Gender Studies

About the Program

As the home to one of the world's first women's studies programs, the University of Puget Sound has a long tradition of exploring the shifting meanings of gender and sexual identity. The current Gender Studies program enriches and expands the University's curriculum by illuminating the ways in which gender and multiple other converging axes of identity frame every aspect of life. Our courses explore the constructions, distinctions, relations, and connections between gender and identity, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. They draw upon a rich array of intellectual traditions, including feminist, queer, race, and post-colonial theories. The study of gender opens up broader interrelated questions about the nature of gender constructions and the effects of gender on all persons.

The five-course sequence for minors begins with an introductory course, GNDR 201, in which students explore the importance of gender in the organization of social life and in the construction of personal identity. Three elective courses follow, which expand students' knowledge of gender in specialized courses. Students integrate their studies in the capstone course, GNDR 494, the Gender Research Seminar, through the definition and implementation of their individual research projects and through discussion of interdisciplinary issues, ideas, and theories in the history and cultures of gender.