The Field

Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies is a growing and evolving field that explores the intersections of sex, gender, race and sexuality, with more than a thousand undergraduate and graduate departments nationwide. Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, what was then called "women’s studies" developed as an interdisciplinary academic field alongside ethnic and critical race studies, which were also initiated at that time.   Admitting its first students in 1974, the department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is one of the oldest in the country. The field has also had an enormous impact on other academic disciplines. A number of programs and departments now offer graduate training. While maintaining a core interest in power as it is expressed through systems of gender-based hierarchies, the field continues to expand to include new areas of work, insights and critiques.

Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst offers an undergraduate major and minor, focusing on the intersections of race/ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality. This integrative analysis is at the center of the curriculum.  The faculty have a wide variety of disciplinary training across the Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies.  Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies department faculty areas of research and teaching include:  Body Politics; Critical Race Studies; Sexuality Studies; Disability Studies; Queer Studies; Sustainability; Black Feminist Thought; Feminism, Comedy and Humor; Feminist Science Studies; Labor Studies; History; Expressive Culture; Critical Prison Studies; Asian and Asian American Feminisms; Latin American Studies; South Asian Studies; Reproductive Politics and Political Economy; Social Justice Feminisms; Social Movements; Transgender Studies; Migration Studies; Transnational, Decolonial, and Post-Colonial Feminisms. 

Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Course Offerings Guide

Each semester the Department publishes the Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Course 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/wgss.

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 Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies reference librarians available.