Faculty | Course Descriptions

180 Kresge College
(831) 459-4324
wst@ucsc.edu
humwww.ucsc.edu/wst/

Program Description

Women’s studies is an interdisciplinary major that draws its questions and approaches from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and arts. It helps students to develop theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives for studying the intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality as critical categories for understanding the world. Utilizing transnational and internationalist perspectives, women’s studies offers an emphasis on multicultural, multiracial, and Third World feminisms. Likewise, issues in feminist theory, sexuality, literature, anthropology, history, science and technology, and reproductive freedoms inform our curriculum.

Women’s studies prepares undergraduates for a variety of careers. The B.A. degree in women’s studies, for example, provides excellent grounding for undergraduates with career aspirations in law, health, public administration, community organizations, and social services. Students wishing to pursue doctoral work will also find that interdisciplinary training in women’s studies equips them with theoretical and methodological strengths in most disciplines and applied research fields. Specialists in women’s studies are being hired as consultants in industry, higher education, and human resources. State and federal government agencies employ people who have special training in understanding systems of privilege based on gender, race, class, and sexuality. Educational institutions need specialists to develop and administer women’s studies programs, women’s centers, and other institutional structures designed specifically to study and assist women.

Requirements for the Major

Women’s studies majors must complete 11 courses and a senior comprehensive exit requirement in the women’s studies program. Students must choose one of the following concentrations within the major: representations; race, class, and ethnicity (within the U.S.); nations and cultures (outside the U.S. or comparative with the U.S.); movements, institutions, policy, and legal studies; or feminist theory. Courses appropriate for each concentration are listed in the Women’s Studies Office at Kresge College.

A proposal for an independent concentration will be approved only when a student presents a clear, coherent, and rigorous plan of study that does not fit the existing concentrations. Both the student’s adviser and the Women’s Studies Department chair must approve a proposal for an independent concentration.

Required courses include course 1A, Introduction to Feminisms, or 1B, Introduction to Third World Feminisms; course 100, Feminist Theories (must be taken at UCSC); seven upper-division courses from the concentrations (five or six from the student’s chosen concentration, one or two from another); one upper-division course on gender and racial formations or women of color in the U.S.; one women’s history course; and an exit (comprehensive) requirement course.

Because women’s studies is an interdisciplinary major and lists courses taught by affiliate faculty in other departments, women’s studies majors must take a minimum of five courses at UCSC taught directly in the Women’s Studies Department, i.e., courses designated WMST.

One internship or individual study (Women’s Studies 193, 198, or 199) may count automatically as an elective, but as a concentration course only with the chair’s or faculty adviser’s approval. Two EAP courses may count towards the major; three transfer courses may count towards the major; and the total combined number of EAP and transfer courses that may count towards the major is a maximum of three.

Exit requirement options include a senior thesis or a senior project (course 195) or a senior seminar (course 194) taught by core or affiliated faculty. Course 1A or 1B, course 100, and the composition (general education code C) requirement are prerequisites to course 195 and the senior seminars. A fourth option for fulfilling the exit requirement is to develop and teach a student-directed seminar. Only two student-directed seminars may be offered each quarter. Guidelines for completion of the exit requirement are available in the Women’s Studies Office.

Transfer Students

Transfer students are encouraged to declare the major as soon as possible in order to be assured entrance into the required core courses. Women’s studies advisers or the chair determine which courses from other institutions are transferable. Course 1A or 1B and course 100 must be completed in the junior year so that the exit requirement may be completed in the senior year.

Graduate Studies

Graduate students may work toward a Ph.D. degree that notes a concentration in women’s studies on the graduation documents. The request must originate in the degree-granting department. The Anthropology, History, History of Consciousness, Literature, Psychology, and Sociology Departments participate in this parenthetical notation program with the Women’s Studies Department. Students in other departments wishing to pursue this option should consult with the chairs of their respective Ph.D. programs and of women’s studies. A list, updated annually, of regularly offered approved graduate courses is available in the Women’s Studies Department Office.

The following are required for the notation:

Graduate Courses

Note: Upper-division undergraduates are admitted only with permission of the instructor.

History 204, Engendering China, E. Honig

History 222, History of Gender Research Seminar, A. Yang Murray

History of Consciousness 210A-B, Cultural and Historical Studies of Race and Ethnicity, A. Y. Davis

History of Consciousness 213A-B, Representation, T. de Lauretis

History of Consciousness 215A-B-C, Critical Theory in the Marxist Tradition, A. Y. Davis

History of Consciousness 217A-B-C, Seminar: Topics in Feminist Theory, D. Haraway

History of Consciousness 250A-B, Foundation in Science Studies, D. Haraway

History of Consciousness 251, Readings in Science Studies, D. Haraway

Sociology 242, Feminist Research Seminar, P. Roby