Classes

Online Dating and the Transformation of Intimacy

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/104269

Over the past twenty years, online dating has become the go-to way for people to seek intimacy. This has exacerbated problematic social forces such as sexism and racism. But many forms of attraction have also found expression as online dating has risen to prominence – with dozens of genders, sexualities, and relationship styles offered on OkCupid; platforms for threesomes, S&M enthusiasts, and gay men that like beards; and connections formed by many forms of mediation, from...

Disability in American History

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

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Psychology of the Gendered Body

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

Our perceptions of gender—our own and others’— shape our embodied experiences and behaviors. This course examines the embodiment of gender via the lens of psychological science. We will begin by exploring recent research related to gender and the body, and then study the underlying psychological mechanisms that influence our self-perceptions about gender. Our disciplinary foundation in psychological science will allow us to complicate current understandings of gender and embodiment...

LGBT Life Stories

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

In this seminar we’ll read a range of classic LGBT life stories (memoirs, journals, diaries, essays, and autobiographies), beginning in the 1800s and ending in the present. We will study them as products of their specific historical moment, paying close attention to changing ideas about race, class, gender, and sexuality. Questions: How do people narrate the story of their identity? What aspects of their life histories do they highlight; what do they censor? How does the “coming...

Introduction to Feminist Science Studies

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

This seminar is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of feminist science studies. As the feminist movements of the 1970s began to change the American political landscape, academic feminists began inquiries into the marginalization of women in science – a debate philosopher Harding called “the woman question in science.” Feminist scientists began to examine sex, gender and race bias in their own disciplines. In consequence, they raised questions about androcentric – male-...

Stories of Gender and Justice

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

With gender inequities and biases pervasive within and across cultures worldwide, and the global pandemics of gender-based violence and structural violence further intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic, how have individuals, groups, communities, and nations globally fought for (and against) gender justice? How have struggles against gender injustice intersected and conflicted with struggles against racial, ethnic, environmental, health, LGBTQIA+ and other forms of injustice? Gender...

Queer/Medieval

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

The / in this course title can suggest a slippage or interchangeability; opposition and polarization; or erotic or romantic friction. This course functions as an introduction to queer theory as an intellectual tool with which to read texts far removed from the political, cultural, and social discourses from which queer theory emerged. We will ask: what can queer theory offer readers of medieval literature in its explorations of gender, sexuality, race, power, narrative, trauma, and...

Love's Labors Found: Uncovering Histories of Emotional Labor

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

How do love, care, and desire influence the value of work, and why is emotional labor – which is vital to child or elder care, domestic labor, nursing, teaching, and sex work – often considered to be something other than work? How and why do the racial and gender identities of workers affect the economic, social, and emotional value of their labor? How do political and social arrangements of labor help produce and reinforce racial categories while solidifying the boundaries...

The Making of Inequalities in Latin America: Seminar

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

This new iteration of the Latin American History Workshop will examine recent historiography on the region focusing on the making of social, racial and gender inequalities. The seminar will explore three main areas of scholarship: first, slavery and other forms of forced labor and its relationship with the emergence of racial ideologies; second, gender inequalities, especially in regard to struggles to obtain labor and reproductive rights; third, the enduring struggles for democracy in the region, comprising resistance to dictatorships, military interventionism, and right-wing extremism...

How Sweet is it to be Loved By You: Black Love and the Emotional Politics of Respect

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

The word 'love' is almost never used in any portrayal or description of the African American community's daily life in contemporary media and in the social sciences. But love, as a human experience, is central to our understanding of what it means to be a vital member of a culture and society and thus respected, nurtured, etc. This seminar examines the love that difference makes. It is a comprehensive study of the representation of gender, love and sexuality in African American and...

Anyone's Germany: Redefining Identity in Contemporary German Fiction

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

What does it mean to be German today? Contemporary German society abounds with Grenzüberschreiter of varying kinds: generations who were raised in a divided Germany but came of age in a reunified, globalized Bundesrepublik; communities of multi-generational German nationals whose identities nevertheless inherit the problematic international labor-politics of both the East and the West; voices demanding greater visibility of Germany’s postcolonial legacy and sparking viral debates...

