The Gender and Sexuality Studies major is offered in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department in the May School of Arts and Sciences .
Megan Mitchell
May Hall 217
508-565-1410
mmitchell@stonehill.edu
Gender & Sexuality Studies Steering Committee:
L. Brekke-Aloise, History
G. Piggford, C.S.C., English
A. Opitz, English
A. Mhajne, Political Science and International Relations
The Gender and Sexuality Studies Program offers a major and a minor within the Bachelor of Arts degree.
Mission of the Program
The Gender and Sexuality Studies Program uses gender as a lens to promote critical thinking and scholarly development from an interdisciplinary perspective. Informed by feminist and queer theoretical perspectives, Gender and Sexuality Studies explores the differences within and between men and women and the construction of those differences within gendered systems of oppression across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Courses in the program focus on a range of gendered institutions, such as family, work, religion, education, health, medicine, media, and politics. Our courses also investigate the many ways scholars, artists, and activists have researched, represented, and critiqued our gendered world.
Among the topics students can expect to study are:
- The impact of gender and sexual identity on human relations within local, national, and global communities;
- The relationship of gender to race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, religion, and nationality;
- The distinctions among biological sex, gender, sexual orientation, and sexual identity; and
- The history and implications of gender and sexuality in questions of social justice.
Learning Goals
Majors in Gender Studies & Sexuality will:
- examine the impact of gender and sexual identity on human relations within local, national, transnational and/or global communities (historically and/or currently).
- analyze how race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, ability, religion and/or nationality intersect with gender identity and impact gendered analyses.
- critically read, recognize, and analyze the construction of gender and sexuality in a variety of texts (written, visual, other).
- understand how gender and sexuality are defined and reproduced within institutions.
- examine their own gender role assumptions and identity.
- understand the history and implications of gender and sexuality in questions of social justice.
The interdisciplinary major in Gender and Sexuality Studies requires the completion of nine courses from a variety of areas.
