Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Advisory Board

• Thomas Roach, Professor, English and Cultural Studies, Program Coordinator
• Kelly Boutin, Assistant Director, Center for Diversity & Inclusion, Hochberg Women's Center & Pride Center

• Jeffrey Cabusao, Professor, English and Cultural Studies
• Amber Day, Professor, English and Cultural Studies
• Mailee Kue, Executive Director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion
• Heather Pond Lacey, Associate Professor, Psychology

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 will:

• Undertake interdisciplinary analyses of women, gender, and sexuality and communicate findings and interpretations clearly and effectively
• Demonstrate how various 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

Course List

Required Courses
WGS/LCS 250	Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
WGS 490	Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Seminar (capstone course)
Electives
Select four of the following: 1
COM/SOC 359	The Sociological Imagination: What We See When We Watch T.V.
COM 473	Gender and Communication
HIS 263	American Women's History
HIS 361	Gender and World War II
HIS 368	Gender and American Culture in the 1950s
LCS 378	African American Studies ((When offered as Black Feminist Foundations & Futures)
LCS 383	Sexuality and Culture
LCS 464	Major Literary Figures
LCS 466	Women and the Creative Imagination
LCS/WGS 471	Friendship and Intimacy in the Age of Social Media
PSY 471	Gender in Childhood
SOC 352	Sociology of Gender, Illness, and Health
SOC 356	Sociology of Family
SOC 360	Sociology of Sport
SOC ST300	Special Topics in Sociology From Womb to Tomb A Sociological Perspective on Sexuality
WGS 491	Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Internship

¹

Only one at the 200 level.