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Courses for Fall 2025

Title Instructor Location Time All taxonomy terms Description Section Description Cross Listings Fulfills Registration Notes Syllabus Syllabus URL Course Syllabus URL
GSWS 0002-401 Gender and Society Javier Samper Vendrell TR 12:00 PM-12:59 PM This course will introduce students to the ways in which sex, gender, and sexuality mark our bodies, influence our perceptions of self and others, organize families and work like, delimit opportunities for individuals and groups of people, as well as impact the terms of local and transnational economic exchange. We will explore the ways in which sex, gender, and sexuality work with other markers of difference and social status such as race, age, nationality, and ability to further demarcate possibilities, freedoms, choices, and opportunities available to people. ENGL0159401 Society sector (all classes) https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202530&c=GSWS0002401
GSWS 0003-401 Introduction to Sexuality Studies and Queer Theory Angelina E Eimannsberger MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This course will introduce students to the historical and intellectual forces that led to the emergence of queer theory as a distinct field, as well as to recent and ongoing debates about gender, sexuality, embodiment, race, privacy, global power, and social norms. We will begin by tracing queer theory's conceptual heritage and prehistory in psychoanalysis, deconstruction and poststructuralism, the history of sexuality, gay and lesbian studies, woman-of-color feminism, the feminist sex wars, and the AIDS crisis. We will then study the key terms and concepts of the foundational queer work of the 1990s and early 2000s. Finally, we will turn to the new questions and issues that queer theory has addressed in roughly the past decade. Students will write several short papers. COML0030401, ENGL0160401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202530&c=GSWS0003401
GSWS 0023-401 Gender and Sexuality in US Popular Culture Melissa E Sanchez MW 12:00 PM-12:59 PM This introduction to literary study examines a compelling literary theme related to questions of gender and sexuality. The theme's function within specific historical contexts, within literary history generally, and within contemporary culture, will all be emphasized. In presenting a range of materials and perspectives, this course is an ideal introduction to literary study. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. ENGL0023401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)
GSWS 0500-001 Introduction to Disability Studies W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This first year seminar fuses disability studies, queer theory, Black feminist theory, visuality studies, film theory, and disabled artistic practices. Centering the praxis of disability justice, this class asks students to think about practice and theory as an intertwined discipline. Students will study, write, and create works that looking towards models of production that center community based and interdependent relationality. Some areas that this course covers includes but is not limited to disability studies vs. crip theory, the history and legacy of AIDS epidemic, disability justice and mutual aid organizing, multi sensorial artistic practice, as well as tending to questions of labor, pain, excess, and debilitation. Disability studies has a long and complicated history of centering whiteness, domesticity, and the West in its models of rights-based advocacy. This class turns away from the white independent disabled superstar and towards the teachings of crip of color critique and disability justice to think beyond the terms and conditions that have been rectified as productive models in uplifting the “good disabled person.” We will use texts and teachings from Sins Invalid, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha, Octavia Butler, Audre Lorde, Park McArthur, Constantina Zavitsanos, Lochlann Jain, LaMarr Jurelle Bruce, Mel Chen, Kai Cheng Thom, and Sami Schalk to guide us in our efforts. Students will also engage with transformative justice and anti-carceral models of thought through Mia Mingus’s Care Pods Activity and a training from Health Justice Commons.
