Exposes students to the concepts and methods of sociocultural anthropology through the examination of several cultural groups around the world. Delves into several important topics within anthropology such as economic systems, indigenous peoples, migration, and health. Introduces and practices basic anthropological methods.

Examines the roles and statuses of women and men in Western and non-Western societies, treating gender as a social construct rather than a biological given. Considers theories about the bases of sexual inequality and the relationship between gender and other social hierarchies. Investigates how cultural notions of gender influence an individual's religious, political, sexual and familial experiences.

Focuses on issues related to gender and health in the U.S. and around the world. Examines topics such as: reproduction, fertility, reproductive justice, eating disorders, gender-based violence, sexuality, medical technologies, gender confirmation surgeries, and health activism.

Examines the roles of women and minorities from the 1600s to the present day to gain an understanding of why and how those roles have evolved. Integrates the changes in social, political, and economic conditions and value systems as they affect the ability of women and minorities to effectively function in social and work environments.

Invites students to identify a topic of their choice at the intersections of sex and violence, and spend the course engaged in an extensive process of research and writing on this topic, culminating in an article-length manuscript and presentation. Students will engage in a rigorous, iterative process of peer review. Readings will be advanced, technical, and often related to provocative topics. The course is designed to be preparatory for graduate study in the humanities and social sciences.

Provides an in-depth study of theatrical works by women within the context of feminist theory. Examines how feminism has shaped theatre across time. Highlights identity and the situated nature of knowledge creation. Covers the lost theatrical traditions of women, challenges of representation, diverse feminisms, and intersectionality. Engages problems faced by women in theater and presents possibilities for dismantling patriarchal institutions and misogyny through feminist interventions in the field.

Facilitates students’ theoretical and experiential exploration of social justice as both a process and an outcome. Requires students to integrate concepts of oppression, liberation, and justice into the academic and professional fields of interest to them. Includes critical analyses of justice and injustice in students’ fields of study, as well as reflection on students’ identities and roles in combatting injustice.

Examines the United States, and the histories, cultures, and experiences of Americans of Latin American ancestry. Latinx studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that explores the politics, health, representation, and practices of people from Latin American and Caribbean heritage living in the United States. Latinx studies offers a lens through which we can better understand connections between diverse Latinx groups as well as the differences that may come between them.

Explores in theory and practice how writers critically and creatively illuminate questions of identity and power through the lens of personal experience. By engaging with personal essays written by a diversity of authors, students will discover voices they've never encountered, or that they never knew they had, opening up space for rhetorical engagement across difference. Students will leave the course with a critical understanding of who they are as writers and audience members.

Investigates the space between characters' identities through close work with film and literature by way of course discussions, group activities, and a range of writing projects. We will focus on texts from the 20th and 21st centuries across cultures to consider why the genre remains in such wide circulation in today's society.

Explores a vast, messy, intersectional and moving canon of queer literature as it takes up a range of positionalities, politics, styles, and forms. Students will read transhistorically with an eye towards the contemporary - how are queer identities articulated in the latest additions to this always mutable and proliferating canon?

Explores literature produced in the United States with a focus on writing by and about African Americans from the country's inception to the present period. Running throughout this literature, we will see many common features, such as the importance of orality, multiplicity and diversity of subject positions and perspectives (masking, double-consciousness, double-voiced texts), gender roles, sexuality, and concern with social issues.

Analyzes Global Anglophone Literature and Postcolonial theory with a particular focus on writing from and about Africa, the Caribbean, and India. Discussions will center on questions of language, representation, and form. We will explore the various aesthetic strategies and techniques employed by writers to communicate contemporary postcolonial themes, such as neocolonialism, globalization, nationalism, imperialism, feminism, migration, hybridity, and diaspora.

Explores a range of works (fiction, poetry, memoir, photography, music, painting) from American ethnic writers and artists of the twentieth-century and beyond. This course critically examines the cross-section of ethnicity and creative expression as it applies to questions of American identity. Topics include systemic oppression, nationhood, immigration, marginalization, intersectionality, cultural hybridity, intergenerational trauma and survival, border crossing, and heritage.

Explores how creative pursuits can offer life-affirming counternarratives of recognition and resiliency. Students will study a range of 20th- and 21st- century art in literary, visual, and performative realms while examining the role of experimental art-making in the representation of systematic forms of trauma. Includes intersecting critical lenses - trauma studies, queer theory, critical race studies, and visual culture - as well as immersive, high-impact learning experiences.

Explores how creative pursuits can offer life-affirming counternarratives of recognition and resiliency. Students will study a range of 20th- and 21st- century art in literary, visual, and performative realms while examining the role of experimental art-making in the representation of systematic forms of trauma. Includes intersecting critical lenses - trauma studies, queer theory, critical race studies, and visual culture - as well as immersive, high-impact learning experiences.

Explores two key questions: “What is the agenda of public health?” and “Is health a right or a privilege?” Through discussions and activities, students will examine the biological, political, and sociological factors shaping health in the U.S. The course emphasizes understanding public health as a system and its interdisciplinary links to other fields. Critical thinking and analysis of major public health issues will be a central focus throughout the semester.

Explores two key questions: “What is the agenda of public health?” and “Is health a right or a privilege?” Through discussions and activities, students will examine the biological, political, and sociological factors shaping health in the U.S. The course emphasizes understanding public health as a system and its interdisciplinary links to other fields. Critical thinking and analysis of major public health issues will be a central focus throughout the semester.

Focuses on awareness and avoidance of a possible attack. Students will learn to punch and kick properly along with basic self defense hands techniques. This is a beginner's course in self-defense.

