FEMGEN 3B:
Trans History: The Long View (HISTORY 3B)
This mini-course explores the history of gender crossing and transgressions, broadly defined. A series of Stanford faculty and one visitor will present historical interpretations of who, why, and how individuals have crossed gender boundaries, as well as how different societies have reacted to gender crossing. The topics range across time from medieval to modern times and across geographic regions from Europe, China, and Iran to the Americas. Short reading assignments will be made available for each class meeting; students must attend all five sessions, complete the readings, and write a summary paper to receive one unit of credit for the series.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 3E:
Michelle Obama in American Culture (AFRICAAM 3E, AMSTUD 3E, CSRE 3E, HISTORY 3E)
Never before has the United States had a First Lady like Michelle Obama. During her eight years in the White House, Michelle Obama transformed traditional meanings of womanhood, marriage, motherhood, and style and created new possibilities for what it means to be strong and what it means to be beautiful. No First Lady has ever been so scrutinized but also so beloved: from her J. Crew dresses to her Let's Move campaign, from her vegetable gardens to her chiseled arms, and from her powerful speeches to her casual and always authentic personality. This class examines the impact on American culture of the most popular First Lady in American history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 5C:
Human Trafficking: Historical, Legal, and Medical Perspectives (CSRE 5C, EMED 5C, HISTORY 5C, HUMBIO 178T)
(Same as History 105C. History majors and others taking 5 units, enroll in 105C.) Interdisciplinary approach to understanding the extent and complexity of the global phenomenon of human trafficking, especially for forced prostitution, labor exploitation, and organ trade, focusing on human rights violations and remedies. Provides a historical context for the development and spread of human trafficking. Analyzes the current international and domestic legal and policy frameworks to combat trafficking and evaluates their practical implementation. Examines the medical, psychological, and public health issues involved. Uses problem-based learning. Students interested in service learning should consult with the instructor and will enroll in an additional course.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
FEMGEN 5S:
Comparative Partitions: Pakistan, Israel, and the Modern World (HISTORY 5S)
Modern maps of the world simplify history by portraying the partitioning of territory as adding another border to a map, a naturalized action in the histories of sovereignty. The partitions of India and Palestine in 1947 and 1948 involved division of territory, but were also influenced by international commitments to secure representation for religious minorities. This course focuses on the key global discussions deployed by Indian Muslims and European Jews to understand the nature of their demands for a nation and determine the historical situations that resulted in the creation of sovereign nations. These partitions demonstrate how events, people, geographies, histories and ideas are powerfully linked on a global scale.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 6W:
Service-Learning Workshop on Human Trafficking (HISTORY 6W)
Considers purpose, practice, and ethics of service learning. Provides training for students' work in community. Examines current scope of human trafficking in Bay Area, pressing concerns, capacity and obstacles to effectively address them. Students work with community partners dedicated to confronting human trafficking and problems it entails on a daily basis. Must currently be enrolled in or have previously taken History 5C/105C (FemGen 5C/105C, HumBio 178H, IR 105C, CSRE 5C/105C). (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center)
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
FEMGEN 7W:
Service-Learning Workshop on Human Trafficking Part II (HISTORY 7W)
Prerequisite: HISTORY6W (FEMGEN 6W). Continuation of HISTORY 6W (FEMGEN 6W). Students will continue working on their projects with their community partners. Several class meetings and small group consultations throughout the quarter. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center)
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
FEMGEN 9SI:
A Road to Diversity inclusion: Learning to Embrace the Intersection of Identities within Athletics
This course explores the interaction of one¿s identities within the context of athletics. With an emphasis on the importance of self-awareness and story telling, we will navigate how all identities intersect and affect the privilege we receive within current society. We will specifically look at how race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, mental health, and disabilities interact with our identity as athletes. ¿A Road to Diversity Inclusion: Learning to Embrace the Intersection of Identities within Athletics¿ will help athletes find their voice and use it for positive social change within their communities.
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 10A:
BAY AREA DOMESTIC WORKERS: RIGHTS: A GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
In this Alternative Spring Break course and trip, we will examine how ournsociety and institutions allow for and perpetuate the exploitation andnoppression of domestic workers. Historically, domestic workers have largelynbeen excluded from basic labor protections. We cannot think criticallynabout the issues domestic workers face without considering the rolesngender, race and ethnicity, immigration status, and language play in thenindustry. We will use a conceptual framework based on citizenship andnreproductive labor theory to address themes in the context of Bay Areanmigrant women of color who are vehemently campaigning for equal labornrights. Through collaborations with domestic worker organizations based innSan Francisco and Oakland, ASB participants will learn how this movementnseeks to transform the domestic work industry through multilingual andnmulticultural alliances.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 11SI:
Protecting your Bubble: Self Defense Strategies for College Students
This course will offer self defense training for students, with a focus on mental and physical defense, primarily against sexual assault. The course will focus on an "empowerment" method of self defense, seeking to provide tools and build confidence in students for a variety of situations. Students will participate in group discussions on the topic of sexual assault on college campuses, as well as physical and mental self defense tactics both to build confidence in any situation, prevent assault, and to employ in dangerous situations.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 12SI:
Beyond the Athlete: Intersection of Diversity, Storytelling, and Athletics
This course explores the interaction of one¿s identities within the context of athletics. With an emphasis on the importance of self-awareness and storytelling, we will navigate how all identities intersect and affect the privilege we receive within current society. We will specifically look at how race, ethnicity, sexual orientations, religion, socioeconomic status, mental health, and disabilities interact with the sphere of athletics. ¿Beyond the Athlete: Intersection of Storytelling, Diversity, and Athletics¿ will help students find their voice and use it for positive social change within their communities.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-2
FEMGEN 13:
Stanford Anti-Violence Educator Training
The Stanford Anti-Violence Educators (SAVE) Program seeks to cultivate a more resilient, supportive, and safe Stanford culture by engaging students in peer-to-peer dialogues about sexuality and consent, equipping them with skills to better relate with others. In this class, you will develop the knowledge and skill to facilitate peer education workshops with a variety of groups on campus throughout the year, including the required frosh curriculum. We will engage in conversations about sexuality, gender, identity, boundaries, and communication. We will examine social discourses, campus norms, systems of oppression, as well as explore new ways for the community to engage itself on these topics. The class will offer the structure and guidance to 1) gain in-depth knowledge of SAVE curricula content, 2) facilitate with presence, authenticity, and connection, and 3) increase self-efficacy as a leader for cultural change.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2
FEMGEN 14N:
Imagining India: Art, Culture, Politics in Modern India (COMPLIT 14N, CSRE 15N)
This course explores history via cultural responses in modern India. We will examine a range of fiction, film and drama to consider the ways in which India emerges through its cultural productions. The course will consider key historical events such as the partition of the subcontinent, independence from British rule, Green Revolution, Emergency, liberalization of the Indian economy, among others. We will reflect on epochal historical moments by means of artisticnresponses to these events. For example, Ritwik Ghatak's experimental cinema intervenes into debates around the Bengal partition; Rohinton Mistry's novel, A Fine Balance grapples with the suspension of civil liberties during the emergency between 1975-77; Rahul Varma's play Bhopal reflects on the Bhopal gas tragedy, considered the world's worst industrial disaster. Students willnread, view and reflect on the aesthetic and historical texts through their thoughtful engagement in class discussions and written e ssays. They will also have opportunities to imaginatively respond to these texts via short creative projects, which could range from poems, monologues, solo pieces, web installations, etc. Readings will also include Mahashweta Devi, Amitav Ghosh, Girish Karnad, Jhumpa Lahiri, Manjula Padmanabhan, Salman Rushdie, Aparna Sen, among others.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 17:
Gender and Power in Ancient Greece
(Formerly CLASSGEN 17.) Introduction to the sex-gender system of ancient Greece, with comparative material from modern America. How myths, religious rituals, athletics, politics and theater reinforced gender stereotypes and sometimes undermined them. Skills: finding clues, identifying patterns and making connections amongst the components of a strange and beautiful culture very different from our own. Weekly participation in a discussion section is required.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 21S:
StoryCraft: On Sexuality (TAPS 21S)
This class prepares students to tell their stories in front of the Beyond Sex Ed audiences in three performances for all freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, Fall 2017. What is sexuality education? In this class, you will learn about sexuality from the inside-out. We will examine social discourses that shape our understanding of sexuality and then dive into an experiential workshop to discover the many facets of sexuality through the art of story -- our own and others. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, we will emphasize safety, trust, and confidentiality throughout. The class will offer you the structure and guidance to 1) mine your lives for stories, 2) craft the structure and shape, and 3) perform with presence, authenticity, and connection.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2
FEMGEN 24:
Sexuality, Gender, and Religion (RELIGST 24)
From ancient times to the present, religious texts, authority figures, adherents, and critics have had a great deal to say about sexuality and gender, with powerful impacts in personal, social and political spheres. Today these debates are more wide ranging and public than ever. In this lecture and discussion series, distinguished scholars from within and beyond Stanford will consider how sexuality and gender become ¿religious¿ in Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 2
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 6 units total)
FEMGEN 24N:
Sappho: Erotic Poetess of Lesbos (CLASSICS 16N)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 24N.) Preference to freshmen. Sappho's surviving fragments in English; traditions referring to or fantasizing about her disputed life. How her poetry and legend inspired women authors and male poets such as Swinburne, Baudelaire, and Pound. Paintings inspired by Sappho in ancient and modern times, and composers who put her poetry to music.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 28N:
Queer Lives in Music (MUSIC 28N)
Queer Lives in Music examines music by queer musicians in genres including punk, opera, rock, symphony, musical theater, folk, and jazz. We will study lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer composers, performers, and listeners, to learn how queer people have expressed individual identity and built communities through music. We will learn how sexual stigma, taboo, oppression, and resistance have impacted musical creativity and music history. Class is designed for students interested in music, social history, cultural studies, and gender/sexuality studies.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 3
FEMGEN 35S:
Sex, Race, and Nazism in 20th Century Germany (CSRE 35S, HISTORY 35S)
How can we make sense of race after Hitler? Although the Nazis' murderous attempts to engineer a racially pure society crumbled in 1945, Germany's dark past continues to influence today's heated debates about immigration, multiculturalism, Islamophobia, and right-wing extremism. Using various sources-- speeches, oral histories, memoirs, films, and rap music-- we will explore the experiences of historically persecuted groups: colonial subjects, Jews, homosexuals, women, Afro-Germans, Turkish immigrants, and Syrian refugees. All majors welcome. Priority given to history majors and minors.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 36N:
Gay Autobiography (HISTORY 36N)
Preference to freshmen. Gender, identity, and solidarity as represented in nine autobiographies: Isherwood, Ackerley, Duberman, Monette, Louganis, Barbin, Cammermeyer, Gingrich, and Lorde. To what degree do these writers view sexual orientation as a defining feature of their selves? Is there a difference between the way men and women view identity? What politics follow from these writers' experiences?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 44Q:
Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Environment (HISTORY 44Q)
Section 1 focuses on the history of women in science, medicine, and engineering. Section 2 looks at transforming research institutions so that both men and women can flourish. Section 3 explores how sex and gender analysis can enhance creativity. We discuss concrete examples of how taking gender into account has yielded new research results. Stanford University currently has a multiple year collaboration with the European Commission for Gendered Innovations, and this class will be part of that project. This course fulfills the second level Writing and Rhetoric Requirement (WRITE 2) and will emphasize oral and multimedia presentation.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI, Writing 2
FEMGEN 50Q:
Life and Death of Words (CSRE 50Q, ENGLISH 50Q, LINGUIST 50Q, NATIVEAM 50Q)
In this course, we explore the world of words: their creation, evolution, borrowing, change, and death. Words are the key to understanding the culture and ideas of a people, and by tracing the biographies of words we are able to discern how the world was, is, and might be perceived and described. We trace how words are formed, and how they change in pronunciation, spelling, meaning, and usage over time. How does a word get into the dictionary? What do words reveal about status, class, region, and race? How is the language of men and women critiqued differently within our society? How does slang evolve? How do languages become endangered or die, and what is lost when they do? We will visit the Facebook Content Strategy Team and learn more about the role words play in shaping our online experiences. Together, the class will collect Stanford language and redesign the digital dictionary of the future. Trigger Warning: Some of the subject matter of this course is sensitive and may cause offense. Please consider this prior to enrolling in the course.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
FEMGEN 52N:
Spoken Sexuality: Language and the Social Construction of Sexuality (LINGUIST 52N)
The many ways language is used in the construction of sexuality and sexual identity. How language is used as a resource for performing and perceiving sexual identity. Drawing on linguistic analyses of pronunciation, word choice, and grammar, questions such as: Is there a gay accent? Why isn't there a lesbian accent? How do transgendered people modify their linguistic behavior when transitioning? How are unmarked (heterosexual) identities linguistically constructed? Sexuality as an issue of identity, as well as of desire. Iconic relations between elements of language such as breathy voice quality and high pitch, and aspects of desire such as arousal and excitement. How language encodes ideologies about sexuality; how language is used to talk about sexuality in public discourses about gay marriage and bullying, as well as in personal narratives of coming out. How language encodes dominant ideologies about sexuality, evident in labels for sexual minorities as well as terminology for sex acts. Discussions of readings, explorations of how sexuality is portrayed in popular media, and analyses of primary data. Final research paper on a topic of student choice.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
FEMGEN 54N:
African American Women's Lives (AFRICAAM 54N, AMSTUD 54N, CSRE 54N, HISTORY 54N)
Preference to freshmen. We will examine the struggles of African American women to define their own lives and improve the social, economic, political and cultural conditions of black communities. Topics will include women¿s enslavement and freedom, kinship and family relations, institution and community building, violence, labor and leisure, changing gender roles, consumer and beauty culture, social activism, and the politics of sexuality.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 54Q:
African American Women's Lives (AFRICAAM 54Q, AMSTUD 54Q, HISTORY 54Q)
Preference to sophomores. African American women have been placed on the periphery of many historical documents. This course will encourage students to think critically about historical sources and to use creative and rigorous historical methods to recover African American women¿s experiences. Drawing largely on primary sources such as letters, personal journals, literature and film, this course explores the everyday lives of African American women in 19th- and 20th-century America. We will begin in our present moment with a discussion of Michelle Obama and then we will look back on the lives and times of a wide range of African American women including: Charlotte Forten Grimké, a 19th-century reformer and teacher; Nella Larsen, a Harlem Renaissance novelist; Josephine Baker, the expatriate entertainer and singer; and Ida B. Wells and Ella Baker, two luminaries of civil rights activism. We will examine the struggles of African American women to define their own lives and improve the social, economic, political and cultural conditions of black communities. Topics will include women¿s enslavement and freedom, kinship and family relations, institution and community building, violence, labor and leisure, changing gender roles, consumer and beauty culture, social activism, and the politics of sexuality.