GSWS 0511-401 Global Inequalities: A Comparative History of Caste and Race. Ketaki Umesh Jaywant TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM Can we deploy a comparative lens to understand the categories of caste and race better? Does their juxtaposition illuminate new facets of these two structures of ‘global inequalities’? The course seeks to explore these questions by systematically studying how both caste and racial institutions, structures, and identities were historically produced, transformed, and challenged through their global circulation from the nineteenth-century to the present. Caste and race have been old co-travelers, and their various points of intersection can be traced at least to the nineteenth century. And so, in this course we will embark upon a historical adventure, one replete with stories of violence, political intrigue, intense emotions, as also episodes of incandescent resistance. Together, we will trace the genealogy of how modern categories of ‘caste’ and ‘race’ were systematically composed by colonial knowledge production, orientalist writings, and utilitarian discourse, both in Europe and the colonies. While colonialism and the global hegemony of European modernity were crucial to the co-constitution and the circulation of caste and race, anti-caste and anti-race politics too have historically brought a unique comparative lens to these two categories. And so, this course will also include a close analysis of critical works on caste and race by activists and intellectuals from the nineteenth century to the present from all over the world. AFRC0511401, SAST0511401, SOCI0511401 Society sector (all classes)
GSWS 0527-401 The Aftermath of Slavery: Language, Storytelling, Experimentation Zita C Nunes W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This seminar explores how writers in the African Diaspora have engaged, challenged, and experimented with English and its literary forms to write about slavery. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. AFRC0527401, COML0527401, ENGL0527401, LALS0527401
GSWS 0800-401 Men & Masculinities in America Joel Mittleman MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Are men okay? It’s a question on many peoples’ minds these days. Men still earn more than women and dominate the leadership of our corporations and governments. And yet, by many measures, boys and men are struggling. In this course, we will dig into the data to examine the changing experiences of men in the labor market, the education system and in society more broadly. To make sense of these trends, we will explore various theoretical perspectives on the meaning of masculinity, critically examining the idea that masculinity is “in crisis.” Through close reading, spirited discussion and independent research, students will develop evidence-based perspectives on the social forces shaping masculinity and gender inequality today. SOCI0800401 Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only)
GSWS 1011-401 The Family Pilar Gonalons-Pons MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM Family life is deeply personal but at the same time is dramatically impacted by social forces outside of the family. In this course we will examine how families are organized along the lines of gender, sexuality, social class, and race and how these affect family life. We will consider how family life is continually changing while at the same time traditional gender roles persist. For example, how "greedy" workplaces, which require long work hours, create work-family conflicts for mothers and fathers. We will also examine diverse family forms including single-parent families, blended families, families headed by same-gender parents, and families headed by gender non-conforming parents. The lectures will also examine how economic inequality shapes family life. Students will have the opportunity to apply key concepts to daily life. SOCI1010401 Society sector (all classes)
GSWS 1025-401 Shakespeare Now Abdulhamit Arvas TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This course explores new trends, methods, and perspectives in Shakespearean criticism and adaptations. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. COML1026401, ENGL1025401, THAR1225401
GSWS 1027-401 Sex and Representation Asaf Yossef Roth MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This course explores literature that resists normative categories of gender and sexuality. By focusing on figures writing from the margins, we will explore how radical approaches to narrative form and subject-matter invite us to think in new ways about desire and identity. We will read texts that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, hybridizing the genres of poetry, drama, and autobiography to produce new forms of expression, such as the graphic novel, auto-fiction, and prose poetry. From Viriginia Woolf's gender-bending epic, Orlando, to Tony Kushner's Angels in America, this course traces how non-normative desire is produced and policed by social and literary contexts - and how those contexts can be re-imagined and transformed. CIMS1027401, COML1027401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202530&c=GSWS1027401
GSWS 1041-401 Jane Austen Remix Barri Joyce Gold TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This course offers an introduction to the literature of the Romantic period (ca. 1770-1830). Some versions of this course will incorporate European romantic writers, while others will focus exclusively on Anglo-American romanticism, and survey authors such as Austen, Blake, Brockden Brown, Byron, Coleridge, Emerson, Irving, Keats, Radcliffe, Scott, Shelley, and Wordsworth. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. ENGL1040401
