Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectional Justice

Department Faculty
Michelle Martin-Baron, Chair
Betty M Bayer
Jessica Hayes-Conroy

Affiliated Faculty and Staff
Qasim Abbas, Economics
Etin Anwar, Religious Studies
Geoffrey Babbitt, Writing and Rhetoric
Diana Baker, Education
Becca Barile, Office of Student Life
Biman Basu, English
Beth Belanger, American Studies
Lara Blanchard, Art and Art History
Rebecca Burditt, Media and Society
Sigrid Carle, Biology
Rob Carson, English
Christine Chin, Art & Art History
Melanie Conroy-Goldman, English
Kathryn Cowles, English
Anna Creadick, English
Donna Davenport, Dance
Jodi Dean, Politcs
Christine deDenus, Chemistry
Hannah Dickinson, Writing and Rhetoric
Kevin Dunn, International Relations
Laurence Erussard, English
May Farnsworth, Spanish and Hispanic Studies
Laura Free, History
Kendralin Freeman, Sociology
Karen Frost-Arnold, Philosophy
Jeanette Gayle, History
Keoka Grayson, Economics
Amy Green, Writing and Rhetoric
Jiangtao Harry Gu, Media and Society
Jack Harris, Sociology
Leah Himmelhoch, Greek and Roman Studies
James-Henry Holland, Anthropology/Asian Studies
Christina Houseworth, Economics
Andrea Huskie, Education
Alla Ivanchikova, English
Joyce Jacobsen, Economics
Mary Kelly, Education
Beth Kinne, Environmental Studies
Christopher Lemelin, Russian Area Studies
Liliana Leopardi, Art and Art History
Charity Lofthouse, Music
DeWayne Lucas, Political Science
Brenda Maiale, Anthropology
Jamie MaKinster, Education/Office of Academics and Faculty Affairs
Kirin Makker, American Studies
Whitney Mauer, Environmental Studies
H May, Theater
James McCorkle, Africana Studies
Renee Monson, Sociology
Ani Mukherji, American Studies
Robinson Murphy, Environmental Studies
Jennifer Nace, Library
Paul Passavant, Politics
Susan Pliner, Office of Academic and Faculty Affairs
Colby Ristow, History
Richard Salter, Religious Studies
Leah Shafer, Media and Society
James Sutton, Sociology
Angelique Syzmanek, Art and Art History
Craig Talmadge, Management and Entrepreneurship
Michael Tinkler, Art and Art History
William Waller, Economics
Maggie Werner, Writing and Rhetoric
Cynthia Williams, Dance
Anastasia Wilson, Economics
Chris Woodworth, Theater
Lisa Yoshikawa, History
Jinghao Zhou, Asian Studies

The Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectional Justice, comprised of three programs in Gender and Feminist Studies, LGBTQ+ Studies, and Bodies, Disability, and Justice, offers courses at all levels to inform the study, understanding, and instantiation of the related theories, values, and actions of these interdisciplinary fields. Coursework in the department is heavily transdisciplinary as these programs arise from work being done in multiple, interconnected fields. Within one unified department that houses related major/minor programs, students benefit from specialization in one focus area as they also work to recognize interconnections and build connections with their peers and faculty in a unified, synergistic department.

Building on the historical distinction of HWS in the teaching of justice-oriented programs, each major/minor in the GSIJ department focuses on developing students’ critical thinking skills and, perhaps more importantly, critical action skills to promote social justice. Thus, the Department’s core mission is to foster the thinking, compassion, and abilities of students to enact the Colleges’ mission to prepare students to live “lives of consequence.” Pathways through each program develop critical thinking, persuasive argumentation, analysis, oral presentation, body literacy, and writing skills to prepare students for an expansive range of fields for work or further study.

The department’s three major/minor programs are linked through shared coursework. All students, regardless of major/minor, take a GSIJ intro course and capstone. Within each major, students take a range of electives specific to their majors and focusing on both theory and praxis. Finally, each major in the department has the ability to function as an integrated major that melds the coursework in GSIJ with another field of study.

Mission Statement

The Department of Gender, Sexuality and Intersectional Justice is dedicated to fostering the thinking, compassion, and abilities of students to build a better world through critical attention to the often inequitable structures and contexts in which we experience our diverse lives.

Gender and Feminist Studies

Gender and Feminist Studies is an interdisciplinary field showcasing how social movements and political activism can reshape how we know and make change in the world. The center of Gender and Feminist Studies is intersectionality and justice, critical tools of inquiry to examine race, gender, sexuality, and class in the workings of the world as we know it and in the ones we want to imagine anew. 

Over the past five decades (and more), women’s, gender, sexuality, trans and social justice studies have flourished as a central and consequential interdisciplinary set of fields. Our dept/program has been part of that significant development as one of the earliest programs in the country offering a major and a minor in what was called in those early field-shaping days Women’s Studies. Today, the field’s social justice significance is understood through interlockings of race, sexuality, gender, and class in tackling and intervening in matters of decolonization, anti-racism, disability, politics, law, medicine, science and economics at scales of time and space that crosscut pressing everyday and global issues. As an interdisciplinary field, Gender and Feminist Studies connects with what was traditionally known as the divisions of humanities (e.g., philosophy and history), social sciences (e.g., sociology and political sciences), arts (e.g., performance and fine arts), and STEM and connects the practices of higher education to the activist practices of the world beyond higher education. Today, the world relies ever more on the field for its capacity to address vital and complex questions in ways that reorder and sometimes revolutionize future possibilities. Gender and Feminist Studies is understood as one of the most important interdisciplinary endeavors in higher education’s history, bringing students into close study of big questions and debates, inviting creative ways to inquire into practices of living here together well. Graduates of the program have pursued a wide variety of careers, from medicine and law, to social work, media, education, and the arts.

