Curriculum

Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Curriculum

For a list of all active WGSS courses (i.e., the Barnard WGSS Course Catalogue), click here.

WGSS CURRICULAR REQUIREMENTS

WGSS FULL MAJOR REQUIREMENTS

Eleven Courses total, distributed as follows:

One Introductory Course
- WMST 1001UN - Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies OR SOCI 3302UN - Sociology of Gender
- WMST 2150BC - Practicing Intersectionality OR CSER 1040UN - Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity
- WMST 3125BC - Introduction to Sexuality Studies OR SOCI 3318V - Sociology of Sexuality
WMST 2140BC - Critical Approaches in Social and Cultural Theory
WMST 3311UN - Feminist Theory
- OR other approved course in theoretical or epistemological studies
WMST 3514BC - Historical Approaches to Feminist Questions
- OR other approved course in historical studies
WMST 3915UN - Gender and Power in Global (Transnational) Perspective
- OR other approved course in transnational gender/feminist studies
TOTAL of 5 Electives, TWO (2) of which must be Advanced Research Seminars
WMST 3903C - Senior Seminar I

NOTES:

The advanced seminars must be 4-credit courses and must require a research project. One of the advanced electives may be the Advanced Writing-Intensive Research Seminar (WMST 3904BC Senior Seminar II: Honors Thesis)
WMST 3903BC - Seniors Seminar I is restricted to WGSS Seniors and is only offered in the fall semester.
Students who undertake a WGSS Full Double Major with another department must complete two full capstone projects (one for each major) or they must declare a “Double Major with a Single Integrating Project” through a form on Slate.

WGSS COMBINED MAJOR REQUIREMENTS

Eight Courses total, distributed as follows:

One Introductory Course
- WMST 1001UN - Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies OR SOCI 3302UN - Sociology of Gender
- WMST 2150BC - Practicing Intersectionality OR CSER 1040UN - Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity
- WMST 3125BC - Introduction to Sexuality Studies OR SOCI 3318V - Sociology of Sexuality
WMST 2140BC - Critical Approaches in Social and Cultural Theory
WMST 3311UN - Feminist Theory
- OR other approved course in theoretical or epistemological studies
WMST 3514BC - Historical Approaches to Feminist Questions
- OR other approved course in historical studies
WMST 3915UN - Gender and Power in Global (Transnational) Perspective
- OR other approved course in transnational gender/feminist studies
TOTAL of Two Electives, One of which must be an Advanced Research Seminar
One semester of Senior Seminar, taken either through Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies (WMST 3903BC - Senior Seminar I) or the other department or program

NOTES:

Students combining WGSS with Africana Studies must either complete the FULL WGSS major OR the FULL Africana Studies major.
Students combining WGSS with Human Rights must complete the FULL WGSS major (11 courses); use the ‘WGSS Major Checklist’ instead.

WGSS MINOR REQUIREMENTS

Courses total, distributed as follows:

One Introductory Course
- WMST 1001UN - Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies OR SOCI 3302UN - Sociology of Gender
- WMST 2150BC - Practicing Intersectionality OR CSER 1040UN - Critical Studies of Race and Ethnicity
- WMST 3125BC - Introduction to Sexuality Studies OR SOCI 3318V - Sociology of Sexuality
Two (of the four) Foundational Courses
- WMST 2140BC - Critical Approaches in Social and Cultural Theory
- WMST 3311UN - Feminist Theory
- WMST 3514BC - Historical Approaches to Feminist Questions
- WMST 3915UN - Gender and Power in Global (Transnational) Perspective
Two Electives

WGSS Major and Minor Student Advising Forms

Majors Check List

Combined Majors List

Minors Check List

WGSS CONCENTRATIONS AND CCIS MINORS

A Concentration is not required within the WGSS Major. For students who desire to concentrate on a specific area of study, WGSS offers the following concentrations in conjunction with the CCIS Minors.

Asian Diaspora and Asian American Studies (ADAAS)
Feminist/Intersectional Science and Technology Studies (F/ISTS)
Environmental Humanities Minor and Concentration (EHMC)
Interdisciplinary Concentration on Race and Ethnicity/Minor on Race and Ethnicity (ICORE/MORE)
Native American Indigenous Studies (NAIS)

Requirements for each of the Concentrations and Minors is available here.

COURSES RECOMMENDED FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS

WMST BC 1006 Introduction to Environmental Humanities (3)

This course introduces students to key concepts and texts in environmental humanities, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary studies of race, gender, sexuality, capital, nation, and globalization. The course examines the conceptual foundations that support humanistic analyses of environmental issues, climate crisis, and the ethics of justice and care. In turn, this critical analysis can serve as the basis for responding to the urgency of calls for environmental action.

WMST BC1050 Women & Health (3)

Combines critical feminist and anti-racist analyses of medicine with current research in epidemiology and biomedicine to understand health and health disparities as co-produced by social systems and biology.

WMST BC2026 Authority, Power, ＆ Evidence: An Introduction to Feminist/Intersectional Science and Technology Studies (F/ISTS). (3)

Science and Technology Studies (STS) is an interdisciplinary academic field that investigates entanglements between the technical and social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine. Understanding this interplay is central to addressing many of the most pressing problems of our times, such as struggles around vaccination; climate justice and environmental racism; health disparities; digital surveillance; the biology of gender, sex, and sexuality; and the growing mistrust in “science” as a domain of authority. Feminist/Intersectional Science and Technology Studies (F/ISTS) is a focused approach to Science and Technology Studies (STS) that homes in on the reciprocal relations between techno-scientific knowledge and practices, on the one hand, and gender, race, class, and other intersecting axes of power, on the other.

