Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

chss.wwu.edu/wgss

The Department of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) pursues critical inquiry and practical application of feminist and queer scholarship by teaching and activism that makes sense of how gender impacts our world and shapes social, political, and cultural formations. Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies helps us to ask and answer the most pressing questions of our time. With a commitment to analyzing relationships of power, challenging forms of oppression, and building knowledge that liberates, WGSS classes examine social issues through literary, scientific, and historical materials. Through classes, service learning, and internships, students develop a critical, socially engaged sense of how gender and sexuality shape and are shaped by the world around them. In addition, our classes carefully attend to the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, indigeneity, ethnicity, class, age, ability, nationality and religion. WGSS is a field born from struggle and is committed to critical thinking and engagement in social justice.

We are dedicated to teaching undergraduate majors and minors to use critical thinking to bridge feminist theories and social justice practice. The department prepares students to pursue careers or graduate school in law, social service, counseling, public policy, health care, teaching, social activism, and the arts. WGSS alumni have become professors, lawyers, politicians, psychologists, journalists, public health professionals, environmental scientists, health organization directors, grant managers, business owners, and so much more. A WGSS Major will make you an asset to any workplace. 

Students who wish to declare a major or minor in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies should contact the chair, Professor Rae Lynn Schwartz-DuPre, College Hall 203, raelynn.schwartz-dupre@wwu.edu. You can also meet with the WGSS department manager Ren Schreuder in College Hall 204, ren.schreuder@wwu.edu, 360-650-3851. A Student Academic Declaration & Change Form may also be submitted online to Professor Schwartz-DuPre or Ren Schreuder.

Mission Statement

The WGSS program at WWU pursues critical inquiry through queer and feminist scholarship, teaching, and activism. We draw on intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches to study how sex, gender, and sexuality are shaped by race, indigeneity, ethnicity, class, age, ability, nationality, and religion. We interrogate the conditions that render specific populations vulnerable to violence in a range of local and transnational contexts. We also seek to study and cultivate strategies of resistance. In doing so, we address issues such as war and militarism, political and social policy, the environment, education, healthcare, economics, the media, art, literature, and popular culture. To achieve these goals, we foster multiple modes of intellectual inquiry and creative pedagogies to promote transformative thinking, collaboration, and activism that ends oppression and demands liberation and justice.

Faculty

RAE LYNN SCHWARTZ-DUPRE (2006) Chair and Professor. BA, University of Vermont; MA, Wake Forest University; PhD, University of Iowa. Chair WGSS. Post-colonialism, rhetoric, identity, visuality, and popular culture.
KIMI BRYSON-REILLY (2025) Assistant Professor. BA, Wheaton; MA, Yale University; PhD, Rutgers University. WGSS, Black Feminist Studies, Feminist Theory.
JOSH CERRETTI (2015) Associate Professor. BA, Trinity College (CT); MA, UN University for Peace; PhD, University of Buffalo. History and WGSS. Feminist and queer theory, militarism and war, historical approaches to race, gender, and sexuality.
ALLISON GIFFEN (2001) Professor. BA, Barnard College; MA, Yale University; PhD, Columbia University. WGSS and English. Early 19th century American women writers and American women poets.
FELICIA YOUNGBLOOD (2019) Associate Professor. BA, Catawba College; MM and PhD, Florida State University. WGSS, Musicology/ethnomusicology, voice, trauma recovery, cultural heritage, and gender studies.

Teaching Faculty

EZRA TILLAND-STAFFORD (2013) BA, Simon Fraser University; MA, York University; PhD, University of British Columbia. WGSS. Queer & feminist theory and methods, critical childhood studies, disability studies, trans studies, gender and sexuality education.
LORI MARTINDALE (2015) BA, Western Washington University; MA, Western Washington University; PhD, European Graduate School. Honors and WGSS. Gender studies, film and media studies, philosophy and literature, feminist theory, writing about literature.
RAHA NOBOWATI (2024) BA, SBU; MA, Humboldt University of Berlin; PhD, University of Oregon. Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Social and political philosophy (with a focus on Foucault), feminist philosophy, queer theory, and postcolonial theory.

Affiliated Faculty

DHARITRI BHATTACHARJEE, History. South Asian history, Indian Ocean world, empire, colonialism, decolonization.
ELIZABETH COLEN, English. Hybrid genres, experimental writing, ecopoetics, and literary collage.
SUSAN COSTANZO, History. Russian women’s history and culture.
RITA DANIELS, Communication Studies. African womanism, women and gender studies, intersectionality, women organizing and organizations, decolonization, intergroup communication, and mixed research methods.
SHIRIN DEYLAMI, Political Science. Feminist and queer theory; post-colonial and Islamic thought; and gender and Islam.
NADA ELIA, Ethnic Studies. Arab and Muslim American Studies.
MARY ERICKSON, Communication Studies. Critical media studies, gender, film/TV/internet, media industries.
AMANDA EURICH, History. Gender, sexuality, and religion in early modern Europe.
VICKI HSUEH, Political Science. Protest movements and the politics of refusal, decolonial theory and indigenous politics, health activism, and gender studies.
MARY HUNT, Public Health. Gender and sexual and reproductive health, particularly abortion.
JOEHAHN, Director of LGBTQ+ Western and Interim Director of Multicultura Student Services. Queer & Afro Futures, Trans studies. hahnj7@wwu.edu
LAURA LAFFRADO, English. Early U.S. literature and culture, U.S. women’s writing, women’s autobiographical writing.
JEN LOIS, Sociology. Social psychology, emotions, gender, qualitative methods. wwu.edu/soc/bios/lois.shtml
CAROLYN NIELSEN, Journalism. Intersectionality and representation in news narratives; interactions between journalists and new technoligies with a particular focus on whose voices are amplified.
SHURLA ROGERS-THIBOU, WGSS. Introduction to Women Studies, women and globalization.
MICHAEL SLOUBER, Global Humanities and Religions. Early medieval religions of India, South Asian Studies, and Religious Studies.
TAMARA SPIRA, Fairhaven/American Cultural Studies. Transnational, de-colonial, and critical race feminist theories and praxis; queer of color and transnational sexuality studies and feminist critiques of militarism, prisons, and empires.
MIDORI TAKAGI, Fairhaven College. Race, class and gender, comparative studies of women of color.
VERONICA N. VELEZ, Education and Social Justice/Woodring and Fairhaven. Critical race theory and Latina.o critical theory in education, Chicana feminist epistemologies, politics of parent engagement in educational reform, particularly for Latina/o (im)migrant families, and participatory action and community-based models of research.
THERESA WARBURTON, English. Native and Indigenous literatures, nonfiction studies, queer studies, histories of feminism, anarchist studies, social movement history.
CAMERON WHITELY, Sociology. Queer/trans studies, environmental sociology, sociological animal studies.
SIYAMAK ZABIHI-MOGHADDAM, Global Humanities and Religions. History of the Middle East and North Africa specializing in women’s and gender history.

Programs

Undergraduate Major

Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, BA

Undergraduate Minor

Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Minor

Courses

Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Courses numbered X37; X97; 300, 400 are described in the University Academic Policies section of this catalog.