Browse through the database below to explore courses that will fulfill certain degree requirements in the Gender & Women's Studies program.
When registering for classes on the Course Timetable website, be sure to carefully read through the "Notes/Additional Fees" section of each course you select.
Exciting Course Options for Fall/Winter 2025-26
GWST3505: Gender and the City
Professor Cynthia Wright
Gender and the City examines the city as a site of work, power, sexuality, pleasure, imagination and contestation. It will consider the location of the city within global social struggles over poverty, property, inequality, racism, sexuality, violence, housing, and transportation, among other issues. At the same time, we will consider how cities have shaped utopian and feminist visions for the “right to the city”. The urbanization of the world’s population, the accompanying migrations of people, and shifts to urban economies all form the essential context for the course. We will draw on innovative approaches to the city to understand the relationship between the production of space and the making of social differences of class, race, gender, sexuality, disability and migration status.
"Washington DC" by Richard Ricciardi is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
GWST 3555: Genealogies of Feminist Theorizing
Professor: TBA (Fall)/ Nadia Hasan (Winter)
In this course you will explore what feminist movements are fighting for. Examines major feminist theoretical approaches, both historical and contemporary, in women's and gender studies. You will develop your analytic skills by engaging in rigorous critique and debate of feminist theorizing. You will write detailed assessments of specific theoretical feminist approaches that take into consideration difference and intersectionality. Learn about how feminist theories and practices intersect with colonialism, race and racialization, queer, gender and trans theory, health and disability studies, capitalism, technology and religion.
GWST 3568: Indigenous Feminisms: Connections and Contradictions
Professor Angele Alook
This course introduces students to the study of Indigenous feminisms. It provides a critique of the colonial construction of exclusionary categories, including gender and sexuality, which have shaped many mainstream, non-Indigenous feminisms. Utilizing a wide variety of material, including books, scholarly articles, personal narratives, poetry and film, it analyzes whether these categories can be redefined and reclaimed within an Indigenous, decolonizing, feminist framework.
Prerequisites: GWST 1501 9.00 or 1502 6.00
Open to: GWST and SXST in 3rd and 4th year, or by permission of the instructor.
If you are interested in these courses, please email lapsgsws@yorku.ca.
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AP/GSWS 1501 9.00
Introduction to Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies
This course is an interdisciplinary introduction to Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies. It considers historical and contemporary arguments to develop an understanding of how social, political, and economic realities shape gender and sexuality at multiple ...
AP/GSWS 1511 6.00
Sex, Gender and Popular Culture
This course examines how gender and sexuality are constructed in popular culture, focusing on how media reflects and shapes social values, power structures, and identity. Using feminist, queer, and intersectional approaches, students critically analyze a ...
AP/GSWS 2512 6.00
Race, Gender & Sexuality
This course is designed to take a critical interdisciplinary approach to the study of power and difference. It specifically focuses on the social and historical construction of race, gender and sexuality, and how these categories ...
AP/GSWS 2517 6.00
Activisms in Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies
This course explores multiple activisms against intersecting forms of oppression and social injustice from the critical perspectives of feminist, gender, critical anti-racist, Indigenous, postcolonial, transnational, critical disability, trans, critical sexuality, fat, and queer studies. Prerequisites: ...
AP/GSWS 2600 6.00
Critical Foundations in Sexuality Studies
This course is an interdisciplinary and transnational introduction to theories, methods, themes, debates and issues that constitute the field of critical sexuality studies. The course will examine how sexuality intersects with other lines and relations ...
AP/GSWS 3505 3.00
Gender and the City
Examines the relationship between socially constructed gender relations and the changing nature and form of contemporary urban areas. Previously offered as: AP/GWST 3505 3.00, AP/WMST 3505 3.00, GL/WMST 3505 3.00. Crosslisted to GL/GWST 3505
Explores the history of the Gay and Lesbian Liberation Movement and the resultant political emergence of queer cultures in North America. It addresses current debates within queer cultures, using a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach to ...
AP/GWST 3554 3.00
Women and Madness
Critically analyzes conceptualizations of women, mental health normalcy, mental illness and madness using intersectional and critical feminist frameworks. Draws on scholarly literature from a range of disciplines as well as first-person analyses of women and ...
AP/GWST 3555 6.00
Feminist and Queer Theorizing
What are the big ideas that shape feminist and queer theories? What is the relationship between feminist and queer theories? How do lived experiences of sex, gender, and sexuality intersect with systems of power? This ...
AP/GWST 3557 3.00
Superstition, Religion and Sexuality
Explores the intersection of religion and superstition from ancient times to the present. Analyzes issues of gender, power and sexuality through the study of goddesses, witches and the current fascination with vampires in popular culture. ...
AP/GWST 3560 3.00
Bad Girls in the Bible Part 1: Hebrew
The Bible offers archetypal figures for Western art, music and film as well as literature. This course will analyze women in the Hebrew Bible in English (Old Testament) with a focus on sexuality, seduction, murder ...
AP/GWST 3561 3.00
Bad Girls in the Bible Part One: Hebrew
The Bible offers archetypal figures for Western art, music and film as well as literature. This course will analyze women in the New Testament with a focus on sexuality, seduction, murder and mayhem. Note: AP/GWST ...
AP/GSWS 3567 6.00
Feminist Life Writing: Theories, Histories, Practices, and Methods
Introduces students to theoretical and practical aspects of life writing in multiple genres and media. It foregrounds the important role of autobiographical and biographical representations, both textual and visual, in promoting the development of feminist, ...
AP/GSWS 3568 6.00
Indigenous Feminisms: Connections and Contradictions
This course introduces students to the study of Indigenous feminisms. It provides a critique of the colonial construction of exclusionary categories, including gender and sexuality, which have shaped many mainstream, non-Indigenous feminisms. Utilizing a wide ...
AP/GSWS 3575 3.00
Professional Skills in Feminist Social Justice
This experiential education course provides a critical understanding of how feminist principles, intersectional analysis, and social justice values are translated into professional practice in local and global contexts. Students will develop valuable skills to navigate ...
AP/GWST 4502 6.00
Violence Against Women
Examines gender-based violence in its many forms, such as domestic violence, state violence, legal violence (punishment) and cultural violence (rituals) and analyzes the global context in which gender and power are constructed and violence against ...
AP/GSWS 4509 3.00
Anti-Racist Feminism
This course explores the historical context in which anti-racist feminist thought emerged, as well as its central tenets, with a particular focus on the argument that Western societies are constituted through a politics of race ...
AP/GSWS 4524 6.00
Easy Reads? Feminist Stories, Graphic Narratives, and the Art of Drawing Politics
This course introduces students to the genre of graphic narratives that tell stories about a diverse range of bodies and histories. It explores the conventions and possibilities of the visual-verbal comic medium from an intersectional ...
AP/GSWS 4531 6.00
Work Placement in Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies
This practicum provides students with hands-on experience applying their knowledge of gender, sexuality and women’s studies within a community setting, allowing them to engage with local organizations working on issues related to gender identity, sexual ...
AP/GSWS 4555 6.00
How to do research: Feminist and queer methods
This interdisciplinary course offers hands-on experience in conducting feminist and queer research. We use a decolonial, anti-oppression, intersectional framework to ask critical questions about the politics of knowledge production, researcher positionality, ethics, and accountability to ...