Courses & Programs of Study

Director of Undergraduate Studies: Rebecca West, 5733 S. University Ave.,

Rm. 301, 702-9936, r-west@uchicago.edu

Assistant Directors: Stuart Michaels, 5733 S. University Ave., Rm. 300,
702-2365, stuartm@uchicago.edu; Gina Olson, 5733 S. University Ave., Rm. 304, 702-9936, golson@uchicago.edu

Web: humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/cgs/

Program of Study

Gender Studies at the University of Chicago encompasses diverse disciplines, modes of inquiry, and objects of knowledge. Gender Studies allows undergraduates the opportunity to shape a disciplinary or interdisciplinary plan of study focused on gender and sexuality. The plan of study, designed with the assistance of a Gender Studies Adviser, can take the form of a gender-track in a traditional academic discipline, interdisciplinary work on a gender-related topic, or a combination thereof. Students can thus create a cluster of courses linked by their attention to gender as an object of study or by their use of gender categories to investigate topics in sexuality, social life, science, politics and culture, literature and the arts, or systems of thought.

Students in other fields of study may also complete a minor in Gender Studies. Information follows the description of the major.

Program Requirements

The major requires eleven courses, a B.A. Essay Seminar, and a B.A. research project or essay that will count as a thirteenth course. The Center for Gender Studies recognizes two main paths by which students might develop an undergraduate concentration. Path A is for students whose central interest lies in the interdisciplinary study of gender and sexuality; it is designed to provide students with a range of conceptual and historical resources to pursue such study with creativity and rigor. Path B is for students whose interest in gender and sexuality is primarily organized around a specific other discipline or field such as History, English, or Political Science; it is designed to provide students with the conceptual and methodological resources to pursue Gender Studies within such a field. Within those goals, each path is meant to provide students with the opportunity to design a course of study tailored to their particular interests. Each path consists of the two required introductory Problems in Gender Studies courses (GNDR 10100 and 10200), a group of nine electives chosen in consultation with the student's Gender Studies Adviser (this will often be the Director of the Center for Gender Studies), a B.A. Essay seminar for fourth-year students, and a B.A paper written under the supervision of an appropriate faculty member.

Path A: GNDR 10100; GNDR 10200; nine electives, which must meet the following chronological, geographical, and methodological distribution guidelines: at least one course with a main chronological focus that is pre-1900 and at least one course with a main chronological focus that is post-1900; at least one course with a main focus that is North America or Europe and at least one course with a main focus that is Latin America, Africa, or Asia; at least two courses in the Humanities and at least two courses in the Social Sciences. Any given course may fulfill more than one distribution requirement; for instance, a course on gender in Shakespeare would count as fulfilling one course requirement in pre-1900, Europe, and Humanities.

Path B: GNDR 10100; GNDR 10200; five Gender Studies courses in a primary field; and four supporting field courses. Courses in the primary field focus on gender and/or sexuality in a single discipline or in closely related disciplines and develop a gender track within that discipline. Supporting field courses provide training in the methodological, technical, or scholarly skills needed to pursue research in the student's primary field.

Two-Quarter Theory Course Sequence. All students majoring in Gender Studies take Problems in Gender Studies (GNDR 10100 and 10200) in their second or third year.

Research Project or Essay. A substantial essay or project is to be completed in the student's fourth year under the supervision of a Gender Studies Adviser who is a member of the Gender Studies Core Faculty in the student's primary field of interest. Students must submit the essay by May 1 of their fourth year or by fifth week of their quarter of graduation.

This program may accept a B.A. paper or project used to satisfy the same requirement in another major if certain conditions are met and with the consent of the other program chair. Approval from both program chairs is required. Students should consult with the chairs by the earliest B.A. proposal deadline (or by the end of their third year, when neither program publishes a deadline). A consent form, to be signed by both chairs, is available from the College adviser. It must be completed and returned to the College adviser by the end of Autumn Quarter of the student's year of graduation.