LGBTQ+ Studies

Our mission is to provide students with a rigorous grounding in the lives and experiences of LGBTQIA2+ folks transhistorically and globally, providing them with a queer perspective towards addressing the social challenges that emerge from heteronormative and heterosexist societies.

LGBTQ+ Studies students explore the history of LGBTQ+ social justice and political movements across the globe, including their erasure in traditional historical accounts. The program asks students to critically examine the role of socially constructed sexualities and genders within an intentional, intersectional framework of historical and contemporary representations of marginalized groups. The program questions the role of power and privilege in limiting the political formations and creative expressions of queer and transgender people. Additionally, the program provides students with the tools of queer theory, allowing students to apply a queer analytical lens to a host of artistic and social objects.

The history of LGBTQ+ peoples are a component, but not the entirety, of this academic discipline; fundamentally, students will provide a critical analysis of sex, gender, and heteronormativity, how they each shape historical and contemporary societies, and how social justice advocacy has challenged aggressive marginalization. Students in the program engage in introductory and advanced coursework that provides theoretical and practical knowledge in the concepts of sex, sexuality, and gender, juxtaposed with individually selected coursework across the Gender, Sexuality & Intersectional Justice program.

Bodies, Disability, and Justice

At the core of the Bodies, Disability, and Justice program’s mission is a desire to help students understand the central role of the body in our ongoing struggles for justice. The body is the place in which all of the complexities of the world intersect to form a unique and always changing self. We believe that an interdisciplinary approach to the body will allow our students to become critical thinkers and practitioners who will be well-positioned to lead with empathy, nuance, and creativity.

The Bodies, Disability, and Justice major draws on the emerging and interrelated fields of embodiment studies, disability studies, integrated mind-body studies, and critical health and wellness studies to provide students with a transdisciplinary approach to examining the human body. Students focus in particular on bodies of difference and the enabling and disabling discourses, attitudes, practices, and built environments that shape our understanding of the body. Students will explore the human body and embodiment through coursework in racial justice, disability and mental health, embodied praxis, and critical theory.

Students in this major will gain an understanding of the body that is informed by both theory and experience via a range of courses from multiple disciplines that place the body central. The interdisciplinary paths through the major prepare students for further work in medicine and public health, social work, education, politics, public advocacy, as well as graduate study in a broad range of fields and subfields including women and gender studies, queer and trans studies, disability studies, communication, sociology, and law.

Gender and Feminist Studies Major (B.A.)

interdisciplinary, 11 courses
Learning Objectives:
Majors in the Gender and Feminist Studies Program will be able to:

• Inquire into how knowledge is produced, for whom and in what ways.
• Locate the interconnections amongst social and political movements (locally and globally) and their capacity to transform how we come to know and reimagine the world.
• Raise and explore questions about practices of how to live well together.
• Tackle contemporary issues with contemporary tools and practices.
• Explore the historical making and remaking of gender, race and sexuality, and implications of these historical shift-changes in institutions (e.g., law, medicine, environment).
• Understand relations of power in gender, race, and sexuality and workings of colonialism.
• Experiment with voice, in writing, speaking and debating.
• Undertake written critical analyses of topics and issues.
• Engage diverse scholars’ intellectual work.
• Identify one’s own unique interests and begin to chart one’s own role in making change.

Requirements:
GSIJ 100, GSIJ 300 or PHIL 345, GSIJ 401, one course in Understanding Race, one course in Global and/or Transnational Perspectives, a Praxis/Methods course, and five electives, up to three of which may be an integration, in consultation with the advisor. All courses must be passed with a C- or better. No more than one credit/no credit course may be counted towards the major

Gender and Feminist Studies Minor

interdisciplinary, 6 courses
Requirements:
GSIJ 100, GSIJ 300 or PHIL 345, and four electives. All courses must be passed with a C- or better. No more than one credit/no credit course may be counted towards the minor.

LGBTQ+ Studies Major (B.A.)

interdisciplinary, 11 courses
Learning Objectives:
Majors in the LGBTQ+ Studies Program will be able to:

• Explore the history of LGBTQ+ social justice and political movements across the globe, including their erasure in traditional historical accounts.
• Critically examine the role of sexuality and gender within an intersectional framework in historical and contemporary representations of marginalized groups.
• Analyze the intersectional forces at work in systems of power and privilege that impact LGBTQ+ individuals and communities.
• Interrogate the ways in which feminist, queer, and trans theories have been invoked across academic disciplines to deepen our understanding of human experience.
• Engage collectively with LGBTQ+ activist traditions and contemporary efforts of social transformation.
• Develop lines of inquiry which provoke new understandings of the phenomena of gender and sexuality through emerging scholarship and fields of study.
• Understand how heteronormativity shapes historical and contemporary societies and how queer activists and theorists have combatted this legacy.
• Critique social justice movements’ inclusion or erasure of LGBTQ+ identities, needs, and advocacy.
• Consider our location in the Finger Lakes as both a historical and contemporary hub of abolition, social justice, and revolution as well as the site of injustice and oppression.
• Examine the role of the body and embodied learning in working towards a more just and equitable world.
• Applying queer theoretical approaches across the curriculum.

Requirements:
GSIJ 100, GSIJ 310, GSIJ 401, one course in LGBTQ+ Histories/Movements, one course in Trans Studies, one course in Queer of Color Lives and Experiences, and five electives, up to three of which may be an integration, in consultation with the advisor. All courses must be passed with a C- or better. No more than one credit/no credit course may be counted towards the major.

LGBTQ+ Studies Minor

interdisciplinary, 6 courses
Requirements:
GSIJ 100, GSIJ 310, and four electives. All courses must be passed with a C- or better. No more than one credit/no credit course may be counted towards the minor.

