Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Advisory Board
The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Concentration is a liberal arts, interdisciplinary program that offers students the opportunity to apply a critical lens to fundamental structures of human interaction and cultural production. Students learn about current scholarship in women’s history and culture, gender studies, sexuality studies, and feminist theory. Questions motivating this scholarship include: How have gender and sexuality been used as systems of social control throughout history? How have they served as catalysts for social change? Are gender and sexuality biologically determined or socially constructed? What types of messages do mass media and popular culture give us about gender and sexuality, and how do these messages influence self-identity? Using a range of disciplinary methodologies and perspectives, students develop a deeper understanding of the structures of power that shape gender and sexual identity. Students concentrating in WGSS should be able to:
Learning Objectives:
- Demonstrate an understanding of interdisciplinary analyses of women, gender, and sexuality and communicate findings and interpretations clearly and effectively.
- Demonstrate an understanding of intersectionality: how various social systems, such as gender, race, class, and sexual orientation, operate in conjunction with each other.
- Explain various conceptions of gender and sexuality and indicate how these conceptions might reinforce or disrupt social structures.
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Concentration Requirements:
| Required Courses | ||
| WGS/LCS 250 | Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | 3 |
| WGS 490 | Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Seminar (capstone course) | 3 |
| Electives | ||
Select four of the following: 1 | ||
| COM/SOC 359 | The Sociological Imagination: What We See When We Watch T.V. | 3 |
| COM 473 | Gender and Communication | 3 |
| HIS 263 | American Women's History | 3 |
| HIS 361 | Gender and World War II | 3 |
| HIS 368 | Gender and American Culture in the 1950s | 3 |
| LCS 378 | African American Studies ((When offered as Black Feminist Foundations & Futures) | 3 |
| LCS 383 | Sexuality and Culture | 3 |
| LCS 464 | Major Literary Figures | 3 |
| LCS 466 | Women and the Creative Imagination | 3 |
| LCS/WGS 471 | Sex, Love and Social Media | 3 |
| PSY 471 | Gender in Childhood | 3 |
| SOC 352 | Sociology of Gender, Illness, and Health | 3 |
| SOC 356 | Sociology of Family | 3 |
| SOC 360 | Sociology of Sport | 3 |
| SOC ST300 | Special Topics in Sociology From Womb to Tomb A Sociological Perspective on Sexuality | 3 |
| WGS 491 | Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Internship | 3 |
A minimum of 18 credit hours is required for the concentration.
- 1
Only one at the 200 level.