GSWS 1100-401 Women in Jewish Literature Kathryn Hellerstein TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM "Jewish woman, who knows your life? In darkness you have come, in darkness do you go." J. L. Gordon (1890). This course will bring into the light the long tradition of women as readers, writers, and subjects in Jewish literature. All texts will be in translation from Yiddish and Hebrew, or in English. Through a variety of genres -- devotional literature, memoir, fiction, and poetry -- we will study women's roles and selves, the relations of women and men, and the interaction between Jewish texts and women's lives. The legacy of women in Yiddish devotional literature will serve as background for our reading of modern Jewish fiction and poetry from the past century. The course is divided into five segments. The first presents a case study of the Matriarchs Rachel and Leah, as they are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible, in rabbinic commentary, in pre-modern prayers, and in modern poems. We then examine a modern novel that recasts the story of Dinah, Leah's daughter. Next we turn to the seventeenth century Glikl of Hamel, the first Jewish woman memoirist. The third segment focuses on devotional literature for and by women. In the fourth segment, we read modern women poets in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. The course concludes with a fifth segment on fiction written by women in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. GRMN1100401, JWST1100401, MELC0375401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)
GSWS 1190-401 Introduction to Postcolonial Literature Sara Kazmi MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM English is a global language with a distinctly imperial history, and this course serves as an essential introduction to literary works produced in or about the former European colonies. The focus will be poetry, film, fiction and non fiction and at least two geographic areas spanning the Americas, South Asia, the Caribbean and Africa as they reflect the impact of colonial rule on the cultural representations of identity, nationalism, race, class and gender. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. AFRC1190401, CIMS1190401, COML1190401, ENGL1190401, SAST1190401
GSWS 1361-401 Sex Matters: Politics of Sex in the Modern Middle East Secil Yilmaz MW 8:30 AM-9:59 AM The course concentrates on the history of sexuality as it informed and shaped political and social change in the Middle East, and vice versa, in an engagement with global historical contexts. What does sexuality have to do with power, political rule, and mass movements in the modern Middle East? What can the study of sexuality and body politics teach us about colonialism and state formation over centuries of imperial rules and colonial regimes, as well as in the contemporary context of neoliberal capitalism? What is the relationship between studying LGBTQIA+ movements alongside with feminism and the use of sex and sexuality as an analytical category? This course will investigate selected themes such as modernity, nationalism, and colonization and connect them to harem lives, politics of veiling/unveiling, reproductive rights, race, polygamy, masculinity, and early modern concepts of same-sex desire in connection with modern queer thought and activism to ask questions about the preconceived notions about "Middle Eastern sexualities." The course focuses on discussing on some of the many roles that sex and gender politics have played in social and political change in the Middle East, while thinking about gender, history, and society comparatively and transnationally. HIST1361401
GSWS 1411-401 Queer Chinas: Sexuality and Politics in the Sinophone World Teemu Ruskola T 3:30 PM-6:29 PM This class examines queer phenomena in and around China, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the queer Sinophone world more generally. Beyond seeking to understand sexual subcultures and sites of queer intimacies on their own terms, the course examines their relationship to political economy and geopolitics. In addition to filmic and literary texts, the course includes readings that are theoretical, anthropological, sociological, and comparative. While the focus is largely on modern China, the class also attends to historical reference points both inside and outside the Sinophone world. From a macro perspective, this course examines China’s place in discourses of development, focusing on the role of desire in constituting the sexual and political subject of modernity. The overall goal of this class is to develop alternative frameworks for understanding the relationship between sexuality and politics. The course does not require specialized knowledge of China. EALC1411401
GSWS 1427-401 Wild Things: Children’s Literature and the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child Max C Cavitch TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course, framed as a psychoanalytic study of the child, focuses on English-language children’s literature from the 19th Century to the present. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. COML1427401, ENGL1427401
GSWS 1490-001 Law and Social Policy on Sexuality and Reproduction Carol E Tracy M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course will examine how statutory law, court decisions and other forms of social policy encourage or discourage various forms of sexuality, reproduction and parenting. Such issues as contraception, abortion, gay and lesbian rights, reproductive technology, family violence, and welfare and family policies will be covered.
