Institute for Gender and Development Studies

Courses on offer 2021-2022

are linked below

Notes

• Individual courses are open to any student, in any faculty, across Campus.

• Not all courses are offered in each academic year. Consult with your academic advisor at the Institute prior to registering on Banner. 
• A few of our courses are taught at both undergraduate and graduate levels. These are indicated by ***.

IGDS Joint Courses with other Faculties

Introduction to Women’s Studies: Theoretical Concepts and Sources of Knowledge

Level I Semester I
3 Credits
GEND 1103 | AR11C

This course aims to:

• Introduce students to the field and to feminism, which can be defined as a conscious opposition to gender hierarchies;
• Untangle the complex web of oppression and privileges based on race, class, gender and sexual orientation in order to understand their impact on the wider society;
• Celebrate women’s struggles for autonomy and empowerment;
• Examine men’s responses to women’s movements and the ways in which women’s subordination negatively affects men;
• Use all the skills available to us: observation, speaking, reading and listening critically in an effort to work together in an environment of active learning

It is a recommended pre-requisite course for the Minor in Gender Studies and highly recommended for the Minor in Gender and Development Studies.

Feminist Theoretical Frameworks

Level II Semester I
3 Credits
GEND 2203 | AR22C
The course provides students with an enhanced theoretical approach to women’s and gender studies. Feminist Theory attempts not only to describe the present condition of women and men but also to present ways of understanding this and to prescribe methods to change that condition towards the elimination of gender, race, class and sexual hierarchies. Reading a variety of theoretical materials, the class will examine several theoretical approaches to feminism and evaluate each theory’s effectiveness in explaining reality and in facilitating change locally and globally. Students will emerge from this course of study with a comprehension of the many faces of feminism and a better understanding and grasp of their convictions regarding some of today’s most challenging debates. This is a core course for the Minors in Gender Studies and Gender and Development Studies.

Men and Masculinities in the Caribbean

Level II Semester II
3 Credits
GEND 2013 | AR20M
This course aims to develop an awareness of the main issues involved in the study of men and masculinities. Masculinity studies emerged in response to the feminist discourses on women, femininity and gender. There is now a growing and significant body of knowledge both internationally and in the Caribbean. This course will explore approaches to the study of men and masculinities and identify key concepts and issues for in-depth consideration.

Social Media and Gender

Level II / III — Semester I (3 Credits)
GEND 2109
This course explores the role of social media in contemporary Caribbean societies and examines the ways gender informs and is constructed through social media. Social media is defined as a space that relies on mobile and web-based technologies to facilitate the creation, sharing and modification of user-driven information, ideas and images (for example: Facebook, What’s App, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr). The course examines theoretical and empirical positions that have emerged through the study of this highly interactive space, as well as the ways in which activism and in particular cyberfeminism has engaged and used the space. Students will discuss how gender is made salient in multiple contexts, for example in social interaction, construction of intersectional identities, social and cultural organisation and representations of self and other. Using lectures and classroom discussions, the course will also introduce students to the different ways the real and hyperreal environment is negotiated. Assessment activities will require students to evaluate, critique and engage with social media and its implications for evolving feminist practice and projects.

Gender, Violence and Trauma in Discourse

Level III Semester II
3 Credits
GEND 3001
Discourse analysis is a meaningful lens through which to engage with the nature of violent encounters and the traumas which they generate. A substantial theoretical body of work on trauma and discourse has developed since 1980, as well as methodologies for analysis. These theories and methodologies have been found to have meaningful practical applications. We introduce these perspectives and applications to students of literature and language in order that they might recognize and come to terms with the capacity of their disciplines for real life interventions, particularly in relation to the pressing social issue of gender violence.
This course develops students’ understandings of the current theoretical perspectives on trauma and discourse and equips them with the tools to apply these perspectives to a range of primary material associated with gender violence and its traumatic repercussions. The primary material is drawn from literary, media and institutional discourses and personal narratives.

Philosophy of Gender

At Undergraduate Level: 
Level III Semester I
3 Credits
GEND 3501

At Graduate Level
Semester I
4 Credits
GEND 5001 (DIPLOMA)
GEND 6002 (MSc)
GEND 7001 (MPhil)
GEND 8001 (PhD)

This course aims to provide students with tools for critical thinking and analysis and engages in philosophical discussions about the relationships between one’s gender and society. It asks the questions - What kind of society do we want to create? What are we saying about the roles, responsibilities and relationships between men and women in society that make for a more equitable distribution of labour, power and privilege? Why should we aim to build societies in which equality and justice of gender, race and class, are the cornerstones of our civilization? This course will engage students in a feminist critique of western thought and knowledge, equipping them with the tools and concepts to guide, analyse and challenge you to consider the ethical and moral dilemmas abounding in the contemporary world we inhabit. While exposing you to the universal and generic issues raised in all human philosophy, the material of this course and particularly that in the sister course GEND 5002/6003/7002/8002 is grounded in Caribbean reality.
*** This course is taught at both undergraduate and graduate levels. 

