Please consult the New School Course Catalog for a full list of current courses. Fall 2023 courses that count for the Gender and Sexuality Studies Graduate Certificate are listed below; view an archive of past courses.
Fall 2023 Courses
Race, Culture, and the Classification of People, GANT 6113 & GPSY 6358
Lawrence Hirschfeld, Professor of Anthropology and Psychology
Few ideas are as potent, as easy to learn, and as difficult to forget as race. This course explores race by disrupting "common sense" and by identifying the psychological and cultural dimensions of race. The approach is comparative, examining differences and similarities in racial thinking across cultures and across historical periods and comparing race with other important social categories, such as gender and class.
Labor Economics 1: Labor, Development, and Gender, GECO 6270
Teresa Ghilarducci, Schwartz Professor of Economics and Policy Analysis
Labor Economics I is a graduate survey course in labor economics. The course surveys the classic topics in labor economics to prepare students to engage in original research and teach labor economics in several economic traditions. The successful student will be able to distinguish between several schools of thought in labor economics: neoclassical, institutionalism, and radical political economy. Objectives include understanding modern research methods in labor economics and the dominant and heterodox models of labor markets. Students will be able to explain the most important labor market outcomes using various analytical frameworks, including ones that assume varying degrees of market power, full employment, and constraints on choice. Some labor union history and regulatory issues will also be covered. Modern capitalism distributes resources in such a way that living standards—not only in terms of material well-being but also in terms of security, dignity, safety, and longevity—have never been more unequal. We cover the way markets, institutions, and rules affect the power balances between capital and labor, employers and workers, and determine the value of people’s time and life, working conditions, and wages and salaries.
Class Wars in the United States, GHIS 5103
David Huyssen, Part-Time Lecturer
Can we see U.S. history as a series of punctuated and evolving class wars? This course draws on recent scholarship from multiple disciplines and various subfields of history—women's and gender studies, African American studies, LGBTQ studies, political science, social studies, labor studies, etc.—alongside foundational works of history and theory to address this question. Students trace the way different conceptions and self-conceptions of class develop and manifest in conflicts from the early republic to the present day; how they correspond, overlap, and interact with understandings of race, gender, sexuality, national origin, and the economy; and how U.S. class wars have shaped not only U.S. and global history but their study as well.
Women's Intellectual History, GLIB 5145
Gina Walker, Professor of Women's Studies
Women’s Intellectual History complements and corrects the traditional narrative of Western thought by and about mainly men. We ask: What are the historical assumptions about the connections between women’s sexuality and their learning, beginning with the Ancients? What role did religion and “Natural Philosophy” play in facilitating or limiting women’s access to education? How did continuing debate over whether the mind “has sex” influence the cultural roles for which women should be educated? Was there a causal relation between la querelle des femmes and the diffusion of l’égalité des sexes, first proposed by Cartisian Poullain de la Barre? We examine the texts, contexts, and new information about earlier “learned ladies” that feminist scholarship has recovered over the past 40 years: Enheduanna, Sappho; Diotima, Aspasia, Hypatia, early Christian martyr Vibia Perpetua, Hildegard of Bingen and her 12th-century contemporary Heloise, the erotic trobaritz, and Christine de Pizan’s political visions of a “City of Ladies.” We ask: Did women have the same “Renaissance” as men? We read Tullia d’Aragona, Veronica Franco, and Gaspara Stampa, female humanists, “honorable courtesans,” and poets in 16th-century Venice who develop Neo-Platonist ideas of their own. We consider Elizabeth I of England as an Early Modern humanist “prince,” one of “the monstrous regiment of women rulers" in Europe, and a beacon of clusters of Early Modern women thinkers. We scrutinize new critical perspectives, for example, an enlightened “republic of women,” to elucidate disputes in current theory and historiography about a lineage of earlier “feminists” and what we have inherited from them.
Psychology of Gender, GPSY 6359
Lisa Rubin, Associate Professor of Psychology
Over the past 30 years, feminists have transformed the field of psychology. Feminist psychologists have challenged how we study, what we study, and what we know about the lives of both women and men. This course provides an overview of the growing field of the psychology of gender, from the early feminist psychologists who challenged notions of women's intellectual and emotional inferiority through their rigorous scientific research to the growing field of masculinity studies within feminist psychology. With a focus on the intersectionality of gender with race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, and disability, we explore key themes and topics in feminist psychological research. Topics covered include theories of gendered psychological development, the regulation and management of the body across the lifespan and across cultures, sexuality and reproduction, mental and physical health, feminist therapy, work, and violence.
Black Feminist Media Methods, NMDS 5030
Brittnay Proctor-Habil, Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Race and Media
This course explores the various methodologies used in media studies at the nexus of sound studies and visual culture. The course is taught from a Black feminist episteme, meaning that we center work and scholarship coming out of black feminism (in its many variations and pluralities). During the course, we address the context, historicity, and politics surrounding media studies, sound studies, and visual culture, as well as the antagonisms and tensions that have emerged in Black feminist approaches to these fields of inquiry. We survey an array of methods and approaches used in Black feminist approaches to media studies, sound studies, and visual culture, which include but are not limited to Black feminist theory, Black Marxist critiques of capital, Black performance theory, listening, discourse analysis, "viewing/looking," the process of description, sound art, the use of sound in Black literature, archival research, and ethnography. The seminar will be organized around guided discussions, lectures, seminar papers, selected readings, and intermittent praxis exercises.
Sex Tech Lab, NPSY 2005
Pantea Farvid, Associate Professor of Applied Psychology
The SexTech Lab is an interdisciplinary and applied psychology research lab in the Schools of Public Engagement with a diverse group of members (undergraduates, graduates, community members, and research fellows) from The New School and beyond. Our work addresses various intersections of contemporary interpersonal, social, and structural inequities, with a view to sparking empirically driven social and political change. Using qualitative, quantitative, mixed, and participatory methods, our work is divided into four areas: 1) Social Justice: working to elevate the status of marginalized/minoritized populations (e.g., LGBTQIA+, migrants, BIPOC, incarcerated, sex workers); 2) The Psychology of Gender and Sexuality, particularly in the domain of new and emerging intimate practices (e.g., non-monogamy, online sex work); 3) Technology and Ethics: evolving issues regarding technology, psychology, and mediated society; and 4) Decolonial Psychology: active decolonization efforts at the individual, interpersonal, disciplinary, and societal levels. Members are involved in regular meetings during the semester and can expect theoretical, methodological and analytical training related to the areas stated above; work within an interdisciplinary framework embedded in psychology; participation in research, community action, and outreach and work with media; development of independent research projects and/or collaboration on ongoing work; the opportunity to collaborate on scholarly presentations and publications; and a safe, egalitarian, and supportive environment for all students interested in psychology for social change.
From Big Bads to Breaking Bad: Race, Gender, Class, and the Female Villain, UTNS 5132
Faculty TBA
In this three-credit media elective course, students use a critical eye to explore race, gender, class, and power structures through an often overlooked pop culture archetype: the female villain. We examine the ways in which female villains—from Batman’s Harley Quinn to Rose from Jordan Peele’s Get Out—get written and how we, as pop culture consumers, view them.