Bodies, Disability, and Justice Major (B.A.)

interdisciplinary, 11 courses
Learning Objectives:
Majors in the Bodies, Disability and Justice Program will be able to:

• Understand how social norms about bodies shape understandings of difference.
• Apply interdisciplinary analytic tools for evaluating representations of bodies in a range of cultural texts.
• Articulate the ways that material bodies are socially constructed and contested.
• Critically examine ideas and practices of bodily health and wellness.
• Understand how structural inequities produce uneven experiences of body and health.
• Theorize the body in its discursive and material complexity.
• Recognize the self as a contextual and relational phenomenon.
• Attend to the critical importance of racial and transnational perspectives to the promotion of embodied justice.
• Explore the linkages and synergies between the fields of disability studies, queer and trans studies, and embodiment studies.
• Explore the role of disability activism and advocacy in shaping alternative futures.
• Appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of body-centered scholarship.
• Build body literacy through embodied theory and praxis.
• Understand and engage the body as an important, intersectional location for justice.
• Develop informed, creative approaches to advocacy.

Requirements:
GSIJ 100, GSIJ 362, GSIJ 401, one course in Racial and Transnational Perspectives, one course in Queer and Trans Perspectives, one course in Embodied Praxis, two courses in Disability, Diagnosis, and Mental Health, and three electives, all of which can be an integration in consultation with the advisor. All courses must be passed with a C- or better. No more than one credit/no credit course may be counted towards the major.

Bodies, Disability, and Justice Minor

interdisciplinary, 6 courses
Requirements:
GSIJ 100, GSIJ 362, one course in Disability, Diagnosis, and Mental Health, and three electives. All courses must be passed with a C- or better. No more than one credit/no credit course may be counted towards the minor.

Course Concentrations

Gender and Feminist Studies Core Courses

Understanding Race
AFS 110 Introduction to African Experience
AFS 115 Demythologizing Race
AFS 150 Foundations Africana Studies
AFS 203 African Voices
AFS 208 Growing Up Black
AFS 211 Black Earth
AFS 305 African-American Autobiographies
AMST 221 Immigrant Arts
DAN 110 Introduction to Dances of the African Diaspora
ECON 243 Political Economics of Race
EDUC 201 Schooling and Social Equity
EDUC 220 Gender and Schooling
ENG 152 American Revolutions
ENG 215 Recovering African-American Literature
ENV 360 Environmental Afrofuturisms
GSIJ 150 Chicana Feminism and Visual Culture
GSIJ 219 Black Feminisms
HIST 208 Women in American History
HIST 227 African-American History I
HIST 228 African-American History II
HIST 317 Women’s Rights Movements in the US
HIST 348 Black Women and the Struggle for Rights in America
MUS 215 Music & Race in US Popular Culture
SOC 221 Race & Ethnic Relations
SOC 223 Inequalities
THTR 310 African-American Theater
WRRH 215 Rhetorics of Marginalized Educational Experience
WRRH 364 Suffrage and Citizenship in American Discourse

Global and/or Transnational Perspectives
AFS 110 Introduction to African Experience
AFS 150 Foundations Africana Studies
AFS 203 African Voices
AFS 208 Growing Up Black
AFS 211 Black Earth
AMST 221 Immigrant Arts
AMST 222 American Empire
ANTH 221 Human Rights of Indigenous People
ANTH 282 North American Indians
ANTH 354 Food, Meaning, and Voice
ARTH 210 Women Artists in Europe and Asia
ARTH 303 Gender and Painting in China
ARTH 306 Telling Tales: Narrative Art Asia
ASN 212 Women in Contemporary Chinese Culture
DAN 107 Introduction to Jamaican Dance
ENV 347 Decolonial Environmentalisms
GSIJ 213 Transnational Feminisms
HIST 283 South Africa in Transition
HIST 284 Africa: From Colonial to Neocolonial
HIST 392 Women in Japan
INRL 208 Gender and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
INRL 260 Human Rights and International Law
INRL 283 Political Violence and Non-Violence
INRL 380 Theories of International Relations
INRL 3XX Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peacebuilding
REL 236 Gender and Islam
REL 347 Gender and Identity in the Muslim World
SPN 304 Body/Border
SPN 316 Voces de Mujeres
SPN 355 Contemporary Theater

Praxis/Methods
AMST 270 Storytelling with Data: Quantitative Tools for the Humanities
AMST 312 Critical Space Theory and Practice
AMST 349 Gender, Space, and Narrative Reparation: The Womb Chair Speaks
DAN 107 Introduction to Jamaican Dance
DAN 110 Introduction to Dances of the African Diaspora
DAN 230 Community Arts: Activism Embodied
DAN 305 Somatics
DAN 325 Movement Analysis: Laban/Bartenieff Theory
EDUC 220 Storytelling
GSIJ 150 Introduction to Chicana Feminism and Visual Culture
GSIJ 211 Place & Health
GSIJ 220 Body Politic
GSIJ 305 Food, Feminism, and Health
GSIJ 308 Chicana and Latina Art
GSIJ 309 Stormy Weather: Ecofeminism
GSIJ301/ARTS272 Visualizing Oral History
PHIL 162 Ethics of Civic Engagement
THTR 290 Theater for Social Change
THTR 480 Directing
WRRH 365 Rhetorics of Feminist Activism 

LGBTQ+ Studies Core Courses

LGBTQ+ Histories/Movements
AFS 305 African American Autobiographies
ARTH 308 Art and Censorship
CLAS 230 Gender and Sexuality in Antiquity
GSIJ 205 Queer and Trans Social Movements
GSIJ 218 Queer Representation in Theater and Film
GSIJ/RUSE 251 Sexuality, Power, and Creativity in Russian Literature
GSIJ 303 Disability and Sexuality
ENG 115 Literature and Social Movements
ENG 360 Sexuality in American Literature

