Departmental Notes
Subject Code for Black Studies: BLCK
Subject Code for Gender Studies: GNDS
World Wide Web Address: http://www.queensu.ca/gnds
Head of Department: Sailaja Krishnamurti
Department Manager: Denita Arthurs
Departmental Office: Robert Sutherland Hall, Room 455
Departmental Telephone: 613-533-6318
General E-Mail Address: genderstudies@queensu.ca
Chair of Undergraduate Studies (BLCK): Katherine McKittrick
Administrative Assistant (BLCK): TBD
Undergraduate Office E-Mail Address (BLCK): blck@queensu.ca
Chair of Undergraduate Studies (GNDS) & SXGD Certificate Coordinator: Melissa Houghtaling
Undergraduate Program & Administrative Assistant (GNDS): Jarena Lee
Undergraduate Office E-Mail Address (GNDS): gndsug@queensu.ca
Chair of Graduate Studies: Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin Graduate Assistant: Rosa Gutierrez Graduate Office E-Mail Address: gndsgrad@queensu.ca
Overview
The Department of Gender Studies at Queen’s is distinguished by the centrality of the study of race and colonialisms across all its courses, and by a focus on how to apply knowledge within work for social change. Our curriculum is organized around seven key themes: feminist, queer, trans, anti-racist, Indigenous, and postcolonial theories and methodologies; activism and social justice; political economy and class inequality; representation, art, literature, and creative work; politics and policy in health, reproduction, education and welfare; and oral histories and community memories.
This innovative, interdisciplinary program combines the arts, humanities, and social sciences, offering students a unique opportunity to design a degree suited to their interests and career goals, including law, academia, medicine, public service, media, and activism.
The Department also administers a Certificate Program in Sexual and Gender Diversity (SXGD) that is open to undergraduate students in all degree plans.
Faculty
For more information, please visit: https://www.queensu.ca/gnds/people-search
- Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin
- Lee Airton
- burcu baba
- Beverley Baines
- Elizabeth Brulé
- Annette Burfoot
- Alana Butler
- Nancy Butler
- Jacqueline Davies
- Karen Dubinsky
- Kesha Fevrier
- Allison Goebel
- Laila Haidarali
- Lynne Hanson
- Jennifer Hosek
- Melissa Houghtaling
- Joseph Kangmennaang
- Samantha King
- Audrey Kobayashi
- Sailaja V. Krishnamurti
- Reena Kukreja
- Kathleen Lahey
- Karen Lawford
- Jennifer S. Leath
- Eun-Young Lee
- Margaret Little
- Susan Lord
- Eleanor MacDonald
- Katherine McKittrick
- Daniel McNeil
- Scott Morgensen
- Kristin Moriah
- Dorit Naaman
- Juliane Okot Bitek
- Ishita Pande
- Kip Pegley
- Elaine Power
- Carolyn Prouse
- Natalie Rewa
- Margo Rivera
- Dalitso Ruwe
- Chloé Savoie-Bernard
- Trish Salah
- Isabelle St-Amand
- Peter Thompson
- Vanessa Thompson
- Jane Tolmie
- Sari van Anders
- Asha Varadharajan
- M. Shobhana Xavier
Courses
Black Studies (BLCK)
This course will introduce students to black studies. Focusing on liberation struggles that are nested in black scholarly and creative works, the course maps out how black diasporic communities have navigated and resisted racism, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression.
Offered when faculty resources permit, these courses are analyses of particular areas of black studies interdisciplinary research. Details regarding specific topics will be available from the Chair in Black Studies on an annual basis.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.
Studies in black women's and black gender politics in Canada, the U.S.A., and the Caribbean.
NOTE This course is also listed/offered as GNDS 312/3.0.
Global interconnectedness and interdependence have contributed to improvements in the social determinants of health (SDH): the conditions in which people live, work and play, and their access to opportunities for healthy lives and well-being, however, it has also brought many health risks especially for marginalized populations. This course will examine economic, social, technological, and the political dimensions of globalization and how these impact the health and well-being of Black populations, identifying opportunities and risks.
NOTE This course is also listed/offered as HLTH 360/3.0.
Offered when faculty resources permit, these courses are analyses of particular areas of black studies interdisciplinary research. Details regarding specific topics will be available from the Chair in Black Studies on an annual basis.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.
Offered when faculty resources permit, these courses are analyses of particular areas of black studies interdisciplinary research. Details regarding specific topics will be available from the Chair in Black Studies on an annual basis.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.
Exceptionally qualified students entering their third- or fourth-year may take a program of independent study provided it has been approved by the Department or Departments principally involved. The Department may approve an independent study program without permitting it to be counted toward a concentration in that Department. It is, consequently, the responsibility of students taking such programs to ensure that the concentration requirements for their degree will be met.
NOTE Requests for such a program must be received one month before the start of the first term in which the student intends to undertake the program.