| Units: 3-4
FEMGEN 55N:
Social Movements through Song in Modern America (AMSTUD 55N, HISTORY 55N)
This discussion class will explore a series of social movements in modern America through the songs produced to support efforts to achieve labor unions, civil rights and racial justice, peace, and women's rights. For each class we will read short historical texts to provide contexts for the movements and then concentrate on the role of music within them. We will listening to and discuss several core songs for each topic. Biographical and autobiographical readings on a key set of musicians (including Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Malvina Reynolds, and Bernice Johnson Reagon) will provide personal accounts of the relationship of songs to social movement . The music we include in class will range from ballads to anthems, from oral traditions to the work of singer-songwriters.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
FEMGEN 86Q:
Love as a Force for Social Justice (HUMBIO 86Q)
Preference to sophomores. Biological, psychological, religious, social and cultural perspectives on the concept of agape love. How love is conceptualized across cultures; agape love as the basis of many religions; different kinds of love; the biology of love; love in action for social justice; the languages of love, including art, literature, music, and poetry. Emphasis is on blog writing, participation, and oral presentation.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
FEMGEN 93:
Late Imperial China (CHINA 93, HISTORY 93)
(Same as HISTORY 193. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 193.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 100X:
Grassroots Community Organizing: Building Power for Collective Liberation (AFRICAAM 100, CSRE 100, URBANST 108)
Taught by long-time community organizer, Beatriz Herrera. This course explores the theory, practice and history of grassroots community organizing as a method for developing community power to promoting social justice. We will develop skills for 1-on-1 relational meetings, media messaging, fundraising strategies, power structure analysis, and strategies organizing across racial/ethnic difference. And we will contextualize these through the theories and practices developed in the racial, gender, queer, environmental, immigrant, housing and economic justice movements to better understand how organizing has been used to engage communities in the process of social change. Through this class, students will gain the hard skills and analytical tools needed to successfully organize campaigns and movements that work to address complex systems of power, privilege, and oppression. As a Community-Engaged Learning course, students will work directly with community organizations on campaigns to address community needs, deepen their knowledge of theory and history through hands-on practice, and develop a critical analysis of inequality at the structural and interpersonal levels. Placements with community organizations are limited. Enrollment will be determined on the first day through a simple application process. Students will have the option to continue the course for a second quarter in the Winter, where they will execute a campaign either on campus or in collaboration with their community partner.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 101:
Introduction to Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (AMSTUD 107, CSRE 108, TAPS 108)
Introduction to interdisciplinary approaches to gender, sexuality, queer, trans and feminist studies. Topics include the emergence of sexuality studies in the academy, social justice and new subjects, science and technology, art and activism, history, film and memory, the documentation and performance of difference, and relevant socio-economic and political formations such as work and the family. Students learn to think critically about race, gender, and sexuality from local and global perspectives.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 102:
Art and Social Criticism (AFRICAAM 102B, AMSTUD 102, ARTHIST 162B, CSRE 102A)
Visual artists have long been in the forefront of social criticism in America. Since the 1960s, various visual strategies have helped emergent progressive political movements articulate and represent complex social issues. Which artists and particular art works/projects have become key anchors for discourses on racism, sexism, economic and social inequality, and immigrant rights? We will learn about a spectrum of political art designed to raise social awareness, spark social change and rouse protest. The Art Workers¿ Coalition¿s agit-prop opposing the Vietnam War and ACT-UP¿s emblematic signs and symbols during the AIDS/HIV crisis of the 1980s galvanized a generation into action. Works such as Judy Chicago¿s The Dinner Party (1979), Fred Wilson¿s Mining the Museum (1992), and Glenn Ligon¿s paintings appropriating fragments from African-American literature all raised awareness by excavating historical evidence of the long legacy of marginalization and modeled ways of resisting that marginalization. For three decades feminist artists Barbara Kruger and the Guerilla Girls have combined institutional critique and direct address into a provocative form of criticality. Recent art for social justice is reaching ever broadening publics by redrawing the role of artist and audience exemplified by the democratization of poster making and internet campaigns of the Occupy and #BlackLivesMatter movements. Why are each of these examples successful as influential and enduring markers of social criticism? We will also consider the visual culture of new protest strategies in the Post-Occupy era. What have these socially responsive practices contributed to our understanding of American history? We will conclude with an investigation into large-scale transnational participatory projects, including Tania Bruguera¿s Immigrant Movement International and Ai Weiwei¿s @Large on Alcatraz Island.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 103:
Feminist Theories and Methods Across the Disciplines (FEMGEN 203, PHIL 153, PHIL 253)
(Graduate Students register for PHIL 253 or FEMGEN 203) Concepts and questions distinctive of feminist and LGBT scholarship and how they shape research: gender, intersectionality, disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, standpoint, "queering," postmodern critiques, postcolonial critiques.nPrerequisites: Feminist Studies 101 or equivalent with consent of instructor.nNOTE: This course must be taken for a letter grade and a minimum of 3 units to be eligible for WAYS credit. The 2 unit option is for graduate students only.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 103S:
Gender in Native American Societies (CSRE 103S, NATIVEAM 103S)
Historical and cultural forces at work in traditional and contemporary Native American women's lives through life stories and literature. How women are fashioning gendered indigenous selves. Focus is on the diversity of Native American communities and cultures.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 104A:
Junior Seminar and Practicum
Preference to and required of Feminist Studies majors; others require consent of instuctor. Feminist experiential learning projects related to critical studies in gender and sexuality. Identifying goals, grant proposal writing, and negotiating ethical issues in feminist praxis. Developing the relationship between potential projects and their academic focus in the major.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 104B:
Senior Seminar and Practicum
Required for Feminist Studies majors. Non-majors enrolled with consent of instructor. Students develop oral reports on their practicum and its relationship to their academic work, submit a report draft and revised written analysis of the practicum, and discuss applications of feminist scholarship. May be repeated once for credit.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 4 units total)
FEMGEN 105:
Honors Work
(Staff)
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-15
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Blaydes, L. (PI);
Brooks, H. (PI);
Brown, N. (PI);
Coll, K. (PI);
Davies, A. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
Freedman, E. (PI);
Hadlock, H. (PI);
Hanlon, P. (PI);
Jain, S. (PI);
Karlin-Neumann, P. (PI);
Lee, H. (PI);
Lunsford, A. (PI);
Menon, J. (PI);
Miner, V. (PI);
Moraga, C. (PI);
Murray, A. (PI);
Myers, K. (PI);
Ngai, S. (PI);
Robinson, P. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Sohn, S. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Tanaka, S. (PI);
Voss, B. (PI);
Wotipka, C. (PI);
Yarbro-Bejarano, Y. (PI);
Burbank, S. (GP)
FEMGEN 105C:
Human Trafficking: Historical, Legal, and Medical Perspectives (CSRE 105C, EMED 105C, HISTORY 105C, INTNLREL 105C)
(Same as HISTORY 5C. History majors and others taking 5 units, enroll in 105C.) Interdisciplinary approach to understanding the extent and complexity of the global phenomenon of human trafficking, especially for forced prostitution, labor exploitation, and organ trade, focusing on human rights violations and remedies. Provides a historical context for the development and spread of human trafficking. Analyzes the current international and domestic legal and policy frameworks to combat trafficking and evaluates their practical implementation. Examines the medical, psychological, and public health issues involved. Uses problem-based learning. Students interested in service learning should consult with the instructor and will enroll in an additional course.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI
FEMGEN 105P:
FGSS Honors Preparation Seminar
This 2 unit course will provide students the opportunity to explore possible honors topics, project design, advisor options, and university resources including grants, libraries, and faculty. nOver the 10 weeks, students will review related research, potential methodologies, explore creative genres, and consider summer research and preparation. Students will use their findings to write a proposal to submit to the honors program as well as a proposal to submit to UAR for undergraduate funding. After completing the proposal, students will have more clear next steps for their honors projects, including summer research needs, spring course selection as it relates to their topic, and building advisor relationships.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 107A:
Ripped from the Headlines: Current Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Issues and Questions
Discussion of current issues and questions related to Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 1-2
FEMGEN 107C:
You're Majoring in What?! Why Feminism is Still Relevant
Stanford Feminist Study alum and community activists will join this weekly seminar to share how studying feminism has helped them professionally. Together speakers and students will explore answers to questions such as: ¿Why study feminism, sexuality, or gender studies?¿ ¿Why is feminism still relevant?¿
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 1-2
FEMGEN 107G:
Sisterhood, Brotherhood, & Gender Identity: The Histories, Stories, and Constructs of Greek Life
In this course, we will explore the history, the development, the critiques and praise of sororities and fraternities. We¿ll pay particular attention to how gender and sexuality are framed in those discussions¿ones by outsiders as well as ones by insiders. How do Greek organizations present their activities and goals? What values and roles do they highlight during recruitment? Who joins them? What expectations are there for participants? What are the perceived benefits that come with joining? What does it mean to be a ¿fraternity brother¿ or a ¿sorority sister¿ in modern Greek organizations? How are sorority women and fraternity men discussed by outsiders? How do the stereotypes of Greek life impact perceptions of individuals as well as particular sororities and fraternities? To consider these questions, we¿ll look at historical documents and analyze how groups described themselves as they were establishing; we¿ll also analyze recent documents (websites, books, etc.) to consider current ways organizations describe themselves, their activities, and their values. We¿ll use both to consider how the messages created by and about Greek organizations shape public perceptions as well as individuals¿ experiences of gender and sexuality identity.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 107M:
College Culture & Masculinity
Students in this course will interrogate masculinity and its impacts on culture broadly, with a focus on college campuses. Some questions considered will include: How do structures and expectations of masculinity impact sexual assault and response to sexual assault? Where on campus do we see pressure to perform masculinity? What expectations do some campus communities, such as athletics and Greek life, have of their members to perform and maintain masculinity? How are male identifying individuals expected to behave in communities shaped by masculinity? What spaces are there for gender non-conforming folks in communities shaped by masculinity? How do structures of masculinity impact expectations of femininity and femme in these spaces and others?