Analyzes how the structure and rules of the American political system influence how women participate in politics. Specifically, the course focuses on women politicians by looking at theories of ambition, stereotypes, and partisanship, amongst others, that impact a woman's decision to run for office and then win election. These topics are presented in a comparative nature by gender and party and across all levels of government.

Examines various forms of inequality, how they intersect, and the social policies and programs designed to address them. Emphasis on socioeconomic and racial inequalities in the United States, exploring how economic, historical, and political contexts shape both social 'problems' and social policy.

Examines the field of human sexuality from psychological, biological and sociological perspectives. In covering a wide range of contemporary topics, emphasis is on empirical, verifiable scientific information.

Focuses on the similarities and differences between males and females, masculinity and femininity. Explores the origins and maintenance of gender stereotypes and their consequences.

Explores psychological and sociocultural issues concerning women in our society. Women's experiences will be covered in areas that are stereotypically thought of as male-oriented as well as those more exclusive to females.

Explores contemporary American families (the forms they take, the functions they serve, the problems they face) within the context of families of other historical time periods, and other cultures. Presents an interdisciplinary examination of topics such as: gender roles, marriage, divorce and blended families, nonmarital lifestyles, parenting, family policy and technology's impact on family life.

Addresses the modern lives of young Latinas in the U.S. Topics to be discussed include, but are not limited to, family, friendship, romance, appearance, identity, and socioeconomic status. In particular, the subject of "voice" or "voz" and the strength Latinas gain in society through expressing their opinions and giving testimony will be explored. The subject of the commodification and national/intercultural expectations of the body of Latinas will also be given much attention.

Provides an overview of the sociology of men and masculinities. Drawing on theoretical, historical, and contemporary empirical research, the course examines how masculinities are socially constructed; how and why these constructions change over time; and how experiences of masculinity vary based on social categories such as race, age, class, and sexuality.

Explores how film, television, memoir, novel, and many other aspects of popular culture, mental illness is presented as painful and deviant, often encompassing gendered and racialized discriminatory portrayals. Pop culture and self-help approaches to mental health and illness in the U.S. are increasingly found in the global marketplace of human culture.

Explores the ways social practices shape the physical body both corporeally and symbolically. Close attention is paid to issues of power, particularly the ways that social practices and cultural meanings related to the body both produce difference and justify inequality. Course material also examines the ways that social actors exercise agency to resist social norms regulating the use of the body and dominant cultural meanings about the body that reproduce system.

Examines classical and contemporary sociological theorizing about identities. Particular attention will be paid to gender, race, class, and sexual identities, with a focus on the ways that these identity categories intersect. Course material will explore the role that social institutions (families, schools, religion, media, workplaces, etc.) play in shaping individual and collective identities.

Explores theoretical and empirical work that highlights how sexual identities, desires, and practices are socially constructed. The course material examines the ways that sexuality intersects with other markers of social difference such as gender, race, class, age, and nationality. Close attention will be paid to issues of power, privilege, and inequality.

Uses a race, class, gender analytic structure to investigate social inequalities in education. School choice, urban schools, school sports, space/location, and friendship are some of the areas that will be explored. Family involvement in school choice, tracking, and magnet programs will also be considered. Grade school through college educational outcomes will be addressed.

Different iterations of posthumanity are examined to gain understanding of how child and youth posthumans relate to new, altered, or unaccepting societies and worlds. Drawing on posthuman and childhood studies theories, posthuman children and youth are contextualized by their positions as or relationships to various entities including aliens, animals, spirits, robots, vampires, witches, and clones.

Studies how the importance of space, place, location, and time in the lived realities of children and youth contextualizes the environments they occupy. Children's and youth's constructions of and interactions with definitions of carework, home, family, neighborhood, emotions, bodies, nature, friendship, animals, and school are examined on the local and global scale.

Examines various forms of inequality, how they intersect, and the social policies and programs designed to address them. Emphasis on socioeconomic and racial inequalities in the United States, exploring how economic, historical, and political contexts shape both social "problems" and social policy.

Explores the relationship between poverty and location (both physical and social) in U.S. society. Examines multiple poverty contexts within the U.S. (i.e. American Indian reservations, urban communities, small towns), paying close attention to differences and similarities. Analyzes approaches to poverty reduction from the perspective of people living in each context.

Examines violence within contemporary American families through the lenses of gender, culture, and age. Emphasis is placed on the physical and sexual abuse of women and children. We explore theory, research, and solutions from the fields of social work, sociology, psychology, and feminism.

Provides an in-depth study of theatrical works by women within the context of feminist theory. Examines how feminism has shaped theatre across time. Highlights identity and the situated nature of knowledge creation. Covers the lost theatrical traditions of women, challenges of representation, diverse feminisms, and intersectionality. Engages problems faced by women in theater and presents possibilities for dismantling patriarchal institutions and misogyny through feminist interventions in the field.

Explores the historical, social, political, economic, and cultural forces that inform sex, gender, and sexuality within the context of feminist movements. Students learn and engage with concepts and theoretical perspectives found in the field of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Understand the multiple matrices of power that shape the world and our lived experiences.

Analyzes and evaluates historical and contemporary feminist works tracing the origins of feminist theories within various local and global contexts. Discuss the development and waves of feminist theory via social and political spheres, women of color feminisms, and intersectional and postmodern forms of feminist theory.

Examines in depth a specific topic area in women, gender, and sexuality studies. Provides advanced work in women, gender, and sexuality studies literature, theory, and/or research in a topic area. Content identified by subtitle.

Open to juniors or seniors who wish to study in depth a particular topic related to women, gender, and sexuality studies by drawing upon the perspectives of at least two different disciplines (or MCLA departments). An affiliated Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Minor faculty member must be the sponsor of the project.