Summary of Requirements

9 courses distributed according to the

requirements of Path A or Path B

2 Problems in Gender Studies

(GNDR 10100-10200)

1 B.A. Essay Seminar (GNDR 29800)

1 B.A. Essay (GNDR 29900)

Grading. Two of the supporting field courses may be taken P/F. All other courses must be taken for a quality grade.

Honors. Students with a 3.0 or higher overall grade point average and a 3.5 or higher grade point average in the major are eligible for honors. The faculty adviser for the B.A. essay will be invited to nominate honors-worthy essays to a subcommittee of the Gender Studies faculty, which will then make the final decision.

Advising. Each student will have a Gender Studies Adviser who is a member of the Gender Studies Core Faculty and is chosen from among those listed below. By the beginning of their third year, students are expected to have designed their programs of study with the assistance of the Gender Studies Adviser. Students may also consult the Director of Undergraduate Studies for advice in program design.

Minor Program in Gender Studies

Gender Studies at the University of Chicago encompasses diverse disciplines, modes of inquiry, and objects of knowledge. A minor in Gender Studies allows students in other major fields to shape a disciplinary or interdisciplinary plan of study that will provide a competence in gender and sexuality studies. Such a minor requires a total of six courses: the Gender Studies core sequence, GNDR 10100 (Problems in the Study of Gender); GNDR 10200 (Problems in the Study of Sexuality); and four additional courses in Gender Studies.

Students who elect the minor program in Gender Studies must meet with the director of undergraduate studies before the end of Spring Quarter of their third year to declare their intention to complete the minor. (The deadline for students graduating in 2005-06 is the end of Autumn Quarter 2005.) Students choose courses in consultation with the director of undergraduate studies. The director's approval for the minor program should be submitted to a student's College adviser by the deadline above on a form obtained from the adviser.

Courses in the minor (1) may not be double counted with the student's major(s) or with other minors and (2) may not be counted toward general education requirements. Courses in the minor must be taken for quality grades, and at least four of the requirements for the minor must be met by registering for courses bearing University of Chicago course numbers.

The following samples show a disciplinary and an interdisciplinary plan of study.

Gender Studies Disciplinary Sample Minor

GNDR 10100-10200. Problems in Gender Studies

GNDR 21300. Victorian Wives, Mothers, and Daughers (=ENGL 21100)

GNDR 22401. Chicana/o Intellectual Thought (=ENGL 22804)

GNDR 24702. When and Where They Entered: Black Women Writers of the 1940s and 1950s

(=ENGL 25103)

GNDR 25900. Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion (=FNDL 25500)

Gender Studies Interdisciplinary Sample Minor

GNDR 10100-10200. Problems in Gender Studies

GNDR 20800. Sexual Identity/Life Course/Life Story (=HUDV 24600)

GNDR 22701. Sexuality and Censorship in Pre-Stonewall Film (=CMST 20901)

GNDR 24001. Love and Eros in Japanese History (=HIST 24001)

GNDR 24900. Foucault and The History of Sexuality (=PHIL 24800)

Nonmajors are encouraged to use this listing of faculty and course offerings as a resource for the purpose of designing programs within disciplines, as an aid for the allocation of electives, or for the pursuit of a B.A. project. For further work in gender studies, students are encouraged to investigate other courses taught by resource faculty. For more information about Gender Studies, consult the Center for Gender Studies Web site at humanities.uchicago.edu/cgs/ or the Assistant Director at 702-9936.

