Women’s and Gender Studies is an emerging department focused on introducing students to the centrality of gender across the disciplines. WGS courses critically examine its origin, impact and meaning in society both domestically and around the world. WGS uncovers how gender intersects with race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity as it seeks to understand the ever-changing definitions of what it means to be gendered beings. At its core, WGS promotes equality and acceptance.

Lubovich, Maglina
PhD, State University New York – Buffalo
MA, University of St. Thomas
BA, College of St. Scholastica

WGS 1001 3 credits 

Introduction to Women’s & Gender Studies 

This interdisciplinary course examines the history, role and theories surrounding women and gender from a global perspective. It will explore how gender is produced and how it intersects with other identity categories such as race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity. Women’s/Gender Studies uses gender as a tool for critically analyzing societies. The class includes a service-learning component, wherein students will engage in a semester-long project that takes them into the community to initiate political change, one of the cornerstones of feminism as social movement.

ENGL 2045 3 credits 

Literature by Women 

This course offers a social, historical, and political examination of literature written by women through the centuries in a variety of genres (novels, short stories, poetry, essays and memoirs). What role, if any, does an author’s gender play in the production of a text and in our interpretation of it? Is there really a distinct manner of writing that is specific to women? How have women writers been understood and valued (or not) through time? While we will look for common themes among the work assigned, we will also uncover the vast diversity of human experience present in women’s literature. Through the process, students will develop their critical reading, thinking, and writing skills and use them to analyze literary texts.