Sep 10, 2025

2025-2026 Undergraduate Catalogue

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, B.A.

FACULTY:
Christa Craven, Chair
Rebecca Garonzik
Melanie Long
Terri Hawley Reeder
Zareen Thomas
Zhenyu Tian

The WGSS curriculum is based in feminist scholarship – both within traditional disciplines across the academic divisions and in response to questions that cannot be answered within the framework of a single discipline. To foster this interdisciplinary inquiry, the Women’s Studies Program was established in 1978 and has been built upon the feminist teaching, scholarship, and activism of faculty and students with a wide variety of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives. In the past few decades, the program has grown and evolved, changing its name to the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in 2008 to recognize important changes within feminist scholarship.

Acknowledging this important history, WGSS courses retain Women’s Studies’ focus on examining previously unavailable information about the lives and contributions of women and analyzing the effects of cultural attitudes, power and inequality, and social structures on the experiences of women as they intersect with race, nation, ability, class, religion, and other axes of difference. In addition, feminist scholarship has recognized and explored commonalities between women’s oppression and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other sexual minorities worldwide, as well as the varied experiences of masculinity throughout the globe. In this vein, WGSS courses explore the cultural construction of sex, gender, and sexuality in the context of their relationship between theoretical and experiential knowledge, and by privileging historically marginalized voices. WGSS encourages scholarship and teaching that is committed to the feminist principle of creating a more just world for all.

WGSS Courses

Major in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Consists of eleven courses:

WGSS 12000 - Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Three courses from the following:
WGSS 20200 - Histories of Feminisms
WGSS 20400 - Transnational Feminisms
WGSS 20600 - Queer Lives
or
Core Courses (see below).
Three electives from cross-listed courses (see below) accepted for WGSS credit or additional core courses.
At least two core or cross-listed courses must be from a different division than the others.
WGSS 33000 - Doing Feminist Research: Theory & Practice
WGSS 35000 - Senior Seminar: Feminist & Queer Pedagogy in Action
WGSS 45100 - Independent Study Thesis
WGSS 45200 - Independent Study Thesis

Core Courses Accepted for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Credit

Communication Studies

COMM 22300. Communication, Gender and Sexuality [AH, D]

COMM 23300. Mediated Gender, Race & Sexuality [HSS, D]

English

ENGL 21002. Black Women Writers [AH]

Global Media and Digital Studies

GMDS-35101. Monsters in the Closet: Horror and Queer Cinema

*These are updated regularly. Please contact the WGSS program chair with questions.

Special Notes

Majors and minors may substitute one WGSS 40000 (Tutorial) or WGSS 40500 (Practicum) for one of the cross-listed courses.
WGSS 40500 (Practicum) is strongly recommended.
Only grades of C- or better are accepted for the major or minor.

Cross-listed Courses Accepted for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Credit

Africana Studies

AFST 20035. Black Feminist Ethnography

AFST 20037. Women Culture & Power in Africa

AFST 24100. Black Women in Contemporary Society

Anthropology

ANTH 29901. Global Politics of Reproduction

ANTH 29909. Global Tourism: The Politics and Violence of Encounters

Art and Art History

ARTH 21400. Nineteenth Century Art

ARTH 21600. Gender and Modern Art

Chinese

CHIN 22000. Women and Gender in China

Communications

COMM 22300. Communication, Gender, and Sexuality

COMM 22800. Communication and Queer Studies

COMM 23300. Mediated Gender, Race, and Sexuality

COMM 29901. Serials and Social Justice

East Asian Studies

EAST 29901. Manga & Anime in Japan and Global Contexts

Economics

ECON 24500. Economics of Gender

English

ENGL 12045. Queer Literatures

ENGL 21002. Black Women Writers

ENGL 21004. Empire Boys

ENGL 24018. Fidelity and Betrayal

ENGL 30000. Post-Colonial Literature and Film

Environmental Studies

ENVS-19901. Sex in the City

ENVS-19903. Bodies on the Line: Protest Movements and the Environment

French & Francophone Studies

FREN 32400. Religion, Reason & Revolution

Global Media & Digital Studies

GMDS 35102. Transnational Queer Film

GMDS 35101. Monsters in the Closet: Horror and Queer Cinema

Global Queer Studies

GQST 12000. Introduction to Global Queer Studies

History

HIST 10191. History of Sexualities

HIST 20115. Body in Chinese Tradition

HIST 10183. Family in Chinese History

HIST 21600. Modern Latin America

HIST 27502. Modern Brazil

HIST 27514. Queer America: LGBTQ in 20th C America

Music

MUSC 21900. Women in Music

MUSC 16600. Opera & Lyric Theatre Workshop [occasionally, based on topic]

Neuroscience

NEUR 29901. Sex & Gender Differences in Brain & Behavior

Philosophy

PHIL 21200. Race, Gender, and Justice

PHIL 22201. Science, Knowledge, & Power

Physical Education

PHED 20000. PHED 20000. Women in Sport

Political Science

PSCI 21000. Women, Power, Politics

PSCI 24730. Sex and War

Psychology

PSYC 21500. Psychology of Women & Gender

PSYC 29936. Human Sexuality

Religious Studies

RELS 19903. Abortion, Religion, & the Law

RELS 22200. Islam

RELS 26732. Race, Gender, Class in Biblical Interpretation

RELS 26748. Sex & the Bible

RELS 26937. Religion, Race, Gender, Class in America

Sociology

SOCI 20700. Sociology of Gender

SOCI 21600. Masculinities

Spanish

SPAN 30902. Spanish American Women Writers

SPAN 31108. Gender & Sexuality in Latin American & Latinx Literature

Theatre & Dance

THTD 12100. Performance Practicum [occasionally, based on topic]

THTD 26100. Contemporary Women Playwrights

THTD 29908. Black American Theatre & Performance

THTD 30300. Theatre for Social Change