Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies

GWSS 110: Introduction to Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies, is the gateway course to the major that provides a broad overview of the field and a strong background for more advanced studies. GWSS 200: Gender, Sexuality & the Pursuit of Knowledge (not offered 2025-26), examines feminist and queer theories of knowledge and provides methodological tools to conduct research. GWSS 212: Foundations of LGBTQ Studies, provides an interdisciplinary examination of sexual desires, sexual orientations, and the concept of sexuality, with a particular focus on the construction of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender identities. GWSS 334: Feminist Theory (not offered 2025-26), and GWSS 312: Queer and Trans Theory, focus on the theory necessary for advanced work in gender, women’s and sexuality studies. The capstone course, GWSS 398: Transnational Feminist & Queer Activism, which varies each year, offers students the opportunity to study a topic in depth and to produce a substantial research paper. The major culminates in a senior comprehensive project, directed by advisers from two different disciplines, that builds on the skills and interests developed in previous GWSS coursework.

Major Requirements – 66 Total Credits

Gateway Courses – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 110: Introduction to Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies

Methodology Courses – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 200: Gender, Sexuality & the Pursuit of Knowledge (not offered 2025-26)

Intermediate Courses – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 212: Foundations of LGBTQ Studies

Theory Seminar Courses – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 312: Queer and Trans Theory
• GWSS 334: Feminist Theory (not offered 2025-26)

Elective Courses – Required 30 credits

Students must complete an additional five electives (30 credits) from the GWSS Elective/Additional Courses List below. These 30 credits must be spread across at least two disciplines and should include:

Senior Capstone Seminar – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 398.01: Transnational Feminist & Queer Activism (26/SP)

Senior Integrative Exercise – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 400: Integrative Exercise

Additional Departmental Notes

Please note: a variety of courses are taught by visitors or offered only occasionally. These courses may still be considered. Contact the program director for consideration of other courses to satisfy this requirement. 

Students will plan courses in consultation with the program director or a designated faculty adviser when they declare their major, and review their plan each term. The major they design should provide both breadth of exposure to Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies across fields and depth of study in one discipline (normally at least two courses in one area or from one department).

OCS Programs: You may count up to two 6 credit courses taken on either Carleton or non-Carleton OCS programs toward the requirements of the GWSS major or minor. OCS program courses cannot be substituted for core GWSS courses on campus and will only count towards GWSS electives. Two courses from Carleton’s Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe program can count as two GWSS elective courses. Students will need to get all OCS program courses approved by the director of GWSS.

Minor Requirements – 36 Total Credits

Gateway Courses – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 110: Introduction to Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies

Intermediate Courses – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 212: Foundations of LGBTQ Studies

Senior Capstone Seminar – Required 6 credits

• GWSS 398.01: Transnational Feminist & Queer Activism (26/SP)

Elective Courses – Required 18 credits

These 18 credits must be spread across two different disciplines.