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-2
FEMGEN 107S:
Barbie Girls vs Sea Monsters: Gender, Sexuality, & Identity in American Culture
Incoming students bring widely varying experiences of intimate relationships, whether romantic, familial, platonic, or sexual. This course provides students an opportunity to examine sexuality as a broad concept encompassing a dimension of our humanity and its surrounding cultural systems, impacting how we relate with one another: our experience of sex, gender, intimacy, and worldview. Activities, readings, and discussions will prompt students to reflect on society constructs sex, gender, and intimacy. Themes will include intersectional feminism and codes of masculinity, concepts and practicalities of affirmative consent in straight and LGBTQIA contexts, gender and sexual identity spectrums, and the lived experience of dating, romance, and relationships.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-2
FEMGEN 108:
Internship in Feminist Studies
Supervised field, community, or lab experience in law offices, medical research and labs, social service agencies, legislative and other public offices, or local and national organizations that address issues related to gender and/or sexuality. One unit represents approximately three hours work per week. Required paper. May be repeated for credit. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center). Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Majors may not receive 108 credit for their required practicum, as they are to sign up for FEMGEN 104 A & B instead. Prerequisites: Course work in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, written proposal and application form submitted for approval by program office, written consent of faculty sponsor. Course may be taken 3 times total, for a max of 15 units.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 15 units total)
Instructors: ;
Baran, N. (PI);
Davies, A. (PI);
Freedman, E. (PI);
Hadlock, H. (PI);
Hanlon, P. (PI);
Harrison, L. (PI);
Karlin-Neumann, P. (PI);
Lunsford, A. (PI);
Miner, V. (PI);
Moraga, C. (PI);
Murray, A. (PI);
Myers, K. (PI);
Rivers, D. (PI);
Robinson, P. (PI);
Stefanick, M. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Wotipka, C. (PI)
FEMGEN 109:
Looking Back, Moving Forward: Raising Critical Awareness in Gender and Sports (FEMGEN 209)
In 1972, Title IX legislation opened up a vast range of opportunities for women in sports. Since then, women's sports have continued to grow yet the fight for recognition and equality persists. Simply put, men's sports are more popular than women's--so much so, in fact, that people often make the hierarchical distinction between "sports" and "women's sports." But what would it take to get more women's sports featured on ESPN or more female athletes on the cover of Sports Illustrated? And, given the well-documented corruption at the highest levels of men's sports, should such an ascent in popularity be the goal for women's sports? This course will map out and respond to the multifaceted issues that emerge when women enter the sports world. Throughout the quarter, we will explore the fight for gender equality in sports through historical, cultural, and rhetorical lenses.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 110J:
Romance, Desire, and Sexuality in Modern Japanese Literature (FEMGEN 210J, JAPAN 110, JAPAN 210)
This class is structured around three motifs: love suicide (as a romantic ideal), female desire, and same-sex sexuality. Over the course of the quarter we will look at how these motifs are treated in the art and entertainment from three different moments of Japanese history: the Edo period (1615-1868), the modern period (1920-65), and the contemporary period (1965-present). We will start by focusing on the most traditional representations of these topics. Subsequently, we will consider how later artists and entertainers revisited the conventional treatments of these motifs, informing them with new meanings and social significance. We will devote particular attention to how this material comments upon issues of gender, sexuality, and human relationships in the context of Japan. Informing our perspective will be feminist and queer theories of reading and interpretation.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 110X:
Introduction to Comparative Queer Literary Studies (COMPLIT 110, COMPLIT 310, FEMGEN 310X)
Introduction to the comparative literary study of important gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender writers and their changing social, political, and cultural contexts from the 1880s to today: Oscar Wilde, Rachilde, Radclyffe Hall, Djuna Barnes, James Baldwin, Jean Genet, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Jeanette Winterson, Alison Bechdel and others, discussed in the context of 20th-century feminist and queer literary and social theories of gender and sexuality.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 111:
Reproductive Politics in the United States and Abroad (AMSTUD 111)
Course description: This course examines the issues and debates surrounding women's reproduction in the United States and beyond. It pays special attention to how knowledge and technology travel across national/cultural borders and how women's reproductive functions are deeply connected to international politics and events abroad. Topics include: birth control, population control, abortion, sex education, sex trafficking, genetic counseling, assisted reproductive technologies, midwifery, breastfeeding, menstruation, and reproductive hazards.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 112:
"When We Dead Awaken": Breakthroughs in Conceptions of the Gendered Self in Literature and the Arts (ENGLISH 182J, FEMGEN 212)
Remarkable breakthroughs In conceptions of the gendered self are everywhere evident in literature and the arts, beginning primarily with the Early Modern world and continuing into today. Many of these works inhere in innovations in literary and artistic forms in order to capture and even evoke the strong cognitive, or psychological, dimension of such ¿awakenings.¿ The reader, or viewer, is often challenged to adapt her or his mind to new forms of thought, such as John Donne¿s seventeenth century creation of the Dramatic Monologue, a form popular with modern writers, which requires the reader¿s cognitive ¿presence¿ in order to fill out the dramatic scene. In so doing, the reader often supplies the presence of the female voice and thereby enters into her self-consciousness and inner thoughts. Adrienne Rich, for example, specifically ¿rewrites¿ one of Donne¿s major poems from the female perspective. This can be, in Rich¿s words, an ¿awakening¿ for the active reader, as he or she assumes that often-unspoken female perspective. The course will also explore male conceptions of the self and how such conceptions are often grounded in cultural attitudes imposed on male subjects, which can contribute to gender-bias toward women, a subject often neglected in exploring gendered attitudes, but which is now gaining more study, for example, in Shakespeare¿s ¿Othello.¿ Readings from recent developments in the neurosciences and cognitive studies will be included in our study of artistic forms and how such forms can activate particular mindsets. Writers and artists will include Shakespeare, Michelangelo, John Donne, Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, June Wayne, and Edward Albee¿s 1960¿s play, ¿Who¿s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?¿
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 113:
Transgender Studies (FEMGEN 213)
Transgender and gender-expansive identities are the subject of growing attention and (often sensationalist) interest in the media as well as in the healthcare field, yet there exists a dearth of legitimate academic courses, research and writing that reflect and explore gender identity and expression as a fluid spectrum rather than a fixed binary. This course will address transgender and gender expansive identities from historical, medical, literary, developmental and sociopolitical perspectives.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum
FEMGEN 114:
Sexual Diversity and Health (FEMGEN 214)
Explores multiple aspects of sexual diversity and health, including: kink/BDSM, polyamory, trans* sexuality, asexuality, high-risk sex, inter-sex-tionality, questioning gender and sexual binaries, and more. The format includes a one-day conference featuring a variety of expert speakers covering different aspects of sexual diversity and health, followed by a debriefing and discussion session to integrate what has been heard and learned.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 115:
Queer Reading and Queer Writing in Early Modern England
Considers the possibility of identifying queer reading and writing practices in early modern England as well the theoretical and historical obstacles such a project necessarily encounters. Focus on the role which Renaissance discourses of desire continue to play in our negotiations of homo/erotic subjectivity, identity politics, and sexual and gender difference. Study of Renaissance queerness in relation to the classical tradition on the one hand and the contemporary discourses of religion, law, and politics on the other. Readings include plays, poems, and prose narratives as well as letters, pamphlets, and ephemeral literature. Both major and minor authors will be represented.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 116:
Narrating Queer Trauma (FEMGEN 216X)
Psychiatrist Dori Laub has argued that the process of narrating trauma is essential to the healing process. Not only is telling the story important, but it is also crucial to have someone else bear witness to the narrative. But how do people even begin to narrate stories of violence and pain, and how do we become good listeners? How are these stories told and heard in the specific context of queer world making? This course will explore narratives of trauma in queer lives through literature, film, media, and performance in conjunction with trauma theory and psychoanalysis. We will pay specific attention to questions of community, healing, violence, and affect at the intersections of queerness and race, sex, disability, class, gender, and nationality.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 117Q:
Queer Arts: Remembering and Imagining Social Change (CSRE 117Q)
This interdisciplinary fine arts course is designed to examine the nature of artistic imagination, sources of creativity and the way this work helps shape social change. We will consider the relationship among muses, mentors and models for queer artists engaged in such fields as visual art, music, theatre, film, creative writing and dance. Exploring various cultures, lands and times, we will study the relationship between memory and vision in serious art. We will ask questions about the role of the artist in the academy and the broader social responsibility of the artist. We will locate some of the similarities and differences among artists, engage with different disciplines, and discover what we can learn from one another. This seminar requires the strong voices of all participants. To encourage students to take their ideas and questions beyond the classroom, we will be attending art events (performances, exhibits, readings) individually and in groups.nnThe learning goals include a serious exploration of individual students¿ creativity, a more nuanced appreciation of diverse arts and a stronger understanding of the multifaceted nature of gender, race and class. Students will develop their abilities to write well-argued papers. They will stretch their imaginations in the written and oral assignments. And they will grow more confident as public speakers and seminar participants.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
FEMGEN 118:
Transgender Cultural Studies
In the United States, we seem to be in a ¿transgender moment,¿ or we¿ve reached what Time magazine has called the ¿transgender tipping point.¿ In this course, we will explore what this cultural moment means for the representation of transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people. We will look historically and globally at differences in representation in order to better understand our current cultural moment. We will explore multiple genres, formats, and authorial points of view to critically think through how and by whom trans stories are told. How do interlocking systems of oppression continue to dictate and drive trans representation and narrative; how do trans authors and artists push back against these systems to (re)construct their own narrative and image? Through a critical engagement with film, memoir, graphic narrative, poetry, and fiction created by and/or about trans* people, this course will engage students with an instersectional approach to trans identity and representation in concert with racial identity, sexuality, disability, socio-economic status, age, gender, and citizenship.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 121:
Intro to Queer Studies
This course provides an interdisciplinary grounding in historical and theoretical foundations of queer culture and theory. A critical interrogation of sex, gender, sexuality, pleasure, and embodiment will provide students with a framework for producing their own queer cultural critique. We will explore LGBTQ history alongside contemporary queer issues in popular culture, health, science, government policy, and politics. This course will also address the intersections of sexuality and gender with race, class, ability, age, nationality, and religion. Students will engage with multiple disciplinary approaches that have both shaped queer studies and have been shaped by queer methodology.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 123:
Sex and Love in Modern U.S. Society (SOC 123, SOC 223)
Social influences on private intimate relations involving romantic love and sexuality. Topics include the sexual revolution, contraception, dating, hook-ups, cohabitation, sexual orientation, and changing cultural meanings of marriage, gender, and romantic love.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender
FEMGEN 124:
Challenging Sex and Gender Dichotomies in Medicine (FEMGEN 224, SOMGEN 257)
Explores and challenges the traditional physiological bases for distinguishing human males from females, as well as the psychosocial factors that play a role in experiencing and expressing gender and sexuality. Topics include the influence of sociocultural (gender) norms and behaviors on human biology, the interactions of sex and gender on medical outcomes, the importance of understanding the spectrum of sex, gender, and sexuality in clinical practice.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 126D:
Victorian Sex
How can we make sense of a culture of extraordinary sexual repression that nevertheless seemed fully preoccupied with sex? Examination of the depictions of sex in Victorian literary and cultural texts. Authors include: Collins, Braddon, the Brownings, Swinburne, Stoker and Wilde.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 129:
Critical Issues in International Women's Health (HUMBIO 129)
Women's lives, from childhood through adolescence, reproductive years, and aging. Economic, social, and human rights factors, and the importance of women's capacities to have good health and manage their lives in the face of societal pressures and obstacles. Emphasis is on life or death issues of women's health that depend on women's capacity to exercise their human rghts including maternal mortality, violence, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, and sex trafficking. Organizations addressing these issues. A requirement of this class is participation in public blogs. Prerequisites: Human Biology core or equivalent or consent of instructor.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 130:
Sex and Gender in Judaism and Christianity (JEWISHST 120, RELIGST 130)
What role do Jewish and Christian traditions play in shaping understandings of gender differences? Is gender always imagined as dual, male and female? This course explores the variety of ways in which Jewish and Christian traditions - often in conversation with and against each other - have shaped gender identities and sexual politics. We will explore the central role that issues around marriage and reproduction played in this conversation. Perhaps surprisingly, early Jews and Christian also espoused deep interest in writing about 'eunuchs' and 'androgynes,' as they thought about Jewish and Christian ways of being a man or a woman. We will examine the variety of these early conversations, and the contemporary Jewish and Christian discussions of feminist, queer, trans- and intersex based on them.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 130S:
Sex and the Novel (ENGLISH 130)
How do novels represent sexual life? This course reads texts from the eighteenth century to the present day, and considers how novelists represent the discombobulating effects of desire in fictional prose. Authors may include: S. Richardson, N. Hawthorne, J. Austen, E. Brontë, G. Gissing, H. James, D.H. Lawrence, J. Joyce, V. Nabokov, J. Baldwin, A. Hollinghurst and Z. Smith.
Terms: Win, Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 134:
The Marriage Plot
The centrality of the marriage plot in the development of the British novel beginning in the 18th century with Samuel Richardson's Pamela and ending with Woolf's modernist novel Mrs. Dalloway. The relationship between novelistic plotting and the development of female characters into marriageable women. What is the relationship between the novel and feminine subjectivity? What aspects of marriage make it work as a plotting device? What kinds of marriages do marriage plots allow? Is the development of women's political agency related to their prominence in the novel form?