Courses with the Faculty of Humanities and Education (FHE)

Department of Literary, Cultural and Communication Studies (FHE)

African Diaspora Women’s Narrative

Level II Semester I
3 Credits
LITS 2107 | GEND 2107 | E21G
Pre-requisite: E10B – Introduction to Prose Fiction
This course entails, through the detailed analysis of selected texts, a cross-cultural study of African, Caribbean and African-American narrative by women.

Caribbean Women Writers

Level II Semester II
3 Credits
LITS 2502 | GEND 2504 | E25M
Pre-requisite: E10B (Introduction to Prose Fiction)
This course analyses the writings of women from various Caribbean territories. The exploration of novels, short fiction, poetry and personal narratives will be complemented by essays by and about Caribbean women. The course begins by exploring the emergence and themes of the Caribbean women writers and includes a module on Indo-Caribbean Women Writers. The literary texts will be studied with reference to their social, political, ethnic and cultural contexts. The course will require close textual reading of the primary material, as well as a comparative approach to the various texts.

African-American Women Writers

Level III Semester I
3 Credits
LITS 3702 | GEND 3704 | E37B
Pre-requisite: E37A (African American Literature)
This course offers an intensive study of the work of four African-American women writers, concentrating on elements of race, class and gender, and attempting to identify the inherent characteristics of this body of literature. It consists of one three-hour seminar per week or, if this is not practicable, one two-hour seminar and one tutorial per week instead.

Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (FHE)

French Caribbean Women Writers

Level II Semester I
3 Credits
FREN 2608 | GEND 2608 | F26H
Pre-requisite: Normal passes in F150: Introduction to Literature in French.
This course provides a critical examination of the narrative techniques and thematic concerns of women writers from the French-speaking Caribbean. This course will focus on the works of Edwidge Danticat, Yannick Lahens, and Gisèle Pineau.

Language, Gender, and Sex

Level II Semester I
3 Credits
LING 2501 | GEND 2503 | L25A
Pre-requisite: LING005 (L10C), LING1001 (L10A) and LING1002 (L10B)
(Strongly preferred but not compulsory)
This course focuses on the relationship between gender as a social phenomenon and language and investigates some of the theoretical frameworks through which it has been studied, especially during the last three decades. It also examines the contexts in which these frameworks were originally generated. Linguistic gender is also considered to assess how far it relates to socio-cultural bias in specific communities.
Open to Social Science Students.

Women in Hispanic Literature

Level II Semester I
3 Credits
SPAN 2604 | GEND 2604 | S26D
Pre-requisite:
Spanish Language (S15A)
Introduction to Spanish Literature - Prose, Poetry, Drama (S160)
This course aims to encourage students to read critically, selected writings from within and from outside the canon and to contrast this with the image of women traditionally offered in Latin American Literature. The course will examine the work of female writers in the light of feminist concerns in relation to traditional Latin American “machismo”, and more generally, to social and political issues.

Film Programme

Cinema and Gender

Level II Semester II
3 Credits
FILM 2101 | GEND 2104
This course focuses on the development of the gendered ‘gaze’. While the films analysed in this course will be drawn from international cinema, the course will pay particular attention to the portrayal of masculinity and femininity in popular international films on the Caribbean as well as those made in the Caribbean by Caribbean filmmakers. Cinema in this course also incorporates the media of television. Students will be encouraged to explore issues both through the textual analysis of individual films and through consideration of wider feminist debates concerning the production and consumption of popular cultural forms. Students will be expected to view films, read and present the ideas from the course literature, learn to do gendered reviews of films and produce a short visual narrative that explores a problematic of gender. This course will also satisfy a requirement for Gender and Development majors and minors.

Department of History

Women and Gender in the History of the English-Speaking Caribbean

LeveI III Semester I
3 Credits
HIST 3003 | GEND 3003 | H30C
Pre-requisite: Any level II course in Caribbean History (except FD11A/FD11B)
Students must have completed at least one level II course in Caribbean History in order to be eligible for this course. The course covers the problems, issues and theoretical aspects of women, gender and history; gender and women’s historical experience in the Caribbean during the era of slavery and colonization (1490-1830s); Afro-Caribbean women after slavery; the historical experience of Indo-Caribbean women and of minority women in the period 1838-1918; women in labour and political struggles, 1918-1970s; employment, demography, family structures, migration in the 20th century; biographical case studies e.g. Mary Seacole, Audrey Jeffers, Edna Manley, Elma Francois, Amy Bailey, Phyllis Shand Alfrey, Nita Barrow, Eugenia Charles.

