HST 614: The History of Sexuality in the Modern U.S.

This seminar examines the development of and major topics in the field of U.S. women’s and gender history, from early America to the contemporary United States. Students will become familiar with classic texts as well as new and cutting-edge scholarship. The scholarship is expansive, so we will narrow our focus to the following themes: intersections of gender, race, and class; the politics of labor and reproduction; women and the modern state; gender, sexuality, and family formation; and political power and social movements.

In addition to familiarizing students with important historiographical interventions, this seminar has two objectives in terms of the development of professional skills.  First, students are expected to develop an understanding of how historiographical debates develop and how scholars enter into them. Second, we will examine the ways that we might understand different interventions in light of theoretical or methodological issues with which the authors may or may not engage directly.  To this end, we will place a strong emphasis on participation in seminar and the intellectual labor of working out the connections between historiography and theory.

Instructor: J. Wilkerson
M 1 - 3:30, Bishop 333