Trans Studies
GSIJ 302 Trans Studies

Queer of Color Lives and Experiences
AFS 305 African American Autobiographies
GSIJ 150 Introduction to Chicana Feminism and Visual Culture
GSIJ 209 Queer of Color Critique
GSIJ 219 Black Feminisms

Bodies, Disability, and Justice Core Courses

Racial and Transnational Perspectives
AFS 110 Introduction to African Experience
AFS 115 Demythologizing Race
AFS 150 Foundations Africana Studies
AFS 203 African Voices
AFS 208 Growing Up Black
AFS 211 Black Earth
AFS 305 African-American Autobiographies
AMST 221 Immigrant Arts
AMST 222 American Empire
ANTH 221 Human Rights of Indigenous People
ANTH 282 North American Indians
ANTH 354 Food, Meaning, and Voice
ARTH 210 Women Artists in Europe and Asia
ARTH 303 Gender and Painting in China
ARTH 306 Telling Tales: Narrative Art Asia
ASN 212 Women in Contemporary Chinese Culture
DAN 107 Introduction to Jamaican Dance
DAN 110 Introduction to Dances of the African Diaspora
ECON 243 Political Economics of Race
EDUC 201 Schooling and Social Equity
EDUC 209 Gender and Schooling
ENG 152 American Revolutions
ENG 251 Recovering African-American Literature
ENV 347 Decolonial Environmentalisms
ENV 360 Environmental Afrofuturisms
GSIJ 150 Chicana Feminism and Visual Culture
GSIJ 213 Transnational Feminisms
GSIJ 219 Black Feminisms
HIST 208 Women in American History
HIST 227 African-American History I
HIST 228 African-American History II
HIST 283 South Africa in Transition
HIST 284 Africa: From Colonial to Neocolonial
HIST 348 Black Women and the Struggle for Rights in America
INRL 208 Gender and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
INRL 260 Human Rights and International Law
INRL 283 Political Violence and Non-Violence
INRL 380 Theories of International Relations
INRL 3XX Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peacebuilding
MUS 215 Music and Race in US Popular Culture
REL 236 Gender and Islam
REL 347 Gender and Identity in the Muslim World
SOC 221/AMST 221 Race & Ethnic Relations
SOC 222/AMST 222 Inequalities
SPN 304 Body/Border
SPN 316 Voces de Mujeres
SPN 355 Contemporary Theater
THTR 310 African-American Theater
WRRH 215 Rhetorics of Marginalized Educational Experience
WRRH 364 Suffrage and Citizenship in American Discourse

Queer and Trans Perspectives
AFS 305 African-American Autobiographies
ARTH 308 Art and Censorship
CLAS 230 Gender and Sexuality in Antiquity
ENG 360 Sexuality in American Literature
GSIJ 205 Queer and Trans Social Movements
GSIJ 303 Disability and Sexuality
GSIJ 209 Queer of Color Critique
GSIJ 218 Queer Representation in Theater and Film
GSIJ 247 History, Feminism and Psychology
GSIJ 251 Sexuality, Power, and Creativity in Russian Literature
GSIJ 302 Trans Studies
GSIJ 310 Queer Theory and Methods 

Disability, Diagnosis, and Mental Health
ANTH 260 Medical Anthropology
ANTH 341 Making Babies
EDUC 203 Children and Disabilities
EDUC 221 Understanding Autism
EDUC 306 Technology and Disability
EDUC 330 Disability and Transition: Life After High School
ENG 114 Sickness, Health, and Disability
GSIJ 204 Politics of Health
GSIJ 220 Body Politic
GSIJ 247 History, Feminism, and Psychology
GSIJ 303 Disability and Sexuality
PHIL 156 Biomedical Ethics
REL 292 Deviance and (De)Medicalization
THTR 290 Theater for Social Change
THTR 480 Directing

Embodied Praxis
AMST 270 Storytelling with Data: Quantitative Tools for the Humanities
AMST 312 Critical Space Theory and Practice
AMST 349 Gender, Space, and Narrative Reparation: The Womb Chair Speaks
DAN 101 Introduction to Dance: Body and Self
DAN 107 Introduction to Jamaican Dance
DAN 110 Introduction to Dances of the African Diaspora
DAN 230 Community Arts: Activism Embodied
DAN 305 Somatics
DAN 314 Dance Criticism: Embodied Writing
DAN 325 Movement Analysis: Laban/Bartenieff Theory
EDUC 220 Storytelling
GSIJ 150 Introduction to Chicana Feminism and Visual Culture
GSIJ 211 Place and Health
GSIJ 220 Body Politic
GSIJ 301/ARTS 272 Visualizing Oral History
GSIJ 305 Food, Feminism, and Health
GSIJ 308 Chicana and Latina Art
GSIJ 309 Stormy Weather: Ecofeminism
PHIL 162 Ethics of Civic Engagement
THTR 290 Theater for Social Change
THTR Directing
WRRH 365 Rhetorics of Feminist Activism

Electives (for all three majors)

