The below courses are a list of courses that the program has offered. For information about which courses are offered in the coming semester please contact the Coordinator of the Gender Studies Program at: karioris_f@auca.kg

100 Level Courses

1** Introduction to Gender Studies

The Gender Studies course provides a broad range of theories, concepts, and cases that will allow students to begin to understand the complex issues related to gender in society, how these differ across cultures, and provide students a background in Gender Studies as a discipline

200 Level Courses

2** Women’s Voices Throughout History

This course will trace the voices of women throughout history, beginning in Mesopotamia as early as 3100 BC and ending with contemporary work across cultures and languages. It will do so by examining those texts (philosophical, historical and literary) that have proven to be impactful and expressive of the female condition. The course will fall into two main categories: theoretical and literature. The theoretical portion will provide students with the following: (1) historical insight on the status of woman; (2) an understanding and theoretical analysis of woman as a concept; and (3) proposed solutions to address and highlight the female experience. The literary portion will include plays, poetry and short stories exclusively by female authors alongside an introduction to the tools of literary analysis.

2** Qualitative Methods

Qualitative research strategy is a multi-method approach to the study of social interactions in natural settings. It involves the collection and analysis of empirical information from multiple sources such as semi-structured and unstructured interviews, informal and formal observations, documents, and visual records.  In this course, students will develop the skills needed to distinguish between qualitative and quantitative methodologies, as well as explain the relative value and utility of each, to determine the conditions and questions for which a qualitative study is most appropriate, to design and conduct a qualitative study, to develop ability to interpret research findings, and to coherently describe conclusions in written and oral forms.

300 Level Courses

3** Sociology of Gender

This course will address issues related to sex and gender, such as gender roles in culture, the formation of gender identity and sexual orientation, and the significance of gender in major social institutions, and in personal and professional contexts.  Readings and lectures will be based on a variety of disciplines and look at many different cultures in a global context.    

3** Interpersonal Relationships

This course is designed as an overview to the field of interpersonal relations. The major theories of relations on all different levels will be discussed, including examinations of attraction, attachment, and social cognition, communication. In addition, we will examine the difference between casual and intimate relationships, theories of love, sexuality, and relationship development. Finally, we will discuss common problems in relationships such as jealousy, shyness, loneliness, power, and conflict.

3** Human Sexuality

This course deals with issues related to human sexuality, emphasizing the psychological perspective. It includes information on physical, cognitive, and psychosocial changes associated with sexuality. Information about human sexuality across the lifespan will be included. Understanding the human sexual response, the media’s impact on sexuality, information about the biological and psychological causes of sexual dysfunction and their treatments, and the preventing of sexually transmitted diseases and irresponsible sexual behaviour are covered. Students will be challenged to think about prevailing sexual norms and how these norms originated. Examples of topics range from gender and transgender issues to fetishes and paraphilias. By taking this course, students will realize that each person has their own unique sexuality, and will develop a greater awareness of their own sexuality and the sexuality of others.

3** Gender, Kinship, & Family

This course with its central focus on kinship will attempt to explore and critically approach such concepts as gender and culture, marriage and family, parenthood and adoption, etc. The following questions will guide us throughout the course: What kind of family rules and strategies existed and do exist now among different cultures in the world? What it means to be a relative? Additionally, this course will also explore such recent processes as migration, and how does it affect kinship relations in Central Asia and Kyrgyzstan. In this course, students  will learn to approach and critically analyze such concepts as  “alliance theory”, “cultures of relatedness”, “symbolic kinship” and others through various activities such as discussions, films, museum visits and guest lecturing of experts on family and gender aspects. We will also conduct a fieldwork in Luxemburg village in northern Kyrgyzstan and explore kinship and family of the multiethnic population.  

3** Sexualities & Masculinities

Can a person be both a man and homosexual? Does liking to be dominated in S&M settings make one ‘less of a man’? What does men’s sexualities look in different contexts distinct from our own? This course will seek to provide students with a chance to gain insights into both sexualities and masculinities, and the ways they are interlinked and connected processes and practices, exploring various perspectives, contexts, and topics. Through an exploration of the ways that we see sexuality and masculinity –  building on the Janus of sociality/sexuality which we will work through throughout the course – the hope is that we can begin to come to grips with heteronormative and gender orders and underpinnings which ground and root us each into specific frameworks. Tackling this topic, each week we will address some of the interconnected elements of these systems and our thinking on it, specifically focusing on ways that theoretical interventions have been made, and the fashion which we can build on this work. As part of this, the idea of masculinity will be addressed as a core element of sociality/sexuality, and which will inform the readings, discussions, and provide a specific context/relation from which to begin these conversations. Further, this seminar course will focus on allowing students the opportunity to learn, discuss, and write with the explicit purpose of creating engaged educators and allowing for innovative readings, methods, and research topics.

3**  Power & Resistance

One of the primary themes explored in Gender Studies has been the concept of power, and its connected notion of resistance. This course will focus explicitly on various forms of power, detailing not simply various examples of power but exploring various theories of power, including Foucault, Lukes, Arendt, Giddens, and Weber.

3**  History of Sexuality

This course situates itself within a broadly interdisciplinary reading of history, taking a specifically genealogical approach to understanding the historical background of sexuality, while also engaging with specific empirical examples, cases, and details. Beyond the history of sexualities writ large, the course will engage with Sexology and its development. We will study the texts of Lacqeuer, Foucault, Halperin, D’Emilio & Freedman, Kinsey, Masters & Johnson, and Chauncey.

3**  Independent Study

Independent Study is an opportunity for either individual students or a small group of students to work directly with a faculty on something that the faculty specializes in or that the students are particularly interested in. This course is arranged in direct consultation with the faculty member.  

400 Level Courses

4** Gender & Development

The course begins with theoretical approaches and to gender and development and conceptual grounding by reviewing development theory, debates around gender and development and feminist critiques. We then turn to explore how social change (positive or negative development) happens by examining substantive issues such as poverty, peace, violence, sexuality, religion, etc. Woven throughout the course will be themes about micro and macro processes, perspectives, and levels of analysis and research methods and policy applications, given a practitioner’s structural position.

4** Gender & Media

This course will provide students insights into not simply the ways that gender is intertwined with the media, but the way that various medias and mediums assist in shaping, changing, and encouraging particular gender presentations, identities, and practices. The course will look explicitly at various forms of advertising, TV, journalism, movies, social media, and explore the interconnections this have.

4** Women And International Relations

Despite the fact that women have always been integral to global politics, the mainstream accounts of international relations largely ignore gender as an important category of and lens for analysis. This course offers an answer to the ‘curious feminist’ question of ‘Where are the women?’ in IR by providing an overview of theoretical, practical and policy issues at stake.  By the end of semester students will be able to use ‘gendered lenses’ for a critical analysis of international politics, become familiar with feminist theorising of International Relations and be able to articulate the impact and effect of global gender politics on their home countries and their own lives.

4** Advanced Gender Theories

This course builds on Gender Studies and Sociology of Gender, complimenting these courses by focusing explicitly on gender and feminist theories. It will look at topics in Feminist Philosophy, Queer Theory, Bodies & Society, and theories of the Subject. This course is a reading-intensive seminar for upper division students who have completed previous courses in gender.