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 138:
Men's Violence Against Women in Literature: A Critical and Social Analysis (FEMGEN 238)
Literature, as a social and cultural product of its time, can inform and deepen our understanding of oppression. Using literature as a vehicle, this course will explore the impact of and responses to men's violence against women. Students will critically assess how the author has portrayed the topic of sexual assault and relationship abuse, how the characters and/or author exhibits victim blaming, and, if the characters were living today, would current policies adequately hold the perpetrator responsible, provide safety and justice for the survivor, and challenge rape culture. In dialogue with theoretical texts, we will analyze the literary representations of patriarchy that inform societal acceptance of gender-based violence, identify the historical prevalence of victim blaming and impunity in these works, and assess the implications on policy making at the individual, community and political level. Students will critically examine literature including Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Ubervilles, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Louise Erdrich's The Round House and Joyce Carol Oates' We Were the Mulvaneys.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 139:
Rereading Judaism in Light of Feminism (JEWISHST 139)
During the past three decades, Jewish feminists have asked new questions of traditional rabbinic texts, Jewish law, history, and religious life and thought. Analysis of the legal and narrative texts, rituals, theology, and community to better understand contemporary Jewish life as influenced by feminism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 140A:
Destroying Dichotomies: Exploring Multiple Sex, Gender, and Sexual Identities
This course is designed to broaden the student's awareness of the human experience by introducing scholarly debates about sex, gender and sexual identities and expressions. We will consider the socially constructed nature of sex, gender and sexuality and examine the history and community of those who identify as intersexual, transgender, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, pansexual and/or queer through texts, discussion, films, and class presentations.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 140D:
LGBT/Queer Life in the United States (FEMGEN 240D, HISTORY 257C)
An introductory course that explores LGBT/Queer social, cultural, and political history in the United States. By analyzing primary documents that range from personal accounts (private letters, autobiography, early LGBT magazines, and oral history interviews) to popular culture (postcards, art, political posters, lesbian pulp fiction, and film) to medical, military, and legal papers, students will understand how the categories of gender and sexuality have changed over the past 150 years. This class investigates the relationship among queer, straight and transgender identities. Seminar discussions will question how the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality influenced the construction of these categories.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 140H:
New Citizenship: Grassroots Movements for Social Justice in the U.S. (ANTHRO 169A, CHILATST 168, CSRE 168)
Focus is on the contributions of immigrants and communities of color to the meaning of citizenship in the U.S. Citizenship, more than only a legal status, is a dynamic cultural field in which people claim equal rights while demanding respect for differences. Academic studies of citizenship examined in dialogue with the theory and practice of activists and movements. Engagement with immigrant organizing and community-based research is a central emphasis.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 141:
Intersectionality and Social Movements: Gender, Race, Sexuality and Collective Organizing (CSRE 141X)
This course explores U.S. social movements from an intersectional perspective. How is social movement emergence related to participants¿ identities and experiences with inequality? How are the dynamics, targets and tactics of mobilized participants related to race, class, gender, age and/or sexuality? How have social movement scholars addressed the intersectional nature of identity and community? Readings include empirical and theoretical social movement texts, and discussion topics include feminist and civil rights movements, queer/LGBT movements, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
FEMGEN 144:
Women and Gender in Science, Medicine and Engineering (HISTORY 144)
(Same as HISTORY 44. Majors and others taking 5 units, enroll in HISTORY 144.) Men's and women's roles in science, medicine, and engineering over the past 200 years with a focus on the present. What efforts are underway globally to transform research institutions so that both men's and women's careers can flourish? How have science and medicine studied and defined males and females? How can we harness the creative power of gender analysis to enhance knowledge and spark innovation?
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 144F:
Female Modernists: Women Writers in Paris Between the Wars
The course will focus on expatriate women writers - American and British - who lived and wrote in Paris between the wars. Among them: Edith Wharton, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, H.D., Djuna Barnes, Margaret Anderson, Janet Flanner, Natalie Barney, Kay Boyle, Mina Loy, Romaine Brooks, Mary Butts, Radclyffe Hall, Colette, and Jean Rhys. A central theme will be Paris as a lure and inspiration for bohemian female modernists, and the various alternative and emancipatory literary communities they created.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FEMGEN 144X:
Transforming Self and Systems: Crossing Borders of Race, Nation, Gender, Sexuality, and Class (ASNAMST 144, CSRE 144)
Exploration of crossing borders within ourselves, and between us and them, based on a belief that understanding the self leads to understanding others. How personal identity struggles have meaning beyond the individual, how self healing can lead to community healing, how the personal is political, and how artistic self expression based in self understanding can address social issues. The tensions of victimization and agency, contemplation and action, humanities and science, embracing knowledge that comes from the heart as well as the mind. Studies are founded in synergistic consciousness as movement toward meaning, balance, connectedness, and wholeness. Engaging these questions through group process, journaling, reading, drama, creative writing, and storytelling. Study is academic and self-reflective, with an emphasis on developing and presenting creative works in various media that express identity development across borders.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 145:
Culture Wars: Art and Social Conflict in the USA, 1890-1950 (AMSTUD 145M, ARTHIST 145, ARTHIST 345)
This course examines social conflicts and political controversies in American culture through the lens of visual art and photography. We consider how visual images both reflect and participate in the social and political life of the nation and how the terms of citizenship have been represented¿and, at times, contested¿by artists throughout the first half of the 20th century. The class explores the relation between American art and the body politic by focusing on issues of poverty, war, censorship, consumerism, class identity, and racial division.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 148B:
Islam and Human Rights in Theory and Practice (ANTHRO 148B, CSRE 148B)
This course aims to explore various aspects of the contemporary debate over the compatibility of Islam with human rights. As a class, we will examine the contours of various human rights debates as they surface in the writings of Islamic thinkers, as well as emerge in Muslim societies today. What is/are Islamic conceptions of human rights? How is this discourse activated, used and challenged by people living in Muslim Societies? How do Islamic conceptions and articulations of human rights relate to western/universal, conceptions? Where do they intersect and diverge from one another?
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 149:
Gender Violence: Critical Race, Feminist, and Queer Perspectives
This course examines the problem of domestic violence, sexual violence, and other forms of gender violence using critical race, legal, feminist, and queer theory. Readings reflect an interdisciplinary approach to understanding gender violence as it is understood in U.S. law, history, culture, and politics. We will explore foundational theories for why gender violence persists as well as its relationship to structural power along axes of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation. This course will also consider feminist anti-violence social movements and debates within legal and philosophical approaches to gender violence.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 150:
Sex, Gender, and Power in Modern China (CHINA 115, CHINA 215, FEMGEN 250)
Investigates how sex, gender, and power are entwined in the Chinese experience of modernity. Topics include anti-footbinding campaigns, free love/free sex, women's mobilization in revolution and war, the new Marriage Law of 1950, Mao's iron girls, postsocialist celebrations of sensuality, and emergent queer politics. Readings range from feminist theory to China-focused historiography, ethnography, memoir, biography, fiction, essay, and film. All course materials are in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 150A:
Minaret and Mahallah: Women and Islam in Central Asia (ANTHRO 150A, REES 250A)
Introduction to women's culture and art in Muslim countries of Central Asia. Women, bearers of family rites and folklore, are the key figures in transmission of traditional culture and guardians of folk Islam. Women helped to keep the continuity of Islamic education in Central Asia during the harsh times of Communist dominance. The whole wealth of women's oral tradition will be demonstrated and examined to the extent possible. The course will make broad use of audio-visual materials.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 150D:
Women Poets (ENGLISH 150D)
The development of women's poetry from the 17th to the 20th century. How these poets challenge and enhance the canon, amending and expanding ideas of tone, voice and craft, while revising societal expectations of the poet's identity. Poets include Katharine Philips, Letitia Barbauld, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charlotte Mew, Sylvia Plath, and Adrienne Rich.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FEMGEN 150J:
Queer Poetry in America (AMSTUD 150J, ENGLISH 150J)
Some poets are known for portraying alternative sexualities in their poetry. Others seem to cover sexuality up. Can we use a poem to determine whether a poet is gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning? Or do some poets simply defy categorization? What makes a poem queer? Is poetry somehow more or less queer than other literary forms? Even if we can answer these questions, what would they tell us about literature in general? This course will investigate such topics and more by tracking queer poetry in twentieth-century America. We'll start with nineteenth-century figures Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, then move on to Gertrude Stein, Hart Crane, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, and others. We'll ask what their poetry meant in their own times, as well as what it means to us in our present era of expanding civil rights and changing sexual attitudes.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 150T:
Transnational Sexualities (CSRE 150T, FEMGEN 250T, TAPS 150T, TAPS 250T)
Transnational Sexualites is an inter-disciplinary course that considers the aesthetic, social, and political formation of sexual subjectivities in a global world. How does the transnational traffic of people, media, images, finance, and commodities shape the force-fields of desire? What is the relationship between political economies and libidinal economies? The course will explore the erotics of race and religion, neoliberalism and globalization within a wide range geo-political contexts including Indonesia, China, Egypt, India, South Africa, US, among others.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 152:
'Tis all in pieces: Space and Gender on the Threshold of the Modern World (FEMGEN 252)
These dramatic words, spoken by the British poet John Donne, signal the onset of the Early Modern world and the profound reconfigurations of space and related structures of thought, including conceptions of the self and the encoding of gender roles. We will explore the vibrant Early Modern world in the context of space and representations of gender, sexuality, and race as manifest in unprecedented literary and artistic forms, such as Shakespeare¿s ¿Othello,¿ Marlowe¿s ¿Doctor Faustus,,¿ the poetry of John Donne, the art of Michelangelo and Caravaggio as well as key historical and cultural texts. And we will visit the Cantor Arts Center (on campus) for a guided tour and lecture on art and perspective. We also will read and discuss selected texts from the modern world, such as Samuel Beckett¿s ¿Waiting for Godot¿ and poetry and commentary by Adrienne Rich, to study both changes and continuities with the Early Modern period. We will consider the vital cognitive role of the reader or viewer in the formation of particular instances of artistic form, including recent---and highly thought-provoking---material from the neurosciences and cognitive studies.nnNote: Instructor will consider changes in meeting times/days to accommodate student schedules if feasible. Please send request to: hbrooks@stanford.edu.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
FEMGEN 153F:
Performing Feeling (CSRE 153F, TAPS 153F)
This course explores the intersections of performance and feeling through a wide geographical and historical range of theories, texts, and performances. We will examine how performance and feeling relate to one another by surveying a broad spectrum of performance and performance theory, with special attention to race, gender, and sexuality.These explorations will serve as grounds for richer understandings of performance as well as expanded artistic vocabularies in performing feeling.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 153Q:
Creating the Gendered Story
Exploration of novels, stories, memoirs and micro-narratives in which gender plays a major role. The texts are by writers of varied genders and sexual orientations as well as varied class, racial and national backgrounds. Written assignments present a mixture of academic and creative options.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: Writing 2
FEMGEN 154:
Black Feminist Theory (AFRICAAM 154)
This course will examine black feminist theoretical traditions, marking black women's analytic interventions into sexual and pleasure politics, reproduction, citizenship, power, violence, agency, art, representation, and questions of the body. Exploring concepts like intersectionality, matrices of violence, the politics of respectability, womanism, and other contours of a black feminist liberation politic, we will look to black feminist scholars, activists, and artists from the 19th century to today.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 154C:
Shall We Dance? Social Dancing as Political Practice (CSRE 154C, DANCE 154, TAPS 154C)
This seminar investigates social dancing as a political practice, and the dance floor as a place where race, ethnicity, class status, and sexuality are formed and contested. While many students may be familiar with salsa, and can imagine how it produces particular kinds of Latin/a feminities, this course asks students to expand the notion of social dancing beyond partner-dancing spheres. Course materials will focus on dance practices from the late-nineteenth century to present-day, ranging from rural Louisiana dancehalls to NYC nightclubs to Iranian backyards. We will examine how dances become racially coded (e.g., what makes a dance black or Latin@?), and understand how categories such as gender, class, and regionality intersect with such racializations. Students will engage in a range of activities, including reading, viewing films, and participating in occasional movement workshops (no previous dance experience required). Each student¿s final project will require independent, sustained, ethnographic research in a social dance setting of choice (e.g., student dance club, yoga studio, aerobics class, or YouTube).
