Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies(WGSS)

Students are introduced to key issues and debates in women, gender and feminist studies from historical, contemporary, and transnational perspectives. Students address diverse experiences of, and ways of understanding, sex and gender, foregrounding how they intersect with race, class, ethnicity, ability, nationality, settler and other forms of colonialism, as well as other social identities and resources.

Students are introduced to key issues and debates in sexuality studies from historical, contemporary, and transnational perspectives. Students address diverse experiences of, and ways of understanding, sexuality, foregrounding how it intersects with gender, race, class, ethnicity, ability, nationality, settler and other forms of colonialism, as well as other social identities and resources.

Interdisciplinary WGSS researchers draw on theories, methods, and texts from a variety of fields of study such as literature, philosophy, history, sociology, and media studies, and bring them together in their work. Students examine the work of interdisciplinary researchers whose work centers questions of women, gender and sexuality in order to understand how knowledge is constructed and communicated within the field.

Students place women's civic and political rights movements in a global perspective and question hegemonic divisions between "Western" and "Third World" feminisms. Students chart the growth of the transnational women's movements in the context of intersectionality, justice, activism, and coalition-building in a wide range of historical, cultural, and geopolitical locations.

Women, gender and sexuality studies is a field that is experiencing rapid growth and development. Students are offered an advanced exploration of new and emerging theories in the field, building on the theoretical, methodological, and historical work examined in previous WGSS courses.

Students critically engage with debates around the relationships between gender, violence, and conflict in an interdisciplinary, ethics-informed context. Students focus on the following themes: gendered and sexualized experiences of violence, conflict and peace militarization, hegemonic manifestations of masculinities and femininities and their relationship to gender-based and sexual violence, and the institutionalization of such violence.