Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Curriculum

In the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program, students learn to think critically about diverse human experiences on local, national and global levels. We examine cultural constructions of gender and sexuality, and their intersections with race, ethnicity, class, age and ability in relations to structures of power and inequality.

Curriculum

Our curriculum includes both interdisciplinary courses and courses grounded in disciplines such as history, literature, anthropology, psychology, sociology, economics and cinema/media studies. In addition to developing theoretical analyses, students participate in hands-on learning experiences. Opportunities for student-driven research and informed activism are central to the WGS experience.

First Year Advising and Registration recommendations

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies is an interdisciplinary program which examines historically marginalized genders and sexualities from the perspective of critical gender studies. The Program has a special focus on women and LGBTQ communities and on intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, age, and ability. The curriculum emphasizes critical thinking, multiple perspectives, and the diversity of human experience. Students learn a number of methods for examining and strategies for modifying the conditions that affect all of our lives.

The Program has several sexuality studies courses that may be of interest to students as they make their course selections. In addition to regular course offerings, students may take Program-approved cross-listed and affiliated courses (offered by other departments) which count toward the major and minor. The WGS website provides the schedule of all the courses that count on the major/minor for the coming academic year.

Prospective majors and minors in WGS are strongly encouraged to talk with a WGS advisor as early as possible in their academic career. There is a preferred sequence of courses, all courses require careful planning. Students are strongly encouraged to take WGS 120 (Intro) in the first or second year, WGS 300 or WGS 310 (Theories) (Fall) and WGS 320 (Practicum) (Spring) in the third year, and WGS 340 (Methods) (Fall) and WGS 400 (Capstone) (Spring) in the senior year. *WGS 300 (Feminist Theories) and WGS 310 (Queer Theories) are offered alternating years in the Fall. Students planning to study abroad are encouraged to do so in their sophomore year or in the spring of their junior year.

Our 200-level courses do not have pre-requisites and work towards an array of Gettysburg College Curriculum goals, notably the Interdisciplinary, Conceptualizing Diversity, Global Understanding, Humanities, and Social Science requirements.

For more information, contact the Chair, Alecea Standee (astandle@gettysburg.edu).

For complete information, consult the First Year Advising and Registration Guide.

Major

The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major requires nine courses, beginning with foundational classes in theory, methods, and practice, and culminating in a senior seminar. Students gain a broad and interdisciplinary understanding of gender, sexuality, and feminist thought, while tailoring their studies through electives that emphasize global perspectives, marginalized experiences, and intersectionality. The curriculum balances structure with flexibility, encouraging critical engagement across diverse contexts.

Major Requirements
Category	Courses
Core Courses	WGS 120: Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies WGS 300: Feminist Theories or WGS 310: Queer Theories WGS 290: Practicum WGS 340: Methods WGS 400: Senior Seminar
Electives (4 courses)	Courses may be chosen from core, cross-listed, affiliated, or approved Individualized Study. Additional Requirements: (a) At least one course above the 100-level focusing on gender, sexuality, or women outside the U.S. and Europe. (b) At least one course above the 100-level focusing on marginalized women, intersections of inequality, or LGBT/Queer scholarship. (c) No more than two courses may be from affiliated courses.

Minor

The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies minor requires six courses that introduce students to foundational theories, methods, and practices in the field while allowing for exploration through electives. Students engage critically with issues of gender, sexuality, and intersectionality, including perspectives from marginalized communities and global contexts. The program offers flexibility through core, cross-listed, and individualized study options, ensuring a broad and inclusive academic experience.