GSWS 1550-301 Holding Space and Making Place: Creating Community in West Philadelphia Schools Gwendolyn A Beetham TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM In this ABCS course, students will work with faculty and OurSpace, a student organization affiliated with the Netter Center, to create curriculum and programming for Gender & Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) in University Assisted Community Schools (UACS) in West Philadelphia. The objective of the programming is to foster consistent and accessible spaces for youth to express themselves, engage with other students, learn, and thrive. For Penn students, this course offers an opportunity to genuinely engage with youth in the West Philadelphia community; engagement in the context of this course is informed by social justice and restorative justice values, which prioritize bidirectional relationships, accountability, agency, and inclusivity. Previous experience with GSWS courses is helpful, but not necessary. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202530&c=GSWS1550301
GSWS 1680-401 Sex and Socialism Angelina E Eimannsberger CANCELED This seminar examines classic and current scholarship and literature on gender and sexuality in contemporary Eastern Europe, and examines the dialogue and interchange of ideas between East and West. Although the scholarly and creative works will primarily investigate the changing status of women during the last three decades, the course will also look at changing constructions of masculinity and LGBT movements and communities in the former communist bloc. Topics will include: the woman question before 1989; gender and emerging nationalisms; visual representations in television and film; social movements; work; romance and intimacy; spirituality; and investigations into the constructed concepts of "freedom" and "human rights." ANTH1688401, REES1680401, SOCI2972401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202530&c=GSWS1680401
GSWS 2130-401 Modern Iran and the West Through the Lens of Fiction Fatemeh Shams Esmaeili R 3:30 PM-6:29 PM This undergraduate level course explores key tropes and themes of Iranian modernity through a close reading of Persian novel, short story, travelogue, and memoir. Various literary genres from social realism, to surrealism, magic realism, naturalism, and absurd literature will be introduced with specific reference to Iran's literature and in light of literary theory of novel. This course does not require any prior knowledge of Persian language and literature. Throughout the course, we will be particularly concerned with the relationship between Persian fiction and the West. We will investigate this curious relationship through themes of gender, religion, politics, and war. COML2017401, MELC1710401, MELC5720401
GSWS 2310-401 Women's Work Emily D. Steinlight TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This advanced seminar focuses on literary, cultural, and political expressions of gender and sexuality. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. AFRC2310401, COML2310401, ENGL2310401
GSWS 2522-401 Modern Italian Culture: Italian American Experience Julia Heim TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM Please check the website for a current course description at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/courses CIMS2522401, ITAL2522401
GSWS 2537-401 Gender and Health Beth Linker W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM Women's health is a constant refrain of modern life, prompting impassioned debates that speak to the fundamental nature of our society. Women's bodies are the tableaux across which politicians, physicians, healthcare professional, activists, and women themselves dispute issues as wide-ranging as individual versus collective rights, the legitimacy of scientific and medical knowledge, the role of the government in healthcare, inequalities of care, and the value of experiential knowledge, among many others. Understanding the history of these questions is crucial for informed engagement with contemporary issues. HSOC2537401
GSWS 2601-401 Women and the Making of Modern South Asia Ramya Sreenivasan MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course on women in South Asian history has four objectives - 1. To acquaint ourselves with the historiography on South Asian women. 2. To gain an understanding of evolving institutions and practices shaping women's lives, such as the family, law and religious traditions. 3. To understand the impact of historical processes - the formation and breakdown of empire, colonialism, nationalism and decolonization - upon South Asian women between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. 4. To become familiar with some of the significant texts written about and by women in this period. We will read a wide variety of primary sources including a Mughal princess' account, devotional verse authored by women, conduct books, tracts, autobiographies and novels. HIST3500401, SAST2260401
GSWS 2800-401 "In the Dark We Can All Be Free": Black Queer, Feminist & Trans Art(s) of Abolition Che Gossett TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM If the afterlife of slavery, as Saidiya Hartman argues, is an aesthetic problem, what then is the relationship between abolition and aesthetics? How has the ongoing project of abolition been an aesthetic enterprise, and how does art shape its aims and horizon -- historically, presently and in afro-futuristic imaginary of the to come? How might the analytics of black studies, feminist theory, and trans studies, in their co-implicacy and entanglement, prompt a rethinking of aesthetics -- both its limits and possibilities? In this course we will consider the art(s) of the Black radical tradition, trans art, queer art and feminist art and theory, alongside a grounding in aesthetic theory, and explore the work of a constellation of scholars in Black studies, art history and artists including Saidiya Hartman, Laura Harris, Fred Moten, Huey Copeland, American Artists, fields harrington, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Tourmaline, Juliana Huxtable, Kiyan Williams, Simone Leigh, Alvin Baltrop, Tina Campt, (and more) to consider how abolition is activated in contemporary Black queer, trans and feminist visual art. AFRC2800401, ARTH3989401