AFS 305 African-American Autobiographies
AMST 222 American Empire
AMST 270 Storytelling with Data: Quantitative Tools for the Humanities
AMST 312 Critical Space Theory and Practice
AMST 349 Gender, Space, and Narrative Reparation: The Womb Chair Speaks
ANTH 110 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
ANTH 220 Sex Roles
ANTH 221 Human Rights of Indigenous People
ANTH 282 North American Indians
ANTH 319 Life Histories
ANTH 341 Making Babies
ARTH 205 Gender and Display
ARTH 210 Women Artists in Europe and Asia
ARTH 214 Introduction to Critical Museum Studies
ARTH 237 Princely Art
ARTH 241 Performance and Installation Art
ARTH 303 Gender and Painting in China
ARTH 305 Renaissance Men and Women
ARTH 306 Telling Tales: Narrative Art Asia
ARTH 308 Art and Censorship
ASN 212 Women in Contemporary Chinese Culture
CLAS 230 Gender and Sexuality in Antiquity
CLAS 275 Decolonizing Ancient History
DAN 101 Introduction to Dance: Body and Self
DAN 107 Introduction to Jamaican Dance
DAN 210 Dance History I: Perspective on Ballet
DAN 212 Dance History II: Perspectives on Modern Dance
DAN 214 20^th Century Dance History: Gender, Race, and Difference
DAN 230 Community Arts: Activism Embodied
ECON 112 Economics of Caring
ECON 305 Political Economy
ECON 310 Economics of Gender
EDUC 209 Gender and Schooling
EDUC 220 Storytelling
ENG 114 Sickness, Health, and Disability
ENG 115 Literature and Social Movements
ENG 152 American Revolutions
ENG 213 Environmental Literature
ENG 246 Literature of Decadence
ENG 251 Recovering African-American Literature
ENG 252 American Women Writers
ENG 287 Jane Austen in Film
ENG 300 Literary Theory
ENG 304 Feminist Literary Criticism
ENG 310 Power, Desire, Literature
ENG 360 Sexuality in American Literature
ENV 345 Decolonial Environmentalisms
ENV 360 Environmental Afrofuturisms
GSIJ 150 Chicana Feminism and Visual Culture
GSIJ 204 Politics of Health
GSIJ 205 Queer and Trans Social Movements
GSIJ 206 Reading Feminisms
GSIJ 209 Queer of Color Critique
GSIJ 211 Place and Health
GSIJ 212 Gender and Geography
GSIJ 213 Transnational Feminisms
GSIJ 218 Queer Representation in Theater and Film
GSIJ 219 Black Feminisms
GSIJ 220 The Body Politic
GSIJ 247 History, Psychology, and Feminism
GSIJ 251 Sexuality, Power, and Creativity in Russian Literature
GSIJ 300 Intersectional Feminist Theory
GSIJ 301 Feminist Oral History
GSIJ 302 Trans Studies
GSIJ 303 Disability and Sexuality in US Culture
GSIJ 305 Food, Feminism, and Health
GSIJ 308 Chicana and Latina Art
GSIJ 309 Stormy Weather: Ecofeminism
GSIJ 310 Queer Theory and Methods
GSIJ 362 Theories of The Body, Health, and Wellness
HIST 112 Soccer
HIST 208 Women in American History
HIST 209 History of Medieval Women
HIST 283 South Africa in Transition
HIST 284 African: From Colonial to Neocolonial
HIST 317 Women’s Rights Movements in the US
HIST 348 Black Women and the Struggle for Rights in America
HIST 354 Lives of Consequence
HIST 392 Women in Japan
INRL 208 Gender and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
INRL 260 Human Rights and International Law
INRL 283 Political Violence and Non-Violence
INRL 380 Theories of International Relations
INRL 3XX Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Peacebuilding
MUS 209 Women in Music
PHIL 152 Contemporary Issues: Philosophy and Feminism
PHIL 250 Feminism: Ethics and Knowledge
PHIL 345 Power, Privilege, and Knowledge
POL 175 Introduction to Feminist Theory
REL 236 Gender and Islam
REL 291 The Ethics of Identity
REL 292 Deviance and (De)Medicalization
REL 347 Gender and Identity in the Muslim World
RUSE 120 Sport and Ideology: Gender, Race, and National Identity
SOC 205 Men and Masculinity
SOC 206 Kids and Contention
SOC 221/AMST 221 Race and Ethnic Relations
SOC 223/AMST 223 Inequalities
SOC 225 Working Families
SOC 226 Sex and Gender
SPN 304 Body/Border
SPN 316 Voces de Mujeres
SPN 355 Contemporary Theater
THTR 290 Theater for Social Change
THTR 309 Feminist Theater
THTR 310 African-American Theater
WRRH 215 Rhetorics of Marginalized Educational Experience
WRRH 240 Writing and the Culture of Reading
WRRH 364 Suffrage and Citizenship in American Discourse
WRRH 365 Rhetorics of Feminist Activism

Course Descriptions

GSIJ 100 Introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectional Justice.  Race. Gender. Sexuality. Ability. How do these intersectional social categories determine access to rights, resources, and power? In this course, we examine the notion that sex, gender, sexuality, ability, race, and other categories of identity shape the social world in a myriad of ways, from how we organize our families and communities and how we spend time, to how we conceptualize the self and make meaning, to how we interact with our environment and create and re-create the body. This class seeks to challenge conventionally held “truths” and offer creative alternatives, including even how we conceive of and practice classroom learning itself. The course serves as a gateway to three justice-oriented majors: LGBTQ+ Studies, Gender and Feminist Studies, and Bodies, Disability, and Justice. Students are encouraged to think through the histories and impulses of each of these overlapping fields, and to raise their own questions about the meaning and practice of justice and how we can achieve it. The course invites students into a collective dialogue about how we can utilize critical theory and feminist, queer, and crip critique as a method of creatively re-imagining a more just world. No Prerequisites. Offered each semester. This course substantially addresses the Social Inequalities and Ethical Judgement Goals.

