Georgetown University is offering Fall 2023 graduate courses that incorporate a gender lens across a wide range of sectors, regions, and themes. If you’ve been following Russia’s year-long war in Ukraine, protests in Iran, or Afghanistan’s education crisis and are interested in learning more about global affairs and gender analysis, read more below on our course offerings. We have included courses on everything from peacebuilding and gender-sensitive evaluation to inclusive international security and dimensions of vulnerabilities. You can use this blog post as a resource for making your course selections for the upcoming semester.
Fall 2023 Graduate Courses
These graduate classes count towards the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) Graduate Certificate in Gender, Peace and Security.
Gender, International Security and Development (MSFS-5600 CRN:40002)
Professor: S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana
Time: Monday, 2:00-4:30 pm
This class contextualizes gender issues and asks the question: how would we think about international peace, security, development approaches, and design intervention strategies if gender was treated a central consideration in international affairs and peacebuilding programming? To answer this question, the class will explore both conceptual considerations related to gender and its practical application. This is a required course for the Gender, Peace and Security certificate.
Gender and Security Toolbox (GOVT-5636 CRN: 38894; MSFS-7610 CRN: 38227)
Professor: Aapta Garg
Time: Tuesday 5:00-7:30 pm
This advanced seminar will teach you concrete skills for ensuring gender is considered in peacebuilding, security, and development fields. The course will explore critical skills – from gender mainstreaming and gender analysis to gender-sensitive budgeting, research, monitoring & evaluation, and advocacy. The course will enable students to capably serve as gender focal points and learn how practitioners have successfully advanced gender in their diplomacy, development, and defense work. This is a required course for the Gender, Peace and Security certificate.
Strategizing Gender Justice (MSFS-6630 CRN: 44167; PPOL-6364 CRN: 43392)
Professor: Karine Lepillez
Time: Friday, 9:30 am-12:00 pm
This course explores strategies for change. The class will examine the formal and informal structures and rules that influence gender justice efforts in US and international institutions, introducing students to feminist governance theories and frameworks and applying this knowledge to case studies of US gender policy change efforts.
Crises and Identity (MSFS-6620 CRN: 44194)
Professor: Carla Koppell
Time: Wednesday, 5:00 pm-7:30 pm
This new 1.5 credit course will use reading, discussion, and analysis to look at under-explored dimensions of the war in Ukraine and other global conflicts; the pro-democracy movements in Iran and elsewhere; the COVID-19 pandemic and other global health challenges; the climate crisis; and rising inequality and its consequences. Students will consider whether, why and how international security and stability are shaped in unexpected ways by gender inequality, racial inequity, and other dimensions of marginalization and vulnerability.
Forgotten Women in Mass Crimes (JCIV-4500 CRN: 44086; MSFS-6610 CRN: 43275)
Professors: Patrick Desbois, Andrej Umansky
Time: Tuesday, 6:30 pm-9 pm
Why is violence against women and girls are so frequently forgotten or “silenced” in mass crimes and genocide? Why are acts of violence against women and girls so frequently obliterated from the Holocaust narrative, the Roma genocide narrative, and Guatemala’s mass violence history? From ISIS’ terrorist narrative before the courts of law? From news emerging from Ukraine? Do ground investigations have the capacity to reveal the crimes against women, or are they choosing not to? Students will learn how to conduct forensic investigations of violence against women in the scope of genocide and mass crimes and learn from field investigations of Fr. Patrick Desbois and his team.
Hunter Gatherer Security (SEST-6700 CRN: 41885)
Professor: Gina Bennett
Time: Thursday, 5:30 pm-9:00 pm
This course will examine the reasoning behind the evolution of today’s national and international security from its “Man the Hunter” origins by surveying the biological, psychological, anthropological, and cultural explanations for how we define security, dominance, and power. Students will also get an opportunity to consider and create national-level strategy based on a spectrum of “hunter-gatherer” understanding of security.
Gender and Migration in Europe (GEST-5402 CRN: 38457)
Professor: Joyce Mushaben
Time: Wednesday, 12:30 pm-3 pm
This course analyzes a complicated web of labor migration patterns, refugee flows, family unification trends, asylum policies and human-trafficking challenges intricately connected to globalized production and consumption chains. It addresses the “securitization” of border controls introduced in the wake of the 2015 refugee crisis, relegating women’s rights as human rights to the back burner in violation of the EU gender acquis.
Women Empowerment in Global South
Professor: S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana & Claudia Youakim
Time: Wednesday, 5:00 pm- 7:30 pm
Advancing women’s empowerment is key to effective foreign policy. Research shows that countries are more peaceful and stable when women are empowered. Models for advancing the status of women and girls have been developed by governmental agencies, multilateral institutions, development banks, civil society and the private sector. Women’s empowerment is also a core dimension of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda – a key international policy framework that calls for the meaningful participation of women in all aspects of conflict resolution and peacebuilding.
(En)gendered Security
Professor: Mariya Y. Omelicheva
Time: Wednesday, 6:30 pm- 9:00 pm
This course is designed to illuminate the multiple and complex intersections of women, peace, and security that are recognized as well as omitted in national and international legislation, policies, and practice. The course advances and critically assesses three related themes. First, gender is conceptually and theoretically necessary to thinking about security itself and central questions of security, to include war, conflict, and peace. Second, gender is indispensable to explaining the complex cause and effect relationships over a range of security issues. And, third, gender is important from the policy standpoint for devising sustainable and effective approaches for making the world a more secure place for everyone regardless of their social identity.
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and Power-Based Violence
Professor: Veronica Quinonez
Time: Thursday, 5:00 pm- 7:30 pm
This course will examine various forms of power-based violence including intimate partner violence, stalking, and sexual violence as it impacts Indigenous Americans. We will review theories about frequency and prevalence of power based violence in Indigenous communities of the Americas and larger historical contributors to violence against Indigenous Americans. We will later evaluate current systems and policies that exist in relation to power based violence and how these institutions can help or hinder Indigenous survivors. The course culminates in a final project where students are asked to analyze an existing Indigenous-led program, policy, law, etc rooted in violence prevention or intervention.
Gender and Sexuality in South Asia
Professor: Cecilia Van Hollen
Time: Tuesday, 3:30 pm- 6:00 pm
This course provides students with an introduction to anthropological approaches to the study of gender and sexuality in South Asia through ethnographic books, articles and documentaries. We will explore how cultural ideas about gender and sexuality are constructed, maintained, and challenged in the South Asian context, keeping in mind South Asia’s global connections from the colonial period to the present. Key topics of the course include the intersections of gender/sexuality, work, and migration; gender, class and caste; LGBTQ+ identities and activism; gender/sexuality and nationalism; gender/sexuality and religion; gender/sexuality, politics and law; and gender, health and the body.