GSWS 3070-401 Pier Paolo Pasolini : Aesthetics, Politics, Sexuality Filippo Trentin T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Pier Paolo Pasolini—poet, filmmaker, and radical intellectual—created some of the most provocative and influential films of the 20th century, blending insights from Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxism and religious mysticism. This course, marking the 50th anniversary of Pasolini’s death, explores his groundbreaking cinematic work in dialogue with the ideological struggles and artistic movements of the 20th century. We will trace Pasolini’s evolution from his representation of the Rome’s peripheries in Accattone (1961) through his mythological (Oedipus Rex, 1967; Medea, 1969) and experimental works (Teorema, 1968), culminating in his controversial Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975). In addition to his feature films, we will examine his documentary work, including Notes for an African Orestes (1970) and Love Meetings (1964), which offer key insights into his views on sexuality, political struggle, and the postcolonial world. At the core of our exploration will be Pasolini’s radical vision of sexuality and desire, which challenged social norms while positioning him within a broader network of queer and avant-garde filmmakers such as Agnès Varda, Andy Warhol, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, among others. Students will engage with his work through key theoretical frameworks—Gramsci, Freud, Lacan, Barthes—alongside contemporary approaches from queer theory, critical race studies, and ecocriticism. We will also examine his enduring influence on radical philosophy and feminist film criticism in the works of Teresa de Lauretis, Judith Mayne, Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Zizek. This course is taught in English; no prior knowledge of Italian cinema or language is required. CIMS3070401, CIMS6070401, GSWS6070401, ITAL3070401, ITAL6070401
GSWS 3104-401 Poetry Lab Syd Zolf W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM A creative writing workshop in which students will learn to experiment and deepen their writing practice using the tools of poetry. To learn more about this course, visit the Creative Writing Program at https://creative.writing.upenn.edu. ENGL3104401
GSWS 3451-401 Black Popular Culture Jasmine Johnson TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course explores theories, debates, and frameworks in African American popular culture. Drawing on Africana, Gender and Sexuality, Communications and Performance Studies, it examines histories of Black representation across a number of performance forms. Television, film, dance, theater, music and more will be explored to interrogate the ways blackness has been defined, framed, and disseminated. What are the micro-politics through which racial difference is produced? How have Black people redefined and wrestled with questions of authenticity and "the real"? What are the capacities and the limits of popular culture to both render and shape Black life? In examining blackness through a number of performance mediums, we will consider the creative labor that Black people produce, and the processes of racialization produced through Black bodies. AFRC3451401, COMM3451401
GSWS 3559-401 Gender and Sexuality in Japan Ayako Kano M 12:00 PM-2:59 PM If you have ever wondered about the following questions, then this is the right course for you: Is Japan a hyper-feminine nation of smiling geisha and obedient wives? Is it a hyper-masculine nation of samurai and economic warriors? Is it true that Japanese wives control the household? Is it true that Japanese men suffer from over-dependence on their mothers? What do young Japanese women and young men worry about? What does the government think about the future of Japanese women and men? Assuming that expressions of gender and sexuality are deeply influenced by cultural and social factors, and that they also show profound differences regionally and historically, this course examines a variety of texts--historical, biographical, autobiographical, fictional, non-fictional, visual, cinematic, analytical, theoretical--in order to better understand the complexity of any attempts to answer the above questions. EALC3559401, EALC7559401
GSWS 3675-401 Inner Outer Space Travel Writing: A Creative Writing Workshop Ricardo Bracho R 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Inner Outer Space Travel Writing is a creative writing workshop focused on writing work within the science fiction/speculative fiction/alternative futurities, science/land/travel writing, and creative-critical nonfiction traditions. Students will work within a variety of genres, with an emphasis on the essay, the short story, screen/tele-play, play, blog and performance. Students will read recommended texts from within their particular interests, and the course will culminate in both a public performance and dissemination/publication via another media platform (zine, website, podcast, etc). All levels of experience, from none/first-time writer to published writers, are encouraged to register for the course. ENGL3675401, LALS3675401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202530&c=GSWS3675401
