Cluster: Gender and Sexualities Studies (New fall 2012)

PLEASE NOTE: The Gender and Sexualities Studies Sophomore Inquiry (SINQ) replaces Sexualities and Women's Studies SINQ starting the fall 2012 term.  All cluster courses currently in progress or completed in past terms from either SINQ will count towards the new Gender and Sexualities Studies Cluster.  For information about this transition please click here.

The Gender and Sexualities Studies (G&S) Sophomore Inquiry (SINQ) will focus on questions and lines of inquiry shaped by women and gender studies as it engages with and incorporates the newly emerging field of sexuality studies and queer theory. On some registers these two fields of women/gender studies and sexuality studies overlap and meld easily, on others they yield conflicts and controversy. The SINQ will address both.

The overall objectives of the SINQ are to introduce students to both fields of study, including major theoretical approaches, and to enable students to create what feminists call praxis, or the application of theory to practice, through a closer look at selected topics such as sexual violence, body image, gender performance, and queer identity narratives. The course is designed to aid students in thinking critically about systems of power, difference, and resistance. Finally, the course will strive to engage students in a collaborative learning community,
with the assumption that both instructors and students share responsibility for creating an environment in which curiosity, collaboration and respect are fostered.

The content of this course will open lines of inquiry related to some of the following questions relevant to both fields: What does gender mean and how can it be used as a tool of analysis? What is the relationship between gender and the sexed body?  Does this mean to say that sexuality is socially constructed?  How do gender and sexuality intersect with, and indeed rely on, race, class, ability, nation and religion? How are identity categories and normative systems of behavior socially and historically produced? How have groups resisted oppressive
systems of power? How does one build alliances across differences related to social location?

Cluster Coordinator:  Ann Mussey
Office:  XSB, room 219
Phone:  503.725.8441
E-mail:  musseya@pdx.edu

Sophomore Inquiry: Gender and Sexualities Studies
(UNST 231)

All cluster courses subscribe to the basic premise that women and/ or the system of gender is at the center of critical inquiry. Regardless of the disciplinary lens or the topical focus, all of the cluster courses acknowledge that gender systematically organizes social, economic, political, and personal relations. This premise forms the basic coherence for the cluster courses as they exist now.

This SINQ leads to the Gender and Sexualities Studies Cluster.

Approved Cluster Courses:

Academic Year 13-14

Note: Courses listed below are all Approved Cluster Courses for the 2013 - 2014 year.  If you are looking for listings for 2012 - 2013, they are archived here.