Faculty

D. Allen, L. Auslander, O. Bashkin, L. Berlant, D. Bevington, C. Brekus, B. Brown,
M. Browning, M. A. Case, G. Chauncey, K.-H. Choi, S. Clark, E. Clemens, C. Cohen,
B. Cohler, J. Comaroff, W. Doniger, E. Emens, M. Feldman, N. Field, S. Fitzpatrick,
R. Fulton, S. Gal, J. Goldsby, J. Goldstein, R. Gregg, E. Hadley, M. Hansen,
M. Harris-Lacewell, E. Helsinger, J. Henly, A. Hollywood, J. Johnson, W. Johnson,
R. Kendrick, J. Knight, L. Letinsky, D. Levin, A. Lugo-Ortiz, S. MacPherson, A. Maggi,
P. Markell, J. Mateo, M. McClintock, T. Meares, F. Meltzer, S. Michaels, D. Miliotes,
J. M. Miller, K. Morrison, J. Mueller, D. Nelson, L. Norman, M. Nussbaum,
W. Olmsted, C. Raver, V. Ritter, M. Roderick, M. Roth, L. Ruddick, A. Ruttan,
S. Sassen, J. Saville, B. Schultz, L. Seidel, M. Silverstein, W. Sites, L. Slatkin,
A. Stanley, J. Stewart, R. Strier, L. Van Valen, W. Veeder, C. Vogler, F. Walsh,
M. Ward, E. Weaver, L. Wedeen, R. West, A. Winter, H. Wu, I. Young, J. Zeitlin,
R. Zorach

Courses: Gender Studies (gndr)

10100-10200. Problems in Gender Studies. (=ENGL 10200-10300, HUMA 22800-22900, SOSC 28200-28300) PQ: Second-year standing or higher. Completion of the general education requirement in social sciences or humanities, or the equivalent. May be taken in sequence or individually. This two-quarter interdisciplinary sequence is designed as an introduction to theories and critical practices in the study of feminism, gender, and sexuality. Both classic texts and recent conceptualizations of these contested fields are examined. Problems and cases from a variety of cultures and historical periods are considered, and the course pursues their differing implications in local, national, and global contexts. Both quarters also engage questions of aesthetics and representation, asking how stereotypes, generic conventions, and other modes of circulated fantasy have contributed to constraining and emancipating people through their gender or sexuality.

10100. Problems in the Study of Gender. This course addresses the production of particularly gendered norms and practices. Using a variety of historical and theoretical materials, it addresses how sexual difference operates in various contexts (e.g., nation, race, class formation; work, the family, migration, imperialism, postcolonial relations). S. Michaels, Autumn; E. Hadley, Spring.

10200. Problems in the Study of Sexuality. This course focuses on histories and theories of sexuality: gay, lesbian, heterosexual, and otherwise. This exploration involves looking at a range of materials from anthropology to the law and from practices of sex to practices of science. B. Schultz, Autumn; S. Michaels, Winter.

11900. The Literature of Trauma. (=GNDR 11900) This course introduces advanced trauma theory and surveys classics in the field (e.g., Maus, Dispatches, Ariel, War Journalism) and relevant psychoanalytic and social scientific theoretical works from Freud onward through critical social theory related to holocausts, genocides, illness and accident, and torture. We pay special attention to the relation of the "historic" scenes of obliteration to modes of negativity in everyday life. While primary texts come from the United States, theoretical and historical works derive their arguments from a variety of geopolitical scenes. L. Berlant. Winter.

15600. Medieval English Literature. (=ENGL 15600) This course examines the relations among psychology, ethics, and social theory in fourteenth-century English literature. We pay particular attention to three central preoccupations of the period: sex, the human body, and the ambition of ethical perfection. Readings are drawn from Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain-poet, Gower, penitential literature, and the lives of saints. There are also some supplementary readings in the social history of late medieval England. M. Miller. Spring.

18200. Postwar American Culture, 1945 to 1970. (=HIST 18200) This lecture/discussion course explores the cultural politics of national identity, race, ethnicity, class, gender, and generation in the quarter century following World War II, a period of dramatic social change, political debate, and economic and spatial reorganization. We pay special attention to the impact of the war itself on notions of citizenship, gender, ethnicity, and nation; suburbanization and urban change; postwar modernism, antimodernism, and social criticism; mass culture and the counterculture; McCarthyism, the domestic cold war, and the debate over the Vietnam War; the civil rights movement; and the rise of the new social movements of the left and right. G. Chauncey. Autumn.

