Gender and Sexuality Studies
42 courses · UC Irvine · 2026-2027 Catalog
Classes: Fall 2026
GEN&SEX 20 Introduction to Queer Studies
- Units
- 4
Study of sexuality from the perspective of lesbian, gay, queer, transgender scholarship spanning humanities, social sciences, and arts.
GEN&SEX 50A Gender and Feminism in Everyday Life
- Units
- 4
What is gender? Why does studying it matter? Explores how feminism has understood not only gender as a category of social analysis, but how gender structures personal identities, family, citizenship, work and leisure, social policy, sexuality, and language.
GEN&SEX 50B Gender and Power
- Units
- 4
From workplace to home to schools to prisons, how are societal institutions and politics “gendered”? Examines power and inequalities around gender, race, class, and sexuality in national and transnational contexts.
GEN&SEX 50C Gender and Popular Culture
- Units
- 4
An investigation of gender, race, and sexuality in film, TV, video, music, and advertising, with attention to the ways that popular culture shapes understandings of technology, national identities, leisure and work, historical memory, international communication, and multicultural representation.
GEN&SEX 60A Gender and Science
- Units
- 4
Examines science from a variety of feminist viewpoints in order to explore how science influences everyday life. Special attention is given to the ways science shapes our understanding of gender, race, and sexuality.
GEN&SEX 60B Gender and Law
- Units
- 4
Introduction to the relationship between gender, race, sexuality, and the law. Critical thinking about how law defines citizenship, political representation, and democracy, focusing on the history of legal reform undertaken in the name of women as a social group.
GEN&SEX 60C Gender and Religion
- Units
- 4
Introduces the topic of religion in a feminist context by performing cross-cultural exploration of gender, authority, and faith in various traditions. Study includes (but is not limited to) writings of contemporary Jewish, Christian, and Muslim feminists.
GEN&SEX 100A Feminism and Social Change
- Units
- 4
Explores feminist modes of knowledge production in relation to histories and activist practices of various social movements. Examines the kinds of information, research, ideas, theories, and concepts that underlie feminist cultural analysis and social movement organizing.
GEN&SEX 100B Feminist Theory
- Units
- 4
Introduction to historical traditions in theory and various conceptual frameworks informing scholarship in gender studies, sexuality studies, and women's studies as a field of critical inquiry.
GEN&SEX 100C Feminist Cultural Studies
- Units
- 4
Investigation of the theories and methods that inform the feminist study of culture. Focuses on the interpretation of the visual arts and literature created by, and predominately for, women.
GEN&SEX 100D Queer Knowledges
- Units
- 4
Explores the emergence of historical elaboration of non-normative sexual identities, practices, and communities; focuses on medical, legal, literary, aesthetic, scientific, and religious notions about homosexuality and appropriations and subversions of these notions by queer people.
GEN&SEX 110A Gender, State, and Nation
- Units
- 4
Examination of gender and sexuality in relation to the production of identities created through participation in state and nation. Examines complexity of relationship between feminism and nationalism, feminism and the state.
GEN&SEX 110B Money, Sex, and Power
- Units
- 4
Examination of gender and sexuality in relation to the emergence of the modern world, modernity, and capitalism; commodification, circulation, and transnational exchanges relating to race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and nationality.
GEN&SEX 110D The Politics of Health and Medicine
- Units
- 4
Focuses on cultural and political-economic analysis and representations of disease both within the U.S. and globally.
GEN&SEX 120A Histories of Sexuality
- Units
- 4
Examines the historical production of non-normative sexual and gender identities, bodies, practices, and communities. Explores how past formations inform and shape the present and future.
GEN&SEX 120B Image Problems
- Units
- 4
Examination of scholarly approaches to gender stereotypes and politics of representation as they present possibilities for critical analysis and produce problems and limitations; how powerful ideas of gender intersect with other forms of social differentiation such as race and class.
GEN&SEX 155 Topics in Gender and Sexuality Studies
- Units
- 4
Designed to provide students with an opportunity to conduct advanced work in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
GEN&SEX 157 Topics in Queer Studies
- Units
- 4
Explores issues in queer studies from one or more of the following perspectives: theoretical, historical, legal, economic, political, sociological, and representation in the arts.
GEN&SEX 165F Gender and Technology
- Units
- 4
Using a variety of disciplinary methods, examines how various technological processes and products produce culturally complex meanings associated with gender and technology.
GEN&SEX 167A Militarism and Gender
- Units
- 4
Examination of feminist approaches to militarism, war, and political violence; drawing on representations of women as both victims of and participants in military violence; effects of militarism on formations of gender; effects of military industrial complex on nationalism and identity.
GEN&SEX 170 Topics in Gender, Feminism, Literature, and Language
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in language and literature which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 171 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and History
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in history which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 171A Sex and Conquest in Latin America
- Units
- 4
Competing ideas of masculinity and femininity, sexual violence, sexual identities, and gendered hierarchies informed how the Spanish engaged in military and religious domination of Mexican and Andean communities, as well as the forms of native resistance throughout colonial Latin America.
GEN&SEX 172 Gender and Ethnicity: Chicana/Latina Feminisms in the US
- Units
- 4
Focuses on the Latina Feminist Group and testimonios to examine the historical development of Chicana/Latinx feminist thought and practice. Draws from interdisciplinary scholarship to survey the diversity of contemporary Chicana/Latinx feminisms through an intersectionality lens.
GEN&SEX 174 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and the Arts
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in the arts which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 175 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and the Media
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in the media which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 181 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and Cognitive Psychology
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in cognitive psychology which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 182 Topics in Gender, Feminism and Economics
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in economics which relate to women and gender or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 183 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and Sociology
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in sociology which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 184 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and Political Science
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in political science which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 185 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and Social Sciences
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in social sciences which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 187 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and Social Ecology
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in social ecology which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 188 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and Science
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in science which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 189 Topics in Gender, Feminism, and Interdisciplinary Studies
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in interdisciplinary studies which relate to women or gender, or which are taught from a feminist methodological perspective.
GEN&SEX 190 Topics in Sexualities Studies
- Units
- 4
Topics cover issues in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, and arts that relate to critical inquiry of sexualities.
GEN&SEX 197 Senior Seminar in Gender and Sexuality Studies
- Units
- 4
- Prerequisite
- Satisfactory completion of the Upper-Division Writing requirement
Students read advanced scholarship in Gender and Sexuality Studies and complete a major seminar paper.
GEN&SEX 199 Independent Study
- Units
- 1-4
Directed reading and research in consultation with a faculty member. Substantial written work required. Includes independent study, involving 3-12 hours a week.
GEN&SEX 200A Feminist Knowledge and Social Change
- Units
- 4
Provides a broad and introductory overview of Women’s Studies and feminist knowledge, including key concepts, theoretical frameworks, disciplinary approaches and methods, and critical debates that have shaped the field.
GEN&SEX 200B Problems in Feminist Research
- Units
- 4
Colloquium on analytic approaches to interdisciplinary feminist research in Women’s Studies and exploration of how feminist knowledges are produced in different academic disciplines.
GEN&SEX 201 Special Topics in Feminist Studies
- Units
- 4
Seminars on various topics in feminist studies.
GEN&SEX 290 Directed Research
- Units
- 2-12
Directed graduate study/research in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
GEN&SEX 399 University Teaching
- Units
- 4
Limited to Teaching Assistants.