Gender and sexuality studies uses feminist, queer, intersectional, and transgender methodologies to explore the social construction of gender and sexuality. As part of the general education program, all students are expected to take at least one course that exams gender and sexuality, and that specifically covers privilege, intersectionality, structural and personal forms of discrimination, and social constructions. These ideas can also form the basis for a self-designed major.

Curricular flexibility allows each student to address issues and ideas through unique critical and creative lenses.

Meli Osanya ’18 completed a degree in literature. Her senior project, “The World Is Yours,” is a collection of original creative work with accompanying analysis of mental health, queer identity, and blackness in science fiction and pop culture.

Alyssa Navarette ’19, completed a self-designed major in ethnological arts. Her senior project, “Malas Palabras: Reclaiming of Words & Their Power,” is a project that seeks “the empowerment of mujeres and feminine people… by redefining six words and creating intimate, somewhat sacrilegious and empowering installations of each word.”

Amanda Seigel ’21 completed a degree in storytelling and healing. Her senior project, “Dreams About Water,” was a mixed-media work exploring African cosmogenetic roots of religion and spirituality, ancestry, matriarchy, and memoir.

Judas Rose ’20 completed a degree in the interdisciplinary study of gender, race, and art. Their senior project, “cruel summer,” is a series of illustrations — using acrylic, watercolor pencil, and handmade pigments on cold-pressed paper — of figures in “studies that embody acts of intimacy, both sensual/sexual and not.”