GSIJ 150 Introduction to Chicana Feminism and Visual Culture  This course lays the foundations for the study of Chicana feminism, women of color feminism, feminist visual cultural studies, and arts-based activism. This course traces the emergence of Chicana as an identity category and its challenges to Chicano and feminist activism; the radical ways Chicanas have employed visual, performance, and graphic arts as a means of educating and catalyzing social change; and the rich body of indigenous folklore that has both defined gender and sexual roles and provided the platform for defying them. Throughout the semester, we will draw from primary texts from the beginning of the Chicano movement, a rich selection of visual, performance, and graphic arts, and contemporary scholarship in women’s studies, Chicana/o studies, and visual cultural studies. (Formerly WMST 150) (Martin-Baron, offered alternate fall semesters)

GSIJ 204 The Politics of Health  This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the critical study of health politics, including the politics of gender, race and sexuality. Through the themes of social and environmental justice, students will explore the uneven distribution of health care and wellness both within the United States and beyond. Topics include the history of the women’s health movement, breast cancer awareness campaigns, reproductive health and technologies, HIV/AIDS, feminist psychology, eating disorders, environmental health and toxicity, and more. In exploring these topics, feminist theory will serve as a lens through which we examine different experiences of illness and disease. At the same time, feminist pedagogy will serve as the model upon which we build our policy recommendations.(Formerly WMST 204) (Hayes-Conroy)

GSIJ 205 Queer and Trans Social Movements  This course traces and analyses the history of LGBTQ+ social movements, from the debated origins of LGBTQ+ identity in psychological and medical context, through to homophile social and art movements and contemporary activism around personhood, employment discrimination, AIDS, housing, marriage and kinship, to name a few. (Formerly CSQS 205)

GSIJ 206 Seminar: Reading Feminisms.  This course invites students to engage a signature feminist theory/history thinker’s major work and to delve into it in some depth; signature works are those regarded as prompting a sea-change in ideas, thinking or ways of living. Students will be asked to situate the work in time, place and intellectual debate. They will be asked: What does a thinker’s work look like across the span of their life’s work and in the context of its field(s) of influence? With whom is this thinker’s work in dialogue? How does one follow the journeys of a thinker’s ideas? How does this author speak to us?  Students will be asked to use one or more digital tools to engage questions and prompt wider discussion of the course topic. (Formerly WMST 206)

GSIJ 209 Queer of Color Critique  Queer of color critique explores the relationships between embodiment, social location and knowledge production by examining how the confluence of race, sexuality, and gender operate to create unique forms of social inequality in the context of nation and capitalism. Focusing on how queer people of color have used theory as a survival tool, discursive intervention and platform for social justice, students will examine how and why specific social inequalities exist in contemporary U.S. culture. Dis-identifying with the unity of terms such as “people of color,” this course interrogates the specific circumstances affecting the production of theory by a diverse set of racial groups within the U.S. context while centering an understanding of cultural difference as inherently inflected by sexuality and gender. (Formerly CSQS 209)

GSIJ 211 Place and Health  This class focuses on exploring the role of place in the production of health and wellbeing, beginning with the questions: what is place? And, how can the study of place help us to better understand human health? We will take an interdisciplinary approach to these questions, drawing from the fields of geography, women’s studies, disability studies, architecture, and landscape studies, among others, and exploring questions of place and health through various texts and forms of media. Specific topics include the role of nature in wellness rhetoric and practices, landscapes of recreation and sport, the concept of therapeutic landscapes, spaces of illness and healing, and more. In exploring these topics, we will foreground how intersectional structures of power and inequity shape the way that people move through and experience and stake claim to these places. (Formerly WMST 211) (Spring semester, alternating years)

GSIJ 212 Gender and Geography  As a point of entry to discussions of gender, place and culture, this course will explore the diverse ways in which geographers have conceived of, analyzed and redefined gender as a contested spatial practice. In particular, using contemporary geographic texts, we will explore the gendered dynamics of geographic research methods, nature discourse, resource management, embodiment and health, agriculture and food, and globalization, among other topics. Emphasis will be placed on recognizing and researching cultural difference across these various topical areas. Readings and class discussion will build through individual and group assignments toward a final research paper/presentation. (Formerly WMST 212)

GSIJ 213 Transnational Feminism  Is woman a global category? How is gender performed differently across the globe? How do representations of first, second, and third-world women circulate transnationally? In this course, we will investigate how gendered bodies travel, perform, and are understood in a wide variety of national, diasporic, and global media contexts, from theater and film, to politics and popular culture. Prerequisite: GSIJ 100 or permission of instructor. (Formerly WMST 213) (Martin-Baron, offered alternate spring semesters)

GSIJ 218 Queer Representations in Theatre and Film  How have LGBTQ artists explored the construction and contestation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer personhoods? How has the mainstream media explored - and exploited - queer identities? This course explores the interplay between representation and identification via the rapidly developing fields of queer performance and media studies. Throughout, we will investigate the meaning of “queer,” as well as its intersections among and across a wide range of identifications. We will consider the role of theater, film, and performance not only in the creation of queer histories, communities, and identities, but also as a means of resetting what counts as normal and normative.  Central to his course will be a number of dramatic and filmic texts. Methodologically, we will draw from both performance and film theory as well as the theoretical demands of queer and feminist scholarship. While sharpening their writing skills through a variety of shorter writing assignments, students will also engage in sustained semester-long original research project. (Formerly WMST 218)

GSIJ 219 Black Feminisms  In this course, we place black women’s writings about their lives and factors that govern the health and well-being of black communities at the heart of our inquiry. Utilizing a wide range of texts, we will not only explore foundational texts and theories of black feminism in the US, but also the ways black artists have communicated these theories artistically: as a mirror to a broken society and as a discursive intervention. Students will emerge from this course with an in depth knowledge of the foundations of black feminism and black feminist theory as well as the debates surrounding diversity in the contemporary American landscape. (Formerly WMST 219) (Martin-Baron, offered alternate fall semesters)