Gender Studies (GNDS)
This course explores women, gender, and difference from feminist and anti-racist perspectives. It identifies the ways in which women's activism, politics, and experiences intersect with other gendered identifications such as race, location, class, (dis)ability, and sexuality. Lessons and texts will introduce feminism, the body, colonialism, gender performance, and strategies of resistance.
NOTE Also offered online. Consult Arts and Science Online. Learning Hours may vary.
Explores popular culture from feminist and anti-racist perspectives, with attention to sexuality, gender, race and nation in a variety of media.
NOTE Also offered online. Consult Arts and Science Online. Learning Hours may vary.
NOTE Film Screening: estimated cost $15.
A study of feminist narratives and gender politics in relationship to women's lives from the 17th century forward with an emphasis upon global histories.
Decades after the formal decolonization of former colonies, the power relations of the colonial world - and the racism it engendered - remain deeply embedded in the West, and are intrinsic to contemporary relations of globalization. This course explores European colonialism; historical and social constructions of 'race'; the ongoing occupation of Indigenous peoples' territories; and contemporary racism.
This course is an introduction to studies in sexuality and gender diversity. It will survey the field and include topics such as classical inquiries into sexuality, contemporary theories on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer identities, sexual movements, human rights, sexual morality, pornography, global sex trade, and queer cultural production. This course is open to all students but required for students enrolled in the Certificate in Sexual and Gender Diversity. It is designed to introduce SXGD students to the field and prepare them for selecting future courses.
NOTE Also offered online. Consult Arts and Science Online. Learning Hours may vary.
NOTE Also offered at the Bader International Study Centre. Learning Hours may vary.
NOTE Film Screening: estimated cost $15.
Offered when faculty resources permit, these courses are analyses of particular areas of gender studies interdisciplinary research. Details regarding specific topics will be available from the Head of the Department on an annual basis.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.
This course explores solidarity and alliance work, and the relationship to mutual aid and activism for social change. With a rise in sexism, homophobia, ableism, and racism, social movements are taking a critical intersectional approach to address these social inequities. Students will analyze case-studies and community projects.
In this class we will consider questions of trans representation, activism, experience and social erasure. Students will acquire familiarity with key texts and debates, engaging topics such as medicalization, racial and gendered visibility, imprisonment, etc. The course will situate contemporary trans politics intersectionally and transnationally.
NOTE Film Screening: estimated cost $15.
The course explores historical and contemporary comics, graphic novels, and sequential art in connection with debates surrounding race, class, nation, sexual and gender diversity. Topics include documentary, war, trauma, transgender studies, memory, heroism, capitalism, humour, feminist thought, medical humanities, digital culture, and satire.
This course examines different forms and critiques of feminism, and major issues in the development of feminist activism and feminist theory, including challenges to the colonial history of Western feminism. Students engage with current debates in feminism, gender and queer theory, and anti-racism.
Studies in black women's and black gender politics in Canada, the U.S.A., and the Caribbean.
NOTE This course is also listed/offered as BLCK 312/3.0.
This course looks at teaching and learning, in formal and informal educational settings, from feminist perspectives. Explores difference (race, class, gender, sexuality, ability), social justice and activism, power and empowerment, critique and transformation, experience, and reflexivity. Students will develop their feminist pedagogical values and skills.
Centers historical movements in communities affected by AIDS as sources of unique critical theories of disease, health, power and social change. Highlights how testimonies, cultural and creative work, and social research in community-based AIDS activism inspire current critical theory and feminist, queer, disability, and critical race studies.
This course offers an interdisciplinary framework of feminist thought on women, work and employment opportunities. It takes a comparative look at socio-political feminist theories on work and employment in different social and cultural contexts.
Indigenous meanings of reproduction and health will form the core of this course. We will discuss the bio-medical model and examine how it has influenced the health of Indigenous peoples, with a particular focus on maternity care in Canada. We will discuss contradictions and incongruencies in an open, respectful, and thought-provoking manner.
This course explores transnational realities and diasporic experience, with particular attention to gender and sexuality, through the arts.
This course examines gender in an international context with emphasis on current global issues of women and development. Topics include gendering international political economy, women's health and sexualities, and forms of struggle, resistance and change in non-western contexts.
This course examines ways in which science fiction and fantasy writers use technology and the fantastic as tools for the deconstruction and reconstruction of gendered categories. The emphasis is on contemporary novels as offering deliberate and sophisticated interventions in major discourses in gender studies, with attention to issues of race, class, and nationhood.
Examines scholarship, creative works, and activism by Indigenous women as a basis for introducing Indigenous feminist thought. Cases examine the many ways that Indigenous women and LGBTQ/Two-Spirit people participate in Indigenous nations, experience and resist settler colonialism, and work for Indigenous decolonization.