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 154E:
Black Feminist Epistemology and Analytics (AFRICAAM 139)
Building from the foundational canon of black feminist theory and praxis, this seminar will explore more recent advances in black feminist epistemologies and modes of analysis. Students will engage black feminist conceptions of the human and the self; love and relationality in precarious conditions; speculative queer, sexual, and body politics; aesthetics and cultural theory; and contemporary proposals for radical freedom and social transformation. We will consider how black feminist theory not only engages, builds on, critiques, and transforms other schools of thought, but also produces its own systems of reason and interpretation.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 155:
The Changing American Family (FEMGEN 255, SOC 155, SOC 255)
Family change from historical, social, demographic, and legal perspectives. Extramarital cohabitation, divorce, later marriage, interracial marriage, and same-sex cohabitation. The emergence of same-sex marriage as a political issue. Are recent changes in the American family really as dramatic as they seem? Theories about what causes family systems to change.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 156:
Happiness, Well-Being, Gender (PSYCH 129)
Exploring the meaning and attainment of psychological well-being and happiness, this course will address gender differences in well-being and approaches that can be used by all individuals to improve their state of happiness and well-being. Course literature will be drawn primarily from social, clinical, and positive psychology, but will be drawn from other disciplines as well. Students will actively engage with course material by critiquing studies, discussing research, and applying methods for improving well-being to their daily lives.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 1-3
FEMGEN 156H:
Women and Medicine in US History: Women as Patients, Healers and Doctors (AMSTUD 156H, HISTORY 156G)
Women's bodies in sickness and health, and encounters with lay and professional healers from the 18th century to the present. Historical consttruction of thought about women's bodies and physical limitations; sexuality; birth control and abortion; childbirth; adulthood; and menopause and aging. Women as healers, including midwives, lay physicians, the medical profession, and nursing.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 156X:
Language and Gender (LINGUIST 156)
The role of language in the construction of gender, the maintenance of the gender order, and social change. Field projects explore hypotheses about the interaction of language and gender. No knowledge of linguistics required.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 157:
Language as Political Tool: Feminist and LGBTQ Movements and Impacts (AMSTUD 157X, FEMGEN 257)
How does a social or political movement gain traction? For example, how did 20th-century movements of the disenfranchised, such as the Civil Rights movement, LGBTQ movements, or feminist movements, gain a voice and eventually enact change? In the mediascape of today, where everyone with access to a computer could have a voice, how does a movement change the national conversation? How do written and verbal choices of the movements impact their success and outreach to supporters? In this course, students will write and revise their own arguments in order to best understand the rhetorical potential in these movements¿ choices and to consider how those rhetorical moves are incorporated into political discourse. We'll examine the role of rhetoric, the use of argument to persuade, in social movements working toward social justice, party platforms, and public policy.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 157P:
Solidarity and Racial Justice (AFRICAAM 157P, AMSTUD 157P, CSRE 157P)
Is multiracial solidarity necessary to overcome oppression that disproportionately affects certain communities of color? What is frontline leadership and what role should people play if they are not part of frontline communities? In this course we will critically examine practices of solidarity and allyship in movements for collective liberation. Through analysis of historical and contemporary movements, as well as participation in movement work, we will see how movements have built multiracial solidarity to address issues that are important to the liberation of all. We will also see how racial justice intersects with other identities and issues. This course is for students that want to learn how to practice solidarity, whether to be better allies or to work more effectively with allies. There will be a community engaged learning option for this course. Students who choose to participate in this option will either work with Stanford's DGen Office or a community organization that is explicitly devoted to multiracial movement-building.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 158:
Black Queer Theory (AFRICAAM 158)
This course takes a multifaceted approach to black queer theory, not only taking up black theories of gender and queer sexuality, but queer theoretical interrogations of blackness and race. The course will also examine some of the important ways that black queer theory reads and is intersected with issues like affect, epistemology, space and geography, power and subjectivity, religion, economy, the body, and the law, asking questions like: How have scholars critiqued the very language of queer and the ways it works as a signifier of white marginality? What are the different spaces we can find queer black relationality, eroticism, and kinship? How do we negotiate issues like trans*misogyny or tensions around gender and sexuality in the context of race? Throughout the course, students will become versed in foundational and emerging black queer theory as we engage scholars like Sharon Holland, Cathy Cohen, Hortense Spillers, Marlon B. Ross, Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman, Barbara Smith, Roderick Ferguson, Robert Reid-Pharr, E. Patrick Johnson, and many others. Students will also gain practice applying black queer theory as an interpretive lens for contemporary social issues and cultural production including film, music, art, and performance.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 159:
James Baldwin & Twentieth Century Literature (AFRICAAM 159, ENGLISH 159)
Black, gay and gifted, Baldwin was hailed as a "spokesman for the race", although he personally, and controversially, eschewed titles and classifications of all kinds. This course examines his classic novels and essays as well his exciting work across many lesser-examined domains - poetry, music, theatre, sermon, photo-text, children's literature, public media, comedy and artistic collaboration. Placing his work in context with other writers of the 20C (Faulkner, Wright,Morrison) and capitalizing on a resurgence of interest in the writer (NYC just dedicated a year of celebration of Baldwin and there are 2 new journals dedicated to study of Baldwin), the course seeks to capture the power and influence of Baldwin's work during the Civil Rights era as well as his relevance in the "post-race" transnational 21st century, when his prescient questioning of the boundaries of race, sex, love, leadership and country assume new urgency.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 160:
Performance and History: Rethinking the Ballerina (DANCE 160, TAPS 160, TAPS 260)
The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the ballerina as an iconographic symbol and cultural reference point for challenges to political and gender ideals. Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class investigates pivotal works, artists and eras in the global histories of ballet from its origins as a symbol of patronage and power in the 15th century through to its radical experiments as a site of cultural obedience and disobedience in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 160M:
Introduction to Representations of the Middle East in Dance, Performance, & Popular Culture (CSRE 160M, DANCE 160M, TAPS 160M)
This course will introduce students to the ways in which the Middle East has been represented and performed by/in the 'West' through dance, performance, and popular culture in both historical and contemporary contexts. A brief look through today's media sources exposes a wide range of racialized and gendered representations of the Middle East that shape the way the world imagines the Middle East to be. As postcolonial theorist Edward Said explains, the framework we call Orientalism establishes the ontological character of the Orient and the Oriental as inherently `Other'. Starting with 19th century colonialism and continuing into the post-9/11 era, this course will trace the Western production, circulation, and consumption of representations of the Middle East as 'Other' in relation to global geopolitics. We will further examine dance forms produced in mid-twentieth century Iran and Egypt, with particular attention to nation-state building and constructions of gender. Finally, we will examine artistic productions and practices from the Middle East and Middle Eastern diasporic communities that respond to colonialism, war, displacement, secularism, and Euro-American Empire. Using dance studies, postcolonial feminist, and critical race theoretical frameworks, we will consider the gender, racial, political, and cultural implications of selected performance works and practices in order to analyze how bodies produce meaning in dance, performance art, theater, film, photography, and new media. Students will engage in multiple modes of learning; the course will include lectures, engaged group discussions, viewing of live and recorded performance, embodied participation in dance practice, student oral presentations, and a variety of writing exercises. Course assignments will culminate in a final research project related to class themes and methods.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 161:
Women in Modern America (AMSTUD 161, CSRE 162, HISTORY 161)
This course explores the transition from Victorian to modern womanhood in the U.S. from the 1890s to the end of the 20th century, including the experiences of Native, European, African, Mexican, and Asian American women. It asks how, when, and why the majority of American women become wage earners, gained full citizenship, and enacted political opportunities; how race- and class-specific ideals of womanhood changed in popular culture; and how women have redefined their reproductive and sexual relations.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 163:
Queer America (AMSTUD 163, ARTHIST 163)
This class explores queer art, photography and politics in the United States since 1930. Our approach will be grounded in close attention to the history and visual representation of sexual minorities in particular historical moments and social contexts. We will consider the cultural and political effects of World War II, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, psychedelics, hippie culture and sexual liberation, lesbian separatism, the AIDS crisis, and marriage equality.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-AmerCul
FEMGEN 163D:
Introduction to Dance and History: From Postwar to the Present (DANCE 163, TAPS 163, TAPS 263)
This course explores the cultural and historical unfolding of the genre of contemporary performance known as postmodern dance over the past six decades. It begins with the formative influence of the émigré Bauhaus artists of the 1930s, then the postwar experiments of the Beat artists in the 1950s, to Merce Cunningham, the Judson Dance Theatre, postmodern formalism, neo-expressionism, dance theatre and through to the global, spectacle-rich, cross-genre dance work of the early 21st century as the most recent extended legacy of this history. This course uses dance history to trace with special emphasis the effects of these visual art and movement experimentalists on gender representation and nationalist identity construction in the negotiation of boundaries between dance and life.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 4
FEMGEN 164L:
Introduction to American Theater: Queer Lives from Cushman to Kushner
This course introduces students to classics in American Theater from the nineteenth-century to the present. We will learn how to read and critique plays, to conduct research about actors, directors, and how to think about problems in theater history. The course includes some scene work. More specifically, we will address questions such as: how does the American theater intersect with "queer lives" on and off the stage? How can we understand theories of acting and performance in relation to concepts about the performance of gender/race/class/ and sexuality as they have been and are rehearsed in great American plays such as A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, INTIMATE APPAREL, ANGELS IN AMERICA, A CHORUS LINE. WICKED and more.
| Units: 4
FEMGEN 168:
Writing for the Stage and Screen
This is a script analysis and film criticism course from the vantage point of the scriptwriter -- both playwrights and screenplay writers. We will do comparative analysis of films that were adapted from plays and use published plays and/or student-authored plays to write original script adaptations. Students will also develop short video films based on a segment of such adaptations.May be repeated for credit.
| Units: 4
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 8 units total)
FEMGEN 172:
Out of Place: (W)riting Home (CSRE 172, TAPS 172, TAPS 272)
A creative writing workshop; all genres. This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of a productive creative writing practice, including "the beginner's mind" (as founded in Eastern spiritual practices); and, an indigenous approach to "authenticity¿" in one's work and one's words. Through w(riting), one returns to the body of home-knowledges, languages, and geographies to uncover what is profoundly original in us as artists, writers and thinkers.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
FEMGEN 177:
Dramatic Writing: The Fundamentals (CSRE 177, TAPS 177, TAPS 277)
Course introduces students to the basic elements of playwriting and creative experimentation for the stage. Topics include: character development, conflict and plot construction, staging and setting, and play structure. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Marsha Norman, Patrick Shanley, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Octavio Solis and others. Table readings of one-act length work required by quarter's end.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
FEMGEN 179C:
Chroniclers of Desire: Creative Non-Fiction Writing Workshop (CSRE 179C, CSRE 279C, TAPS 279C)
This course emphasizes the study and practice of personal memoir writing and literary journalism. The class will explore those writings that contain a public and private story, navigating an intimate and institutional world. Student writers will serve as public chroniclers whose subjective point of view and experience attempt to provide a truth greater than what ¿the facts¿ can offer.
