WGSS Honors Thesis Writing 1
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F
WGSS489B
Individual Research in Gender, Race and Queer Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
WGSS498B
Advanced Special Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; The Poetics of the Black Feminist Imagination
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
WGSS498I
Advanced Special Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Asian American Women and Gender
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Cross-listed with AAST498G. Credit only granted for AAST498G or WGSS498I.
Examines Asian American identities through a transnational, gendered framework, and studies the impacts of exclusion and immigration laws and U.S. histories of (neo)colonialism and war on domestic, sexual, repr oductive, and economic labor of Asian American women. Also explores Asia n American feminism in context of Women of Color feminisms and queer of color critique.
Examines Asian American identities through a transnational, gendered framework, and studies the impacts of exclusion and immigration laws and U.S. histories of (neo)colonialism and war on domestic, sexual, repr oductive, and economic labor of Asian American women. Also explores Asia n American feminism in context of Women of Color feminisms and queer of color critique.
WGSS499
Independent Study
Credits:
1 - 3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
WGSS602
Methodologies and Epistemologies in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud
Prerequisite: WMST400 or WGSS302; or permission of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Restriction: Must be in the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies doctoral or graduate certificate programs.
Credit only granted for: WMST602 or WGSS602.
Formerly: WMST602.
Examines the politics and practice of knowledge production in the interdisciplinary field of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Explores how theory is connected to the formation of raced/gendered/sexed bodies, subjectivities, and existences that unsettle Eurocentric genealogies of disciplinary knowledge formation. Introduces students to methodological and epistemological frameworks for attending to the impact of relations of power and domination on how research and scholarship are created and defined within and across disciplinary boundaries, cultures, and paradigms.
WGSS619
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Teaching Practicum
Credits:
1
Grad Meth:
S-F
WGSS628
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Colloquium
Credits:
1
Grad Meth:
S-F
WGSS698B
Special Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; The Poetics of the Black Feminist Imagination
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud
Cross-listed with AMST628J. Credit only granted for WGSS698B or AMST628J. Restriction: Must be a student in WGSS/WMST graduate program.
WGSS698F
Special Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Politics of Fantasy
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud
Cross-listed with AMST629G. Credit will be only granted for WGSS698F or AMST629G. Restriction: Must be a student in WGSS/WMST graduate program.
What role does fantasy play in our engagement with politics? What role does politics play in our engagement with fantasy? This seminar develops an expansive approach to these questions, taking up fantasy in its full and contradictory range of meanings. Attending closely to race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability, we will explore the work of fantasy from the scale of the individual, where it operates as an internal and interpersonal formation that shapes identities and sexualities, to that of state and nation, where it serves as a collective imaginary underpinning structures of domination and resistance. Though the genre of fantasy in literature and media is not our main focus, readings will include fiction alongside interdisciplinary scholarship in queer, feminist, and critical race theory and cultural studies.
What role does fantasy play in our engagement with politics? What role does politics play in our engagement with fantasy? This seminar develops an expansive approach to these questions, taking up fantasy in its full and contradictory range of meanings. Attending closely to race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability, we will explore the work of fantasy from the scale of the individual, where it operates as an internal and interpersonal formation that shapes identities and sexualities, to that of state and nation, where it serves as a collective imaginary underpinning structures of domination and resistance. Though the genre of fantasy in literature and media is not our main focus, readings will include fiction alongside interdisciplinary scholarship in queer, feminist, and critical race theory and cultural studies.
WGSS698P
Special Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Credits:
1 - 3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud, S-F
WGSS699
Independent Study
Credits:
1 - 3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud
WGSS708
Research Seminar in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg
WGSS709
Directed Independent Reading for Major Field Exam
Credits:
1 - 6
Grad Meth:
S-F
WGSS799
Masters Thesis Research
Credits:
1 - 6
Grad Meth:
S-F
WGSS898
Pre-Candidacy Research
Credits:
1 - 8
Grad Meth:
Reg, S-F
WGSS899
Doctoral Dissertation Research
Credits:
1 - 8
Grad Meth:
S-F
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University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
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