This course provides a critical interdisciplinary introduction to methods and methodological issues in gender studies research.
This course will explore how the visual constructs and/or subverts 'woman' as a cultural category. An emphasis will be placed upon the female body as it intersects with class and race. Readings from art history, history, cultural theory and feminist theory will be considered.
An investigation of gender as it is constructed in historical and contemporary dress and fashion. The focus will be upon visual culture and material culture.
This course will examine the gendered history of the production and consumption of cloth, the impact of changing technologies on the textile industry since the 18th century, and the ensuing tensions between the industrial and the hand-crafted.
Considers the main themes in the history of masculinity and male sexuality, especially 'dissident' or subaltern masculinities internationally, and women's roles in shaping ideologies of masculinity. Topics include the theorization of masculinity, initiation rituals, family and parenting, violence, sports, homophobia, sexual practices, colonialism, science/epistemology and men and feminism.
This course takes an intersectional approach to contemporary interfaith dialogues, with the aim of exploring and developing religious, ethical, and cultural literacies. The course considers the construction of gender norms, stereotypes, cultural expectations, religious expectations and practices, and state policies post 9/11.
NOTE Also offered at the Bader International Study Centre.
Using feminist, trans and queer theory, critical race, disability studies, literary and cultural criticism, this course explores women's writing in a wide range of genres, with emphases on memory and self-narration and the ways in which subjects located or rejected as 'women' contend with binary, racialized and classed frames of gender.
This course explores current theory in queer studies by centrally examining the interdependence of race, sexuality, and gender. The course foregrounds the critical insights that follow sustained study of race in queer studies, and of queer matters in critical race, Indigenous, global, and diaspora studies.
Offered when faculty resources permit, these courses are analyses of particular areas of gender studies interdisciplinary research. Details regarding specific topics will be available from the Head of the Department on an annual basis.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.
This course focuses on the theories, political activities, and organizing of Islamic feminists. It situates itself in relation to contemporary debates around the status of women in Islam and problematizes the nature of feminism and its assumed relationship to Islam. The course will focus on questions of religion, race, class, and nationalism in relation to Islam and Muslim women. This course contains an intensive and independent study component.
Offered when faculty resources permit, these courses are intensive analyses of particular areas of gender studies interdisciplinary research. Details regarding specific topics will be available from the Head of the Department on an annual basis.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.
This course provides an advanced study in specific topics and theories relating to the fields of sexual and gender diversity. Topics may change from year to year. This course contains an intensive and independent study component.
This course is designed to provide an in depth exploration of poverty issues in Canada. It includes discussions about working poor and welfare poor and addresses how race and sexuality can compound the issues of poverty. The course will also acknowledge how poor people are actively engaged in attempting to improve their lives through anti-poverty organizing. This course contains an intensive and independent study component.
This interdisciplinary seminar will explore the ways in which modernity shapes cultural 'difference' and 'the human'. Readings will focus on the racial and geographic contours of colonialism, transatlantic slavery and The Enlightenment in order to bring into focus communities that challenge racial-sexual categorization through creative expression (music, fiction, poetry, and visual art as well as theory). This course contains an intensive and independent study component.
This advanced seminar addresses some of the many meanings and manifestations of 'gender performance' in literature and popular culture. Primary sources include a wide variety of media - novels, plays, poems, films, magazines and cartoons. Primary material will be balanced with careful consideration of work in areas such as feminist theory, identity politics, queer and performance theory. This course contains an intensive and independent study component.
Examines critical theories and case studies of politics and governance in Indigenous and settler societies, based in Indigenous feminist thought. Cases examine the relation between nationality, gender, and sexuality within colonial relations of rule, methods of Indigenous governance, Indigenous sovereignty struggles, and theories and practices of decolonization. This course contains an intensive and independent study component.
A seminar in which students work in and outside the classroom on community organizing projects. Students reflect on how feminist, anti-racist, and queer theory can be integrated with real world practices.
Examines feminist ethnography and queer ethnography as distinct subfields, areas of inquiry, writing genres and ethical methods in research and social life. Topics: historical uses of ethnography and feminist/queer/trans critiques of them; adaptations of ethnography to trans, queer, and feminist work; ethnography's importance to gender studies.
Offered when faculty resources permit, these courses are analyses of particular areas of gender studies interdisciplinary research.
NOTE This course is repeatable for credit under different topic titles.
In consultation with the Head of the Department, students arrange their reading with individual Gender Studies faculty, and are expected to write reports on their readings and to discuss them throughout the term with that faculty supervisor.
In consultation with the Head of the Department, students arrange their reading with individual Gender Studies faculty, and are expected to write reports on their readings and to discuss them throughout the term with that faculty supervisor.
In consultation with the Head of the Department, students arrange their reading with individual Gender Studies faculty, and are expected to write reports on their readings and to discuss them throughout the term with that faculty supervisor.