Major Requirements

Course Requirements for the Major:

The purpose of the major is to provide students with interdisciplinary breadth; however, we also encourage students to work with their faculty advisors to formulate their coursework around issues or themes of particular interest.

Additional electives are available each semester.

The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major is thirty-three (33) credits.

Foundation courses (all are required):

• WGST 101:  Introduction to Women’s Studies
• WGST 102: Perspectives in Sexuality
• PHIL 220:  Introduction to Feminism OR SOCG 374: Feminist Theory and Intersectionality

Approved methods courses include:

• AMST 201: Introduction to American Studies
• ANTH 298: Ethnographic Methods
• ARTH 303: Methods of Art History
• ENGL 295: Methods of Advanced Literary Studies
• GEOG 252: Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Geography
• GEOG 363: Qualitative Methods in Geography
• HISP 205: Documentation and Fieldwork
• HIST 299: Introduction to the Study of History
• PSCI 391: Research and Writing in Political Science
• PSYC 362: Research Methods for Psychology
• SOCG 364: Quantitative Research Methods and Analysis
• SOCG 365: Qualitative Research Methods and Analysis
• SOCG 475: Public Sociology

3)  Electives: 

Students will take 6 electives from at least 3 different disciplines, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. One of the electives must emphasize difference in the form of race, class, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, or sexuality.  The permanent list of electives appears below. An additional list of electives will be circulated by the program director each semester. 

To qualify as an elective, the content of a course must be predominately about women and/or gender.  A student may request that a course be approved as an elective for the major by presenting a syllabus and an acknowledgement from the professor that the course meets that standard; however, that request must be made to the program director, Dr. Mindy Erchull, you can email her at merchull@umw.edu, before the beginning of the semester in which the course is taken. Further instructions are available on this website.

Courses approved as electives for the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major include:

• ANTH 212: Anthropology of Gender
• CLAS 310: Women in Antiquity
• COMM 376: Gender and Communication
• COMM 377: Pop Culture
• COMM 380: Sports & Digital Media
• COMM 381: Hip Hop Culture
• ENGL 318: Sex, Love, and Power in Renaissance England
• ENGL 323: Sexuality and the Origins of Modernity
• ENGL 324: Poetry of Desire
• ENGL 327: Jane Austen
• ENGL 332: British Romantic Women Poets
• ENGL 348: Literature of the Great War
• ENGL 353: Asian American Literature
• ENGL 369: Women and Modernism
• ENGL 391C: Whitman and Dickinson
• ENGL 468: Feminist Literary Theories and Criticism
• GEOG 361: Sustainability in Guatemala
• HIST 325: History of Manhood in the US
• HIST 334: Early Modern European Women’s History
• HIST 462: Women in Latin America
• LING 307: Language and Gender
• PSCI 370: Gender and Politics
• PSCI 372: Gender and Development
• PSCI 375: Gender & Public Policy
• PSYC 349: Psychology of Human Sexuality
• PSYC 350: Psychology of Women and Gender
• RELG 303: Sex, Gender, and Religion in America
• RELG 310: Women and Sexuality in the Western Religious Tradition
• SOCG 215: Gender and Society
• SOCG 331: The Family
• SOCG 400: Sociology of the Body
• SOCG 434: Gender and Work
• SPAN 475: Hispanic Women Writers
• THEA 250: Fashion History
• WGST 300: Special Topics in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
• WGST 400: Seminar in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
• WGST 491: Independent Study
  • You need approval to take this course, please see the WGST491 requirements.
• WGST 499: Internship

(This list will be updated as new courses are added to the catalog.)

Is there a course you would like to be considered as an elective? Look at the elective course approval page for more information on how to get a course approved.

4) Capstone course (one is required):

For the capstone experience, all majors will design a capstone project (WGST 485) under the supervision of an affiliated faculty member. The student will submit a proposal for the 485 project for approval by a committee composed of the program director, the student’s faculty advisor, and the WGST advisory committee; the proposal must be submitted to the committee the semester before it is to be completed. The project provides students with the opportunity to engage in the creation of original material and to apply the methods and approaches that they have acquired in the major. More information is available at the program’s website. Please look at the WGST 485 Requirements.

NOTE: Students are responsible for meeting any departmental prerequisites for all classes.