Gender Studies Minor
Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary field that investigates the social construction of gender in societies, polities, economies, the arts, and cultures in the United States and around the world. At Saint Joseph’s, it is a multi-disciplinary minor that allows students from a variety of majors to investigate the ways in which gender intersects with race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality, ability, age, and other identity factors to produce system-wide structures and individual-level psychologies. Gender, therefore, creates opportunities and constraints for individuals based on their particular identities within specific temporal, sociopolitical settings.
Gender Studies minors select approved courses from a variety of disciplines in the fine arts, humanities, education, health studies, social sciences, and business. These courses complement their major fields of study and give students a useful lens for understanding and interacting with their school, family, and social, and professional environments.
Mission Statement
The Gender Studies Program provides students a grounding in gender, feminist, and intersectional theories. By learning about gender as a concept and using methods such as intersectional analysis, students explore how gender interacts with other aspects of identity. As minors, students study these theoretical constructs and learn how they function as systematic and structural processes at the individual, societal/cultural, and/or institutional levels.
Co-Directors
- L. Baglione (POL, on leave Spring 2027) and M. Ramirez (SOC)
Committee on Gender Studies
- Kim (SOC)
- Wetzel (ENG)
Goal 1: Learn Fundamental Knowledge: Students will gain foundational knowledge on gender, feminism, and/or intersectionality as core concepts and theoretical constructs.
Outcome 1.1: Students will identify, define, and/or explain the core concepts and theories related to gender, feminism, and intersectionality, as appropriate to the discipline.
Goal 2: Think and Make Analytical Arguments: Students will think critically and develop arguments that address how gender, feminism, and intersectionality function as systematic and structural processes at the individual, societal/cultural, and/or institutional levels.
Outcome 2.1: Students will articulate verbally and/or in writing arguments that analyze how gender, feminism, and/or intersectionality function as systematic and structural processes at the individual, societal/cultural, and/or institutional levels, as appropriate to the discipline.
Goal 3: Apply Skills to Analyze, Assess, and/or Create: Students will apply their knowledge of gender, feminism, and intersectionality by developing a project, broadly defined, that analyzes and/or assesses real world phenomena and/or creative works through the lens of the core theoretical constructs.
Outcome 3.1: Students will write, create, and/or present a project that analyzes and/or assesses the application of gender, feminism, and intersectionality to real world phenomena and/or creative works, as appropriate to the discipline.
Gender Studies minors complete six (6) courses from the list of approved classes. Their set of six courses must simultaneously satisfy two additional criteria:
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No more than three (3) courses can be from the same discipline (with the same three-letter course code)
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At least one (1) course must come from the designated “Theories Courses” list
These conditions help assure that students have a sufficiently multidisciplinary and theoretically sophisticated understanding of Gender Studies when they complete the minor.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Choose 6 Courses: | ||
| Theories Courses (Choose 1): 1 | ||
| ENG 444 | Race, Class, and Gender | 3 |
| or HON 362 | OxfordTutorial:Intrsectionlity | |
| or POL 368 | Sex & Power around the World | |
| or SOC 208 | Sociology of Gender | |
| Other Gender Studies Courses (Choose 5, no more than 3 from one department) | 2 | 15 |
| Women, Gender, and Art | ||
| Brit/Irish Detective Fiction | ||
| British/Irish Immigration Lit | ||
| Modern Irish Drama | ||
| Cont Irish Women's Writing | ||
| Seminar in Rhetorical Theory | ||
| Race, Class, and Gender | ||
| Health, Advocacy, Storytelling | ||
| Mkg Vces Hrd: FrWomWri MA &Ren | ||
| Mkg Vces Hrd: FrWomWri MA &Ren | ||
| Women in America | ||
| OxfordTutorial:Intrsectionlity | ||
| Reproducing Persons | ||
| Intro to Comparative Politics | ||
| Advising and Advocacy | ||
| Women and American Politics | ||
| Intersectionality | ||
| Sex & Power around the World | ||
| Multicultural Psychology | ||
| Women & Religion in Anc Wrld | ||
| Sociology of Gender | ||
| Intimate Relations | ||
| Gender, Race, and Justice | ||
| Gender, Crime & CJ | ||
| Total Hours | 18 | |
- 1
Courses that qualify as Theories classes are those that are particularly heavy in gender, feminist, and/or intersectional theories. Students will read foundational theoretical texts themselves (rather than only reading texts which apply those theories as critical frameworks in the study of other topics) and engage rigorously with concepts that are at the root of gender, feminist, and/or intersectional studies.
- 2
Criteria for Gender Studies Courses
- Gender, feminism, and/or intersectionality are woven through the fabric of the class and at the center of analysis. These theories and concepts must permeate the entire course and cannot simply be a single unit in the class. Theoretical frameworks and concepts that provide sustained analytical inquiry are expected, and course content, materials, and assignments must be critical and analytical in nature.
- The courses analyze the construction and maintenance of gender as systematic and structural processes at the individual, societal/cultural, and/or institutional levels, as appropriate to the discipline.
- The courses emphasize the ways in which identities intersect, overlap, and interact to produce multiple experiences of gender, and then attend to the complex consequences of these intersections.
- Please note: Some courses have multiple sections, not all of which satisfy the criteria named above. if you are taking a multi-section course that you think should be included, you may share the syllabus with the Gender Studies Director and petition for its inclusion Realize the final decision on accepting the course is the Director's to make. In the past, sections that have at times been included are SOC 102, SOC 270, HON 370, and SOC 470