Department of Gender Studies

Examines the diverse and historically varying relationships forged between biological sex, culturally formulated discourses of masculinity and femininity, and the sexed body.  Specifically, this course deepens student engagement with the field of gender studies by teaching them how to do research and think in interdisciplinary ways to better understand the complexities of our social world, the racialized gendered body, digital and artificial intelligence-based technologies, and our relationships/responsibilities to others (including nonhumans) locally and globally.  In the first part of the course students will learn how society has historically constructed what it means to be human through notions of reason, rationality, objectivity, and property and through histories of colonialism, slavery, and eugenics in ways that have privileged humans as masters over nature and have devalued women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and indigenous peoples (albeit in similar and different ways) as closer to nature and thus less than human.  In the second part of the course, students will develop an integrative, interdisciplinary approach to understanding the racialized gendered body and its relationship to nature and technology.  Placing an emphasis on how digital and artificial intelligence-based technologies shape and are shaped by gender and race, students will be asked to develop critical understandings of social media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter), digital personal assistants (e.g. Amazon Alexa), personal tracking devices (e.g. Apple Watch, Fitbit), policing and surveillance, personalized health care, and precision agriculture/smart farming.

• S&H
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