Minor Requirements
Category	Courses
Core Courses	WGS 120: Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies WGS 300: Theories or WGS 310: Queer Theories WGS 290: Practicum or WGS 340: Methods
Specialized Requirement	One core or cross-listed course above the 100-level focusing in-depth on: • Gender, sexuality, and/or women outside the U.S. and Europe • The experiences of historically marginalized women • The intersections of gender with other forms of inequality • LGBT or Queer scholarship
Additional Courses	One core or cross-listed course One additional WGS course (core, cross-listed, affiliated, or approved Individualized Study)

Important Considerations

Prospective majors and minors in WGS are strongly encouraged to talk with a WGS advisor as early as possible in their academic careers. Because there is a preferred sequence of courses, all mandatory courses require careful planning. Students are strongly encouraged to take WGS 120 in the first or second year, WGS 300 OR WGS 310 (Fall) and, ideally, WGS 290 (Spring) in the third year, and WGS 340 (Fall) and WGS 400 (Spring) in the senior year.

*WGS 300 and WGS 310 are offered alternating years in the fall. Students planning to study abroad are encouraged to do so in their sophomore year or in the spring of their junior year.

Available Courses

Jump to level: 100 • 200 • 300 • 400

Philosophical study of love, relationships, marriage, sex, sexuality, sexual identity, and sexual representation. Philosophers have deeply explored knowledge, existence, politics and ethics. Yet love and sex, which for most of us are central features of a good life, have received far less attention. In this course material from philosophers who have thought about love and sex will be explored along with contemporary struggles around sexuality, sexual identity, sexual violence, love, romance, intimate relationships, and marriage. PHIL 125 and WGS 125 are cross-listed.
The course examines the changing practices in women's healthcare from the holistic, ancient, earth-based traditions that centralized women to the rise of the mechanomorphic American medical system, specifically gynecology. The course examines key historic events that shaped women's healthcare, issues of gender biology, women as medical research subjects, the gardener/mechanic metaphor, the modern medicalization of women's natural cycles, the Wise Woman healing tradition, Chinese medicine and acupuncture, Ayurveda, and issues around women’s personal empowerment. Social issues concerning the control of women's reproduction and the impact of the environment on women's health are addressed. Additional topics include holistic nutrition for females, body image, gender identity, sexual orientation, negotiating young-adult social and emotional challenges, and power and control in intimate relationships. Particular attention is on centralizing women, genderfluid, and trans people in their own healthcare and the impact of politics on their health by race and class.

