Women’s and Gender Studies Minor

Undergraduate Program

Clark launched its Women’s Studies program in 1979. In spring 2006, the university approved the Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) major, effective fall 2006. The Women’s and Gender Studies major provides students with a solid foundation in women’s studies and gender analysis, introduces them to a range of disciplinary approaches to women and gender, and helps them to develop an area of specialization within the field. Courses stress the importance of social ideas and relationships such as those shaped by gender, ethnicity, race, and class to understand better individual and collective experiences, past and present. The major requires a minor in another field (and encourages a double major) in order to reinforce connections with existing majors.

WGS courses are offered by faculty throughout the university, but students are required to take three core courses within the Women’s Studies Program: Introduction to Women’s Studies, Feminist Theory, and Senior Capstone seminar. With the exception of these core courses, most offerings are cross-listed with the departments in which they originate.

Program Faculty

María Acosta Cruz, Ph.D.
Michael Addis, Ph.D.
Margarete Arndt, D.B.A.
Kiran Asher, Ph.D.
Belén Atienza, Ph.D.
Parminder Bhachu, Ph.D.
Sarah Buie, M.F.A.
Michael Butler, Ph.D.
Marcia Butzel, Ph.D.
Carol D’Lugo, Ph.D.
Judith DeCew, Ph.D.
Gino DiIorio, M.F.A.
Jody Emel, Ph.D.
Patricia Ewick, Ph.D.
Rachel Falmagne, Ph.D.
Odile Ferly, Ph.D.
William Fisher, Ph.D.
Ellen Foley, Ph.D.
Beth Gale, Ph.D.
SunHee Kim Gertz, Ph.D.
Abbie Goldberg, Ph.D.
Janette T. Greenwood, Ph.D.
Betsy P. Huang, Ph.D.
Fern Johnson, Ph.D.
Lisa Kasmer, Ph.D.
Sharon Krefetz, Ph.D.
Thomas Kuehne, Ph.D.
Nina Kushner, Ph.D.
Deborah Martin, Ph.D.
Amy Richter, Ph.D.
Heather L. Roberts, Ph.D.
Dianne Rocheleau, Ph.D.
Paul Ropp, Ph.D.
Laurie Ross, Ph.D.
Robert Ross, Ph.D.
Srinivasan Sitaraman, Ph.D.
Valerie Sperling, Ph.D.
Shelly Tenenbaum, Ph.D.
Robert D. Tobin, Ph.D.
Alice Valentine, M.A.
Virginia Mason Vaughan, Ph.D.
Kristen Williams, Ph.D. - Director
Kristina Wilson, Ph.D.

Affiliate Faculty

Ya-chen Chen, Ph.D.

Research Faculty

Cynthia Enloe, Ph.D.
Susan Hanson, Ph.D.
Barbara Thomas-Slayter, Ph.D.

Emeriti Faculty

Serena S. Hilsinger, Ph.D.
Dorothy Kaufmann, Ph.D.

Courses

• ENG 133 - Survey of Women Writers I
• FREN 256 - No More Classrooms, No More Books: Education in 20th Century French Novel and Film.
• HIST 236 - Gender, War and Genocide in 20th Century Europe
• ID 125 - Tales from the Far Side: Third World Development and Underdevelopment in the Age of Globalization
• PSCI 090 - Political Science Fiction
• PSYC 265 - Psychology of Men
• PSYC 275 - Societal Approaches to Thinking
• PSYC 326 - Mind, Self, and Identity - Societal Perspectives
• SOC 105 - Social Research Process
• WS 110 - Introduction to Women’s Studies
• WS 200 - Feminist Theory
• IDCE 3027 - Gender in Development Planning
• CMLT 109 - Human Rights and Literature
• ENG 134 - Survey of Women Writers II
• CMLT 132 - Sexuality and Textuality
• FREN 112 - Fairy Tales of the World
• JAPN 190 - Japanese Women Writers
• GEOG 136 - Gender and Environment
• HIST 219 - History of American Women
• HIST 229 - Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe
• HIST 282 - Chinese Women in Literature and Society
• HIST 037 - 19th-Century America Through Women’s Eyes
• ID 120 - Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology
• ID 131 - Local Action/Global Change: The Urban Context
• PSCI 091 - The Gender Gap and American Politics
• PSCI 092 - Women and War
• PSCI 117 - Revolution and Political Violence
• PSCI 147 - World Order and Globalization
• PSCI 175 - Women and U.S. Politics
• SOC 090 - No Sweat! The New Sweatshops in Global Context
• TA 109 - Contemporary Women Playwrights
• SOC 175 - The Sociology of Families
• ENG 255 - Studies in the Renaissance
• ENG 260 - Making Gender in Eighteenth-Century British Literature
• ENG 262 - Jane Austen in Contemporary Culture
• ENG 263 - National Trauma: Studies in British Romanticism
• ENG 295 - Gender and Discourse
• GEOG 237 - Feminism, Nature and Culture
• GEOG 258 - Utopian Visions, Urban Realities: Planning Cities for the 21st Century
• HIST 212 - History of Sexuality: 1750 to the Present
• HIST 213 - Gender and the American City
• HIST 234 - Racial Thought and Body Politics in Modern Europe (1500-2000)
• ID 209 - Beyond Victims and Guardian Angels: Third World Women, Gender and Development
• IDCE 30207 - Gender, Militarization and Development
• IDCE 30275 - Gender in Development Planning
• MGMT 5308 - Women in Management
• PSCI 208 - Comparative Politics of Women
• PSCI 268 - Peace and War
• PSYC 249 - Women in Society
• PSYC 250 - Gender, Families and Close Relationships
• SOC 258 - Women in Jewish Culture
• SOC 294 - Global Ethnographies: Ethnographers in the Making for the 21st Century
• ARTH 248 - Gender and Representation
• SCRN 288 - Gender and Film
• ARTS 204 - Sacred Space