Women's and Gender Studies Course Offerings
Spring 2025 Women’s and Gender Studies Courses
WGS 101-01: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies (4 units)
TTh 9:50-11:30: Denise Witzig
This course is designed as a forum on gender. We will frame our discussion as a series of questions: How does our culture represent femininities and masculinities? How do issues of race, class, sexuality and other identities shape our ideas about gender? Our aim will be to consider and discuss as many diverse points of view about gender and its intersections as possible.
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WGS 321/WGS 321 EL-01: Social Justice Praxis: Introduction to Transgender Studies (4 + 1 units)
MW 1:30-3:10: Myrna Santiago
This course will introduce students to the questions, discourses, and controversies surrounding transgender issues, with a view to get behind the headlines and understand how the personal and the systemic are related and constructed. To go beyond theory into real life experience, the class will team up with local Bay Area organizations and work with them in engaged learning outside of Moraga.
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WGS 351-01: Feminist and Gender Theories (4 units)
TTh 11:40-1:20: Denise Witzig
This research seminar will explore the diverse theoretical frameworks of contemporary feminism. This course is primarily for Women’s and Gender Studies majors and minors, but experience in WGS 101 (formerly WGS 1), WGS 300 (formerly WGS 107), or permission of the instructor will be considered for enrollment. Open to juniors and seniors only.
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Spring 2025 Interdisciplinary Courses That Satisfy the WaGS Major/Minor
Sociology
SOC 316-01: Global Migration (4 units)
MW 1:30-3:10: Zeynep Atalay
This course focuses on the dynamics of contemporary migration and the way it is changing states, societies, politics, identifies and individual relationships. We will analyze the determinants of population movements; patterned character of the migratory process; the ways in which immigration is related to global capitalism; and the role of state actions on the politics of immigration. We will ask: What drives people to leave their homes and go to unfamiliar places where they may be subjected to harsh treatment or even detention and expulsion? What kind of people are most likely to move? This course fulfills the Social Science & Global Issues & Perspective requirement of the Core Curriculum.
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SOC 320-01: Social Movements (4 units)
TTh 8:00-9:40: Nicole Brown
The purpose of this course is to expose students to social movement theories and perspectives. Emphasis will be placed on the history, processes, and methods used to explain the collective behavior of African- American women as they engage social movements via protest. By focusing on African-American women specifically, students will be able to interrogate social movements and collective behavior literature to critically explore questions related to who and what is left out of sociological theorizing of social movements. This course fulfills the Social Science and Identity Equity Power requirement of the Core Curriculum.
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SOC 325-01: Gender and Society (4 units)
TTh 11:40-1:20: Nicole Brown
How do sex and gender shape our lives and the world around us? This course examines the social construction of gender from multiple perspectives. We will deconstruct the notion that gender is a biologically binary system, while analyzing the ways that social institutions create the terms and forms of gendered experiences. We will use cross-cultural, historical, and contemporary information to assess conflicting theoretical arguments about topics such as gender socialization, gender performance, social reproduction, gendered institutions, violence, sexuality, and categories of identity. This course fulfills the Social Science requirement of the Core Curriculum.
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Dance
DANCE 401-01: Dance and Performance Studies ($200 course fee) (4 units)
TTh 3:20-5:00: Catherine Davalos
This course examines dance from a critical and intersectional perspective using feminist, performance, and critical race theories. With attention to power and privilege, we use Dance as the medium to explore race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, ability, age, and more. The class attends concerts around the Bay Area in a variety of dance styles and venues as a vehicle for dialogue. This course is writing intensive, the Writing in the Discipline course for research as well as grant writing and marketing skills necessary for the performing artist. ($200 course fee)
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Psychology
PSYCH 332-01: Psychology of Gender (3 units)
MW 9:15-10:30: Jose Feito
A critical review of the theory and research on gender from the biological, psychological, and sociological perspectives. The course explores the social construction of gender and how it impacts human development and social behavior. Throughout the course, the interaction between gender and the complexities of race, culture, and sexual orientation is considered.
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PSYCH 333-01: Human Sexualities (4 units)
MWF 10:40-11:45: Jose Feito
A review of the empirical evidence on human sexuality, with a focus on historical and cultural perspectives as well as the physiological and sociological basis for sexual behavior and sexual identity.
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English
ENGL 320-01: Native American Literature (4 units)
MW 3:20-5:00: Sheila Hughes
This course is an introduction to and exploration of Native American literature. We’ll consider key historical texts and contexts to provide grounding for our primary focus on contemporary works (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry), with an emphasis on women writers. Important themes include: the interplay between oral traditions and literary texts; relations to the land and land rights; the impacts of settler-colonialism and missionization; spiritual traditions and practices; gender identities and roles; and the navigation of cultural memory and intergenerational trauma. The course aims to promote awareness of Indigenous experiences and perspectives in the US and to cultivate understanding of and appreciation for Native American writers’ literary voices and their contributions to contemporary discourse on culture, identity, and social justice.