Womanism, Gender and Femininity in Africa before the 20th Century

Level III — Semester II
3 credits
HIST 3067
Pre-requisites: At least one of the following: Any Level II History course; HIST 1302, HIST 1303; GEND 1103; GEND 2203; GEND 3031
This seminar course combines a thematic and chronological structure. It centres the African “woman” in major themes in African history from the earliest hominids, some five million years ago, to the European partitioning and scramble for Africa at the close of the nineteenth century. The course examines these themes from contemporary African-gendered lenses. It begins by interrogating the episteme of a distinctive “Africana womansim.” It seeks to apply this episteme to an analysis of the long history of Africa from the birthing of humans, the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Ethiopia, and later Iron Age Civilizations, to the Islamising and Atlanticising of the continent.

Courses with the Faculty of Social Sciences

Department of Behavioural Sciences

Women and Work in the Global Economy

Level II Semester II
3 Credits
SOCI 2025 | GEND 2025
Pre-requisite: none
This course introduces students to the study of women, work and social change in developing countries, focusing on women workers in labour-intensive manufacturing jobs, issues related to women’s work in the Caribbean in relation to the changing global trade environment, and the situation of migrant workers and women engaged in other formal and informal sectors of the global economy.

Gender and Development with Reference to Caribbean Society

Level III Semester I
3 Credits
SOCI 3039 | GEND 3039
Pre-requisite: none
Prior Gender course or Development course is recommended. This course examines the emergence of the field of women and gender and development since its emergence in the 1970s, its agenda and theoretical and policy debates. The feminist critique of ‘development’ is examined as well as the social, political and economic aspects of gender relations and how they interface with processes of development. The course also provides an introduction to tools for gender analysis which are used for planning and to influence policy decisions.

Sex, Gender and Society: Sociological Perspectives

Level III — Semester II 
3 Credits
GEND 3031 | SOCI 3031
Pre-requisites: none
The course critically examines the sociological tradition and feminism. It reviews the biological, anthropological and social psychological approaches to the origins of sex differences and analyses the changes in the sexual division of labour in human history. The course attempts to examine the significance of sex, gender and sexuality in controlling and ordering society.

Gender, Ethnicity and Class: Issues of Identity, Nation and Citizenship***

At Undergraduate Level
Level III Semester II
3 Credits
SOCI 3038 | GEND 3038
Pre-requisites: none

At Graduate Level
Semester II
4 Credits
SOCI 5001 (DIPLOMA)
SOCI 6101 (MSc)
SOCI 7001 (MPhil)
SOCI 8001 (PhD)

This course seeks to raise the level of discourse on ‘race’ and ethnic relations in our societies and establish the centrality of gender to issues of ‘race’, ethnicity and culture. At the end of this course the student should be more familiar with the historical background to contemporary relations and have a better understanding of the ways in which women and men are differently located within the discourse on race and class in the region. It is hoped that this course will contribute to a more informed approach to inter-ethnic and gender relations in the region. This course is intended for senior undergraduates and should be open to students from a range of faculties. Some knowledge of sociology would be an asset.
This course is taught at both undergraduate and graduate levels. 

Social Policy and Administration III

Level III Semester II
3 Credits
SOCI 73020 
SY35C
Pre-requisiteS: SY13E (Introduction to Sociology I) and SY13F (Introduction to Sociology II) or SW17A and SW17B
Sub-theme: Social Planning
This course is designed to empower social development workers to actively improve policy and planning skills. Course content covers social planning practice and current trends as gender planning, community care, sustainable development; and technical skills such as the preparation of appraisals and evaluations.

Courses with the Faculty of Food and Agriculture (FFA)

Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension (FFA)

Gender Issues in Agriculture

Level III Semester I
3 Credits
AGEX 3003 | GEND 3004 | AX39A
This is an elective course which seeks to develop an awareness of and stimulate interest in research into the gender issues that influence agricultural development. It also seeks to introduce students to gender issues related to the continued development of agriculture within the tropical agricultural environment; to develop analytical skills in the conduct of gender analyses among families; to develop critical thinking in the area of gender roles, relations and functions and to understand new feminist scholarship and concepts of masculinity. No major understanding of agricultural specialist disciplines is necessary.

Courses with the Faculty of Science and Technology

Department of Life Sciences (FST)

Gender and Science

Level II Semester II
4 Credits
GENS 3260 | GEND 3260 | NS21B
Prerequisite: Successful completion of level I credits.
This course aims to give breadth to the narrow range of disciplines/perspectives to which students majoring in Science are currently exposed. They would then be better able to situate their own discipline in the context of other disciplines and in society as a whole. Through a critical analysis of selected major papers on Gender and Scientific Inquiry published from the 1980s to the present, students will be exposed to the History and Philosophy of Science beginning from the 16th Century (Bacon and Descartes) and will be able to explore the different ways in which prevailing gender ideology (one of many analytical tools) has influenced the form, content and production of scientific knowledge in various historical periods. Attempts will be made to situate the materials in a Caribbean (colonial and post-colonial context).