Gender and Sexuality Studies (GSST) is an interdisciplinary program that focuses on gender and sexuality as categories of analysis. Courses in Gender and Sexuality Studies range widely in focus and content. However, what these courses share is a recognition, shaped by feminist and queer perspectives, of the ways in which gender and sexuality function as part of a dynamic system, one that shapes identity, structures knowledge, and determines the distribution of social and political power. Courses in GSST can include a variety of different topics and directions, including the following:
- Explore how concepts of sex, gender, and sexuality shape divisions of labor, family structure, social identity, civil law, sexual mores, and political rights.
- Study the roles, contributions, and/or representations of women or LGBTQIA2S+ people and cultures and make use of critical frameworks for analyzing these roles, contributions, and representations.
- Study the history of sexuality, including the emergence of sexual identities.
- Examine how gendered structures affect access to privilege and opportunity and how gender is encoded in power relations.
- Analyze how gender and sexuality are mediated by other categories of identity and positioning, such as class, race, religion, and ethnicity.
Header image: details from "Altar" by Marley Wisby '22, Visual submission to the 2021 GSS Symposium
Every spring, GSS Symposium showcases the scholarly and creative work of students in Gender and Sexuality Studies courses. See our digital archive of past symposia.
Here are some of the things that our GSS alums are doing.
A directed internship in which students integrate their academic study of gender issues with practical experience in off-campus organizations, agencies, or businesses.