GSIJ 220 The Body Politic  To inquire into “The body politic” is to inquire into the riddle of the relationship between the corporeal body and the social, political, economic, and environmental body. It is to ask oneself where one’s own body begins and ends - does skin mark the boundary of the bodies? If so, what differentiates bodies such that some bodies are at the heart of political battles over rights and freedoms (including waging war in the name of women’s bodies and access to reproductive rights or queer rights to love freely)? How is the idea of gender equality invoked to index non-violence and peace, economic well-being, or freedom? How do gendered bodies become the site of social and personal struggle? How do different traditions of thought and belief depict bodies? Do these different views carry consequences for how we inhabit our bodies and/or distinguish ourselves from animals? This course seeks to address some of these questions through theory, history, literature, film, guest speakers and movement - walking, dancing, and yoga - of the body. (Formerly WMST 220) (Bayer)

GSIJ 247 History, Psychology and Feminism  Should the history of feminism and psychology be x-rated, as was asked once of science more generally? This question opens onto psychology's expressways where histories of feminism, gender, sexuality, race and what are sometimes called the 'psy' disciplines crosscut in the greater search for knowledge of who we are or might become. Running parallel throughout this history are the ways feminist and critical gender scholars tackled the very ways the science of psychology upheld cultural conventions of gender, race and sexuality. This course examines these tangled stories from early case studies of hysteria and spiritualism through to mid-century depictions of the "mommy pill," "how the clinic made gender" and to late twentieth and early twenty-first century concerns around gender, race and bodies. The course uses history, theory and research in psychology to appreciate psychology's changing views, treatment and study of diverse lives, and how feminism shaped psychology as much as psychology shaped feminism. This course also counts toward the major in psychology. (Formerly WMST 247)

GSIJ 251 Sexuality, Power and Creativity in Russian Literature  (In translation) In the 20th century, Russia's "other voices" continued to express the souls and spirit of individual men and women, but now under the profound impact of historical events from revolution and world wars through glasnost, perestroika, and the post-Soviet transition. Witnessing and experiencing great suffering, these heroic writers could neither remain silent under censorship nor write the socialist realist propaganda dictated by the Soviet government. Topics include Russian perceptions of male/female, masculinity/femininity; the female voice; the tension between poet and muse; gender bending; understandings of sexuality in the early Soviet period; the breaking of sexual mores during Glasnost; and how current Russian debates on gender and sexuality cite and relate to this cultural heritage. Open to students of all levels. (Formerly CSQS 251) (Lemelin, Offered every three years)

GSIJ 300 Gender and Intersectional Feminist Theories  This seminar surveys several strands of feminist theorizing and their histories. The course examines how activist movements ground feminist theories, including changing technologies (from print to digital and social media). By critically engaging the underlying assumptions and stakes of a range of theories, students become more aware of their own assumptions and stakes, sharpen their abilities to productively apply feminist analyses in their own work and lives, and create ways to take feminist theory beyond the classroom. Prerequisite: GSIJ 100 or permission of instructor. (Formerly WMST 300) (Staff, offered annually)

GSIJ 301 Visualizing Oral History  Feminist oral history is a course concerned with how we narrate life stories and how we represent their narration in text, sound and image. This course operates as a methods workshop, investigating the theory underlying feminist oral history while putting the methodology to work through a class interviewing project using audio recording and image capture technologies. Students will learn how to develop interview questions, gather material and then put these into context to narrate and represent life stories. The workshop will develop interviewing skills as well as visual and audio artistic abilities. Students will learn the critical and analytical skills necessary to prepare life history for presentation to general audiences (such as museum exhibitions) and to prepare materials for deposit in an archive. (Formerly WMST 301)

GSIJ 302 Trans Studies  What were the infamous debates between some lesbian and radical feminists and trans scholars, activists, and artists around femininity and "authentic" womanhood? Are these questions persistent today? Focusing on contemporary activism, scholarship, and lived experiences, this course explores trans* and trans*feminist approaches to anti-Black racism, systemic structures, and decolonizing/indigenous/two-spirit activism. In conclusion, we reflect upon the recent institutionalization of Trans Studies to (re)consider the resonances in political investment that run across the interrelated fields of feminist, queer, and trans studies. (Formerly CSQS 302)

GSIJ 303 Disability and Sexuality What is the relationship between sexuality and disability? How did we come to know and feel what we think we know and feel about these intersecting realms of knowledge and lived experience? Cultural ideals of beauty, youth, fitness, strength, sex appeal, social skill, mental acuity, and-most elusive-"health" all rely on norms of able bodiedness and heterosexuality, as well as middle-class whiteness. We will thus approach disability and sexuality not as fixed or singular categories, but as fluid, historically shifting, culturally-specific formations that intersect with race, class, gender, and nation. How do some bodies, minds, and psyches as well as sexual acts, desires, relationships, and identities come to be seen as deviant and others as normal? What are the national and transnational conditions or relations of power that form the context for these processes? Which cultural institutions have historically disciplined disabled, queer, and gender-non-conforming subjects? What legacies of resistance might we find in various forms of art and cultural production; in feminist and queer coalitions, activism and social movements for disability, racial and economic justice; and in scholarship including LGBT and Disability Studies? Where can we look for models of queer kinship, care collectives, and "alternative" familial and community structures based on practices of interdependence? We will approach these questions through a range of critical essays, books, films, artwork, and community engagement, working together to queer and crip - or further trouble - contemporary epistemologies of sexuality and disability. Dual designated as AMST 303. (Formerly WMST 303)

GSIJ 304 Queer Capture: Data as Memory Work  This interdisciplinary course weaves together queer theory and critical data studies to investigate alternatives to the capture and representation of our daily lives through data. Through collaborative participation in weekly reading-based seminars, students will develop a more nuanced understanding of the stakes and challenges of data as a form or representation for marginalized peoples. Students will apply queer theory to the practices of information societies and question normalized forms of surveillance. We will reframe these modes of capture within a history of memory work. How do past and present forms of memory-work influence identity and social formations? What does queer memory work look, feel, sound like? How do we record queer histories while also preserving them from elite capture? We will collectively question the limits of "queering" modes of social control. Students will then apply these lessons in a praxis-oriented final project.