Study of traditional roles of primarily Eastern Woodlands indigenous women from pre-colonization to contemporary times. Indigenous women’s centrality in their nation’s sociopolitical structures, cosmology, and distribution of wealth is discussed. Additional emphasis is on ceremonial rites for women and girls, and traditional customs relating to sexuality, childbearing, and marriage. Ways in which indigenous women and men balance the responsibilities of their nation are a key topic.
This course will analyze how our lives are shaped by gender. We examine how we are socialized to embody our gendered selves and how the world is organized to perpetuate gendered behaviors. We will pay particular attention to ways that social class, race, sexuality, and nationality intersect with gendered privileges. This course challenges us to envision ways to transform gendered structures and social behavior. We will explore ways to make lives more equitable and think deeply about everyday life and society with regard to gender. This course will count as an elective in the Public Health Policy major. Prerequisite: Sociology 101, 102, or 103. SOC 217 and WGS 217 are cross-listed.
This course investigates the controversial issues of pornographic discourse within a feminist context by examining the arguments that continue to divide feminists to this day. This course tracks the debate from a historical, theoretical and critical perspective. Particular focus is given to topics such as power structures and sexual oppression, the effects of pornography, the problems of a common definition, the implications of censorship, gender and representation, homosexual production and consumption of pornography, female subjectivity and agency, and the difference between pornography and erotica.
Course explores various images of women as constructed for the male and female spectator in both dominant and independent film. Traditional ways in which women have been represented in film are examined critically through the use of feminist theories. Course aims to examine how various feminist filmmakers challenge the traditional uses of the female voice in their own films. Films from other cultures than the U.S. are included. WGS 220 and CIMS 225 are cross-listed.
This course will explore the identity and the condition of women in Latin America and the United States. Latina and Latin American-women writers have illustrated women’s lives and experiences through their works and criticism. Their works have created women’s’ identities primarily from a borderline perspective, and sometimes from what Gloria Anzaldúa or Mary Louise Pratt refer to as a third space. For writers, the concept of space, gender, race, and class--as well as intersections and borderlands--play an important role when depicting Latin American women’s’ representation and Latina women in the United States and their experiences. We will use a comparative analysis utilizing texts from Latina and Latin American women writers to look feminist discourse across physical, geographic or abstract borders. The concept of space as an analytical tool will facilitate our textual analysis, and will serve to establish a common ground to discuss similarities and difference regarding women’s identity and their condition in Latin America and the United States. WGS 221 and LAS 222 are cross-listed.
Emphasizes the forces that create migrations and the consequences for individuals who migrate, their societies of origin, and those that receive them. This course places a specific focus on the gendered aspects of global migrations, exploring the ways in which women, men, and LGBTQ peoples experience the various aspects of migration. The materials used in the course, such as books, articles, news media, films, guest speakers, represent the wide spectrum of aspects, both theoretical and experiental, of global migrations.
Study of women's activism to improve their lives around the world. Course analyzes similarities and differences in the issues women activists address in different parts of the world, the theories they develop to analyze those issues, and the forms their activism takes. Course also considers the possibilities for a global women's movement and provides theoretical tools for analyzing modern feminisms in their global context.
Study of trans theory as a way of thinking philosophically about identity, community, and politics. Looking at the context through which trans experience has become politicized with an emphasis on writing by trans people about their lives. Consideration of history and differences between the experiences of trans people based on race and class. Analysis of violence, oppression, institutions, media, cultural production, self-identification, resistance, activism, community-building, and care. PHIL 228 and WGS 228 are cross-listed
An analysis of the impact of changing development strategies on the lives of women in the Third World, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as a review of how women have responded to these strategies. One major aim of the course is to examine how colonialism and later development policies have affected the status of women, and to examine critically the goal of the "integration of women in development." Differences of ethnicity/race, orientation, age, and class are taken into consideration.
An exploration of the diversity of women's familial, political, economic and social realities and experiences in West Africa and the African Diaspora in South America and the Caribbean. Particular attention is given to the processes by which indigenous West African gender and cultural patterns and their inherent power relations have shifted since pre-colonial times and across the Atlantic into the New World. Finally, the course examines the concept of Diaspora and theories relative to processes of cultural change, resistance, and retentions, as well as the role gender plays in these processes. No prerequisites. ANTH 231, WGS 231 and LAS 231 are cross-listed.
What determines our sex and gender? What sorts of romantic and sexual relationships are acceptable, and why? Who and what define the binaries of male and female, gay and straight, and can individuals move fluidly between them? How do people’s gender and/or sexuality relate to their social and economic positions? This course investigates ancient Greece as a case-study for the way that gender and sexuality works, providing new perspective on our own world. WGS 240 and CLA 240 are cross-listed.
Exploration of how sexualities are socially constructed and controlled. In this course we use a sociological lens to examine how sexualities directly and indirectly shape our daily lives. We adopt both a life-course perspective and a cross-cultural perspective to understand the fluidity of sexual identities (lesbian, straight, gay, and bisexual) throughout our lives and within different cultural contexts. Topics include categorization of sexualities, representation of sexualities, sexual identities, sex practices, sexual health and disease, commercial sex, and social control of sexualities. Prerequisite: Sociology 101, 102 or 103 or permission of instructor. SOC 240 and WGS 241 are cross-listed.
Comparative examination of inequalities within local sexual systems and situating them within a global context. Topics include social control and categorization of sexualities, and sexual identities and practices. The course investigates how religion and tradition shape these local systems. It also examines the hierarchies created by class and race within these systems. Last, the course discusses how these systems are being contested through activism. Throughout the course, discussions include how these systems simultaneously resist and accept the influences of globalization. Prerequisite: Sociology 101, 102 or 103 or permission of instructor. SOC 244 and WGS 244 are cross-listed.
Application of economic theory and empirical analysis to gender and LGBT issues, focusing on the US economy. Course explores how changes in family structures, gendered social norms, and macroeconomic conditions affect labor force participation, considers evidence regarding discrimination by identity and related differences in earnings, and evaluates how intersections of gender identity with race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, and social class impact individuals’ economic choices and the effects of public policies. Prerequisite: ECON 103, or ECON 105. ECON 252 and WGS 252 are cross-listed.
This course introduces students to a range of archaeological research on past genders and sexualities, covering topics such as: gender and power; intersectionality; gender/sexuality and the body; and gender/sexuality in men and women, as well as third gender, non-gendered, and gender spectrum. The course also addresses how and the extent to which we can reconstruct and make convincing arguments about gender and sexuality in the past using archaeological methods and data. ANTH 256 and WGS 256 are cross-listed.
A survey of some of Italy's most prominent women writers of the twentieth century in English translation. The course covers a variety of themes dealing with the existential condition of women that surface in the writers' texts. Topics such as gendered writing, feminism, violence, gender (ex)change, feminine monstrosities and motherhood are the subject of students' analyses. Taught in English. ITAL 270 and WGS 270 are cross-listed.
A study of the work of four prominent Italian women directors: Liliana Cavani, Lina Wertmuller, Francesca Archibugi and Francesca Comencini. While focusing on their depictions of social, cultural and historical issues affecting modern and contemporary Italian society, the course also analyzes the relationship between gender and theories of visual and filmic representation. Topics include social realism, social satire, World War II, concept of family, violence, mechanisms of gender construction, gender and film. Taught in English. ITAL 280 and WGS 280 are cross-listed.

