Study of early Jewish and Christian texts that reflect and construct varied notions of gender and sexuality in their ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman contexts. Considers a range of roles and expectations for women as well as men. Attentive to symbolic femininity in the literary tradition, biblical perspectives on sexuality and marriage, and related use of the Bible in modern religious and political debates. (Meets the Critical Perspectives: Social Inequality requirement.) (Meets the Critical Learning: AIM requirement.) 1 unit - Reaves.

This course provides an introduction to the landscape of theatrical production and interdisciplinary performance by women in the African Diaspora / Black Women, specifically in the United States. This course includes close reading, analysis and discussion of play scripts, poetry, related theoretical and historical readings, film and theatrical presentations. Some examples of themes we will explore are Black women and feminism, ritual as performance and meditations on the lived experience(s) and identities and cultural values of Black women in the diaspora. Examples of possible readings include: Lorraine Hansberry, Nikki Giovanni, bell hooks, Kimberlee Crenshaw, Patrica Hill-Collins, Toni Morrison, Alice Childress, Anne Deveare Smith, Katori Hall, Suzan-Lori Parks, Lynn Nottage, Dominique Morisseau, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Danai Gurira, Christina Anderson and more.

This course explores changes in gender and sexual relations across social communities and through time in South Asia. Key topics covered in this course include the impact of colonialism, nationalism, and socio-religious reform movements; law and the postcolonial state; the cultural politics of sexuality; masculinities; and local and transnational feminisms.

This course explores the growing field of queer studies in religion. Borrowing from the five common approaches to queer religious studies offered by Melissa M. Wilcox in her work, Queer Religiosities, this class seeks to—examine the lives of queer religious practitioners and the relevance of their faith for the field of religious studies, excavate how queerness is obscured and yet still shows up in religious rituals and sacred texts, explore the ways in which queer ways of being in the world might be understood as “religious,” discover how queerness serves to disrupt normative religious and theological claims, and study the ways that the fields of religious and queer studies inform each other. In addition, this course acquaints students with a few key figures (both historically and contemporarily) in the discourse, including but not limited to the work of Marcella Althaus-Reid, Elias Farajaje Jones, Melissa Wilcox, Robert Goss, Horace Griffin, Linn Tonstad, and others.

Survey of the Soviet and Russian Cinema by (or about) Russian women, starting with the early Soviet propaganda films and ending with the present Russian version of hyper-realistic films. The course traces the evolution of Russian women, their changing self-awareness; it explores the conflict between the externally imposed role, and the women's own conception of her self and her destiny. The movies are analyzed through the prism of semiotic and discursive approach. (Those students who wish to advance their Russian proficiency and have the competency to watch, read, write, and talk about these films in Russian my sign

Nineteenth-century Europe was the site of great creativity, progressive social thought, and great violence. Artistic movements, ranging from romanticism through realism and naturalism, justified and criticized the creation of modern industrial society, the rise of a new type of city, recurring waves of revolution, and a new understanding of human emotions. This course is designed to explore European culture in the nineteenth century through an interdisciplinary perspective. We utilize different kinds of primary-source texts, such as novels, political philosophy, and opera libretti, and we’ll also analyze several contemporary movies. The nineteenth century will not be presented as a “monolith”; rather we will focus on different European cultures in comparative context (Germanic, French, Italian, British), and we will consider differences in the female and male experience by studying composers such as Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn. The climax of the course is a prolonged study of “La Traviata.” We'll read Camille, Alexandre Dumas Fils’ novel that served as a basis for the story; we'll study the libretto; we'll learn about the musical elements; and we'll see the opera. The end of the course will focus on one of the most important fin-de-siècle composers, Richard Wagner, and his romantic imagination.