• AFST 215: Contemporary Theory in Black Studies
• AMST 217: Race, Gender, and Sports in America (not offered 2025-26)
• AMST 225: Beauty and Race in America
• AMST 260: Sexuality in American Film since 1945 (not offered 2025-26)
• ARTH 214: Queer Art (not offered 2025-26)
• ARTH 220: The Origins of Manga: Japanese Prints (not offered 2025-26)
• ARTH 240: Art Since 1945
• BIOL 101: Human Reproduction and Sexuality
• CAMS 225: Film Noir: The Dark Side of the American Dream
• CAMS 258: Feminist and Queer Film Theory (not offered 2025-26)
• CLAS 214: Gender and Sexuality in Classical Antiquity (not offered 2025-26)
• DANC 266: Reading the Dancing Body (not offered 2025-26)
• DANC 270: Performance As Ceremony
• ECON 257: Economics of Gender
• ENGL 213: Being Queer in Nineteenth-Century America (not offered 2025-26)
• ENGL 217: A Novel Education (not offered 2025-26)
• ENGL 218: The Gothic Spirit
• ENGL 227: Imagining the Borderlands (not offered 2025-26)
• ENGL 229: The Rise of the Novel (not offered 2025-26)
• ENGL 242: Queer Literature: The Pre-Stonewall Origins (not offered 2025-26)
• ENGL 257: Fandom and the Queer Digital Commons
• ENGL 319: The Rise of the Novel
• ENGL 327: Victorian Novel (not offered 2025-26)
• ENGL 344: Reading Queerly
• ENTS 313: Conscious Nature: Towards and Anthropology of Non-Human Beings (not offered 2025-26)
• ENTS 323: Mother Earth: Women, Development and the Environment (not offered 2025-26)
• GERM 221: Modern Love: Sex, Gender, and Identity in Austria-Hungary around 1900 (not offered 2025-26)
• GERM 320: Life under Socialism: Culture and Society in East Germany (not offered 2025-26)
• GWSS 111: Queer and Trans Memoir
• GWSS 114: Love and Sex
• GWSS 150: Politics of Reproductive Justice (not offered 2025-26)
• GWSS 200: Gender, Sexuality & the Pursuit of Knowledge (not offered 2025-26)
• GWSS 212: Foundations of LGBTQ Studies
• GWSS 225: Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe Program: Gender and the Biopolitics of Health across Europe
• GWSS 233: Feminist Cultural Studies (not offered 2025-26)
• GWSS 240: Gender, Globalization and War
• GWSS 243: Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe Program: Situated Feminisms: Socio-Political Systems and Gender Issues Across Europe (not offered 2025-26)
• GWSS 244: Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Ethics and Politics of Cross-Cultural Research
• GWSS 250: Politics of Reproductive Justice (not offered 2025-26)
• GWSS 265: Black Feminist Thought
• GWSS 312: Queer and Trans Theory
• GWSS 325: Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Gender and the Biopolitics of Health across Europe
• GWSS 365: Black Feminist Thought
• GWSS 398.01: Transnational Feminist & Queer Activism (26/SP)
• HIST 122: U.S. Women’s History to 1877
• HIST 123: U.S. Women’s History Since 1877
• HIST 218: Black Women’s History (not offered 2025-26)
• HIST 229: Working with Gender in U.S. History (not offered 2025-26)
• HIST 236: The Worlds of Hildegard of Bingen (not offered 2025-26)
• HIST 270: Nuclear Nations: India and Pakistan as Rival Siblings (not offered 2025-26)
• HIST 280: Gender and Sexuality in African History (not offered 2025-26)
• HIST 289: Gender and Ethics in Late Medieval France (not offered 2025-26)
• IDSC 203: Dialogue Across Differences (not offered 2025-26)
• PHIL 114: Love and Sex
• PHIL 257: Contemporary Issues in Feminist Philosophy (not offered 2025-26)
• PHIL 275: Latina Feminist Philosophy (not offered 2025-26)
• PHIL 304: Decolonial Feminisms (not offered 2025-26)
• POSC 239: Gender & Politics in Africa
• POSC 243: Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Socio-Political Systems and Gender Issues Across Europe
• POSC 276: Imagination in Politics: Resisting Totalitarianism (not offered 2025-26)
• POSC 280: Feminist Security Studies (not offered 2025-26)
• POSC 287: Queer Theory in the Global Political Context
• POSC 308: Global Gender Politics (not offered 2025-26)
• POSC 324: Rebels and Risk Takers: Women and War In the Middle East
• PSYC 246: Human Sexuality
• PSYC 389: LGBTQ+ Psychology
• RELG 218: The Body in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (not offered 2025-26)
• RELG 221: Judaism, Gender, and Other Intersections (not offered 2025-26)
• RELG 227: Liberation Theologies (not offered 2025-26)
• RELG 233: Gender and Power in the Catholic Church (not offered 2025-26)
• RELG 234: Angels, Demons, and Evil (not offered 2025-26)
• RELG 265: Religion & Violence (not offered 2025-26)
• RELG 287: Many Marys (not offered 2025-26)
• SOAN 114: Modern Families: An Introduction to the Sociology of the Family
• SOAN 207: Sociology of Gender (not offered 2025-26)
• SOAN 225: Social Movements (not offered 2025-26)
• SOAN 257: Culture and Politics in India (not offered 2025-26)
• SOAN 313: Conscious Nature: Towards and Anthropology of Non-Human Beings (not offered 2025-26)
• SOAN 323: Mother Earth: Women, Development and the Environment (not offered 2025-26)
• SOAN 325: Sociology of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction (not offered 2025-26)
• SPAN 244: Spain Today: Recent Changes through Narrative and Film (not offered 2025-26)
• THEA 228: Performing Women (not offered 2025-26)

Additional Departmental Notes

Please note: A variety of courses are taught by visitors or offered only occasionally. These courses may still be considered. Contact the program director for consideration of other courses to satisfy this requirement.