This course will introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of queer studies. We begin with the history of LGBT identity in the West. We then explore the gay and lesbian liberation movement, distinguishing between assimilationist and liberationist approaches to LGBT social movements. We then discuss the difference between LGBT and queer identities, focusing on the rise of queer theory and queer politics. Throughout the semester, we will consider the relationship between queer studies and studies of transgender identity, race, ethnicity, disability, class, nation, and globalization. We will end with a critique of the notion of a global gay identity from the fields of queer globalization studies and queer of color studies. Prerequisite: WGS 120, or permission of instructor.
Examination of the relationship between theory and collective action to improve societal conditions for women and LGBTQIA individuals. Course considers both theories of collective action and how theories inform collective action. Format combines seminar meetings with student internships in community organizations. Readings about collective action and about the relationship between theory and action provide a basis for analyzing students’ internship experiences. Prerequisites: WGS 120 and one other core or cross-listed WGS course, or permission of instructor.
Introduction to the various research methodologies represented in the interdisciplinary field of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Course studies feminist and LGBTQIA critiques of traditional disciplinary methods. Goal is to familiarize students with the strengths and weaknesses of the techniques of inquiry in their disciplinary perspective of choice through explicit examples and a series of lectures. Emphasis is on preparation for senior research project to be completed during the Senior Seminar. Prerequisite: WGS 120 and one other core or cross-listed WGS course, or permission of instructor. Recommended: WGS 300 or 310.
Study of literature written by women during Spain’s Golden Age. This course analyzes plays, poems, autobiographies, and novellas of women writers to understand how the authors respond to and challenge gender roles in their patriarchal society. Additionally, the course explores topics in the literature related to sexuality, misogyny, identity, agency, and empowerment within the history and culture of Golden Age Spain (15th through 17th centuries). Prerequisite: SPAN 305 or consent of the department. SPAN 365 and WGS 365 are cross-listed.

Examination of a topic from a variety of in-depth perspectives. Selected topic is broad enough to allow students to engage in projects of their own devising. Course serves as a bridge between the undergraduate experience and the world beyond Gettysburg College as students learn to put their feminism into actions. Prerequisites: WGS 120, WGS 300 or 310, 340 and one additional core or cross-listed WGS course.