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Graduate Coursework for Master of Arts in Women's Studies

The Women’s Studies M.A. degree is an interdisciplinary program. Please note that courses offered in related departments can vary. Thus, one week prior to registration, the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies prints a list of courses that are included in the M.A. program for that semester.

 

Courses offered through the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies:

• Women, Sexuality and Culture (WST 6312) 3 credits
  • Prerequisite: BA degree or approval of instructor
  • Course considers theoretical perspectives, social debates, and cultural representations of women’s sexualities.

• Women, Violence, Resistance (WST 6327) 3 credits
  • Prerequisite: BA degree or approval of instructor
  • Course considers rape, violence, incest, battery, and murder of women as a form of social control. Topics include cultural constructions of sexuality and gender, popular cultural representations, and women’s and men’s resistance to sexual violence.

• Special Topics (WST 6934) 3 credits
  • Reading and research in interdisciplinary women's studies topics.
        e.g.,    Visionary Feminist Thought (6934) 3 credits
                   Women, War, and Peace Building (WST 6934) 3 credits

• Sex/Violence/Hollywood (WST 6339) 3 credits
  • This course examines why sex and violence are the two main ingredients of Hollywood cinema and how the two interact to create meanings.

• Women, Environment, Ecofeminism, Environmental Justice (WST 6348) 3 credits
  • This course examines the history and evolution of ecofeminist and environmental justice, thought, and practice through its major womanist/feminist activists, theorists, and core issues.

• Women of Color in the U.S. (WST 6405) 3 credits
  • Examines how issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and class shape the lives of women of color in the U.S., such as Native-American, African-American, Latin- American, and Asian-American women.

• Feminist Theory and Praxis (WST 6564) 3 credits
  • Survey of major statements in modern and contemporary feminist theory, with attention to their application in fields that may include the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as national and global activism.

• Seminar in Feminist Studies and Qualitative Research (WST 6595) 3 credits
  • This course is designed to examine critically the production of knowledge in formal research from a feminist perspective and to apply feminist qualitative methods to particular research questions. Students will have the opportunity to formulate their own research programs within an expanded format as well as practice certain qualitative methods, such as interviewing a subject.

• Gender, Health and Power (WST 6615) 3 credits
  • This course assesses the role of power relations, particularly gender, ethnicity, social class, religion, and globalization in shaping the health status, the illness experiences and outcomes, and the form and substance of medical options available in local communities around the world. A focus on how health is differentially impacted for women and men will engender an examination of gender ideology in power relations.

• Directed Independent Study (WST 6909) 1-3 credits
  • Prerequisite: Approval by Director of Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
  • Reading and research in Women’s Studies Interdisciplinary topics, directed by a WGSS core faculty member or faculty associate of the WGSS Center.

• Graduate Research Seminar in Women’s Studies (WST 6919) 3 credits
  • Prerequisite: Admission to candidacy
  • Graduate project in research related to internship. Must be taken simultaneously with WST 6941. Grading: S/U

• Special Topics (WST 6934) 3 credits
  • Reading and Research in interdisciplinary women’s studies topics.

• Seminar in Global Perspectives on Gender (WST 6936) 3 credits
  • Interdisciplinary study of gender issues and their intersection with race and class in world regions.

• Feminization of Poverty (WST 6938) 3 credits 
  • Prerequisite: BA degree or approval of instructor
  • Course examines issues pertaining to the feminization of poverty from a feminist and comparative perspective. Discussions will apply theoretical, historical, and empirical frameworks to analyze the gender dimensions of poverty and ways in which these frameworks structure our understanding of the feminization of poverty.

• Graduate Internship in Women’s Studies (WST 6941) 3 credits
  • Prerequisite: Admission to candidacy
  • Internship with agency or office pertaining to women’s studies. 
  • Must be taken simultaneously with WST 6919.
  • Grading: S/U

• Master’s Thesis (WST 6971) 1-6 credits
  • Prerequisite: Admission to candidacy
  • Grading: S/U

 

In addition to courses offered by the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, there are a range of graduate seminars that are offered by other departments in the College of Arts and Letters and that Women’s Studies graduate students can enroll in as part of their coursework for the Masters degree.

 

Sampling of courses offered through other departments in the College of Arts and Letters:

School of Communication & Multimedia Studies

• COM 6015: Studies in Gender and Sexuality 
• MMC 6705: Feminist Cultural Studies

Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature  

Sociology

• SYD 6809 Seminar in Gender Issues
• SYO 6107 Seminar in Sociology of Families in the U.S.

 

Some of the Special Topics graduate classes that have been offered:

• Gender and Screen Culture 
• Gender and Technological Change 
• Gay and Lesbian 20th Century Literature
• Studies in Queer Theory 
• Jane Austen 
• Rhetorics of Incarceration
• Homoeroticism and Crossdressing in English Renaissance Literature
• Women in the Middle East