GSIJ 305 Food, Feminism and Health  This class uses a feminist lens to explore a variety of topics arising at the intersection of food, health, and the body. The class addresses key material, epistemological, and methodological issues associated with food activism and intervention, and builds towards the enactment of student-led research projects. Class work includes seminar discussion that is dedicated specifically to learning and practicing social science research methods aimed at food-based research and intervention. The seminar will serve as a launching point for developing and carrying out individual, student-led research projects. Topics for the class include debates from both the production and consumption sides of the food chain, and take the health of both bodies and landscapes as a focal point. Among the list are: agricultural sustainability, genetically modified foods, local food activism, food security and hunger, nutrition and health policy, disordered eating, cooking as care work, and gender-based food marketing. Within these topics, issues of race and racism, class-based and cultural difference, and gendered food practices will be foregrounded. (Formerly WMST 305)

GSIJ 308 Chicana and Latina Art: Altars, Ofrendas, and Racial Acts  What unique contributions to the multiple fields of artistic expression have Chicanas and Latinas made? What is the relationship between art and social justice? What is the relationship between social justice, spirituality, and identity? This course explores how Chicana and Latina artists have used a variety of artistic media as an expression of intersectional identity, a challenge to racist and/or masculinist culture, an enactment feminist politics, a catalyst for social change, a redefinition of community, and an articulation of decolonial consciousness. (Formerly WMST 308) (Martin-Baron, offered alternate fall semesters)

GSIJ 309 Seminar: Stormy Weather Ecofeminism What is our relation with the earth? With animals, plants, water, technology, and air? With each other? With the wider universe? This course delves into the field of ecofeminism, a word first coined in 1974 by Francoi d'Eaubonne to signal the joining of two movements - environmentalism and feminism. Early feminists asked: Is the oppression of women linked to the oppression of earth Mother Nature? How do concepts of nature, gender and sexuality fashion our ways of living jointly, as "companion species?" Beginning with signature 1960s texts such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, this seminar tracks the stormy debates on environmentalism and feminism, including questions of oppression, environmental degradation, weather, and technologies of war as it seeks to chart new ways out of our current environmental conundrum. The seminar thus follows the affairs and entanglements of nature, science, and feminism in theory, research, film, literature, and everyday life. (Formerly WMST 309) (Bayer)

GSIJ 310 Queer Theory and Methods  This course functions as an inquiry into the processes of knowledge production and interdisciplinary queer scholarship within and beyond the university context. Through collaborative participation in weekly reading-based seminars, students will develop a more nuanced understanding of the stakes and challenges of queer research in the interdisciplinary context of critical race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and (dis)ability studies as insurgent forms of knowledge production. What does it mean to 'do' queer theory? What specific questions, methods of inquiry, and objects of analysis constitute queer scholarship? How do queer theory and methods open space to challenge, intervene in, and transform state- and race- making processes? As a 300-level interdisciplinary seminar, we will be working on developing the kinds of questions students wish to pursue over the course of our semester together. As such, we will be focused on practical questions of research design, modes and genres of knowledge production, as well as broader theoretical questions regarding the transformative force of Queer Theory. In addition to tracing competing and converging genealogies of queer theory, we will also be work-shopping and discussing how Queer Theory and Methods applies to, shapes, and informs student work in progress. The questions students are pursuing will help to shape the readings and other texts we will study together in the latter weeks of the course. (Formerly CSQS 310) (Offered annually)

GSIJ 362 Theories of the Body, Health, and Wellbeing  This class focuses on a topic of current interest related to feminist health. Topics will be announced in advance. Possible topics include place and health, contaminated landscapes, the material/affective body, feminist nutrition, violence and displacement, and political ecologies of health. Readings will draw from a variety of fields, including feminist science studies, geography, public health, social theory, cultural studies, and more. The course may also count towards a minor in health professions. (Formerly WMST 362)

GSIJ 401 Capstone in Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectional Justice  In this capstone seminar, students will reflect upon their education here at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and consider the role of gender, sexuality, and intersectional justice studies for the 21st century. In doing so, we will examine a wide variety of articulations of the use and value of feminist, queer, crip, and social justice theory for our contemporary moment, and interrogate conceptualizations of the fields' future. Thus our reading list will draw on texts published in the field and in the popular media within the last two years. As we reflect on the future of the academic discipline and activist movements, students will also reflect on their individual paths to gender, sexuality, and intersectional justice. This will entail thinking critically about the nature of interdisciplinarity and how it has shaped each student’s pathway, especially for those with integrated majors. Additionally, students will consider how their experiences here at HWS provide them a platform for creating their own futures. The central aim of this course is to create an online portfolio, capturing the breadth and depth of each student’s education and knowledge over the last four (or so) years and the ways they anticipate putting their degree to use. Not only will this portfolio bring together components of students’ formal education but also provide a platform for them to take their justice-oriented perspective into a non-academic environment and to a wider audience. We will also consider questions of professionalization, which is to say how feminist, queer, crip, and other justice theories may serve as a platform through which one makes decisions about how to approach the world in one’s professional life. Perhaps most importantly, though, we'll consider how one might live a justice-oriented life beyond the academy and the workplace. (Offered every spring)

GSIJ 450 Independent Study  This course provides the opportunity for students to engage in practical involvements in topics/issues in gender, sexuality, and intersectional justice as well as pursuing independent research under faculty supervision. (Formerly WMST 450)

GSIJ 456 1/2 Credit Independent Study

GSIJ 495/496 Honors