OCS Programs: You may count up to two 6 credit courses taken on either Carleton or non-Carleton OCS programs toward the requirements of the GWSS major or minor. OCS program courses cannot be substituted for core GWSS courses on campus and will only count towards GWSS electives. Two courses from Carleton’s Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe program can count as two GWSS elective courses. Students will need to get all OCS program courses approved by the director of GWSS.

• GWSS 110 Introduction to Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies

  This course is an introduction to the ways in which gender and sexuality structure our world, and to the ways feminists challenge established intellectual frameworks. However, since gender and sexuality are not homogeneous categories, but are crosscut by class, race, ethnicity, citizenship and culture, we also consider the ways differences in social location intersect with gender and sexuality.

  • Offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: SI, Social Inquiry
  • Tags: CL: 100 level GWSS Gateway EDUC 2 Social Cultural Context
  • Faculty: Meera Sehgal 🏫 👤 · Cynthia Marrero-Ramos 🏫 👤 · Iveta Jusová 🏫 👤

• GWSS 111 Queer and Trans Memoir

  From Audre Lorde’s biomythography detailing black lesbian life in 1950s Harlem, to Alison Bechdel’s tragicomic comic books, Chelsea Manning’s whistleblower tell-all, or Carmen Maria Machado’s experimental memoir about same sex domestic abuse, LGBTQ+ autobiographical works provide us with richly subjective, historically situated insights into the lived experiences of queer and trans individuals. Interdisciplinary in scope, this course considers a variety of LGBTQ+ takes and twists on the memoir genre, including photo diaries; video selfies; illustrated works; self-ethnographies; life-as-art performances; stand-up specials; auto theoretical works; and literary or lyrical forms centering on the personal.

  • Offered: Fall 2025
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2
  • Prerequisites:

    Not open to students who have previously taken GWSS 100 – Queer Trans Memoir.

  • Tags: CL: 100 level GWSS Elective AMST Production Consumption of Culture
  • Faculty: Candace Moore 🏫 👤

• GWSS 114 Love and Sex

  From Disney fairytales to blockbuster rom-coms; dating apps to hook-up culture; and ongoing debates in mainstream media concerning reproductive, trans, and LGBTQ rights— love and sex are ever-present concepts in our day-to-day lives. This course offers an opportunity to critically explore, discuss, and challenge our understanding of love and sex through an interdisciplinary lens. We will explore questions like: What is the difference between the way we love our friends, parents, and lovers? How do intersections of race, gender, class, and ability affect experiences of love and sex? How does technology affect the future of love and sex?

  GWSS 114 is cross listed with PHIL 114.

  • Offered: Winter 2026
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry
  • Tags: CL: 100 level GWSS Elective PHIL Interdisciplinary 2 PHIL Value Theory 1
  • Faculty: Cynthia Marrero-Ramos 🏫 👤

• GWSS 150 Politics of Reproductive Justice

  Feminist mobilization around reproductive rights in the US has changed in its focus and intensity over the past 50 years. Black American and other transnational feminists have argued about the necessity of distinguishing between reproductive rights and reproductive justice. How has this argument impacted the ideology and collective-change strategies of different feminist communities mobilizing for reproductive rights? What collective-change strategies have they proposed and what obstacles have they faced? This course has a major civic engagement component that requires students to work with feminist non-profit organizations in and around Northfield or in the greater Twin Cities area. Offered at both the 100 and 200 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

  Not offered in 2025-26

  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies SI, Social Inquiry
  • Tags: ACE Applied ACE Theoretical AFST Social Inquiry AMST Democracy Activism AMST Race Ethnicity Indigeneity CL: 100 level GWSS Elective SOAN Elective Eligible

• GWSS 200 Gender, Sexuality & the Pursuit of Knowledge

  In this course we will examine whether there are feminist and/or queer ways of knowing, the criteria by which knowledge is classified as feminist and the various methods used by feminist and queer scholars to produce this knowledge. Some questions that will occupy us are: How do we know what we know? Who does research? Does it matter who the researcher is? How does the social location (race, class, gender, sexuality) of the researcher affect research? Who is the research for? What is the relationship between knowledge, power and social justice? While answering these questions, we will consider how different feminist and queer studies researchers have dealt with them.

