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Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies is a rapidly growing field, with more than a thousand undergraduate and graduate departments nationwide. Beginning in the late 1960s, women’s studies developed as an interdisciplinary field that made women and gender central to its analysis. Initially developed to address the omission or distortion of women’s contributions to society, the field soon brought a feminist critique to the conceptual frameworks of the entire academy. Developing both within departments and as a separate entity, women, gender, sexuality studies has had an enormous impact. In most disciplines gender analyses are a key tool, and a number of programs now offer graduate work.

Building on this new scholarship, faculty, students, and staff at colleges and universities across the country initiated programs of study. Admitting its first students in 1974, to what was then known as Women’s Studies, the department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is one of the oldest in the country. It offers both an undergraduate major and minor, reflecting the latest work in the field, focusing on the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality. This integrative analysis is at the center of the curriculum. Faculty expertise includes: the politics of women’s bodies, African American women’s history, feminist science studies, poetry and literature in the African diaspora, work and family, sexuality studies, migration, social movements, Asian American feminisms, Latin American studies, sex work, critical race feminisms, political economy, gender and development, feminist philosophy, feminist theory, history of science, transnational and post-colonial feminisms, history of feminism and sexology in Europe, women and U.S. radicalism, sustainability, and South Asian studies. In addition, faculty in other departments focus their research in areas as diverse as history, literature, education, management, and health. For students interested in graduate work, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies offers a Graduate Certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies.

Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Course Description Guide

Each semester the Department publishes the Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Offerings Guide which contains more than a hundred courses from the University and Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges. Copies of the Course Offerings Guide are available for the next semester during the registration counseling period and may be obtained from the Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies office, (413) 545-1922, or viewed from the department's website: www.umass.edu/wost.

Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Resources

The Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, located at Mount Holyoke College, facilitates the discussion and critical analysis of women’s studies research. The University of Massachusetts W.E.B. Du Bois Library has a Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies reference librarian available.