Academic
s: About the Program
The Program offers an undergraduate major as well as an undergraduate minor. Those who major in Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies frequently pursue dual majors in other departments; they go on to careers in law, media, social work and research, development, and activist work, among others. All majors and minors take courses in three key areas of the program: lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender studies; the study of intersecting structures of oppression including race, ethnicity, and class; and global perspectives on feminism, gender, and sexuality. The Honors Program allows qualified students to synthesize readings and perspectives acquired during the course of an undergraduate education in a flexible thesis project.
The Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies graduate minor attracts students from humanities fields such as English, Comparative Literature and Theater, as well as students in Anthropology, History, Development Sociology and Education, to name a few. This flexible minor invites any Cornell graduate student interested in the study of women, gender, and sexuality to craft a personalized program of interdisciplinary study in areas such as feminist ideologies and cultures, institutions and societies, history, literatures and arts, psychology and human development, and biological sciences.
A Feminist Studies Colloquium, organized by graduate students, has invited leading scholars to present new work at Cornell and to engage informally with graduate student research; past visitors have included Lisa Lowe, Robyn Wiegman, Rey Chow and Miranda Joseph. FGSS offers an award for graduate student research through the Alice Hanson Cook Award. Recent FGSS graduate students now have professorial positions at the University of Toronto, Bryn Mawr, the University of California at San Diego and Georgetown University.
Historical Footnote
Established in 1972
as one of the byproducts of the Women's Liberation Movement, the Cornell
Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program was initially called
Women's Studies so as to explicitly name the group rendered invisible
by (what was then almost always referred to as) the "patriarchy" -
and also so as to highlight that it would be speaking from the perspective
of the traditionally marginalized Other rather than from the perspective
of the group presumed by the dominant paradigm to neutrally represent
humankind (i.e., men). But the name quickly became controversial, not
only because it suggested that the objects of study, as well as those
undertaking the studies, were exclusively women, but also because it
did nothing to discourage the common assumption that the women in question
were white, middle-class, and heterosexual. To expand and institutionalize
the sexuality component of the Program, a minor in Lesbian, Bisexual, & Gay Studies was established at both the graduate and undergraduate
levels in the early 1990s. To shift the emphasis of the Program 
even
further toward the intertwining of gender and sexuality with structures
of power and inequality, in 2002, the Program changed its name from
Women's Studies to Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. In 2009, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Gay Studies changed its name to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Studies.
Governance
The Program is governed by several different bodies which meet throughout the academic year: a Steering Committee comprised of faculty, students and staff, whose charge is to advise the Director and guide the Program's intellectual direction and sponsored activities; a Core Faculty, comprised of those faculty members who most actively teach and advise in the Program and whose membership also governs tenure review and promotion decisions; and several smaller subcommittees (on Undergraduate and Graduate Affairs, for example), which oversee grants and awards as well as curriculum issues. Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies welcomes your participation in its governance and encourages faculty, students, and staff to contact the Program Office to become actively involved.