Tattoo: Histories and Practices

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

Tattooing has been practiced in many different social and cultural settings, in many different time periods, to different ends. In the United States, tattooing was long associated with marginalized and stigmatized groups, but since the 1970s, has become increasingly popular and even mainstream. This seminar style class will explore distinct regional histories of tattoo, the development of tattooing in the US, and the different ways that contemporary tattoo practitioners situate themselves historically and negotiate boundaries of race, class and gender. We will also consider tattoo as an...

19th and 20th Century Music: Seminar

Semester:

Spring

Offered:

2023

Course website

This reading-intensive seminar is intended to give you a fundamental knowledge of contemporary intellectual currents engaged with the study of musical practices in Latin America. We will examine major areas that have informed scholarship on Latin American music, including queer studies, performance studies, decolonization/decoloniality project, cultural diplomacy, critical race theory, disability studies, actor-network theory, and Latinx studies. The goal of this course is to gain...

Poetry Workshop: Form and Content

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

In this workshop, we’ll look closely at the craft-based choices poets make, and track the effects they have upon what we as readers are made to think and feel. How can implementing similar strategies better prepare us to engage the questions making up our own poetic material? We’ll also talk about content. What can poetry reveal about the ways our interior selves are shaped by public realities like race, class, sexuality, injustice and more?

Wit, Irony, Comedy

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

In life, as in literature, humor often takes us by surprise: it gives delight; it lightens our mood; it makes us laugh. The question is: why? Laughter, in many ways, is a mystery. If tragedy’s existence is all too easy to explain— suffering needs to be borne, and we yearn to find explanations for it—then it’s comedy that’s the enigma. Taking the comic seriously, this seminar provides a broad investigation into the psychological, sociological, philosophical, dramatic, and literary...

Implicit Bias: Science and Society

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

We coined the term implicit bias in 1995 to capture the idea that bias, i.e., a deviation from accuracy or values can be implicit, i.e., operate without conscious awareness or conscious control. The idea emerged from basic research on implicit social cognition (ISC), an area of scientific psychology that explores the hidden aspects of mental representations of self, other, and social groups. Today, 25 years later, the term implicit bias has transcended academic psychology and permeated contemporary culture where it is used and contested every day. In this seminar, we will study the...

Analyzing Pop Music

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

How can music analysis inform the way we understand, listen to, and write about popular music? This course introduces tools and methods for studying the features, technologies, and compositional styles of post-2000 popular music. Weekly readings will address issues of form, rhythm & meter, instrumental and vocal timbre, computer-assisted analysis, vocal performance, and music videos. An ever-present concern of the class will be the ways in which these analytical tools and methods interact with issues of race, gender, and sexuality. The repertoire under study in the readings will...

Qualitative Research Lab: Immigration, Citizenship, and Belonging

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

What does citizenship mean to the millions of people who immigrate to the United States? How do immigrants and their families experience the process, the complexities, and the challenges of immigration, integration, and naturalization? And how do undocumented and DACAmented immigrants describe the paradoxes of being a vital part of US society while being excluded from many formal categories of citizenship and belonging?

Introduction to Sociology

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

What is society? What is the role of the individual in society? How does the way society is organized affect the behaviors and beliefs of people who live in it? How can we change our societies? This course introduces students to the field of sociology. By surveying social theory as well as empirical studies, students acquire what C. Wright Mills calls the "sociological imagination": the ability to think beyond our personal lives and to connect the experiences of individuals with large social structures. Readings include prominent empirical investigations into family dynamics, class...

The Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People

Semester:

Fall

Offered:

2022

Course website

The goal of this course is to introduce students to transgender and gender diverse (TGD) public health, an emerging multidisciplinary field focused on the health and wellbeing of TGD adults (also referred to as gender minorities). Students will acquire foundational knowledge to understand and address the health and wellbeing of TGD people including: terminology, history of TGD health and medicine, and information about the make-up of who TGD communities; concepts, theories, and...

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