🐯 Princeton Gender & Sexuality Studies unofficial reading list 2026
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Sophomore level
Classical Mythology GSS 212 (fa26)
- The Greek Tragedies: 17 Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, & Euripides
- Metamorphoses by Ovid
- Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation by Trzaskoma et al.
- The Odyssey by Homer
- The Poems of Hesiod by R.M. Frazer
- Sophocles II: Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes, The Trackers
- Apollodorus’ Library & Hyginus’ Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology by Smith & Trzaskoma
- The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes
The Modern Black Freedom Movement: From Civil Rights to Black Power GSS 269 (fa26)
- The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom & the Forgotten History of Civil Rights by William P. Jones
- Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle by Gore et al.
- Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights & Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt by Hasan Kwame Jeffries
Queer Becomings GSS 279 (fa26)
- The Struggle to Be Gay—in Mexico, for Example by Roger N. Lancaster
- Gay Fathers, Their Children & the Making of Kinship by Aaron Goodfellow
- Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance & Ballroom Culture in Detroit by Marlon M. Bailey
The Makeover GSS 292 (fa26)
- A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
- Ornamentalism by Anne Anlin Cheng
- Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority by Anne Anlin Cheng
Girls & Dolls GSS 294 (fa26)
- The Lonely Doll by Dare Wright
- What Maisie Knew by Henry James
- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
- The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
- Ornamentalism by Anne Anlin Cheng
- Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority by Anne Anlin Cheng
Gender, Sexuality & Migration GSS 297 (fa26)
- Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery by Siddharth Kara
- Intimate Migrations: Gender, Family & Illegality among Transnational Mexicans by Deborah A. Boehm
- High-Tech Housewives: Indian IT Workers, Gendered Labor & Transmigration by Amy Bhatt
- The Trafficker Next Door: How Household Employers Exploit Domestic Workers by Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
- The Qualities of a Citizen: Women, Immigration & Citizenship, 1870-1965 by Martha Gardner
Junior level
Women, Gender & the Body in Islamic Societies GSS 328 (fa26)
- Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
- Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
- So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba
Gender & Performing Arts in South Asia GSS 335 (fa26)
- The Life of Music in North India: The Organization of an Artistic Tradition by Daniel M. Neuman
- Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory & Modernity in South India by Davesh Soneji
- Heart to Heart: Remembering Nainaji by Vidya Rao
- Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Cultures of Exclusion by Anna Morcom
- Umrao Jan Ada by Mirza Muhammad Hadi Rusva
Graduate level
Gender in a Global Society GSS 507 (fa26)
- Caliban & the Witch: Women, the Body & Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici
- The Indebted Woman: Kinship, Sexuality & Capitalism by Isabelle Guérin
- Patriarchy & Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour by Maria Mies
- Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject by Saba Mahmood
- Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation by Juno Salazar Parreñas
- Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration & Sex Trafficking in Tokyo by Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
- Do Muslim Women Need Saving? by Lila Abu-Lughod
Contemporary Critical Theories: Marx’s Capital GSS 535 (fa26)
- Capital, v.1 by Karl Marx