  Not offered in 2025-26

  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
  • Tags: CL: 200 level GWSS Elective GWSS Methodology PHIL Interdisciplinary 2 PHIL Social and Political Theory 1 RUSS Methods SOAN Elective Eligible

• GWSS 212 Foundations of LGBTQ Studies

  This course introduces students to foundational interdisciplinary works in sexuality and gender studies, while focusing on the construction of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer identities in the United States. In exploring sexual and gender diversity throughout the term, this seminar highlights the complexity and variability of experiences of desire, identification, embodiment, self-definition, and community-building across different historical periods, and in relation to intersections of race, class, ethnicity, and other identities.

  • Offered: Winter 2026
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies
  • Tags: AMST Democracy Activism CL: 200 level GWSS Elective GWSS Intermediate
  • Faculty: Candace Moore 🏫 👤

• GWSS 225 Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe Program: Gender and the Biopolitics of Health across Europe

  This course investigates the concept of biopolitics and applies intersectional feminist theories to examine how European states control the biological aspects of human life, including birth, health, mortality, and sexuality. It examines how health serves as a domain of power, shaping the lives and well-being of individuals and populations while reinforcing disparities based on race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. Analyzing the biopolitics of health across different Western and East Central European political systems, case studies include medicalized childbirth, forced sterilization, immigration policies, and LGBT rights. Critical theories of gender, sexuality, and race are central to the course’s analysis. This course is offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

  • Offered: Fall 2025
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
  • Prerequisites:

    Student has enrolled in any of the following course(s): Any Carleton OCS course or Non-Carleton OCS course with a grade of C- or better.

  • Tags: ACE Theoretical CL: 200 level GWSS Elective EUST Transnational Support
  • Faculty: Iveta Jusová 🏫 👤

• GWSS 233 Feminist Cultural Studies

  Who does popular feminism speak for; what does it stand for? How are earlier feminist movements reimagined, remediated, and rebranded to make feminism “cool” or “empowering”? What gendered subjectivities, knowledges, and practices are constituted—and marginalized? How do new technologies, media, practices of everyday life, and self-representations contribute to the making and unmaking of feminist activism and social change? We use an interdisciplinary approach: scholarship in queer theory, affect theory, Marxism, media studies, cultural studies, and sociology alongside the ephemera of mass culture, to illuminate intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, religion, nationality, and ability and intersectionality’s role in creating new feminist theory and praxis.

  Not offered in 2025-26

  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies WR2 Writing Requirement 2
  • Tags: CL: 200 level GWSS Elective

• GWSS 240 Gender, Globalization and War

  We are surrounded by images, stories and experiences of war, conflict, aggression, genocide, and widespread human suffering.  In this course we will engage with the field of transnational feminist theorizing in order to understand how globalization and militarism are gendered, and the processes through which gender becomes globalized and militarized.  We will examine hegemonic ideals of security and insecurity and track how they are gendered. You will learn to conduct and analyze in-depth interviews focusing on the militarization of civilians/ordinary people so as to understand how all our lives have been shaped by the acceptance and/or resistance to globalized militarism.

  • Offered: Spring 2026
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: CX, Cultural/Literature IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry
  • Tags: CL: 200 level GWSS Elective POSI Elective/Non POSC SOAN Elective Eligible
  • Faculty: Meera Sehgal 🏫 👤

• GWSS 243 Women’s and Gender Studies in Europe Program: Situated Feminisms: Socio-Political Systems and Gender Issues Across Europe

  This course examines the history and present of feminist and LGBTQ activisms across Western and East-Central Europe. We study the impact of the European colonial heritage on the lives of women and sexual/ethnic minorities across European communities, as well as the legacies of World War II, the Cold War, and the EU expansion into Eastern Europe. Reproductive rights, LGBTQ issues, “anti-genderism,” sex work, trafficking, and issues faced by ethnic minorities are among topics explored. These topics are addressed comparatively and historically, stressing their ‘situated’ nature and considering their divergent sociopolitical national frameworks.