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 179G:
Indigenous Identity in Diaspora: Women of Color Art Practice in América (CSRE 179G, CSRE 279G, NATIVEAM 179G, TAPS 179G, TAPS 279G)
This course is part of the core curriculum of the IDA emphasis in CSRE. This year it will focus on the art and art practice of women of color in the areas of literature, visual art and the performing arts. Through readings, screenings, on and off campus events, and visiting artists, the course will examine the aesthetics, cultural inquiries, and related politics of Indigenous-identified women artists (especially but not limited to Xicana, Northern Native and African American). Issues of gender and sexuality in relation to cultural identity are also integral to this exploration. Students will be required to produce a mid-term and final work, integrating the critical concepts of the course into creative projects.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
FEMGEN 180A:
Sex and Power (ANTHRO 180A)
From hook-up culture to pornography and sex work and even Beyoncé's latest album, "Lemonade," our struggles with consent, betrayal, and violence evince collective confusions about the relationship between sex and power in our societies. A quick Google search for news articles on the topic reveals that we must communally brace ourselves, usually through a Public Service Announcement pun, Let's Talk About Sex, and then a warning, Talking about sex can be hard. Cultural and social analyses can help us un-brace ourselves and get closer to meaningfully, and respectfully, talking about how cultural difference and social hierarchies fuel, and our fueled by, ideologies about sex and sexuality. This course examines sex as a nexus of socio-cultural, economic, and political relations of power for individuals and groups across local and global and national and transnational boundaries. And because a lot of the difficulties in talking about sex entail difficulties about ¿seeing¿ sex, this class relies on visual culture and documentary filmmaking alongside ethnographies and theoretical scholarship.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 181A:
Gender in the Middle East: Iran, Turkey, and Egypt (ANTHRO 181A)
This course explores the construction of gender in the Middle East. Drawing on the historical, sociological and anthropological research in the region, the course aims to question the stereotypes about the subordination of Muslim women and to offer students a systematic reading and analytical discussion of the political, economic and cultural structures that inform gender relations and practices in the region. The course starts with an examination of early Islam and religious sources with regard to women¿s status, then moves on to nationalist and modernization movements in the 19th and 20th centuries, and finally explores women¿s and men¿s lives in contemporary Egypt, Turkey and Iran. In this framework, we will pay special attention to Islamist mobilizations, family and sexual relations, as well as women's changing livelihoods and labor.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 183:
Re- Imagining American Borders (AMSTUD 183, CSRE 183)
How novelists, filmmakers, and poets perceive racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, and class borders in the context of a current volatile national discussion about the place of Americans both here and in the world. How Anna Deavere Smith, Sherman Alexie, Shailja Patel or Ta-Nehisi Coates consider redrawing such lines so that center and margin, or self and other, do not remain fixed and divided. How linguistic borderlines within multilingual literature by Caribbean, Arab, and Asian Americans function. Can Anzaldúa's 1986 conception of borderlands be constructed through the matrix of language, dreams, music, and cultural memories in these recent American narratives? Course includes creatively examining one's own identity.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 188Q:
Imagining Women: Writers in Print and in Person (CSRE 188Q)
Gender roles, gender relations and sexual identity explored in contemporary literature and conversation with guest authors. Weekly meetings designated for book discussion and meeting with authors. Interest in writing and a curiosity about diverse women's lives would be helpful to students. Students will use such tools as close reading, research, analysis and imagination. Seminar requires strong voice of all participants. Oral presentations, discussion papers, final projects.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP, Writing 2
FEMGEN 191Q:
Writing Women's Lives
Creative writing through dialogue focusing on prose about the lives of women in different cultures and generations. Novels, short stories, and micro-narrative including fiction and memoir. Students produce work using research, memory, imagination, and metaphor.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 2
FEMGEN 193:
Late Imperial China (CHINA 183, HISTORY 193)
(Same as HISTORY 93. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 193.) A survey of Chinese history from the 11th century to the collapse of the imperial state in 1911. Topics include absolutism, gentry society, popular culture, gender and sexuality, steppe nomads, the Jesuits in China, peasant rebellion, ethnic conflict, opium, and the impact of Western imperialism.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 193G:
Psychological Well-Being on Campus: A Focus on Gender and Sexual Identities (EDUC 193G)
This course examines mental health and psychological well-being across the spectrum of gender and sexual identities. It addresses the unique challenges that face LGBTQ-identified students, and provides tools for supporting peers as they navigate these challenges. Discussion topics include current conceptualizations of gender identity and sexual orientation, including sexual and gender fluidity; the intersection of queer identities with multiple identities such as ethnic/racial identify and faith/spirituality; unpacking stereotypes; queer relationships and sexuality, coming out and disclosure, and mental health issues.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 195:
Directed Reading
May be repeated for credit. (Staff)
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-15
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Baran, N. (PI);
Blaydes, L. (PI);
Cerankowski, K. (PI);
Coll, K. (PI);
Elam, M. (PI);
England, P. (PI);
Freedman, E. (PI);
Hadlock, H. (PI);
Hanlon, P. (PI);
Harrison, L. (PI);
Karlin-Neumann, P. (PI);
Krieger, S. (PI);
Lee, H. (PI);
Longino, H. (PI);
Menon, J. (PI);
Millheiser, L. (PI);
Moraga, C. (PI);
Myers, K. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Rhode, D. (PI);
Robinson, P. (PI);
Sanders, J. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Tallent, E. (PI);
Voss, B. (PI);
Wotipka, C. (PI);
Burbank, S. (GP);
Sze, E. (GP)
FEMGEN 195X:
Research in Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Independent research conducted under faculty or graduate student supervision. May be taken for a maximum of 3 quarters of credit.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
1 times
(up to 15 units total)
FEMGEN 199A:
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Honors Workshop
Required of seniors in the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies honors program. Participants share ongoing work on their honors theses. Prerequisite: consent of Instructor.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-3
FEMGEN 199B:
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Honors Workshop
Required of seniors in the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies honors program. Particippants share ongoing work on their honors theses. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-3
FEMGEN 199C:
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Honors Workshop
Required of seniors in the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies honors program. Particippants share ongoing work on their honors theses. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-3
FEMGEN 203:
Feminist Theories and Methods Across the Disciplines (FEMGEN 103, PHIL 153, PHIL 253)
(Graduate Students register for PHIL 253 or FEMGEN 203) Concepts and questions distinctive of feminist and LGBT scholarship and how they shape research: gender, intersectionality, disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, standpoint, "queering," postmodern critiques, postcolonial critiques.nPrerequisites: Feminist Studies 101 or equivalent with consent of instructor.nNOTE: This course must be taken for a letter grade and a minimum of 3 units to be eligible for WAYS credit. The 2 unit option is for graduate students only.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-5
FEMGEN 205:
Songs of Love and War: Gender, Crusade, Politics (FRENCH 205)
Analysis of medieval love, satirical and Crusade lyrics of the trouabdours. Study of deictic address, corporeal subjectivity, the female voice, love debates, and the body as a figure of political conflict. Course readings include medieval treatises on lyric and modern translations of the troubadour tradition. Works by Ovid, Bernart de Ventadorn, Bertran de Born, La Comtessa de Dia, Thibaut de Champagne, Raimon Vidal, Dante, and Pound. Taught in English. Course includes a lab component for creation of multi-media translation projects: trobar. stanford.edu.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 206:
Global Medical Issues Affecting Women (SOMGEN 206)
This course probes the principal issues affecting women and girls medically around the world. Through interactive discussions, guest lectures, case studies, and academic readings, students become acquainted with the most critical challenges to women¿s health globally, and use selected analytical tools to assess how these may be addressed efficiently, cost-effectively, and sustainably. Topics include women¿s cancer, birth control, infertility, female genital mutilation, midwifery, obstetric fistula, breastfeeding, violence against women, and women's representation in biomedical research. The aim is to cultivate in students a nuanced appreciation of women¿s unique needs, roles, and challenges in the contemporary global health landscape.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 208B:
Women Activists' Response to War (HISTORY 208B, HISTORY 308B)
Theoretical issues, historical origins, changing forms of women's activism in response to war throughout the 20th century, and contemporary cases, such as the Russian Committee of Soldiers Mothers, Bosnian Mothers of Srebrenica, Serbian Women in Black, and the American Cindy Sheehan. Focus is on the U.S. and Eastern Europe, with attention to Israel, England, and Argentina.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
FEMGEN 209:
Looking Back, Moving Forward: Raising Critical Awareness in Gender and Sports (FEMGEN 109)
In 1972, Title IX legislation opened up a vast range of opportunities for women in sports. Since then, women's sports have continued to grow yet the fight for recognition and equality persists. Simply put, men's sports are more popular than women's--so much so, in fact, that people often make the hierarchical distinction between "sports" and "women's sports." But what would it take to get more women's sports featured on ESPN or more female athletes on the cover of Sports Illustrated? And, given the well-documented corruption at the highest levels of men's sports, should such an ascent in popularity be the goal for women's sports? This course will map out and respond to the multifaceted issues that emerge when women enter the sports world. Throughout the quarter, we will explore the fight for gender equality in sports through historical, cultural, and rhetorical lenses.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3
FEMGEN 210J:
Romance, Desire, and Sexuality in Modern Japanese Literature (FEMGEN 110J, JAPAN 110, JAPAN 210)
This class is structured around three motifs: love suicide (as a romantic ideal), female desire, and same-sex sexuality. Over the course of the quarter we will look at how these motifs are treated in the art and entertainment from three different moments of Japanese history: the Edo period (1615-1868), the modern period (1920-65), and the contemporary period (1965-present). We will start by focusing on the most traditional representations of these topics. Subsequently, we will consider how later artists and entertainers revisited the conventional treatments of these motifs, informing them with new meanings and social significance. We will devote particular attention to how this material comments upon issues of gender, sexuality, and human relationships in the context of Japan. Informing our perspective will be feminist and queer theories of reading and interpretation.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
FEMGEN 212:
"When We Dead Awaken": Breakthroughs in Conceptions of the Gendered Self in Literature and the Arts (ENGLISH 182J, FEMGEN 112)
Remarkable breakthroughs In conceptions of the gendered self are everywhere evident in literature and the arts, beginning primarily with the Early Modern world and continuing into today. Many of these works inhere in innovations in literary and artistic forms in order to capture and even evoke the strong cognitive, or psychological, dimension of such ¿awakenings.¿ The reader, or viewer, is often challenged to adapt her or his mind to new forms of thought, such as John Donne¿s seventeenth century creation of the Dramatic Monologue, a form popular with modern writers, which requires the reader¿s cognitive ¿presence¿ in order to fill out the dramatic scene. In so doing, the reader often supplies the presence of the female voice and thereby enters into her self-consciousness and inner thoughts. Adrienne Rich, for example, specifically ¿rewrites¿ one of Donne¿s major poems from the female perspective. This can be, in Rich¿s words, an ¿awakening¿ for the active reader, as he or she assumes that often-unspoken female perspective. The course will also explore male conceptions of the self and how such conceptions are often grounded in cultural attitudes imposed on male subjects, which can contribute to gender-bias toward women, a subject often neglected in exploring gendered attitudes, but which is now gaining more study, for example, in Shakespeare¿s ¿Othello.¿ Readings from recent developments in the neurosciences and cognitive studies will be included in our study of artistic forms and how such forms can activate particular mindsets. Writers and artists will include Shakespeare, Michelangelo, John Donne, Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich, Gertrude Stein, Picasso, June Wayne, and Edward Albee¿s 1960¿s play, ¿Who¿s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?¿
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 212X:
Knights, Monks, and Nobles: Masculinity in the Middle Ages (FEMGEN 312, HISTORY 212, HISTORY 312, RELIGST 212X, RELIGST 312X)
This course considers masculinity as historically and culturally contingent, focusing on the experiences and representations of medieval men as heroes, eunuchs, fathers, priests, husbands, boys, and fighting men. Recognizing that the lives of men, like those of women, were governed by gendered rules and expectations, we will explore a wide range of medieval masculinities, paying close attention to the processes by which manhood could be achieved (e.g. martial, spiritual, sexual), and to competing versions of manliness, from the warrior hero of the early middle ages to the suffering Christ of late medieval religion.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 213:
Transgender Studies (FEMGEN 113)
Transgender and gender-expansive identities are the subject of growing attention and (often sensationalist) interest in the media as well as in the healthcare field, yet there exists a dearth of legitimate academic courses, research and writing that reflect and explore gender identity and expression as a fluid spectrum rather than a fixed binary. This course will address transgender and gender expansive identities from historical, medical, literary, developmental and sociopolitical perspectives.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 3-4
FEMGEN 214:
Sexual Diversity and Health (FEMGEN 114)
Explores multiple aspects of sexual diversity and health, including: kink/BDSM, polyamory, trans* sexuality, asexuality, high-risk sex, inter-sex-tionality, questioning gender and sexual binaries, and more. The format includes a one-day conference featuring a variety of expert speakers covering different aspects of sexual diversity and health, followed by a debriefing and discussion session to integrate what has been heard and learned.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 214A:
Wilde's Worlds: Oscar Wilde in an International Context (COMPLIT 214A)
Introduction to Oscar Wilde's major works and their reception history in various international and transnational contexts from the 1890s to today, in conjunction with Wilde's iconic importance for LGBTQ history and rights: from Wilde's own love for Greece, Rome, and Japanese art, to his erotic and aesthetic networks in Paris; from international adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Salomé, The Importance of Being Earnest, and De Profundis across Europe, Asia, and the U.S.; to Wilde's vibrant afterlife in global cinema, the visual and performing arts, and popular culture today.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-5
FEMGEN 215:
Saints and Sinners: Women and Religion in the Medieval World (HISTORY 215, HISTORY 315A, RELIGST 215X)
Although the Apostle Paul taught that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28), men and women experienced medieval Christianity in ways that were often vastly different. In this course we examine the religious experiences of women from the origins of Christianity through to the end of the medieval period, with particular attention paid to female prophets and religious authority, saints and martyrs, sexuality and virginity, literacy and education within the cloister, mysticism, relations between religious women and men, and the relevance of gender in the religious life -- especially as gender intersected with fears of heresy, sin, and embodiment.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 216:
Women and the Book: Scribes, Artists, and Readers from Late Antiquity through the Fourteenth Century (ARTHIST 206H, HISTORY 216, HISTORY 316)
This course examines the cultural worlds of medieval women through particular attention to the books that they owned, commissioned, and created. Beginning with the earliest Christian centuries, the course proceeds chronologically, charting women¿s book ownership, scribal and artistic activity, and patronage from Late Antiquity through the fourteenth century. In addition to examining specific manuscripts (in facsimile, or digitally), we will consider ancillary questions to do with women¿s authorship, education and literacy, reading patterns, devotional practices, and visual traditions and representation.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 216X:
Narrating Queer Trauma (FEMGEN 116)
Psychiatrist Dori Laub has argued that the process of narrating trauma is essential to the healing process. Not only is telling the story important, but it is also crucial to have someone else bear witness to the narrative. But how do people even begin to narrate stories of violence and pain, and how do we become good listeners? How are these stories told and heard in the specific context of queer world making? This course will explore narratives of trauma in queer lives through literature, film, media, and performance in conjunction with trauma theory and psychoanalysis. We will pay specific attention to questions of community, healing, violence, and affect at the intersections of queerness and race, sex, disability, class, gender, and nationality.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 221B:
The 'Woman Question' in Modern Russia (HISTORY 221B)
Russian radicals believed that the status of women provided the measure of freedom in a society and argued for the extension of rights to women as a basic principle of social progress. The social status and cultural representations of Russian women from the mid-19th century to the present. The arguments and actions of those who fought for women's emancipation in the 19th century, theories and policies of the Bolsheviks, and the reality of women's lives under them. How the status of women today reflects on the measure of freedom in post-Communist Russia.
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender
FEMGEN 223X:
The Politics of Gender in the United States (POLISCI 223)
Gender is one of the most recognizable and important identities in daily life. Yet it has been paid scant attention by political scientists in terms of its role on access to political power, opinion formation, group identity politics, election outcomes, and political representation. This class provides a survey of the literature on gender in American politics. We begin with the interdisciplinary research on the social construction of gender to understand what gender is and is not. Throughout the course we will use these theories to analyze and critique the approaches of quantitative research on gender politics.
