The concentration in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies trains students in a number of skills pertinent to gender and sexuality studies, including textual interpretation and analysis, historical thinking, and approaches to visual and material culture, all with a relation to the religious (broadly construed). Students are encouraged to develop their own research agendas, which may be thematic, historical, theological, theoretical, or take a number of other forms, and to make use of resources from a number of departments and programs in the University, especially American Studies, WGSS, LGBT studies, and the program in Race, Ethnicity, and Migration. Students typically pursue courses of study that prepare them for further work, whether in a professional or academic context, which is enabled by the flexibility of degree requirements for the WGSS MAR. Students work closely with faculty advisors to create a coherent program of study, which might focus on topics like queer art, women’s history and biblical interpretation, gender and liturgy, queer theology, or the effect of religion on gender, sexuality, and healthcare, to name just a few examples from recent years. Faculty interests include biblical interpretation, theology and ethics, preaching and pastoral care, visual and material culture, and liturgy. The concentration requires six hours in Bible (or other sacred texts, with the advisor’s permission), and six hours in historical or theological study, in addition to the eighteen credit hours in the WGSS concentration.
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