  Not offered in 2025-26

  • Credits: 7 – 8
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
  • Prerequisites:

    Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Women's and Gender Studies in Europe program.

  • Tags: CL: 200 level GWSS Elective EUST Transnational Support

• GWSS 244 Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Ethics and Politics of Cross-Cultural Research

  This course explores the following questions: What are the ethics and politics of cross-cultural research? What is the relationship between methodology and knowledge claims in feminist research? What are the power interests involved in keeping certain knowledges marginalized/subjugated? How do questions of gender and sexuality, of ethnicity and national location, figure in these debates? We will also pay close attention to questions arising from the hegemony of English as the global language of WGS as a discipline, and will reflect on what it means to move between different linguistic communities, with each being differently situated in the global power hierarchies.

  • Offered: Fall 2025
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry
  • Prerequisites:

    Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Women's and Gender Studies in Europe program.

  • Tags: ACE Theoretical CL: 200 level GWSS Elective EUST Transnational Support
  • Faculty: Iveta Jusová 🏫 👤

• GWSS 250 Politics of Reproductive Justice

  Feminist mobilization around reproductive rights in the US has changed in its focus and intensity over the past 50 years. Black American and other transnational feminists have argued about the necessity of distinguishing between reproductive rights and reproductive justice. How has this argument impacted the ideology and collective-change strategies of different feminist communities mobilizing for reproductive rights? What collective-change strategies have they proposed and what obstacles have they faced? This course has a major civic engagement component that requires students to work with feminist non-profit organizations in and around Northfield or in the greater Twin Cities area. Offered at both the 100 and 200 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

  Not offered in 2025-26

  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies SI, Social Inquiry
  • Tags: ACE Applied ACE Theoretical AFST Social Inquiry AMST Democracy Activism CL: 200 level GWSS Elective AMST Race Ethnicity Indigeneity SOAN Elective Eligible

• GWSS 265 Black Feminist Thought

  This seminar offers students an opportunity to engage closely with key concepts, figures, and arguments in the Black Feminist intellectual tradition. We will focus primarily on texts by key figures/scholars from the Americas/Caribbean—in order to situate Black Feminisms within a transnational feminist context. We will take a historical approach, starting in the 19th century and work our way to more contemporary figures and texts throughout the term. Some of the key figures we will examine are Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Angela Y. Davis, Sylvia Wynter, Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

  • Offered: Fall 2025
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies
  • Tags: AFST Humanistic Inquiry AMST Democracy Activism CL: 200 level GWSS Elective PHIL Interdisciplinary 2 PHIL Social and Political Theory 1 AMST Race Ethnicity Indigeneity
  • Faculty: Cynthia Marrero-Ramos 🏫 👤

• GWSS 312 Queer and Trans Theory

  This seminar offers students familiar with the foundational terms and concepts in gender and sexuality studies the opportunity to engage in more advanced explorations of relevant topics and debates in contemporary queer and trans theory. Seeing queer theory and trans theory as theoretical traditions that are historically and philosophically entangled but which at times necessarily diverge, the course focuses on “state of the field” essays from Gay and Lesbian Quarterly and Transgender Studies Quarterly as well as works that put gender and sexuality studies into conversation with disability studies, critical race theory, indigenous studies, and critiques of neoliberalism and imperialism.