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 224:
Challenging Sex and Gender Dichotomies in Medicine (FEMGEN 124, SOMGEN 257)
Explores and challenges the traditional physiological bases for distinguishing human males from females, as well as the psychosocial factors that play a role in experiencing and expressing gender and sexuality. Topics include the influence of sociocultural (gender) norms and behaviors on human biology, the interactions of sex and gender on medical outcomes, the importance of understanding the spectrum of sex, gender, and sexuality in clinical practice.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 226A:
Queer Literature and Film (COMPLIT 226A)
Close analysis of major works of LGBTQ literature, film, and visual art from the 1890s to today. Students will gain deeper knowledge and appreciation of historical and contemporary forms of queer representation in various national literatures, film, and visual art; understand relevant social and political debates; and gain a basic knowledge of feminist and queer theory. Course will include an optional online component to reach out to the public (class website queerlitfilm.wordpress.com, social media).
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 227:
East European Women and War in the 20th Century (HISTORY 227, HISTORY 327)
Thematic chronological approach through conflicts in the region: Balkan Wars, WWI, WWII, and Yugoslav wars. Ways women in E. Europe involved in and affected by wars; comparison with women in W. Europe in the two world wars. Examines women's involvement in war as members of military services, backbone of underground movements, workers in war industries, mothers of soldiers, subjects and supporters of war aims and propaganda, activists in peace movements, and objects of wartime destruction, dislocation, and sexual violation.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 230:
Sexual Function and Diversity in Medical Disciplines (SOMGEN 230)
(Same as SOMGEN 130/FEMGEN 230X; undergraduates who wish to fulfill the GER requirement should enroll in SOMGEN 130/FEMGEN 230X.) Goal is the development of personal and professional skills to interact with people across the diverse range of human sexuality, including sexual orientation and gender identity, age (pediatric to geriatric), sociocultural & religious values, medical issues (e.g. hormonal therapy, disabilities, such as spinal cord injury, etc). Features guest speakers representing a range of sexualities, including asexuality, polyamory and kink, as well as medical professionals and researchers specializing in a diversity of sexuality topics. Attendance (in-class feedback) requirements. Enrollment for 3 units requires attendance at two sessions per week and in-class presentation requirements; enrollment for 2 units requires attendance at two sessions per week.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2
FEMGEN 230X:
Sexual Diversity and Function Across Medical Disciplines (SOMGEN 130)
(Same as SOMGEN 230/FEMGEN 230). Focus is on development of personal and professional skills to interact with people across the diverse range of human sexuality, from childhood (pediatric) to older ages (geriatric), with consideration of gender identity, sexual orientation, sociocultural (predominantly U.S., not global) and religious values, and selected medical issues (e.g. hormonal therapy, disabilities, e.g. spinal cord injury, etc. with discussion of sexual taboos and unusual sexual practices that you might encounter in a general medical setting. For the additional unit, students will undertake an additional weekly activity (e.g., shadowing in a clinic) approved by the instructor and submit a weekly written reflection about that activity.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-3
FEMGEN 235A:
The Queer Literature and Arts Salon, 1870s-1930s (COMPLIT 235A)
Study of the vibrant 1870s-1930s European salon culture in Paris, London, Berlin, and Vienna, focusing on the crucial roles of queer writers, artists, composers, performers, and their aesthetic and erotic networks, which inspired important artistic alliances, collaborations, and avant-garde experimentations. Course addresses such figures as Wilde, Rachilde, Stein, Barney, Romaine Brooks, Winnaretta Singer, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Poulenc, Ravel, Man Ray, Cocteau; movements like the Ballets Russes, Art Nouveau, the Munich and Vienna Secession movements, Surrealism, Art Deco, etc. Assignments may include digital arts salon project (no technical prerequisites) and/or outreach to community organizations.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 2-5
FEMGEN 236:
Literature and Transgression (COMPLIT 236)
Close reading and analysis of erotic-sexual and aesthetic-stylistic transgression in selected works by such authors as Baudelaire, Wilde, Flaubert, Rachilde, Schnitzler, Kafka, Joyce, Barnes, Eliot, Bataille, Burroughs, Thomas Mann, Kathy Acker, as well as in recent digital literature and online communities. Along with understanding the changing cultural, social, and political contexts of what constitutes "transgression" or censorship, students will gain knowledge of influential theories of transgression and conceptual limits by Foucault, Blanchot, and contemporary queer and feminist writers.
Last offered: Spring 2015
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FEMGEN 237:
Health and Medical Impact of Sexual Assault across the Lifecourse (SOMGEN 237)
An overview of the acute and chronic physical and psychological health impact of sexual abuse through the perspective of survivors of childhood, adolescent, young and middle adult, and elder abuse, including special populations such as pregnant women, military and veterans, prison inmates, individuals with mental or physical impairments. Also addresses: race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other demographic and societal factors, including issues specific to college culture. Professionals with expertise in sexual assault present behavioral and prevention efforts such as bystander intervention training, medical screening, counseling and other interventions to manage the emotional trauma of abuse. Undergraduates must enroll for 3 units. Medical and graduate students may enroll for 1 to 3 units.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-3
FEMGEN 238:
Men's Violence Against Women in Literature: A Critical and Social Analysis (FEMGEN 138)
Literature, as a social and cultural product of its time, can inform and deepen our understanding of oppression. Using literature as a vehicle, this course will explore the impact of and responses to men's violence against women. Students will critically assess how the author has portrayed the topic of sexual assault and relationship abuse, how the characters and/or author exhibits victim blaming, and, if the characters were living today, would current policies adequately hold the perpetrator responsible, provide safety and justice for the survivor, and challenge rape culture. In dialogue with theoretical texts, we will analyze the literary representations of patriarchy that inform societal acceptance of gender-based violence, identify the historical prevalence of victim blaming and impunity in these works, and assess the implications on policy making at the individual, community and political level. Students will critically examine literature including Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Ubervilles, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Louise Erdrich's The Round House and Joyce Carol Oates' We Were the Mulvaneys.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 239:
Queer Theory (GERMAN 239)
Do we really need a theory in order to be queer? Queer Theory emerged in response to feminist thought, and the study of the history of sexuality, building on their insights, but also uncovering their blind spots. Without Queer Theory, few of the discourses around desire, power and gender identity that we take for granted on college campuses today would exist. Yet there is also a real risk that reality has left the theory behind. In this course, we will try to answer the question: What do we need queer theory for? Do we still need it? And if so, of what kind? The course is designed to introduce students to core texts of queer theory, and to connect them to current debates, be this around trans rights, the representation of homosexuality or the fight against campus sexual assault.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-5
FEMGEN 240D:
LGBT/Queer Life in the United States (FEMGEN 140D, HISTORY 257C)
An introductory course that explores LGBT/Queer social, cultural, and political history in the United States. By analyzing primary documents that range from personal accounts (private letters, autobiography, early LGBT magazines, and oral history interviews) to popular culture (postcards, art, political posters, lesbian pulp fiction, and film) to medical, military, and legal papers, students will understand how the categories of gender and sexuality have changed over the past 150 years. This class investigates the relationship among queer, straight and transgender identities. Seminar discussions will question how the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality influenced the construction of these categories.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 241:
Sex and Gender in Human Physiology and Disease (HUMBIO 140, MED 240)
(HumBio students must enroll in HumBio 140.) Chromosomal, hormonal and environmental influences that lead to male and female reproductive systems and neuroendocrine regulation and intersex variants. Masculinizing and feminizing effects of endogenous and exogenous sex hormones and other factors, in particular gender, on the musculoskeletal, neurological, cardiovascular, immunological and other systems and tissues, e.g. adipose, skin, etc. over the lifecourse, from conception to puberty, through reproductive phases (including changes during the menstrual cycle up to and beyond menopause in women, and with aging in both sexes). Transgender health issues. Guest lecturers. Prerequisite: Human Biology core or equivalent, or consent of instructor. HUMBIO students must enroll for 3 units.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-3
FEMGEN 241W:
Eighteenth-Century Women Writers
The course will deal with a number of eighteenth-century English women writers--primarily novelists, but also poets, critics and playwrights. Authors to be studied in depth will include both relatively well-known writers such as Behn and Wollstonecraft, and lesser-known authors such as Sarah Scott, Elizabeth Inchbald and Anna Seward. Considerable attention will be paid to recent feminist scholarship on eighteenth-century women's writing, generic issues and the question of a "women's literary tradition," the material conditions of female authorship in the period, and the history of the eighteenth-century literary marketplace.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 250:
Sex, Gender, and Power in Modern China (CHINA 115, CHINA 215, FEMGEN 150)
Investigates how sex, gender, and power are entwined in the Chinese experience of modernity. Topics include anti-footbinding campaigns, free love/free sex, women's mobilization in revolution and war, the new Marriage Law of 1950, Mao's iron girls, postsocialist celebrations of sensuality, and emergent queer politics. Readings range from feminist theory to China-focused historiography, ethnography, memoir, biography, fiction, essay, and film. All course materials are in English.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 250T:
Transnational Sexualities (CSRE 150T, FEMGEN 150T, TAPS 150T, TAPS 250T)
Transnational Sexualites is an inter-disciplinary course that considers the aesthetic, social, and political formation of sexual subjectivities in a global world. How does the transnational traffic of people, media, images, finance, and commodities shape the force-fields of desire? What is the relationship between political economies and libidinal economies? The course will explore the erotics of race and religion, neoliberalism and globalization within a wide range geo-political contexts including Indonesia, China, Egypt, India, South Africa, US, among others.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 252:
'Tis all in pieces: Space and Gender on the Threshold of the Modern World (FEMGEN 152)
These dramatic words, spoken by the British poet John Donne, signal the onset of the Early Modern world and the profound reconfigurations of space and related structures of thought, including conceptions of the self and the encoding of gender roles. We will explore the vibrant Early Modern world in the context of space and representations of gender, sexuality, and race as manifest in unprecedented literary and artistic forms, such as Shakespeare¿s ¿Othello,¿ Marlowe¿s ¿Doctor Faustus,,¿ the poetry of John Donne, the art of Michelangelo and Caravaggio as well as key historical and cultural texts. And we will visit the Cantor Arts Center (on campus) for a guided tour and lecture on art and perspective. We also will read and discuss selected texts from the modern world, such as Samuel Beckett¿s ¿Waiting for Godot¿ and poetry and commentary by Adrienne Rich, to study both changes and continuities with the Early Modern period. We will consider the vital cognitive role of the reader or viewer in the formation of particular instances of artistic form, including recent---and highly thought-provoking---material from the neurosciences and cognitive studies.nnNote: Instructor will consider changes in meeting times/days to accommodate student schedules if feasible. Please send request to: hbrooks@stanford.edu.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 255:
The Changing American Family (FEMGEN 155, SOC 155, SOC 255)
Family change from historical, social, demographic, and legal perspectives. Extramarital cohabitation, divorce, later marriage, interracial marriage, and same-sex cohabitation. The emergence of same-sex marriage as a political issue. Are recent changes in the American family really as dramatic as they seem? Theories about what causes family systems to change.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
FEMGEN 256:
Current Topics and Controversies in Women's Health (HUMBIO 125, OBGYN 256)
Interdisciplinary. Focus is primarily on the U.S., with selected global women's health topics. Topics include: leading causes of morbidity and mortality across the life course; reproductive (e.g. gynecologic & obstetric) health issues; sexual function; importance of lifestyle (e.g. diet, exercise, weight control), including eating disorders; mental health; sexual and relationship abuse; issues for special populations. In-class Student Debates on key controversies in women's health. Guest lecturers. HUMBIO students must enroll in HumBio 125 for 3 units. PhD minor in FGSS, enroll in FEMGEN 256 for 2 - 3 units and for a letter grade. Med students enroll in OBGYN 256 for 2 units.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-3
FEMGEN 257:
Language as Political Tool: Feminist and LGBTQ Movements and Impacts (AMSTUD 157X, FEMGEN 157)
How does a social or political movement gain traction? For example, how did 20th-century movements of the disenfranchised, such as the Civil Rights movement, LGBTQ movements, or feminist movements, gain a voice and eventually enact change? In the mediascape of today, where everyone with access to a computer could have a voice, how does a movement change the national conversation? How do written and verbal choices of the movements impact their success and outreach to supporters? In this course, students will write and revise their own arguments in order to best understand the rhetorical potential in these movements¿ choices and to consider how those rhetorical moves are incorporated into political discourse. We'll examine the role of rhetoric, the use of argument to persuade, in social movements working toward social justice, party platforms, and public policy.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 258:
Sexual Violence in America (AFRICAAM 192, AMSTUD 258, CSRE 192E, FEMGEN 358, HISTORY 258, HISTORY 358)
This undergraduate/graduate colloquium explores the history of sexual violence in America, with particular attention to the intersections of gender and race in the construction of rape. We discuss the changing definitions of sexual violence in law and in cultural representations from early settlement through the late-twentieth century, including slavery, wartime and prison rape, the history of lynching and anti-lynching movements, and feminist responses to sexual violence. In addition to introducing students to the literature on sexual violence, the course attempts to teach critical skills in the analysis of secondary and primary historical texts. Students write short weekly reading responses and a final paper; no final exam; fifth unit research or CEL options.nnLimited enrollment, permission of instructor required. Submit application form (available in course syllabus or History department main office, 200-113) by November 15, 2016 and indicate interest in CEL option. Priority admission to History, FGSS, CSRE, AFRICAAM, and AMSTUD declared majors and minors. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 260:
Disability, Gender, and Identity: Women's Personal Experiences (AMSTUD 260, FEMGEN 360)
This course explores visible and invisible disabilities, focusing on issues of gender and identity in the personal experiences of women. The course emphasizes psychological as well as physical health, the diversity of disability experiences, self-labeling, caretaking, stigma and passing, and social and political aspects. Disabilities covered include blindness, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, arthritis, emotional and learning disabilities, and conditions requiring wheelchairs and other forms of assistance. The readings draw from the disability studies literature and emphasize women's personal narratives in sociological perspective. Note: Instructor Consent Required.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 260X:
Journeys in Women's Health and Sex and Gender in Medicine (INDE 260)
Sponsored by the Stanford WSDM Center. Course focuses on health research on women and sex differences in medicine, acknowledges the "wisdom" of research and education on sex (e.g. chromosomes, gonads, gonadal hormones) and gender (sociocultural) factors influencing health. Brings alumni to share their professional journeys in the world of Women and Sex Differences in Medicine. Meets Women's Health Scholarly Concentration Requirement.
| Units: 1
FEMGEN 261:
Personal Narratives in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (FEMGEN 361)
In this course, we explore the use of personal narratives in studies of gender, sexuality, and identity. Students both read exemplary works by writers in the social sciences and humanities and experiment with the personal narrative form in their own writing and research. Topics covered include: authorial voice, the challenge of impersonal disciplinary standards, the participant-observer and ethnographic traditions, the value of a feminist approach, the difference gender makes in the development of personal voice, and the contribution of personal narratives to academic work. Students can expect to develop skills in the use of personal narrative in investigating such topics as alternative sexualities, gender diversity, disability identities, and ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity.
