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Gender & Queer Studies

1500 N. Warner St.
Tacoma, WA 98416-1008

Wyatt 335

Program Director

Laura Krughoff

Administrative Support Coordinator

Rutie MacKenzie-Margulies

Program Description

What does it mean to “queer” a topic? Why should you ask about people’s pronouns? How might masculinity studies help explain school shootings? How can we bring gender, feminist, and queer studies into our everyday lives, including activism and movements for social change.

Puget Sound’s Gender and Queer Studies (GQS) Program explores interdisciplinary ideas and theories that are applicable across the university, from biology, psychology, and education to sociology, anthropology, and English. We study topics like masculinity, the history of feminisms, the pay gap, sexual violence, body image, asexuality, activism, and intersex and transgender issues. GQS classes build strong analytical, writing, and communication skills—all highly relevant to careers and engaged citizenship.

 

Who You Could Be

  • Medical case manager
  • Deputy city attorney
  • Psychotherapist
  • Communications manager
  • Professor
  • Software engineer
  • Digital and social media marketer
  • Queer programming director

What You'll Learn

  • Queer, trans, and feminist histories and theories
  • Gender and sexuality as categories of analysis and critique
  • Intersectional and transnational approaches to understanding interlocking structures of power and inequality
Sara Adkins '11
Alumni
Sara Atkins ’11

“I use the knowledge I gained in GQS every single day to talk about issues of power and privilege in health care, to assist transgender or gender nonconforming clients in finding resources and care, to understand the impacts of trauma.”

SAMPLE COURSES

This course serves as an introduction to Gender, Queer and Feminist Studies. It surveys the history of feminism, and then explores the rise and trajectories of gender studies and queer studies. The course engages with the ways in which gender, sexuality, race, class, ability/disability, and other facets of identity intersect with each other. Students will consider the implications of activism as well as the academic development of these disciplines, and they will engage with the ways that the readings touch upon their own lives.

Code
Artistic and Humanistic PerspectivesKnowledge, Identity, and Power

What has been the role of religion in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBQT) politics? This course challenges the dominant picture of entrenched opposition between queer lives and religious traditions, and it investigates the complexity and variety of queer and religious engagement during the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. This course covers the historical emergence of sexual and gender identity communities in the United States and the attendant formations of established religious teachings as backdrop and critical context for both opposing and supportive religious involvement LGBT politics. The course examines anti-queer religious responses but also spends significant time covering queer-inclusive religious advocacy, including liberal religious involvement in gay liberation, the formation of queer inclusive churches and synagogues and new spiritual communities such as the Radical Faeries, and religious involvement in political causes from AIDS/HIV activism, hate crimes legislation, and same-sex marriage.

Code
Artistic and Humanistic Perspectives

This course explores "queer" as an open question rather than a stable set of identities, asking: what kinds of bodies, desires, histories, and politics does queer describe? Students consider the complexity of queer identities and investigate the social and historical processes of identity construction. The class asks, with insights from queer theory: What governs the formation of legible social identities? What dynamics of erasure and illegibility accompany these formations? This course takes up these questions with attention to "queer self-fashioning," asking: How have "queer" identities and communities defined themselves--and been defined--in and through clothing and style? While clothing and fashion might seem to typify personal and a-political work, our inquiry explores the politics of self-fashioning: How is the fashioned body governed by laws, policies, and social norms? How has style played an important role in collective movements of dissent and social change? Students also explore these questions through a guided, hands-on project: each student will sew a wearable garment as a process of tactile meditation on the material, time, labor, and creativity involved in queer self-fashioning.

Code
Artistic and Humanistic PerspectivesKnowledge, Identity, and Power
Prerequisites
Permission of the instructor.

What does it mean to study sexuality? Does one's sexual identity change over time? The course first covers some critical readings from feminist, queer, and scientific perspectives in relation to sexuality. Then, armed with these tools, students address key topics in the field around science and sexology, histories of sexuality, reproductive politics, queer theory and pedagogy, health, hook-up culture, body modification, sexual harassment and #MeToo, and global issues in sexuality.

Code
Artistic and Humanistic Perspectives
Prerequisites
GQS 201.

In this course students examine the differences between traditional scholarship and a feminist approach to knowing. Participants engage in an independent research project of their choosing, sharing process and findings with other members throughout the semester. Completion of the class includes participation in the Lewis & Clark Undergraduate Gender Studies Conference in March of each year.

Code
Artistic and Humanistic Perspectives
Prerequisites
GQS 201 and 360, GQS minor or major, or permission of instructor.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Some students receive summer research grants: 

  • Nina Kranzdorf ’20, “A More Expansive Definition of We: Queer Visions of Safety and Solidarity From Palestine to Tacoma”
  • Lenora Yee ’21, “Women of Color in Print Subcultures: 1970–2018”
  • SIena Brown ’20, “Reading a Familiar Face: The Rise of LGBTQ and POC Representation in Young Adult Fiction”
  • Olive Mullen ’20, “Preserving LGBTQ Tacoma: An Oral History Collection”

JOBS

Where our graduates work:

  • Cascade AIDS Project
  • Premier Media Group
  • Disability Rights Maryland
  • Washington State Democrats
  • University of Washington
  • State of Colorado - Revenue

CONTINUE STUDYING

Where our students continue their studies:

  • Colorado School of Public Health
  • The University of Chicago

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

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FREEDOM EDUCATION PROJECT PUGET SOUND (FEPPS)

FEPPS provides a rigorous accredited college program to incarcerated women in Washington state and creates pathways to educational opportunity after women are released from prison.

Collins Memorial Library
COLLINS MEMORIAL LIBRARY

The university library has a wide variety of resources, including access to the Archives of Sexuality and Gender and a Subject Guide for Gender and Queer Studies.

The Yellow House
THE YELLOW HOUSE

The Yellow House is home to intercultural engagement programs and wellness and prevention education.