Gender and Sexuality Studies (2022 - 2024)
Introductory Core
Social and Cultural Analysis 101
SCA-UA 101 Offered every year. 4 points.
Introduces theories, methods, and political trajectories central to the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis (SCA). SCA addresses how individuals and populations structure their worlds and navigate the resulting social, cultural, and political terrain. It privileges scholarly work with an intersectional approach, drawing on theoretical insights from such fields as social geography, feminism and queer studies, ethnic studies, urban and metropolitan studies, critical race theory, labor studies, and cultural studies.
Intersections: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. History
SCA-UA 230 4 points.
Counts as an introductory core if SCA-UA 401 is not offered. See American studies section in this Bulletin for description.
Approaches to Gender and Sexuality Studies
SCA-UA 401 Offered occasionally. 4 points.
Explores the construction of sex, gender, and sexuality; gender asymmetry in society; sexual normativity and violations of norms; and the interactions of sex, gender, sexuality, race, class, and nation. Engages materials and methodologies from a range of media and disciplines, such as literature, the visual arts, history, sociology, psychology, and anthropology. Examines both feminist and nonfeminist arguments from a variety of critical perspectives.
Research Core
Advanced Research Seminar
SCA-UA 90 Prerequisite: either Social and Cultural Analysis 101 (SCA-UA 101) or Intersections: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. History (SCA-UA 230). Offered every semester. 4 points.
Students write a 20-25 page research paper with a focus on a specific research method. Topics vary by semester; see Albert for details.
Honors Program
Senior Honors Seminar
SCA-UA 92 Prerequisites: 3.65 GPA or higher (both overall and in the major), Social and Cultural Analysis 101 (SCA-UA 101), either Approaches to Gender and Sexuality Studies (SCA-UA 401) or Intersections: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. History (SCA-UA 230), and permission of the department. Offered every fall. 4 points.
Senior Honors Thesis
SCA-UA 93 Prerequisites: Senior Honors Seminar (SCA-UA 92), 3.65 GPA or higher (both overall and in the major), and permission of the department. Offered every spring. 4 points.
SCA Theory and Practice: The Internship Program
The 4-point internship program complements and enhances the formal course work of the gender and sexuality major. Students intern at agencies dealing with a range of issues pertaining to the major and take a corequisite seminar that enables them to focus the work experience in meaningful academic terms. The goals of the internship are threefold: (1) to allow students to apply the theory they have gained through course work, (2) to provide students with analytical tools, and (3) to assist students in exploring professional career paths. Open to juniors and seniors and requires an application.
SCA Theory and Practice: The Internship Program
SCA-UA 42 Requires ten hours a week of fieldwork. 4 points.
Elective Courses
Queer NYC
SCA-UA 421 4 points.
We track queerness across time and space, examining the history, politics, and culture of the Big Apple. Ranging from Harlem to Times Square to Greenwich Village to Park Avenue, and beyond Manhattan to Queens, Brooklyn, and even Fire Island outposts, we follow people and money, high and underground culture, protests and politics, to ask: How do queerness and the city shape each other? Examines literature, music, film, and ethnography.
Queer Cultures
SCA-UA 450 4 points.
Topics may include: the historical shift from an emphasis on homosexual acts to homosexual persons; the history of the study of gays and lesbians by the medical, psychology, and sexology professions; intersections of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sex, and sexual orientation in literary and visual texts; homophobia; hate crimes; outing; activism; and performativity.
Gender and Performance
SCA-UA 455 4 points.
How do performances of gender—in everyday life and in such representational forms as theatre, film, literature, and law—produce and enforce meanings and experiences of gender? How are gender norms connected to other rules for being a subject, such as class, race, religion, sexuality, and bodily capacity? If we must become a gender to be a subject at all, can we also un-become gender and change the terms of social belonging and recognition?
Theories of Gender and Sexuality
SCA-UA 472 Prerequisite: Approaches to Gender and Sexuality Studies (SCA-UA 401), Sex and Gender (SOC-UA 21), or permission of the instructor. 4 points.
Topics vary and may include: feminist theory; queer theory; psychoanalysis; postcolonial theory; border theory; social movements; postmodernism; performativity; theories of history, culture, and representation; and intersectionality.
Transnational Feminism
SCA-UA 474 4 points.
Examines the limits and possibilities of transnational feminist practices and theories. What does it mean to be “transnationally literate” in relation to gender and sexuality? How do notions of gender and sexuality shift in the context of the gendered travel, displacements, and diasporas created by globalization? How are these contemporary movements shadowed by prior movements precipitated by earlier histories of colonialism, indentured labor, and slavery?
Queer Histories
SCA-UA 475 4 points.