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 272E:
Theories of Citizenship and Sovereignty in a Transnational Context (AMSTUD 272E, CHILATST 172, CSRE 172H, HISTORY 272E, HISTORY 372E)
This course explores the multiple meanings of citizenship and the ways in which they change when examined using different geographic scales (from the local to the transnational). The course will pair theoretical readings on citizenship with case studies that focus on North America. Topics include: definitions of citizenship; the interrelation of ideas of citizenship with those of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality; the relationship between sovereignty and territoriality; human and civil rights; and immigration.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 282:
Queer Film (ILAC 282)
Analysis of representations of queer lives in films from the Spanish-speaking world (including the U.S.). We will be looking at the meaning each film produces about a wide variety of queer experience, in relation to a specific national, historical and cultural context. We will also practice doing close readings of how each film produces meaning about queer experience, focusing on the formal features mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound, editing , narrative and style.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 293B:
Queer History in Comparative Perspective (FEMGEN 393B, HISTORY 293B, HISTORY 393B)
Comparative history of homoerotic desire, relations, and identity through scholarship on different historical periods and parts of the world: the classical Mediterranean, early modern European cities, late imperial and modern China, Tokugawa and modern Japan, and the U.S.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
FEMGEN 297:
Education, Gender, and Development (EDUC 197, SOC 134)
Theories and perspectives from the social sciences relevant to the role of education in changing, modifying, or reproducing structures of gender differentiation and hierarchy. Cross-national research on the status of girls and women and the role of development organizations and processes.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
FEMGEN 299:
Graduate Workshop: Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Theory, methods, and research in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies, through presentations of ongoing work by students, faculty, and guest speakers, and discussion of recent literature and controversies, feminist pedagogy and career development issues. Restricted to doctoral students. Repeatable for credit. Required for PhD Minors in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (3 quarters min.).
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-3
| Repeatable
6 times
(up to 18 units total)
FEMGEN 310X:
Introduction to Comparative Queer Literary Studies (COMPLIT 110, COMPLIT 310, FEMGEN 110X)
Introduction to the comparative literary study of important gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender writers and their changing social, political, and cultural contexts from the 1880s to today: Oscar Wilde, Rachilde, Radclyffe Hall, Djuna Barnes, James Baldwin, Jean Genet, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Jeanette Winterson, Alison Bechdel and others, discussed in the context of 20th-century feminist and queer literary and social theories of gender and sexuality.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
FEMGEN 311C:
Expanding Engineering Limits: Culture, Diversity, and Gender (ENGR 311C)
This course investigates how culture, diversity, and gender shape who becomes an engineer, what problems get solved, and the quality of designs, technology, and products. We first examine the characteristics of engineering cultures what are the interactions, symbols and ideas, and practices that define engineering? We then investigate how gender and other markers of diverse identities are interdependent and culturally constructed, how gender and diversity are experienced in engineering cultures, and how these experiences have consequence for engineering innovation and the engineering profession. Finally, we analyze examples of cultural change in engineering and implications for engineering knowledge and practice. The course involves weekly presentations by distinguished scholars and engineers, readings, short writing assignments, small-group discussion, and exercises around ones own experiences in and related to engineering. There will be a companion project offered in Spring 2017 as optional independent study.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2
FEMGEN 312:
Knights, Monks, and Nobles: Masculinity in the Middle Ages (FEMGEN 212X, HISTORY 212, HISTORY 312, RELIGST 212X, RELIGST 312X)
This course considers masculinity as historically and culturally contingent, focusing on the experiences and representations of medieval men as heroes, eunuchs, fathers, priests, husbands, boys, and fighting men. Recognizing that the lives of men, like those of women, were governed by gendered rules and expectations, we will explore a wide range of medieval masculinities, paying close attention to the processes by which manhood could be achieved (e.g. martial, spiritual, sexual), and to competing versions of manliness, from the warrior hero of the early middle ages to the suffering Christ of late medieval religion.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 313:
Performance and Performativity (ENGLISH 313, TAPS 313)
Performance theory through topics including: affect/trauma, embodiment, empathy, theatricality/performativity, specularity/visibility, liveness/disappearance, belonging/abjection, and utopias and dystopias. Readings from Schechner, Phelan, Austin, Butler, Conquergood, Roach, Schneider, Silverman, Caruth, Fanon, Moten, Anzaldúa, Agamben, Freud, and Lacan. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-4
| Repeatable
for credit
FEMGEN 314:
Performing Identities (CSRE 314, TAPS 314)
This course examines claims and counter-claims of identity, a heated political and cultural concept over the past few decades. We will consider the ways in which theories of performance have offered generative discursive frameworks for the study of identities, variously shaped by vectors of race, gender, sexuality, religion, class, nation, ethnicity, among others. How is identity as a social category different from identity as a unique and personal attribute of selfhood? Throughout the course we will focus on the inter-locking ways in which certain dimensions of identity become salient at particular historical conjunctures. In addition, we will consider the complex discourses of identity within transnational and historical frameworks. Readings include Robin Bernstein, Ann Pellegrini, Tavia Nyong'o, Jose Munoz, Michael Taussig, Wendy Brown, Talal Asad, Jasbir Puar, among others. Note: This course satisfies the Concepts of Modernity II requirement in the interdisciplinary graduate program in Modern Thought and Literature.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
FEMGEN 344F:
Beyond Pink and Blue: Gender in Tech (HISTORY 244F, HISTORY 344F)
This d-school seminar prototypes concepts and methods for "inclusive" design. From the moment we arrive on the planet, gender shapes our perception of the world. Examples of products (including objects, services, and systems) gone awry will serve as prompts for design activities, challenges, and discussions on gender issues to illustrate the different needs of women, men, and gender-fluid people. Class sessions mix use case explorations with design methodology, design thinking abilities, and guest speakers from technology, design, and academia. Students will be asked to work in interdisciplinary teams on several design challenges, culminating in the development of a toolkit for inclusive design. Methods will interact in crucial ways to create "intersectional thinking" (i.e., to consider how gender, ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economic status, etc. work together to require new solutions in design). Topics include: algorithms, media, seat belts for pregnant women, robotics, assistive technologies, tech for developing worlds, video games, urban/rural design, software development, and many more.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 358:
Sexual Violence in America (AFRICAAM 192, AMSTUD 258, CSRE 192E, FEMGEN 258, HISTORY 258, HISTORY 358)
This undergraduate/graduate colloquium explores the history of sexual violence in America, with particular attention to the intersections of gender and race in the construction of rape. We discuss the changing definitions of sexual violence in law and in cultural representations from early settlement through the late-twentieth century, including slavery, wartime and prison rape, the history of lynching and anti-lynching movements, and feminist responses to sexual violence. In addition to introducing students to the literature on sexual violence, the course attempts to teach critical skills in the analysis of secondary and primary historical texts. Students write short weekly reading responses and a final paper; no final exam; fifth unit research or CEL options.nnLimited enrollment, permission of instructor required. Submit application form (available in course syllabus or History department main office, 200-113) by November 15, 2016 and indicate interest in CEL option. Priority admission to History, FGSS, CSRE, AFRICAAM, and AMSTUD declared majors and minors. (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 360:
Disability, Gender, and Identity: Women's Personal Experiences (AMSTUD 260, FEMGEN 260)
This course explores visible and invisible disabilities, focusing on issues of gender and identity in the personal experiences of women. The course emphasizes psychological as well as physical health, the diversity of disability experiences, self-labeling, caretaking, stigma and passing, and social and political aspects. Disabilities covered include blindness, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, arthritis, emotional and learning disabilities, and conditions requiring wheelchairs and other forms of assistance. The readings draw from the disability studies literature and emphasize women's personal narratives in sociological perspective. Note: Instructor Consent Required.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 361:
Personal Narratives in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (FEMGEN 261)
In this course, we explore the use of personal narratives in studies of gender, sexuality, and identity. Students both read exemplary works by writers in the social sciences and humanities and experiment with the personal narrative form in their own writing and research. Topics covered include: authorial voice, the challenge of impersonal disciplinary standards, the participant-observer and ethnographic traditions, the value of a feminist approach, the difference gender makes in the development of personal voice, and the contribution of personal narratives to academic work. Students can expect to develop skills in the use of personal narrative in investigating such topics as alternative sexualities, gender diversity, disability identities, and ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity.
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 363D:
Feminist Theory: Thinking Through/With/About the Gendered Body (ENGLISH 363D)
Organized around a series of case studies, this graduate feminist theory course will consider issues related to the complex relationship between sex, gender, sexuality, biological reproduction, violence, and social power. It is a core course for the PhD minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Enrollment is limited to PhD-level students.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 393B:
Queer History in Comparative Perspective (FEMGEN 293B, HISTORY 293B, HISTORY 393B)
Comparative history of homoerotic desire, relations, and identity through scholarship on different historical periods and parts of the world: the classical Mediterranean, early modern European cities, late imperial and modern China, Tokugawa and modern Japan, and the U.S.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 395:
Graduate Independent Study
Students pursue a special subject of investigation under supervision of an affiliated faculty member. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-15
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 15 units total)
Instructors: ;
Davies, A. (PI);
Fonrobert, C. (PI);
Freedman, E. (PI);
Hanlon, P. (PI);
Harrison, L. (PI);
Krieger, S. (PI);
Moraga, C. (PI);
Myers, K. (PI);
Rivers, D. (PI);
Robinson, P. (PI);
Schiebinger, L. (PI);
Stefanick, M. (PI);
Wotipka, C. (PI)
FEMGEN 395J:
Gender and Sexuality in Chinese History (CHINGEN 395, HISTORY 395J)
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4-5
FEMGEN 434:
Gender and Performance (FILMSTUD 434, MUSIC 434, TAPS 344A)
This seminar seeks to investigate relationships between performance, gender, and the body politic through a discussion of embodiment, body cultures, queerness, desire, representation. Through a weekly engagement with film texts from across the world as well as theoretical perspectives on gender and performance in various geo-political contexts, we will explore the intersections of gender with race, class, national discourse, and performance traditions. The seminar is conceived to be interdisciplinary and participants are encouraged to introduce and work with texts from other disciplines, including visual arts, theatre, dance, literature etc. No prior engagement with film studies is required. Screening times may range from 90 to 180 minutes.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 444:
Graduate Research Seminar: Gender in Science, Medicine, and Engineering (HISTORY 444)
Theory and practice of gender in STEM. 1. "Fix the Numbers of Women" focuses on increasing women's participation; 2. "Fix the Institutions" promotes gender equality in careers through structural change in research organizations; 3. "Fix the Knowledge" or "gendered innovations" stimulates excellence in science and technology by integrating gender analysis into research. Seminar explores harnessing the creative power of gender analysis to enhance knowledge and spark innovation.
Last offered: Autumn 2014
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 466:
Queer America (ARTHIST 466)
This class explores queer art, photography and politics in the United States since 1930. Our approach will be grounded in close attention to the history and visual representation of sexual minorities in particular historical moments and social contexts. We will consider the cultural and political effects of World War II, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, psychedelics, hippie culture and sexual liberation, lesbian separatism, the AIDS crisis, and marriage equality.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
FEMGEN 477:
Graduate Research Seminar: Migration (HISTORY 477)
The course explores the major trends in Latin American migration to the United States. At the end, students will write a publishable research paper on any topic related to migration worldwide.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