  • Offered: Winter 2026
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies WR2 Writing Requirement 2
  • Tags: CL: 300 level GWSS Elective GWSS Theory AMST Democracy Activism PHIL Interdisciplinary 2
  • Faculty: Candace Moore 🏫 👤

• GWSS 325 Women’s & Gender Studies in Europe Program: Gender and the Biopolitics of Health across Europe

  This course investigates the concept of biopolitics and applies intersectional feminist theories to examine how European states control the biological aspects of human life, including birth, health, mortality, and sexuality. It examines how health serves as a domain of power, shaping the lives and well-being of individuals and populations while reinforcing disparities based on race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. Analyzing the biopolitics of health across different Western and East Central European political systems, case studies include medicalized childbirth, forced sterilization, immigration policies, and LGBT rights. Critical theories of gender, sexuality, and race are central to the course’s analysis. This course is offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

  • Offered: Fall 2025
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IS, International Studies
  • Prerequisites:

    Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Women's and Gender Studies in Europe program.

  • Tags: ACE Theoretical CL: 300 level GWSS Elective EUST Transnational Support
  • Faculty: Iveta Jusová 🏫 👤

• GWSS 334 Feminist Theory

  This seminar explores key feminist theoretical perspectives and debates, using a historical framework to situate these ideas in relationship to philosophical and political discourses produced during specific cultural moments. This seminar ultimately aims to interrogate the positionality of the theorists we study, considering the cultural privileges as well as vectors of marginalization that influence those viewpoints. We follow feminist thinkers as they propose, challenge, critique, subvert, and revise theoretical traditions of liberalism, Marxism, Socialism, radicalism, separatism, utopianism, multiculturalism, postmodernism, queerness, and post-colonialism. We ask: What gets counted as feminist theory? What gets left out?

  Not offered in 2025-26

  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies WR2 Writing Requirement 2
  • Tags: AMST Democracy Activism CL: 300 level GWSS Theory PHIL Interdisciplinary 2 PHIL Social and Political Theory 1 RUSS Methods

• GWSS 365 Black Feminist Thought

  This seminar offers students an opportunity to engage closely with key concepts, figures, and arguments in the Black Feminist intellectual tradition. We will focus primarily on texts by key figures/scholars from the Americas/Caribbean—in order to situate Black Feminisms within a transnational feminist context. We will take a historical approach, starting in the 19th century and work our way to more contemporary figures and texts throughout the term. Some of the key figures we will examine are Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Angela Y. Davis, Sylvia Wynter, Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins. Offered at both the 200 and 300 levels; coursework will be adjusted accordingly.

  • Offered: Fall 2025
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: HI, Humanistic Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
  • Tags: ACE Theoretical CL: 300 level GWSS Elective LTAM Electives PHIL Prac/Value Theory PHIL Social and Political Theory 1 PHIL Value Theory 2
  • Faculty: Cynthia Marrero-Ramos 🏫 👤

• GWSS 398.01 Transnational Feminist & Queer Activism

  This course focuses on transnational feminist, queer and trans activism in an era of neoliberal globalization, militarism and religious fundamentalism. We will learn about theories of collective action, the pitfalls of global sisterhood and homonationalism and pedagogies for crossing a variety of borders. We will explore case studies of how feminist, queer and trans activists have collaborated, built networks, mobilized resources and coalitions for collective action, in addition to the obstacles and constraints they have encountered and surmounted in their search for gender and sexual justice.

  Repeatable: Course is repeatable provided the topics are different.

  • Offered: Spring 2026
  • Credits: 6
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies SI, Social Inquiry WR2 Writing Requirement 2
  • Tags: ACE Theoretical CL: 300 level GWSS Capstone GWSS Elective SOAN Elective Eligible
  • Faculty: Meera Sehgal 🏫 👤

• GWSS 400 Integrative Exercise

  This directed independent study course supports students as they make progress on the conception, research, writing, and presentation of their comprehensive exercise project during their senior year. Students should sign up for Integrative Exercise credit with the primary advisor of their project. The six credits required are generally split between Fall and Winter terms of a student's senior year, unless otherwise explicitly arranged with the GWSS director and both comps advisors. Students will meet with both their primary and secondary advisors for scheduled check-ins during the term and will be expected to make all agreed upon deadlines for turning in and editing drafts.

  • Offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026
  • Grading: S/NC
  • Liberal Arts Requirements: No Exploration
  • Prerequisites:

    Student is a GWSS major AND has Senior Priority.

  • Faculty: Cynthia Marrero-Ramos 🏫 👤 · Meera Sehgal 🏫 👤 · Candace Moore 🏫 👤