GSWS 4203-401 Women and the Civil Rights Movement Marcia Chatelain CANCELED This advanced undergraduate course examines women’s role in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, with an emphasis on women’s activism, impact, and gender dynamics in social movements. This course will use first-hand narratives as well as monographs to provide an overview of women’s experiences in major organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Through writing assignments, students will have an opportunity to strengthen their expository writing, as well as their primary and secondary research skills. AFRC4203401, HIST4103401
GSWS 5180-401 Nursing and the Gendering of Health Care in the United States and Internationally, 1860-2000 Andre A Rosario T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course examines changing ideas about the nature of health and illness; changing forms of health care delivery; changing experiences of women as providers and patients; changing role expectations and realities for nurses; changing midwifery practice; and changing segmentation of the health care labor market by gender, class and race. It takes a gender perspective on all topics considered in the course. A comparative approach is used as national and international literature is considered. This focus is presented as one way of understanding the complex interrelationships among gender, class, and race in health care systems of the United States and countries abroad. NURS5180401
GSWS 5905-401 Freud and After Max C Cavitch T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM Psychoanalysis remains the most powerful, relentlessly tested and continuously revised and refined account of human selfhood, motivation, behavior, and intersubjectivity. Despite various attempts to dismiss or domesticate its most radical insights, its conceptions of the person and the interpersonal have continued to be woven into the very fabric of critical theory, from the Frankfurt School to postmodern and contemporary critical schools and their derivatives (e.g., affect studies, critical race theory, disability studies, animal studies, etc.). Yet within the humanities and social sciences, psychoanalysis is commonly taught and applied as little more than a fixed canon of works from the early-to-mid-twentieth century—chiefly, works by Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein, D. W. Winnicott, and Jacques Lacan. Essential though their ideas remain, they can hardly be understood, much less applied in the present without an understanding of the ways in which they’ve been profoundly changed: worked through and beyond by subsequent generations of psychoanalytic thinkers and practitioners. This course offers graduate students (and, by permission, advanced undergraduates in the Psychoanalytic Studies Minor) an opportunity to “rebegin” (in Laura Riding Jackson’s sense) their study of psychoanalytic history, theory, and practice, from Freud to the present—and, from the vantage of the present, to rediscover psychoanalysis as a dynamic contemporary discipline and model for critical thinking. In addition to regular participation in class discussion, requirements will include some response papers, an in-class presentation, and an argument-driven essay. For more information, please visit: https://www.english.upenn.edu/courses/graduate. COML5903401, ENGL5905401
GSWS 6070-401 Pier Paolo Pasolini: Aesthetics, Politics, Sexuality Filippo Trentin T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Pier Paolo Pasolini—poet, filmmaker, and radical intellectual—created some of the most provocative and influential films of the 20th century, blending insights from Freudian psychoanalysis, Marxism and religious mysticism. This course, marking the 50th anniversary of Pasolini’s death, explores his groundbreaking cinematic work in dialogue with the ideological struggles and artistic movements of the 20th century. We will trace Pasolini’s evolution from his representation of the Rome’s peripheries in Accattone (1961) through his mythological (Oedipus Rex, 1967; Medea, 1969) and experimental works (Teorema, 1968), culminating in his controversial Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975). In addition to his feature films, we will examine his documentary work, including Notes for an African Orestes (1970) and Love Meetings (1964), which offer key insights into his views on sexuality, political struggle, and the postcolonial world. At the core of our exploration will be Pasolini’s radical vision of sexuality and desire, which challenged social norms while positioning him within a broader network of queer and avant-garde filmmakers such as Agnès Varda, Andy Warhol, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, among others. Students will engage with his work through key theoretical frameworks—Gramsci, Freud, Lacan, Barthes—alongside contemporary approaches from queer theory, critical race studies, and ecocriticism. We will also examine his enduring influence on radical philosophy and feminist film criticism in the works of Teresa de Lauretis, Judith Mayne, Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Zizek. This course is taught in English; no prior knowledge of Italian cinema or language is required. CIMS3070401, CIMS6070401, GSWS3070401, ITAL3070401, ITAL6070401
GSWS 9003-640 Storytelling in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Kathryn Watterson W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM This creative writing workshop will focus on how to write a good story whether it's "true" or not. By using both nonfiction and fiction writing techniques, students will ask: What kind of truth are you looking to find? What is visible? What matters that is invisible? What is most important to you and why? AFRC9003640, ENGL9003640, MLA5003640, URBS9003640