21300. Victorian Wives, Mothers, and Daughters. (=ENGL 21100) This introduction to modern theoretical debates is concerned with the role of gender in Victorian society. We focus on the female gender in history, as well on as instructive and medical texts. We begin with readings by Armstrong, Poovey, and Langland. We then concentrate on several contested and much-studied modes of identity (i.e., marriage, motherhood, the role of daughters) and related categories (e.g., leisure labor). Authors include Eliot, Wood, and Gaskell. E. Hadley. Winter.

21400/31400. Introduction to Theories of Sex/Gender: Ideology, Culture, and Sexuality. (=ENGL 21401/30201, MAPH 36500) PQ: Consent of instructor required; GNDR 10100-10200 recommended. This course examines contemporary theories of sexuality, culture, and society. We then situate these theories in global and historical perspectives. Topics and issues are explored through theoretical, ethnographic, popular, and film and video texts. L. Berlant. Winter.

21500. Darwinian Health. (=HUDV 21500) This course, which has a seminar format, uses an evolutionary, rather than a clinical, approach to understanding why we get sick. In particular, we consider how health issues (e.g., menstruation, senescence, pregnancy sickness, menopause, diseases) can be considered adaptations rather than pathologies. We also discuss how our rapidly changing environments can reduce the benefits of these adaptations. J. Mateo. Autumn.

22401. Chicana/o Intellectual Thought. (=ENGL 22804, LACS 22804, RLLT 22801) This course traces the history of Chicana/o intellectual work that helped shape contemporary Chicana/o cultural studies. Our focus is on how Mexican Americans have theorized the history, society, and culture of Mexicans in the United States. Themes include feminism, sexuality, literary history and theory, ethnographic studies, historiographic debates, Marxism, postcolonialism, and the emergence of a pan-Latino culture. Readings include political essays, histories, memoirs, novels, folklore studies, and cultural criticism. R. Coronada. Autumn.

22501. African-American Women: Symbols and Lives. (=AFAM 27401, HIST 27404/37404, LLSO 26903) This course explores the historical experiences and symbolic representations of African-American women in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their negotiations of personal and collective identity are viewed from the vantage of household and community relations, work, intellectual and spiritual strivings, political mobilization, and play. J. Saville. Spring.

22801. Feminist Struggles in Japan I. (=EALC 26700/36700, JAPN 26700/36700) Knowledge of Japanese not required. Is feminism dead in Japan, as so many have wished or declared? Or, as with so many instances of sustained and courageous protest, are we simply ignorant of the endeavors pursued by women (and men) around the country? In this course, we examine recent and continuing examples of feminist activism in Japan, addressing issues ranging from reproduction to labor to sexuality to constitutional rights. We use film, fiction, artwork, and other documents (including Web sources) generated by the movements. Our focus extends outward from contemporary Japan both historically and geographically. This course is primarily for undergraduates, but graduate students are also welcome to take the course; they will be expected to produce research incorporating materials from their specialization in East Asia or other regions. N. Field, T. Yamaguchi. Winter.

23001/33001. Gender and Literature in South Asia. Prior knowledge of South Asia not required. (=CMLT 23500, SALC 23002/33002) Prior knowledge of South Asia not required. This course investigates representations of gender and sexuality, especially of females and "the feminine" in South Asian literature (i.e., from areas now included in the nations of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka). Topics include classical Indian literature and sexual motifs, the female voice as a devotional/literary stance, gendered nationalism, the feminist movements, class and gender, and women's songs. Texts in English. V. Ritter. Spring.

23501. Gender and "Development." (=PLSC 23110/33100) This course analyzes issues of gender and development studies. Questions include: How does the gender division of labor between unpaid household labor and paid employment intersect with government policies and actions of international organizations in less developed countries? What is the gendered construction of piece work in the home, and of factory work in export processing zones? What are the attitudes of governments in less developed countries and in developed countries toward sex work, sex tourism, and sex trafficking? How do structural adjustment programs condition the lives of women and relations between men and women? I. Young. Spring.

