HIST 168 - Sex, Love, and Gender in History

This introductory course will use a global/comparative approach to introduce students to the ways that historians think about sex, love, and gender. We will explore themes such as sex and war, the role of the state in shaping people’s intimate lives, the intersections between gender, race, and social class, changing courtship practices, and the ways that the politics of sex and gender shaped the evolution of empires and nations. Students will engage with a wide variety of historical sources, including memoirs, poems, novels, art, film, and photography and will engage with a range of theoretical approaches to thinking about sex and gender. This course will emphasize critical reading skills and will also introduce students to the basic tenets of historical research and writing. We will discover together how archives work and, as a final project, students will explore the collections at the Minnesota Historical Society and develop their own individual research projects on the theme of “Sex, Love, and Gender in Global Minnesota.” Meets the global and/or comparative history requirement, and can count towards “Gender,” or “Global/Comparative” fields. Offered occasionally. (4 Credits)