Courses - Spring 2027
WGSS
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
WGSS105
Cross-listed with: AMST215.
Credit only granted for: WGSS105, AMST215, or AMST298D.
Formerly: AMST298D.
Explores theories of disability justice as they intersect with feminist and antiracist struggles. Analyzing how disability has been an important aspect of institutions and social experience in the United States and beyond, the course considers how disability activists have responded to ableism by developing art, political strategies, and subcultures that promote a more just society built for a wider variety of human bodies.
Cross-listed with AMST298D. Credit only granted for WGSS105 or AMST298D.
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.
WGSS201
Cross-listed with: LGBT200.
Credit only granted for: LGBT200 or WGSS201.
An interdisciplinary study of the historical and social contexts of queer and trans life. Explores the social meanings of sex and gender in our current moment; traces the formation of LGBTQ+ social and cultural movements; unpacks the categorization of genders and sexualities.
WGSS205
Cross-listed with: AAAS298E, AMST298J.
Credit only granted for: WGSS205, AMST298J, or AAAS298E.
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.
WGSS230
Introduction to Humanities, Health, and Medicine
Restriction: Permission of ARHU-History Department.
Cross-listed with: ARHU230, ENGL254, HIST219N.
Credit only granted for: ARHU230 , ENGL289C, ENGL254, ARHU298A, HIST219N, or WGSS230.
An overview of the historical, cultural, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of medicine, human health, disease, and death from the points of view of various humanistic disciplines.
For information on registration, please email hhmminor@umd.edu.
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.
Cross-listed with AAAS265. Credit granted only for WGSS265 or AAAS265.
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
Cross-listed with: ENGL289I.
Credit only granted for: ENGL289I or WGSS280.
Isaac Asimov 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.
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.
WGSS298C
Special Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; What is Care?
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
WGSS298S
Special Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Gender and Sports
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
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?
WGSS306
Gender, Drag, and Burlesque
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Cross-listed with: LGBT306.
Credit only granted for: WGSS319C, WGSS306 or LGBT306.
Formerly: WGSS319C.
In this course, we will explore how historically and currently drag and burlesque construct and reconstruct gendered, sexualized, and racialized bodies. We will interrogate ways that the art forms both subverts and re-establishes prevailing bodily norms. We will also grapple with the complex relationship between the art forms and "feminist" practices thinking about if, when, where, and how "power" can be exercised through performance.
WGSS310
Transgender Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F
Prerequisite: LGBT200 .
Cross-listed with: LGBT310.
Credit only granted for: LGBT310, WMST310 or WGSS310.
Introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of transgender studies, providing a history of the field and engaging current debates within it. Students will explore the emergence and consolidation of trans identities, practices, cultures, and knowledges across medical, historical, sociological, cultural, and artistic contexts, paying particular attention to dynamics of race, class, and ability, to global and transnational difference, and to the implications of transgender studies for understanding gender and sexuality overall.
WGSS319F
Workshops in Gender, Race, and Queer Studies; Queer Fandom Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
WGSS379U
Topics in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Angela Davis
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
This course explores the meaning and significance of Angela Davis' work for thinking through issues of race, nation, class, gender, carceral culture, and transnational solidarity. Her life and work is set between theorizing histories of race, racism, class, and gender and political organizing and public intellectual work. We will examine all of these aspects by reading her work from its beginning and up through contemporary commentary on incarceration, Palestine, and related issues. The centerpiece of this course will be her study of African-American music in its Black feminist iteration, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism.
Cross-listed with AAAS398U, AMST328B, and ENGL368F. Credit only granted for AAAS398U, AASP398U, AMST328B, ENGL368F, and WGSS379U.
Cross-listed with AAAS398U, AMST328B, and ENGL368F. Credit only granted for AAAS398U, AASP398U, AMST328B, ENGL368F, and WGSS379U.
WGSS422
Asian American Women and Gender
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Cross-listed with: AAST422.
Credit only granted for: AAST498G, AAST422, or WGSS 422.
Formerly: AAST498G.
Examines Asian/American cultural production along with theories of gender and sexuality in the field of Asian American Studies. We consider how Asian American femininities/masculinities are conceived and circulated, drawing from a diverse selection of twentieth-century and contemporary texts, films and images that connect Asian American bodies to ideas of absence, danger, inscrutability, hyper- or hypo-sexuality, and virulence. Beginning with early to mid-twentieth century representations, the course attends to theories that clarify the contested relationship between the East/West and Asia/U.S. Also examined are the methods through which bodies differentiated by sex, gender, and race are managed, surveilled, and rehabilitated, with close attention to the enduring legacies of American expansionism and conquest, anti-immigration policies in the U.S., and twentieth-century wars and occupations in Asia. The course engages Women of Color feminisms, queer theory, and disability studies.
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.
Women's health issues and the barriers faced by women striving to achieve a healthy lifestyle. Emphasis is placed on socio-cultural, historical, political, economic, and behavioral factors. Students will examine topics including access to healthcare, women in the workforce, women's sexual and reproductive health, preventive health, screenings and wellness, and the interpersonal and social aspects of women's health. This course is designed to support students in their personal exploration of attitudes, knowledge, and values related to women's health and to assist them as they analyze their individual behaviors.
WGSS475
Magical Black Femmes: Queering Black Femininity
Recommended: LGBT200 or another LGBT course.
Cross-listed with: LGBT475, AAAS475.
Credit only granted for: LGBT475, WGSS475, AAAS475 or LGBT448E.
Formerly: LGBT448E.
Queer femme identity, rooted in 1940s and 1950s bar culture, continues to resonate. Often linked with butch, femme is a queer, feminine expression that challenges the binary tying femininity to cisgender, heterosexual women. Femme exists outside that frame. Black women have long moved beyond white heteropatriarchal norms, and Black femmes of all genders have turned that resistance into power. This course explores Black femme identity as a radical critique of gender, sexuality, and whiteness. Through cultural studies and humanities methods, we will examine femme's complexity and how it unsettles what we assume about queerness, femininity, and identity.
WGSS487
Advanced Projects Seminar in Gender, Race, and Queer Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Prerequisite: WGSS301.
Restriction: Must be in an undergraduate program in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
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.
WGSS487H
Advanced Projects Seminar in Gender, Race, and Queer Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Prerequisite: WGSS301.
Restriction: Must be in an undergraduate program in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
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.
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
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F
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
Restriction: Must be in a Harriet Tubman Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies doctoral or graduate certificate program; or permission of the department.
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
WGSS699
Independent Study
Credits:
1 - 3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud
WGSS708
Research Seminar in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg
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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