Course and Professor Recommendations

GWSS 272: Intro to Gender and Fandom – “As someone who casually engages in various fandoms, it intrigued me that there were people in academia actually studying it. I took the class because I was curious and ended up loving it, and now have a very deep appreciation for fandom and fan labor.”

GWSS 374: Intro to Transgender Studies – “Maybe I’m biased because I’m a trans person recommending people take trans studies, but I appreciated dedicating an entire quarter to not just defining what a trans person is, but rather the lived material and social realities of trans people and how larger systems serve to help (but mostly hinder) trans livelihoods and life chances.”

“I’d also recommend people look at special topics classes in other departments! I took a good majority of my upper division electives outside of the department – particularly in HCDE and Informatics. Certain quarters are hit or miss, but if the GWSS offerings aren’t quite up your alley, special topics classes in other departments are definitely worth checking out (and you’ll bring an interesting perspective to those classes!)”

( HCDE = Human Centered Design & Engineering )

“As for professors, Dr. Lee. She’s one of the smartest and most articulate people I’ve ever met. Her classes are difficult and a lot of work, but rewarding and thought-provoking. She’s the first professor I ever talked to one-on-one at UW, and the first one that I felt actually cared about me not only as a student in a class for a grade, but as a person.”

I agree with Faith when she says, “There are a ton of classes that I loved and I don’t want to exclude any” but if she were to list some off, she would say:

I enjoyed taking Intro to GWSS, as it was a primer course that gave us the terms and naming of multiple systems of oppression. I’ve taken Gender and Pop Culture and I enjoyed criticizing what we consumed and are exposed to from mass media and how it affects our worldviews. It perpetuates what we think is “normal” and we accept what we are exposed to without questioning it because typically the stereotypes we see in media are depicted as jokes. Sex, Gender, and Disability; Feminist Indigenous Studies, GWSS and Democracy; Intro to Intersectionality; Feminist Theories and Methods are the other few courses that come to mind that I recommend anyone to take.

Feminist Indigenous Studies with Professor Fabian Romero, it was the second class I took where we delved into a discourse of Indigenous rights and sovereignty. Many Native women and Two-Spirit folk have been excluded within feminist history, and are continued to be erased and murdered today. How can we talk about fighting for the rights of all people when we ignore Indigenous bodies that have resided on these lands since time immemorial? This was an eye-opening class and I suggest any future GWSS and other majors enroll in this course.

My favorite course was probably Black Feminist Geographies. If you have the opportunity to take this, definitely do. It changed the way I understand history, geography, and resistance.

Disabilities and Sexuality with Joanne Woiak (truly any class with Joanne is remarkable)

Indigenous Feminisms ( I know Faith already recommended this one, but truly it is a must take)

Latina/Chicana Feminisms with Michelle Habell-Pallán

Asian-American Pacific Islander Women with Velma Veloria

Any class with Kemi Adeyemi – Professor Adeyemi’s classes have the most thought provoking discussions