CAS 255Communicating Gender

3 credits · Communication Arts and Sciences · Penn State

This course is designed to offer opportunities for exploring how gender is socially constructed partly through communication. The course offers a survey of concepts from rhetorical theory and gender theory that help explain how the norms for gender¿including as it intersects with other categories such as sexuality and race¿are communicated within multiple domains in a culture. Students develop skills for thinking critically about diverse perspectives on these norms. The course emphasizes the agency of students in developing their own ethical frameworks for how to enact gender performances in their communication, as well as how to respond through communication to the performances of others.