Gender Women and Sexuality Studies at UMN

Welcome to the new page for the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota!

GWSS is a place for feminist scholarship, teaching, and programming that centers on the relationship between knowledge, power, and social justice.

Our field fosters an inclusive understanding of human experience that explores and embraces many kinds of difference, including gender, sexuality, race, class, disability, nation, and caste.

GWSS classes draw upon interdisciplinary forms of research: analyzing literature, media, and history; discussing philosophical and theoretical ideas; and learning about local and transnational political and social life. Our students learn how to integrate these through independent research.

We push against established boundaries while providing a rich and rigorous education that asks students to view the world around them with a curious yet critical lens. The department offers an undergraduate major and minor in GWSS, an undergraduate minor in GLBT Studies, a doctoral degree in feminist studies, and a graduate minor in feminist and critical sexuality studies.