Race and Gender Studies

Race and Gender Studies is designed to introduce students to the major questions and theories of race, gender, sexuality, and class. We will approach sex, gender, race, and class as social categories, examining the processes through which people are categorized and how these processes shape individual experiences of the world. Through engaging with questions of racial formations, changing definitions of sexuality, and the construction of masculinity and femininity, students will be better able to think, write, and speak on these crucial topics. After examining the basic theoretical building blocks and early histories, students will spend the second half of the term using the tools they have developed to examine such issues as war, class inequality, advertising, new media technologies, and citizenship in an increasingly global world, among others.