Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies

Programs and Course Descriptions

Faculty

View the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Faculty.

Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Program

Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary academic program designed to acquaint students with current scholarship and theory on women, gender, and feminism. Each semester a wide variety of courses in humanities and social science departments as well as in Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies offers students the opportunity for cultural and cross-cultural studies of the effects of representations and assumptions about gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality on our lives. Courses generally of interest to Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies students and eligible for major credit are listed below; in addition, a separate flyer listing each semester’s eligible courses is available through the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies office (757) 221-2457 and on the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies web page (www.wm.edu/as/gsws). Students may declare an interdisciplinary major or a minor in Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies.

The Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies major prepares students who wish to gain a strong interdisciplinary perspective in advance of employment and/or graduate or professional study leading to careers in a wide variety of fields including law, education, politics, business, social action, the arts, medicine and so on. Graduates of Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies programs nationwide report reasons for choosing this field of study that range from lifelong interest in feminism, to discovering new intellectual challenges, to providing themselves with the confidence and freedom to “do whatever you choose to do.”

The following guidelines have been reviewed and approved by the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Curriculum Committee, the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Executive Committee and the Committee for Honors and Interdisciplinary Studies.

Additional Courses Eligible for Major or Minor

Following is a sample listing of courses that have been counted toward the major or minor. Not all of these courses are offered every semester, and additional courses may qualify for Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies credit. Check the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies flyer or web page or consult a program advisor for a list of each semesters approved courses. (Note: Courses in which topics vary should be selected according to the relevance of the topics offered that semester; sample titles are given. Students may request permission from Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies to count a particular course not listed in the flyer if the course’s relevance to the student’s program of study can be demonstrated.)

Freshman Seminars: in topics related to Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies (most disciplines; check schedule)
AMST 470 - Topics in American Studies
(e.g., Multiculturalism in America; Masculinity in America)
ANTH 370 - Evolutionary Perspectives on Gender
AFST 205 - Introduction to Africana Studies
Chinese 312: Special Issues in Chinese Poetic Tradition (e.g., Women in Classical Poetry)
ENGL 465 - Topics in English
(e.g., Love and the Novel: Lesbian Fictions)
ENGL 475 - Research Seminar in English
(e.g., Woolf; The Brontes; 20th Century American Women Writers)
FREN 355 - Contemporary Women Writers and Movie Makers from the Francophone World
German 405: 20th-Century German Women Writers
GOVT 360 - Building the American Welfare State
GOVT 390 ,
GOVT 391 - Topics in Government
(e.g., Varieties of Feminist Ideology)
GOVT 406 - Seminar: Studies in Political Theory: Theorists and Movements
Government 472: The Courts, Constitutional Politics and Social Change
HISP 482 - Gender Issues in Hispanic Culture
HIST 211 ,
HIST 212 - Topics in History
(e.g., Southern Women)
HIST 490 , HIST 491 - Topics in History (e.g., Black Women in the Americas; Gender and the Civil War)
International Studies 390: Topics
KINE 460 - Topics in Health Sciences
(e.g., Sport, Body and Culture)
MUSC 365 - Topics in Music
(e.g., Music and Gender)
Psychology 373: Human Sexuality
RELG 208 - Topics in Religious Studies
(e.g., Women in the Christian Tradition)
Religion 306: Sexuality, Women and Family in Judaism
RELG 308 - Topics in Religious Studies
(e.g., History of Adam and Eve; Women and Their Bible; Theologies of Liberation)
RUSN 308 - Topics in Russian Literature and Culture (Taught in English)
(e.g., Women in Russian Literature)
RUSN 309 - Topics in Russian Cinema (Taught in English)
(e.g., Women in Russian Film)
SOCL 332 - Families and Kinship
SOCL 313 - Globalization and International Development
SOCL 364 - Sociology of Work
SOCL 432 - Sociology of Sexualities
SOCL 440 - Special Topics in Sociology
(e.g., Race, Gender and Health; Gender and Sexuality in Cross Cultural Perspective)

Programs and Course Descriptions

Programs

Courses

Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies