Smith College's Moodle

This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of gender. Gender and sexuality, and their interconnectedness with race, ethnicity, citizenship, nationhood, age, and class collectively shape our individual experiences as well as the way we perceive and judge the experience of others. So much of gender and sexuality is attached to the body: what we are born with, the status of that biological body within a given country and/or culture, and the way we present our body within that culture. The primary goal of this course is to provide a forum for students to consider the history of gender as it is reliant on conceptions and constructions of sexuality and race in the U.S. Throughout the course, we will consider contemporary gender politics in light of histories of gender, racial, and sexual formations.