Carly Thomsen

Feminist Foundations
This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. Focusing on the histories of feminism in the U.S., from the nineteenth century to the present, the course reveals the importance of gender and sexuality as analytical categories to understand social reality and to comprehend important areas of culture. Examining gender and sexuality always in conjunction with the categories of race and class, the course foregrounds how inequalities are perpetuated in different fields of human activity and the creative ways in which feminist movements have resisted these processes. 3 hrs. lect.

Feminist Building: Art, Aesthetics, and Mini Golf
In this project-based course, we will build a reproductive justice mini golf course to be housed in the athletics facility. We will collaborate with graphic artists, woodworkers, activists, and faculty and students to design, develop, and construct the mini golf course. The studio course work will include opportunities to explore sculpture, construction, and engineering using many art forms and fabrication processes. The course will engage with Feminist and Queer Studies approaches to using art for social change and what it means to build in feminist ways, both in terms of process and product. All students will contribute to designing and building the mini golf course. No prior experience with GSFS or HARC required

Introduction to Queer Critique
In this course we will examine what is meant by queer critique through exploring the concepts, issues, and debates central to queer theory and activism both in the U.S. and around the world. We will work to understand how queerness overlaps with and is distinct from other articulations of marginalized sexual subjectivity. We will consider how desires, identities, bodies, and experiences are constructed and represented, assessing the ways in which queer theory allows us to examine sexuality and its raced, classed, gendered, geographic, and (dis)abled dimensions. Through engaged projects, we will practice how to translate and produce queer critique. 3 hrs. lect./disc.

The Politics of Reproduction: Sex, Abortion, and Motherhood
In this course we will examine contemporary reproductive issues both in the United States and around the world. We will work to understand both how reproductive politics are informed by broader cultural ideas regarding gender, race, class, ability, sexuality, and geography and also how ideas about reproduction reinforce conceptions of these very identity markers and ways of experiencing the world. Because requirements for being considered a “good” woman are intimately tied to what it means to be a “good” mother, challenging dominant understandings of gender and sexuality requires critical engagement with ideas about reproduction. 3 hrs. lect. (FemSTHM)

Feminist Engaged Research
What makes research feminist? How does one conduct feminist research? How has feminist research been useful to social movements and how have movements informed feminist research? What happens to feminist research when it moves to the public sphere? In this class students learn how to produce original feminist research—how to craft research questions, write a literature review, choose relevant methodologies, and collect and analyze qualitative data. In addition to writing a research paper, students will translate their research findings into an alternative (non-academic paper) format and for an audience beyond our classroom. (Minimum of 3 GSFS classes. Class intended for GSFS majors and minors and students in the IGS Gender Track.) 3 hrs. Sem.