Curriculum

CURRICULUM

WOMEN’S and GENDER STUDIES MAJOR

The Women’s and Gender Studies major is thirty-three (33) credits.

1) Foundation courses (both are required):

WGST 101:  Introduction to Women’s Studies

PHIL 220:  Introduction to Feminism

2).  Methods course (one is required):  In order to provide the necessary methodological background for advanced study, each student will take an approved methods course in a discipline related to her/his interests.

Approved methods courses include:

ARTH 303 Methods of Art History (Prerequisite: majors, permission of instructor)

ENGL 295 Introduction to Literary Studies

HISP 205 Documentation and Fieldwork (Prerequisite: HISP 101)

HIST 299 Introduction to the Study of History (Prerequisites: majors and 6 credits from one of the survey sequences (HIST 121-122, or HIST 131-32, or HIST 141-42)

PSCI 291 Research and Writing in Political Science (Prerequisites: PSCI 101-102)

PSYC 362 Research Methods for Psychology (Prerequisites: PSYC 100, PSYC 261)

SOCG 364 or 365 Quantitative or Qualitative Methods and Analysis (Prerequisite: Sociology 105 or 155 or permission of the instructor.)

3)  Electives:  Students will take 6 electives from at least 3 different disciplines, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of Women’s and Gender Studies. One of the electives must emphasize difference in the form of race, class, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, or sexuality.  Three of those six electives must come from the approved list below.  The student will choose the other 3 electives from a list of approved courses circulated by the program director each semester. 

To qualify as an elective, the content of a course must be predominately about women and/or gender.  A student may request that a course be approved as an elective for the major by presenting a syllabus and an acknowledgement from the professor that the course meets that standard; however, that request must be made to the program director before the beginning of the semester in which the course is taken.

Approved Electives:

ANTH 312 Anthropology of Gender	PHIL 350 Feminist Theory and Philosophy
ARTH 460 Women & Western Art	PSCI 370 Women and Politics
CLAS 310 Women in Antiquity	PSYC 349 Human Sexuality
ENGL 243 Women in Literature	PSYC 350 Psychology of Women
ENGL 362 Women of Color	PSYC 347 Psychology of Men
ENGL 468 Studies in Feminist Literary Theories and Criticism	RELG 310 Women and Sexuality in the Western Religious Tradition
HIST 334 Early Modern European Women’s History	SOCG 315 Gender and Society
HIST 327 US Women’s History to 1870	SOCG 400 Sociology of the Body
HIST 328 US Women’s History since 1870	SPAN 475 Hispanic Women Writers
HIST 462 Women in Latin America	WGST 102 Perspectives in Sexuality
LING 307 Language and Gender	WGST 491 Independent Study and WGST 499 Internship

A list of additional approved electives will be circulated each semester.

4)  Capstone courses (two are required, prerequisite: the approved methods course in the appropriate field of study) [note to the committee: the advanced courses in most majors already require have the departmental methods course as a prerequisite, thus the prerequisite requirement will apply primarily to the WGST 485] One capstone experience is an advanced course in an appropriate field of study from an approved list to be provided each semester in which the student will focus his or her classwork on issues related to the WGST major or an independent study (WGST 491). For the second capstone experience, all WGST majors will design a capstone project (WGST 485) under the supervision of an affiliated faculty member. The student will submit a proposal for a 485 for approval by a committee composed of the program director, the student’s faculty advisor and another member of the WGST advisory committee the semester before it is to be completed. The project provides students with the opportunity to engage in the creation of original material and to apply the methods and approaches that they have acquired in the major.

NOTE: Students are responsible for meeting any departmental prerequisites for all classes.