24702. When and Where They Entered: Black Women Writers of the 1940s and 1950s. (=AFAM 25103, ENGL 25103) This second "woman's era" in African-American literature is often neglected as one compared to those of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this course, we attend to this group of writers to account for the unprecedented critical and popular acclaim that they received during the 1940s and 1950s. We focus on the writings of Brooks, Walker, Petry, and Hansberry. J. Goldsby. Autumn.

24900. Foucault and The History of Sexuality. (=HIPS 24300, PHIL 24800) PQ: Prior philosophy course or consent of instructor. This course centers on a close reading of the first volume of Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality, with some attention to his writings on the history of ancient conceptualizations of sex. How should a history of sexuality take into account scientific theories, social relations of power, and different experiences of the self? We discuss the contrasting descriptions and conceptions of sexual behavior before and after the emergence of a science of sexuality. Other writers influenced by and critical of Foucault are also discussed. A. Davidson. Autumn.

25200. Happiness. (=HUMA 24900, PHIL 21400, PLSC 22700) From Plato to the present, notions of happiness have been at the core of heated debates in ethics and politics. Is happiness the ultimate good for human beings (the essence of the good life), or does morality somehow precede it? Can happiness be achieved by all human beings or only by a fortunate few? These are some of the questions that this course engages, with the help of both classic and contemporary texts from philosophy, literature, and the social sciences. This course includes various video presentations and other materials stressing visual culture. B. Schultz. Spring.

25900. Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion. (=FNDL 25500, HUMA 21600) This course considers novels by Jane Austen in terms of how they treat gender, class, socioeconomic circumstances, family structure, and geographical places as constraining and facilitating the agency of characters. In response to change, Austen's characters bridge difference of class, gender, family history, and geographical place to form friendships and marriages that change their self-understandings and capacities for productive social and personal activities. We discuss Austen's representations of evolving selves and how they develop or fail to develop growing powers of agency as they respond to historical and socioeconomic circumstances. W. Olmsted. Winter.

27100. Sociology of Human Sexuality. (=SOCI 20107/30107) PQ: Prior introductory course in the social sciences. After briefly reviewing several biological and psychological approaches to human sexuality as points of comparison, we explore the sociological perspective on sexual conduct and its associated beliefs and consequences for individuals and society. Substantive topics include gender relations; life-course perspectives on sexual conduct in youth, adolescence, and adulthood; social epidemiology of sexually transmitted infections (including AIDS); sexual partner choice and turnover; and the incidence/prevalence of selected sexual practices. E. Laumann. Spring.

28102/38102. Body, Space, Desire: Feminist Theories of Visuality. (=ARTH 28012/38102, COVA 25105/35105) PQ: Any 10000-level ARTH or COVA course, or consent of instructor. This course examines the ambivalent status of visuality and the visual arts in feminist theory and attempts to reimagine their relationship through themes of body, space, and desire. We read works from several traditions, including French feminism and psychoanalysis, film theory, science and technology studies, black feminist theory and critical race studies, materialist feminism, queer theory, and contemporary art and art criticism. Case studies are drawn from art, film, and visual culture broadly defined; assignments include exercises in the confrontation and integration of theory with history and practice. R. Zorach. Spring.

29700. Readings in Gender Studies. PQ: Consent of instructor and program chairman. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. May be taken P/F with consent of instructor. With prior approval, this course may be used to satisfy course requirements for Gender Studies majors. Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.

29800. B.A. Essay Seminar. PQ: Consent of instructor and program chairman. May be taken P/F with consent of instructor. GNDR 29800 and 29900 form a two-quarter sequence for seniors who are writing a B.A. essay. The seminar provides students with the theoretical and methodological grounding in gender and sexuality studies needed to formulate a topic and conduct the independent research and writing of their B.A. essay. Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.

29900. B.A. Essay. PQ: Consent of instructor and program chairman. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form signed by the faculty B.A. essay reader. The purpose of this course is to assist students in the preparation of drafts of their B.A. essay. Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring.