Courses in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies are offered every spring and fall semester at Penn State Altoona. The eighteen-credit Women’s Studies minor, which is available at Penn State Altoona, enriches study in many majors, including human development, political science, criminal justice, communications, theatre, English, engineering, and the natural sciences. The minor provides students with a competitive edge in their professional lives.
It is also possible to design a Women’s Studies/Gender Studies or Diversity Studies major at Penn State Altoona through the Multidisciplinary Studies program. Contact Dr. Sandra H. Petrulionis at [email protected] for information about Multidisciplinary Studies. Research with productive faculty can be done at our college.
Graduates with degrees in Women’s Studies attend top-tier professional, law, and graduate schools. They have careers in professional fields as diverse as legal advocacy, counseling, public relations, journalism, management, non-profit administration, teaching, medicine, politics, and government.
Contact Dr. Brooke Findley at [email protected] if you are minoring in Women’s Studies to ensure courses are going into the right places on your Academic Requirements Report in LionPATH.
Fall 2024 Courses
WMNST 100: Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies
Dr. Freyca Calderon Berumen
T/R 1:35-2:50
This course offers an introduction to some of the basic concepts and theoretical perspectives in Women's and Gender Studies focused on shared experiences, issues of gender roles and stereotyping, questions related to sex/gender systems, and examining what constitutes the interdisciplinary academic field that explores critical questions about the meaning of gender in society.
Drawing on disciplinary, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural studies, the purpose of this course is to engage students with key issues, roles, questions, arguments, and disputes in Women's and Gender Studies scholarship, both historical and contemporary. Women's and Gender scholarship critically analyzes themes of gendered performance and how are they influenced and shaped by culture, education, media, and other social institutions, such as gender inequities, sexuality, families, work, media images, queer issues, masculinity, reproductive rights, and history; specially through systems of oppression. (GS, US, IL)
WMNST/HIST 166: History of Sexuality in the U.S.
Dr. Lindsay Keiter
MWF 1:25-2:15
Why do we care so much about who has sex with whom and how? How did we arrive at our current “obvious” understanding of sexual behavior and identity? HIST/WMNST 166 explores how ideas and practices of sexuality have changed over the last 400 years and how ideas about sexuality are also ideas about power and social order. We’ll explore questions like: Have there always been homosexuals – or heterosexuals? How has the relationship between gender identity and sexuality changed over time? How do race and class come into play? How have “normal” and “deviant” sexuality been defined over time – and why has it changed? Is sex work empowering or exploitative? What forces led to the #MeToo movement? You’ll leave this course with a better grasp of why Americans continue to debate about what constitutes “good,” “bad,” and “normal” sexual behavior. Prerequisite: one introductory course in either history or women’s studies. (GH, US)
WMNST 200: Global Feminisms
Dr. Elizabeth Seymour
MW 2:30-3:45
This course introduces students to the complexity of feminisms in the context of contemporary globalization. Much of the course focuses on the variety of feminist movement transnationally, particularly as those movements respond to not only local culture and politics, but also to global politics, and as such it touches again and again on the history of power. Explorations of the interanimating systems of power in a given area or region includes attention to ideologies of gender, race, sexuality, colonialism, imperialism, health and welfare, any or all of which are either supported or disrupted by globalism. The course holds a feminist lens to issues such as: gender and sexualities; the politics of the body; ongoing effects of colonialism-in theory and practice-on women worldwide; women's health; women and the environment; women's labor; political economy; transnational migrations; global class relations; women and/in the media; violence against women; women and war; the global sex/human trafficking trades; silence and marginalization; citizenship politics; women in politics and activism around the globe. The course examines contemporary feminist theory in the Global North and the Global South, highlighting the ways in which the term “feminism” continues to be contested. Given that we no longer talk about “feminism” in the singular in the United States, lack of agreement on the priorities of feminists worldwide is even more acute, given diverse cultural, political and economic positions of women around the globe. Thus the course also asks students to resist the kinds of generalizations that have led to inadequate feminist response to urgent challenges faced by women around the world. At the same time, the course will ask what kinds of connections can be made between local feminisms, and transnational feminist movement. (GS, IL)
CRIMJ/WMNST 423: Sexual Violence
Dr. Kim S. Ménard
T/R 10:35-11:50
This course examines sexual and interpersonal violence from victims’, society’s, and the criminal justice system’s perspectives. It begins by examining the nature of these crimes, including their legal definition and occurrence. Next, it reviews theories of violence and provides a more detailed analysis of the types, causes, and effects of sexual and interpersonal violence. Finally, the course focuses on college campuses, including laws institutions have to adhere to when dealing with these crimes, the policies implemented to try to reduce them, and victims’ demands for action. (US)
Independent Studies in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
In addition to our regularly offered courses, independent study opportunities related to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies may be available in the following disciplines. Please contact the professors below directly for more information.
- Criminal Justice: contact Dr. Kim S. Ménard at [email protected]
- Education: contact Dr. Freyca Calderon Berumen at [email protected]
- Human Development and Family Studies: contact Dr. Kelly Munly at [email protected]
- Sociology: contact Dr. Karyn McKinney Marvasti at [email protected]