Women, Gender and Sexual Studies Concentration 2022-2023 Edition

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
Required Courses
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Seminar (capstone course)
Electives
Select four of the following: 1
The Sociological Imagination: What We See When We Watch T.V.
Gender and Communication
American Women's History
Gender and World War II
Gender and American Culture in the 1950s
African American Studies ((When offered as Black Feminist Foundations & Futures)
Sexuality and Culture
Major Literary Figures
Women and the Creative Imagination
Friendship and Intimacy in the Age of Social Media
Gender in Childhood
Sociology of Gender, Illness, and Health
Sociology of Family
Sociology of Sport
Special Topics in Sociology From Womb to Tomb A Sociological Perspective on Sexuality
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Internship
1

Only one at the 200 level.