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Director: Associate Professor Annette Igra
Assistant Professor: Meera Sehgal
Committee Members: Barbara Allen, Carol Donelan, Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg, Clara Hardy, Annette Igra, Diane M. Nemec Ignashev, Lance McCready, Meera Sehgal, Parna Sengupta, Kathryn Sparling
The Women's and Gender Studies Program provides an interdisciplinary meeting ground for exploring questions about women and gender that are transforming knowledge across disciplinary lines in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Its goal is to include gender, along with class, sexuality and race, as a central category of social and cultural analysis. Courses focusing on women and gender are offered by the departments of Asian Languages and Literatures, Classics, English, German and Russian, Romance Languages and Literatures, History, Cinema and Media Studies, Music, Religion, Philosophy, Political Science, Art, Sociology and Anthropology, as well as Women's and Gender Studies itself. Carleton offers both a Major and a Concentration in Women’s and Gender Studies that allows students to complement their major field with an interdisciplinary focus on women and gender. All courses are open to all students, if they have fulfilled the prerequisites.
Women's and Gender Studies 110, an entry point to the major, is a topical introduction to the field. Women's and Gender Studies 200 and 234 provide the theoretical and methodological tools for advanced work on women and gender. The capstone course, Women's and Gender Studies 396, offers students the opportunity to study a topic in depth and to produce a substantial research paper. The major culminates in a senior comprehensive project, directed by advisers from two disciplines, that builds on the skills and interests developed in previous coursework in Women's and Gender Studies. Each student devises an appropriate program of courses in consultation with the major adviser.
One introductory course, Women's and Gender Studies 110
One methodology course, Women's and Gender Studies 200 or 234
One capstone seminar, Women's and Gender Studies 396
Comprehensive Exercise, Women's and Gender Studies 400
In addition to these 24 credits, students must
complete an additional 42 credits from the Women's and Gender Studies
offerings listed below. Of these 42, no more than 12 credits should be
at the 100-level and at least 12 credits should be at the 300-level.
Ordinarily, no more than 18 credits may be applied to the major from
outside of Carleton.
Students will plan these courses in consultation
with the Program Director or a designated faculty adviser when they
declare their major, and review their plan each term. The major they
design should provide both breadth of exposure to Women's and Gender
Studies across fields and depth of study in one discipline (normally at
least two courses in one area or from one department).
WGST 110. Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies This course is an introduction to the ways in which gender structures our world, and to the ways feminists challenge established intellectual frameworks. However, because gender is not a homogeneous category but is differentiated by class, race, sexualities, ethnicity, and culture, we also consider the ways differences in social location intersect with gender. 6 cr., HU, RAD, Winter,Spring—A. Igra, D. Nemec Ignashev
WGST 200. Feminist Ways of Knowing In this course we will examine whether there are feminist ways of knowing, the criteria by which knowledge is classified as feminist and the various methods used by feminists to produce this knowledge. Some questions that will occupy us are: How do we know what we know? Who does research? Does it matter who the researcher is? How does the social location (race, class, gender, sexuality) of the researcher affect research? Who is the research for? How can research relate to efforts for social change? While answering these questions, we will consider how different feminist researchers have dealt with them. 6 cr., SS, Not offered in 2006-2007.
WGST 234. Feminist Theory Feminism has to do with changing the world. We will explore feminist debates about changing the world using a historical framework to situate feminist theories in the context of the philosophical and political thought of specific time periods and cultures. Thus, we will follow feminist theories as they challenged, critiqued, subverted and revised liberalism, Marxism, existentialism, socialism, anarchism, critical race theories, multiculturalism, postmodernism and post-colonialism. We will focus on how theory emerges from and informs matters of practice. We will ask: What counts as theory? Who does it? How is it institutionalized? Who gets to ask the questions and to provide the answers? 6 cr., ND, RAD, Winter—M. Sehgal
WGST 396. Crossing Borders with Transnational Feminists Using a feminist solidarity model (as opposed to feminist as tourist or feminist as explorer models), we will become border crossers who learn from and engage with differently situated people. We will examine the field of transnational feminist theorizing and the practices of global feminisms. We will focus on postcolonial feminist critiques of the western feminist lens and start developing self-reflexivity in terms of learning how to situate one's identity and work transnationally. We will map out the transnational dimensions of gender, race, class and sexuality, focusing in particular on nationalism, religious fundamentalism, militarism, globalization, eco-feminism and the politics of resistance. 6 cr., ND, RAD, Spring—M. Sehgal