WMST BC2140 Critical Approaches in Social and Cultural Theory (3)

This course examines the conceptual foundations that support feminist and queer analyses of racial capitalism, security and incarceration, the politics of life and health, and colonial and postcolonial studies, among others. Open to all students; required for the major in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and the Interdisciplinary Concentration or Minor in Race and Ethnicity (ICORE/MORE).

WMST BC2150 Practicing Intersectionality (3)

This introductory course for the Interdisciplinary Concentration or Minor in Race and Ethnicity (ICORE/MORE) is open to all students. We focus on the critical study of social difference as an interdisciplinary practice, using texts with diverse modes of argumentation and evidence to analyze social differences as fundamentally entangled and co-produced. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of this course, the professor will frequently be joined by other faculty from the Consortium for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies (CCIS), who bring distinct disciplinary and subject matter expertise. Some keywords for this course include hybridity, diaspora, borderlands, migration, and intersectionality.

WMST BC2950 Science, Technology, Power (3)

This course explores the intimate entanglements of technology, science, bodies, culture, and power, with a focus on post-World War II U.S. society. In this lecture course, we will draw on history, feminist thought, anthropology, sociology, science fiction, and visual/digital art to investigate the historical and cultural contexts shaping the dreams, practices, and products of technoscience. We will explore technologies and sciences as sites of power, complex pleasures, and embodied transformations in our own everyday lives.

WMST UN3125 Introduction to Sexuality Studies (3)

This course is designed to introduce major theories sexuality, desire and identity. We will be considering the relations between the history of sexuality and the politics of gender. We will read some primary texts in gender theory, and in the study of sexuality, desire, and embodiment. This course also provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary examination of human sexual and erotic desires, orientations, and identities. We will study how desires are constructed, how they vary and remain the same in different places and times, and how they interact with other social and cultural phenomena such as government, family, popular culture, scientific inquiry, and, especially, race and class.

WMST BC3132 Gendered Controversies (4)

This seminar investigates the significance of contemporary and historical issues of social, political, and cultural conflicts conducted through the language of gender. How do such conflicts constitute women, and what do they tell us about societies, cultures, and politics? Why do social, political and cultural conflicts so often center on women and women’s bodies? How do we analyze the ethical discourses employed in such conflicts? How do we best create change in response to such conflicts?

WMST BC3504 Love, Sex, Romance, and Technology (4)

Love and sex have long been studied as historical constructs influenced by social, political, and economic dimensions. This course aims to expand this discourse by incorporating the often-overlooked lens of technological mediation. Beginning with the premise that romantic love is deeply shaped by the affordances of the technology of the time, a critical awareness of technological mediation in romance –especially of digital technologies, i.e. online dating, social media, or cybersex— allows for a deeper understanding of how social categories such as gender, race, class, ability, or sexuality are technologically-mediated, thereby informing our societal and cultural perceptions of love, dating, and sex.

WMST BC3513 CRITICAL ANIMAL STUDIES. (4)

This course collaborates between students and professor, humans and animals, subjects and objects, to investigate the Animal Problem. What are non-human animals? How do we relate to them? How do we account for our animal nature while reconciling our cultural aspirations? What are our primary desires with respect to non-human animals?

WMST UN3600 THE POLITICS OF FOOD. (4)

Who is food for? The simple answer is that food is for everyone, yet a close look at the stories we tell reveals that, actually, food is not for everyone. In our novels, nonfiction, films and even in our manifestoes, some people eat and some provide food; some appetites must be unleashed and others, regulated and controlled; and some people—some people are food. Instead of a benign arena for the imagination and enactment of universal rights, food thus exposes “universal” “human” and “rights” as crucial and deeply contested terrains of raced and gendered power. This economy of exchange, of consumption and deprivation, of the satiation of some bodies through devourment of others, of the invisibility of some hungers and the criminalization of some appetites, are all aspects of our founding narrative. These relations define the past and have also come to define our time. In this seminar, will explore the ways that we imagine food and narrate acts of feeding and eating as a means of examining both the historical enactments and contemporary mechanisms of power.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon successful completion of the Major, students will be able to attain the following outcomes:

Identify and denaturalize core assumptions that are attached to present-day systems of gender, race and sexuality;
Understand the variability and complexity of social identities in multiple historical, social and cultural contexts;
Demonstrate through oral and written presentations their understanding of gender, sexuality and race as mutually constituted and relatively autonomous categories of social difference;
Develop an awareness of a broad range of historical and transnational contexts for studying gender in relation to other social relations of power;
Develop a familiarity with major theoretical perspectives and concepts of feminist thought and practice;
Distinguish between different kinds of feminist claims and critically assess their effects in the world;
Understand and apply key social theory concepts and perspectives as these have been used in critical scholarly and activist engagements with contemporary issues and problems;
Integrate gender, race and sexuality theoretical frameworks along with a critical awareness of the politics of knowledge production in the conception and writing of an original research paper.