Department of Women’s and Gender Studies

Participating Faculty

Anumpama Arora English

Michael Baum Political Science

Heidi Berggren Political Science

R. Thomas Boone Psychology

Dario Borim Portuguese

Magali Carrera Art History

Phyllis Currier Nursing

Anna Dempsey Art History

Shari Evans English

Janet Fairbairn Design

Catherine Gardner Philosophy

Siegal Gottlieb Mathematics

Memory Holloway Art History

Catherine Houser English

Shannon Jenkins Political Science

Suzanne Joseph Anthropology

Andrea C Klimt Anthropology

Anna Klobucka Portuguese

Lisa Knauer Anthropology

Gerard M Koot History

Susan Krumholz Sociology/Crime and Justice Studies

Christopher Larkosh Portuguese

Yoon Soo Lee Design

Cristina Mehrtens History

Betty L Mitchell History

Stephanie O’Hara Foreign Literature and Languages

Juli L Parker Women’s Studies

Teal Pedlow Psychology

Penn Reeve Anthropology

Jeannette E Riley (program director) English and Women’s Studies

Robin Robinson Sociology/Crime and Justice Studies

Isabel Rodrigues Anthropology

M. Gloria de Sa Sociology

Matthew Sneider History

Shawna Sweeney Policy Studies

Bridget Teboh History

Timothy Walker History

Chunbei Wang Economics

The field of Women’s and Gender Studies is interdisciplinary. Calling upon such fields as history, economics, psychology, health, music, literature, and visual arts, Women’s Studies encourages students to understand the position of women in society. The interdisciplinary nature of Women’s Studies fosters an active examination of varying influences upon women’s and men’s lives, such as race, class, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexuality and age. The Women’s Studies program provides students an opportunity to think about the construction and influences of gender in contemporary society, to discover the historical factors that have shaped the current status of women from varying backgrounds and countries, and to explore paths to achieve equality for all people.

Core Major Objectives:

Understand the historical, social and political contexts of women’s movements and feminist thought
Understand feminist theories and apply them in critiquing and transforming their world
Connect women’s movements and feminist theory to other social justice movements and theories

Concentration-Specific Objectives

Gender Studies: Identify and evaluate the social construction of gender and the ways gender intersects with other forms of identity

Politics, Justice and Policy: Understand the gendering of our socioeconomic and political worlds and the individual and collective components of social change

Cross-Cultural Inquiry: Identify, compare and evaluate culturally and historically specific ideas of gender, sex and sexuality

Arts and Letters: Apply a critical feminist perspective to the study of literature and the arts.