Women's Studies and Gender Studies
The Graduate Programs in Women’s Studies and Gender Studies draw from a variety of departments and programs on campus to analyze how knowledge is shaped by power (especially around the intersecting axes of gender, sexuality, and race) and to create new pathways for promoting social justice.
The WSGS community at Loyola is broadly interdisciplinary; culturally and intellectually diverse; tight-knit and supportive; politically and socially engaged; and committed to open-ended critique, inquiry, and invention. It is also an intimate community where students build strong bonds with each other and with their faculty.
Graduate & Professional Standards and Regulations
Students in graduate and professional programs can find their Academic Policies in Graduate and Professional Academic Standards and Regulations under their school. Any additional University Policies supersede school policies.
WSGS 401 History of Feminist Thought (3 Credit Hours)
This course surveys the historical development of feminist thought from Mary Wollstonecraft to second wave feminism and beyond and analyzes the impact of feminism on the general culture.
Course equivalencies: WOST401/WSGS401
WSGS 402 Foundations of Women's Studies (3 Credit Hours)
This course investigates how gender has become a critical category in education and knowledge and traces the institutional and intellectual development of women's and gender studies as a field, focusing on the evolution of WGS in the academy (here and in other countries) and on the changes in concepts of knowledge, in methodologies, and in pedagogy that women's studies scholarship has produced in various fields.
Interdisciplinary Option: Women & Gender Studies
Course equivalencies: WOST402/WSGS402
WSGS 450 Global Feminisms (3 Credit Hours)
This course is a course that explores feminism and the study of gender in a global dimension. Chosen texts privilege the study of women, gender, and sexuality from an international perspective. The course highlights the intimate relationship between the study of feminism, (post/de)colonialism, and racism.
Course equivalencies: WOST450/WSGS450
WSGS 455 Feminist Pedagogy (3 Credit Hours)
Pre-requisites: Graduate Status
This course will focus on distinctly feminist ways of learning and teaching. As with feminist theory and research methods, feminist pedagogy has been understood to include characteristics like self-reflexivity, de-centered authority, standpoint epistemologies, examinations of power dynamics, and attention to embodied ways of learning and knowing.
Understand the foundational principles of feminist pedagogy and related approaches to teaching; Develop skills to analyze and produce sound teaching practices within a feminist intersectional framework
Outcomes
Understand the foundational principles of feminist pedagogy and related approaches to teaching; Develop skills to analyze and produce sound teaching practices within a feminist intersectional frameworkWSGS 460 Migration, Identity, Sexuality (3 Credit Hours)
Pre-requisites: Graduate Status
We will explore how crossing borders, identity politics, gender, and sexuality intersect to produce a conversation on contemporary global immigration issues. Focus is on movement from three geographic locations from/to the Global South and North: Latin America to the US and Europe; Africa to Europe; Europe to Latin America and back.
WSGS 470 Sexual Assault Advocacy (3 Credit Hours)
Pre-requisites: Graduate Status
This course provides specific skills of support and advocacy services to sexual assault survivors. Students will gain an understanding of the impact of sexual assault on victims, the social and cultural context in which sexual assault occurs, and the roles systems play to both support and inhibit survivors recovery.
Course equivalencies: WOST370/WSGS370/WGSG470
Students who successfully complete the course may be eligible to serve as Loyola University Chicago sexual assault advocates
Outcomes
Students who successfully complete the course may be eligible to serve as Loyola University Chicago sexual assault advocatesWSGS 475 Masculinity Studies: Equity, Race, Transformation (3 Credit Hours)
Pre-requisites: Graduate Status
This course highlights the intersectional exploration of how masculinity is embodied, experienced, and replicated in the United States and globally. With this transnational lens, students gain a better understanding of contemporary global masculinity sociocultural issues and concerns which include race/racism, "angry white men," and the "crisis of masculinity."
Students will acquire and utilize key theoretical concepts in Masculinity studies from an international lens; Students will apply a wide critical terminology to literary texts and visual/cultural phenomena globally
Outcomes
Students will acquire and utilize key theoretical concepts in Masculinity studies from an international lens; Students will apply a wide critical terminology to literary texts and visual/cultural phenomena globallyWSGS 480 Queer Theory (3 Credit Hours)
Pre-requisites: Graduate status
This graduate level course maps the field of queer theory from an interdisciplinary perspective in order to cover a wide range of theoretical and disciplinary approaches and interpretive applications. Outcome: Students will acquire and utilize theoretical concepts in queer studies, develop cultural competency in queer studies and present information about the field orally and in writing.
Interdisciplinary Option: Women & Gender Studies
WSGS 497 Topics in Women's Studies and Gender Studies (3 Credit Hours)
This topics course may originate in Women's Studies and Gender Studies or as a cross-listed course and deals with women's and gender topics including identity, sexuality, diversity, relationships of power in national, transnational and international contexts. The ethical and social justice implications of topics include feminist perspectives.
Course equivalencies: WOST497/WSGS497
Students understand feminist perspectives on gender in literature; Students connect theory and practice in writing, performance, action or in combined formats
Outcomes
Students understand feminist perspectives on gender in literature; Students connect theory and practice in writing, performance, action or in combined formatsWSGS 498 Practicum (1-3 Credit Hours)
WSGS Practicum gives students the option of doing a teaching or research assistantship under the supervision of a faculty member. This practicum counts as an elective credit towards the student's MA degree.
Interdisciplinary Option: Women & Gender Studies
Course equivalencies: WOST498/WSGS498
WSGS 499 Independent Study (1-3 Credit Hours)
An independent study provides students with the opportunity to work closely and one-on-one with a faculty member. The student can choose her/their/his topic or creative project. The independent study should be comparable to a graduate-level course.
Interdisciplinary Option: Women & Gender Studies
Course equivalencies: WOST499/WSGS499
WSGS 500 Thesis Research (3 Credit Hours)
A Thesis Research course allows graduate students to fine tune their research skills, academic writing, and independent thought while they are preparing their thesis proposal and/or writing their thesis.
Interdisciplinary Option: Women & Gender Studies
Course equivalencies: WOST500/WSGS500
WSGS 595 Thesis Supervision (0 Credit Hours)
The focus of a Thesis Supervision is to help students better strategize, structure, and organize themselves as they write their thesis. Students will also be advised about how to prepare for a successful oral defense.
Interdisciplinary Option: Women & Gender Studies
Course equivalencies: WOST595/WSGS595
WSGS 599 Capstone Presentation (0 Credit Hours)
Pre-requisites: Successful completion of 12 hours in the MA program in WSGS
WSGS 599 is the culmination of the Master's program in Women's Studies and Gender Studies. Requirements include a 10 page synthesis paper or detailed outline, annotated bibliography, and public presentation at our biannual capstone ceremony.
Synthesis of the students' graduate coursework; performance of the diversity of outcomes in WSGS; celebration of students' achievements; networking
Outcomes
Synthesis of the students' graduate coursework; performance of the diversity of outcomes in WSGS; celebration of students' achievements; networkingWSGS 605 Master's Study (0 Credit Hours)
Continuing work on completion of the Master's Degree in Women's Studies and Gender Studies.
Interdisciplinary Option: Women & Gender Studies