Topics are critically examined within a global context and related to histories of modernity, capitalism, and imperialism. They include: cultures and subcultures, sexual practices and meanings, legal regulation, science/biology, public policy, and politics and activism, as well as intersections of historical hierarchies of race, gender, class, and nation with histories of sexuality.
Gender, Globalization, and Politics of KPOP
SCA-UA 476 4 points.
Connects films, pop songs, and television serials to nation-building and branding projects, diasporic identity formation, and transnational capital and labor. Using the Korean Wave (South Korean popular culture) as a case study, examines how mass culture intersects with race, gender, and empire to travel transnational circuits in relation to movements of people, goods, and labor.
Topics
SCA-UA 481 4 points.
In-depth study of a particular problem or research area within gender and sexuality studies.
Queer Literature
SCA-UA 482 Identical to ENGL-UA 749. Prerequisite: one course in literature, or Approaches to Gender and Sexuality Studies (SCA-UA 401), or permission of the instructor. 4 points.
Develops notions of queerness—deviation from a sexed and gendered norm—through detailed exploration of literary texts in a variety of genres. Historical period and national focus (British, American, Commonwealth) may vary.
Medieval Misogyny
SCA-UA 488 Identical to ENGL-UA 302. Prerequisite: one English course, or one gender and sexuality studies course, or permission of the instructor. 4 points.
From the Bible to key texts of the Western Middle Ages in which men lay down the law, and occasionally women talk back. Other works: the letters of Abelard and Heloise, the fictive but larger than life Wife of Bath, and the imagined feminine utopia of Christine de Pizan.
Topics in Gender and Sexuality Studies
SCA-UA 493 Offered every semester. 4 points.
In-depth study of a particular problem or research area within gender and sexuality studies.
Independent Study
SCA-UA 496, 497 Prerequisite: permission of the director of undergraduate studies. Offered in the fall and spring respectively. 2 or 4 points per term.
Religion, Sexuality, and American Public Life
SCA-UA 812 Identical to RELST-UA 646. 4 points.
What are the “proper” role and place of religious beliefs and expressions in American public life? What are the “proper” role and place of sex in American public life? And how are these two questions related to each other? Examines the apparent contradiction between principles of church-state separation and religious freedom on the one hand, and the invocation of religious ideas to justify state regulation of bodily life, especially sexual life, on the other.
Related Courses
The following courses count as faculty electives for gender and sexuality studies majors and minors. See the departmental or program sections in this Bulletin for course descriptions and prerequisites.
AFRICANA STUDIES
The Black Body and the Lens
SCA-UA 155 4 points.
Race and Reproduction
SCA-UA 158 4 points.
AMERICAN STUDIES
Justice Lab
SCA-UA 19 2 points.
Work, Labor, and Power
SCA-UA 221 4 points.
Intersections: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. History
SCA-UA 230 4 points.
Cultures and Economies
SCA-UA 234 4 points.
Race and the American Right
SCA-UA 236 4 points.
Disabilities and Sexuality in American Culture
SCA-UA 238 4 points.
Couture/Culture: Fashion and Globalization
SCA-UA 253 4 points.
LATINO STUDIES
Latino/a Art and Performance in NYC
SCA-UA 532 4 points.
Latina Feminist Studies
SCA-UA 548 4 points.
Caribbean Women Writers
SCA-UA 570 4 points.
Postmodern Travel Fiction
SCA-UA 572 4 points.
Cross-Listed Electives
Majors and minors may take no more than two. See the departmental or program sections in this Bulletin for course descriptions and prerequisites.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
Classical Literature and Philosophy: Gender and Genre
SCA-UA 860 Identical to COLIT-UA 160. 4 points.
EAST ASIAN STUDIES
Gender and Radicalism in Modern China
SCA-UA 827 Identical to EAST-UA 536, HIST-UA 536. 4 points.
ENGLISH
Representations of Women
SCA-UA 734 Identical to ENGL-UA 755. 4 points.
HEBREW AND JUDAIC STUDIES
Sex, Gender, and the Bible
SCA-UA 743 Identical to HBRJD-UA 19. 4 points.
HISTORY
Gender/Sex Controversies: Roots and Explanations
SCA-UA 727 Identical to HIST-UA 635. 4 points.
Women and Slavery in the Americas
SCA-UA 730 Identical to HIST-UA 660. 4 points.
Black Women in America
SCA-UA 861 Identical to HIST-UA 661. 4 points.
JOURNALISM
Journalism and Society: Women and the Media
SCA-UA 733 Identical to JOUR-UA 720. 4 points.
LINGUISTICS
Sex, Gender, and Language
SCA-UA 712 Identical to LING-UA 21. 4 points.
POLITICS
Gender in Law
SCA-UA 723 Identical to POL-UA 336. 4 points.