Women’s and Gender Studies, BA

Department of Women’s and Gender Studies

340 Sims Hall
315-443-3707, Fax: 315-443-9221

Office Coordinator:

Alice Loomis
315-443-3707

Administrative Specialist:

Susann DeMocker-Shedd
315-443-3560

Faculty

Himika Bhattacharya, PJ DiPietro, Eunjung Kim, Vivian M. May, Danika Medak-Saltman, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Dana M. Olwan, Gwendolyn D. Pough, Robin Riley

Women’s and Gender Studies integrates theory and practice with the aim of transforming social relations, representations, knowledges, institutions, and policies. Through interdisciplinary and comparative approaches, students engage in the study of gender intersectionally and transnationally as a means of understanding the complex ways that ideas and practices about gender, past and present, shape the world around us. Issues of justice, social and economic transformation, and women’s agency are central and at each level of study the curriculum emphasizes race, ethnicity, nationality, class, age, sexuality, and different abilities as categories of analysis.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Apply interdisciplinary multiracial, intersectional, and transnational feminist theories and methods to investigate how gender relations and practices are embedded in and shaped by diverse social, political, material, and cultural realities

2. Recognize, interpret, and analyze issues of power, oppression, and injustice and social, economic, and epistemic violence

3. Identify histories and contemporary forms of feminist agency and resistance, social movements, and collective action

4. Integrate feminist theory and practice to challenge social relations, representations, knowledge, institutions, and policies

5. Engage and employ multiple modes of knowledge including conventional texts as well as creative work, activism, and popular culture

6. Model feminist competencies for collaborative learning and teamwork

Major Requirements

The B.A. in women’s and gender studies requires a minimum of 33 credits (at least 18 in courses numbered 300 and above) selected from courses listed below. Although the major is granted and administered under the auspices of the College of Arts and Sciences, students are able, and in some cases encouraged, to take elective courses in the professional schools. Requirements for the major include five core courses, three courses from the course grouping Power, Privilege, and Exclusion in Feminist Thought; and three electives, two core electives and one general elective selected from a list of approved cross-listed courses. In the senior year, majors may create a synthesis of their studies in the field and deepen their skills in women’s and gender studies research, culminating in an independent project that can be a research project, creative work, or activism project. Note: Students seeking Academic Distinction in Women’s and Gender Studies must register for WGS 498 - Senior Project in Women’s & Gender Studies .

Study Abroad

Women’s and Gender Studies Focus Abroad is coordinated through the Syracuse University Abroad office in more than five countries. All of these international centers offer a number of interdisciplinary courses in women’s and gender studies, cross-listed with the humanities and social sciences. Summer Studies Abroad courses are also available. For specific information on course offerings abroad, contact the SU Abroad office at 315-443-3471.

B.A. Degree Requirements

Required Core Courses (15 credits)

Required Core Cluster Power, Privilege, and Exclusion in Feminist Thought (9 credits)

One course must be selected from each of the following three areas: Sexuality; Class; and Race, Nationality, and/or Ethnicity.

Sexuality (3 credits)

Class (3 credits)

Race, Nationality, and/or Ethnicity (3 credits)

Core Electives (6 credits):

Students must complete two core elective courses from the following:

General Electives (3 credits)

Students must complete one elective course. They may choose from any WGS course.

Note:

*Course content varies each semester or by section. These courses may be counted toward women’s and gender studies only when the content of the courses is within the field of feminist studies. Selected topics (400/500) courses may apply when appropriate.