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. Jutta Gsoels-Lorensen 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 2025 Courses

Click on a course title to reveal more information.

Dr. Lindsay Keiter
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 1:25–2:15 p.m.

What has it meant to be a woman, and how has that changed over the past four centuries? This class explores how gender shaped individual and group experiences from the 17th century through today. Students will apply historical analysis to consider women not as a monolith but as people with complex identities shaped by race, ethnicity, class, and religion. At the end of this course, students will be able to provide historical context for current debates around and challenges facing women of various backgrounds today. (GH; US; IL)

Dr. Kevin Moist
Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:35–2:50 p.m.

This course investigates the role of media representations in shaping our ideas about society and culture, with particular attention paid to how portrayals of gender, race, and ethnicity influence perceptions of different social groups. Course topics focus on case studies involving a range of different media and groups. Class activities include weekly readings and reading quizzes, several short response papers, class discussions, and two examinations. (GS; US; satisfies Non-Western Women/Women of Color requirement for the WMNST minor)

Dr. Kim S. Ménard
Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:35–11:50 a.m.

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)

Additional courses that count toward the Women's Studies minor at Penn State Altoona. Email [email protected] to request course be correctly counted toward minor in LionPATH.

Dr. Jeffery Stoyanoff
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 12:20–1:10 p.m.

Science Fiction. Fantasy. Horror. Magical Realism. All of these genres fall under the larger umbrella of Speculative Fiction. In this course, we will read five or six books (novels and/or short story collections) that are examples of Speculative Fiction. Students will be asked to engage these texts using a variety of theoretical approaches, including queer studies, critical race theory, and ecocriticism (among others). Possible texts may include Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, and Olga Tokarczuk’s The Empusium. Text list subject to change.

In addition to our regularly offered courses, independent study opportunities related to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies may be available.

Students interested in doing interdisciplinary work in autoethnography or literature review using a feminist theory framework are encouraged to contact Dr. Kelly Munly at [email protected].