Whittier College Catalog 2021-2022 ARCHIVED CATALOG
Gender Studies Courses
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Individual courses are not offered every year, but are offered in a rotation that will provide students the ability to complete 18 credits over the course of the four-year BA. Please check the most recent on-line schedule for offerings, credits, and instructors.
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Gender Studies
GEN 205 - Women and U.S. Politics
Examines the changing role of women in American politics and society, including the suffrage movement, the ERA, work and career patterns.
Cross-listed with PLSC 205 / SOC 205
3 credits
GEN 207 - Women and the Visual Arts
Historically oriented examination of women artists from the Renaissance through the Modern periods, followed by an exploration of theoretical issues involving women and representation.
Cross-listed with ART 207
3 credits
GEN 211 - Modern Family: A History
An exploration of your family history in a broader historical context. Topics include the history of dating, marriage, sexual practices, childbirth and childrearing, and the federal policies and social movements that continue to shape our family norms. A wiring-intensive course that also requires the creation of a digital short film. Only open to freshmen and sophomores.
Cross-listed with HIST 211
3 credits
GEN 250 - Philosophy of Love and Human Sexuality
An examination of the constructions of male and female sexuality and some of their ethical and political implications; contemporary issues including promiscuity, child abuse, prostitution, pornography, and marriage. Intructor permission required.
Pre-req: Instructor permission
Cross-listed with PHIL 250
3 credits
GEN 251 - Monks, Nuns, and Ascetics
This course examines theological, practical, and literary traditions of asceticism in Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Topics include men’s and women’s disciplinary and visionary practices, the roles of ascetics in politics, and engendering religious life.
Cross-listed with REL 251
3 credits
GEN 253 - Women and Religion
An introductory examination of religious definitions of women, of women’s religious experiences, and of feminist theologies and transformation of religious traditions. Attention to course topics in cross-cultural perspective.
Cross-listed with REL 253
3 credits
GEN 255 - Women and U.S. Liberation Theologies
This course examines major theological themes in Christianity, and the role that critical theoretical and religious analyses of gender, race, class, sexuality, ecology, culture, and nationality play in re-articulating those themes within women’s liberation theologies in the United States. More specifically, this course explores criticisms and reconstructions of conventional Christian beliefs and practices regarding the divine, salvation, the human person, and ritual. To do so, we will engage in a critical and comparative study of major works in U.S. white feminist, African-American womanist, Latina feminist or mujerista, and Asian American feminist theologies. Through our study of women’s multicultural theologies within U.S. Christianity, we will consider what distinguishes and what is shared by them, as well as interrogate our own understandings and those of the theologians about the relationships between religion and women’s oppression as well as liberation.
Cross-listed with REL 255
3 credits
GEN 260 - Eco-Philosophy
In the face of unprecedented environmental crises and catastrophes, ecological philosophy focuses on biodiversity and on cultural and philosophical value systems and ways of knowing respectful of such. The course explores how value systems and economic systems shape our relationship to nature and to each other, and thus how we sustain ourselves. This course examines how consumers in the global North conceive of themselves and live as if “outside nature,” yet depend on peoples in and from the global South, in a system which relies on environmental racism and environmental colonialism. PHIL 105 is recommended but not required.
Cross-listed with ENST 260 - Eco-Philosophy / PHIL 260
3 credits
GEN 262 - American Media and Sexuality
This course will focus on the influence that media has on our sexual identity and culture. Students will explore how sexuality has been portrayed in North American media, including films, television shows, and print media over the past three decades, with a primary focus on contemporary media. Students will come to understand how cultural expectations of sexuality are generated, shaped, and reinforced by the media and the psychological effects associated with these social comparisons.
Pre-req: PSYC 100
Cross-listed with PSYC 262
4 credits
GEN 266 - Psychology of Human Sexuality
A review of human sexuality with a focus on personal decision making and communication, as well as physiological, psychological, and sociological influences on sexual behavior and sexual identity.
Pre-req: PSYC 100 - Introductory Psychology
Cross-listed with PSYC 266
3 credits
GEN 300 - Intersections: Race, Class, Gender
The primary goal of this course is to ensure that students develop a sociological imagination - that is, the ability to pose sociological questions and to find ways to investigate those questions. The course will be organized around three important sociological monographs – book length studies – which will examine race, class, and gender. We will spend the semester meticulously breaking apart these studies so that students begin to understand the process of conducting sociological research.
Pre-req: One 200-level SOC course and either ANTH 180 or SOC 180
Cross-listed with SOC 300
3 credits
GEN 327 - Sex and Gender in Anthropology
This course will familiarize students with the cultural and analytical categories of sex and gender and the way anthropologists have approached research on sex and gender in a number of ethnographic contexts. Students will explore how sex, gender, and sexuality, rather than being natural or biological inevitabilities, are culturally and historically contingent identities.
Pre-req: Sophomore standing or above
Cross-listed with ANTH 327
3 credits
GEN 330 - Human Rights and Humanitarian Assistance
The nature of human rights and humanitarian assistance and their role in the global community; how human rights are established, defined, monitored, and enforced and the actors, issues and obstacles involved in the delivery of humanitarian assistance, with special emphasis on the role of the United Nations in this process.
Pre-req: Sophomore standing or above
Cross-listed with PLSC 330
3 credits
GEN 364 - Psychology of Women
Theoretical and empirical approaches to the study of the psychology of women; the effects of social context and the interplay of gender, race, class, and culture on psychological development, with special attention to where and how women fit into the world including the ways in which they have been and continue to be marginalized in various cultures.
Pre-req: PSYC 100 - Introductory Psychology
Cross-listed with PSYC 364
3 credits
GEN 378 - Work and Occupations
Examines how jobs, occupations, and industries come to be characterized by sex segregation and inequality; how work organizations become gendered and how they are sustained as such; and the consequences of these processes. Considers ways in which organizational members – employers, managers, customers, co-workers – draw on, exploit, and subvert prevailing axes of stratification.
Pre-req: Two 200-level SOC courses
Cross-listed with SOC 378
3 credits
GEN 380 - Digital Labor: Race, Gender, and Technology Literature and Film
An upper level interdisciplinary course in the study of literature and media focusing on technology, gender, and labor. This course will give students a foundation in Marxist, feminist, and media theory. Major texts will include non-fiction literature, novels, science fiction, and speculative fiction. In addition, students will view and examine fictional and non-fiction films about technology and computation. Pre-req: One 200-level PHIL or GEN course, or ENGL 110 or 120 or 220 or 221. Suggested: Junior standing or higher.
Pre-req: One 200-level PHIL or GEN course, or ENGL 110 or 120 or 220 or 221
Cross-listed with ENGL 380
3 credits
GEN 385 - Feminist Philosophy
An examination of the primary feminist responses to the omission of gender as fundamental category of analysis in social and political theory – liberal, socialist, Marxist, radical, anti-racist, and ecofeminist.
Pre-req: One course in PHIL or GEN
Cross-listed with PHIL 385
3 credits
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