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ENGL 342-01: Shakespeare (4 units)
TTh 9:50-11:30: Hilda Ma
Description is on its way!
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Communication
COMM 458-01: Topics in Film: Brazilian Film (4 units)
TTh 8:00-9:40: Samantha Joyce
This course focuses on Brazilian film and history, with a focus on race, gender, and class. We examine Brazilian films within a Pan-American context and understand them as cultural, historical, political, and economic products that characterize and reveal aspects, sensibilities, and points of view from the represented nations.
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COMM 461/COMM 461 EL-01: Communication and Social Justice: Drag ($50 course fee) (4 + 1 units)
TTh 9:50-11:30: Scott Schonfeldt-Aultman
This course is designed to give students theoretical, practical, and experiential knowledge related to drag, gender performativity, identity, as well as drag’s communicative/rhetorical aspects. We will examine how gender, race, sexuality, representation, performance, and religion relate to drag. We will work to recognize and identify how drag is and can be employed to work toward social justice. As an engaged learning course, we will be producing drag and social justice show with Momma's Boyz, a Bay Area hip-hop drag king group. ($50 course fee)
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Theatre
THTR 312-01: Theatre and American Cultures ($60 course fee) (3 units)
TTh 10:05-11:20: Emily Klein
By studying the contributions of theatre and performance artists, this course addresses the shared cultural legacies of the United States. The theory of intersectionality is used to examine the ways that gender, sexual orientation, race, class, religious affiliation, and physical ability impact individual and collective identities. While increasing their awareness of major contemporary artists, students also use theoretical models from dance/movement/spoken work composition to explore family histories and individual experiences. May be taken for ENGL 351 credit. ($60 course fee)
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Politics
POL 321/POL 321 EL-01: Gender Politics ($20 course fee) (3 + 1 units)
TTh 11:40-12:55: Patrizia Longo
A study of the social, economic, political and legal status of women in contemporary America and in other countries. The course examines the dynamic changes taking place in the relationship between women and men. Topics include the history of women’s liberation movements, contemporary battles on workplace equality, parental leave, equal pay, reproductive justice, etc. Includes Community-Based Research (the equivalent of a lab). ($20 course fee)
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POL 385-02: Radical Democracy & Black Feminism (3 units)
TTh 1:30-2:45: Zahra Ahmed
Description is on its way!
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Justice, Community & Leadership
JCL363-01: Special Topics - Abolition, Past, Present, & Imagining Futures (3 units)
TTh 1:30-3:10: Stephanie Robillard
This course draws on Black feminist and abolitionist theories to explore the history of abolition, policing, and the prison industrial complex in the United States. Questions guiding the class include: How did we get here? What is the prison industrial complex? Why fight to abolish and not to reform? What alternatives are there? To engage with these questions, students will read, watch, and listen to historic and contemporary texts and draw on radical imagination to envision new futures.
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Anthropology
ANTH 367-01: Material Culture and Social Identity: Ethnicity, Class, and Gender (4 units)
TTh 1:30-3:10: Cynthia Van Gilder
Material culture has been used by people to construct, reflect, and contest social identities throughout history. From the spatial layout of landscapes, villages, houses, and workspaces, to the personal fabrication or acquisition of tools, clothing, household goods, and articles for personal adornment, material objects embody vital information about the historical contexts in which they were meaningful. In this course, we will learn how archaeologists use material culture to read the stories of people’s lives whose voices may not have been prominent in other media in the past (e.g., written records), such as members of ethnic minorities, marginalized gender and sexual identities, and disadvantaged socioeconomic classes. We will also explore how hegemonic groups endeavored to use material culture to reinforce existing power relations, while others strategically deployed it as a challenge to the status quo. Although our class examples will be wide-ranging, our central focus will be on the material culture of ethnicity, class, and gender in multicultural situations, particularly (Alta) California from pre-European-contact to statehood. Please note: Students who have successfully completed a 200 level WRIT course, and one lower division social science course (ANTH, SOC, ES, HIST, WGS, JCL or similar) are welcome in the class. Email Professor Van Gilder (cvangild@stmarys-ca.edu) for information.
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Kinesiology
KINES 301-01: Women In Sports (4 units)
TTh 11:40-1:20: Claire Williams
This course will analyze the relationship between gender and sport from multiple perspectives. Emphasis will be placed on exploring the changing roles in sports for women, as well as how past and current beliefs regarding gender equity, health, and women’s role in society shape the experiences of women in sports in our society today. Topics will include: the history of women in sport, structural constraints facing women in sport, race and ethnicity, women’s health issues, sexuality and homophobia as they pertain to sport, the role of the media, the sporting body, Title IX and career opportunities for women, and the future of sports for women in our society.
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