Upcoming Courses: Fall 2026

GSS and will Core Courses

GSS 200 Intro: GSS (Snaza)
MW 10:30-11:45 am; 12:00-1:15 pm
IFPE, AISO
An introduction to the broad, interdisciplinary field of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Special attention will be paid to the meaning and history of the terms "gender" and "sexuality" and to the political movements mobilized around those terms. Students will read both contemporary and historical materials and both primary and secondary sources.

GSS 202 Feminist and Queer (Graybill)
MW 1:30-2:45 pm
IFPE
Explores a range of queer theoretical approaches. Special attention will be paid to intersectionality, the social construction of identities, and how these constructed identities impact knowing, ethical reasoning, and conduct. Engagement of the theoretical underpinnings of political, ethical, or cultural issues.

GSS 279 Queer Ecologies (Gonzales)
TR 3:00-4:15 pm
IFEB, IFPE
How are embodied experiences related to gender, sexuality, and other dimensions of identity intertwined with environmental concepts like “space,” “place,” and “nature”? This class will introduce the emerging interdisciplinary field of queer ecologies, which blends queer studies with ecological critique to explore various relationships between organisms and environments. We’ll consider how representations of human and nonhuman subjects encode or oppose expectations around gender and sexuality, and in turn will think about how these same representations condition our own daily experiences of the spaces and places we occupy. 

GSS 280 Gender and Work (Ooten)
TR 12:00-1:15 pm
IFPE
Examines the gendered nature of both historical and contemporary workplace issues from a global perspective. Gender and workplace issues will be examined from theoretical, historical, and comparative perspectives.

GSS 379 ST: Mutual Aid and Restorative Justice (Singh)
MW 12:00-1:15 pm
Mutual aid is the social practice of collective coordination to meet each other’s needs that arises through awareness that the systems we have in place are failing to meet them. Restorative justice is likewise a collaborative approach to social transformation, focused on healing from crimes committed not by compounding harm through the prison system, but by bringing survivors, perpetrators, and community members together to find accountability, empathy, and healing. Together, Mutual aid and restorative justice (MARJ) offer us alternative models of community action and engaged citizenship that seek to uplift the masses and create more humane societies. This class will bridge theories and histories of mutual aid and restorative justice alongside community-based action. Students will not only think deeply and ethically about alternative social formations based on care and accountability, but will also participate in social action networks in Richmond.

Graduating GSS seniors need to register under GSS490, and all other students may register as GSS379.

GSS 490 Capstone (Mutual Aid and Restorative Justice - Singh)
MW 12:00-1:15 pm
Mutual aid is the social practice of collective coordination to meet each other’s needs that arises through awareness that the systems we have in place are failing to meet them. Restorative justice is likewise a collaborative approach to social transformation, focused on healing from crimes committed not by compounding harm through the prison system, but by bringing survivors, perpetrators, and community members together to find accountability, empathy, and healing. Together, Mutual aid and restorative justice (MARJ) offer us alternative models of community action and engaged citizenship that seek to uplift the masses and create more humane societies. This class will bridge theories and histories of mutual aid and restorative justice alongside community-based action. Students will not only think deeply and ethically about alternative social formations based on care and accountability, but will also participate in social action networks in Richmond.

Electives

ANTH 272 Global Women’s Reproductive Health (Nourse)
MW 3:00-4:15 pm

ENGL 230 Women in Modern Literature (Outka)
MW 1:30-2:45 pm

ENGL 237 Queer Literatures (Singh)
MW 10:30-11:45 am

FYS 100-30 Art as Political Action (Genoni)
T 3:00-5:40 pm

FYS 100-41 Politics of Sexual Education (Snaza)
MW 9:00-10:15 am

HIST 218 State amd Society in the US since 1945 (Yellin) Special Contract*
MW 12:00-1:15 pm

HIST 240 Human Rights in Atlantic World (Watts)
TR 12:00-1:15 pm

HIST 298-04 ST: History of European Sexuality ()
TR 1:30-2:45 pm
Even today, European attitudes toward sex can be very different than those of Americans. And in the past, they were even more different than our contemporary perspectives and identities. For instance, this class will explore how the ancient Romans saw sexuality as dominance, and how the early Christians defined sex as original sin. The Enlightenment also examined sex in new scientific ways. Queer subcultures emerged in cities, and lesbians used coded languages to communicate desires. Imperialists imposed western definitions on trans people in colonial contexts. In the 20th century, revolutionary regimes wanted to change sexual cultures; the Nazi regulation of sex as part of its racist regime. Today, issues of sexuality are entangled in present-day debates over immigration. We will examine historians’ and theorists’ arguments about different approaches to sexual ethics, and test them by reading primary sources to see how people thought about these questions during their own eras.

LING 203 Intro to Linguistics (Bonfiglio) Special Contract*
MW 3:00-4:15 pm

PHIL 314 Philosophy of Science (McDaniel) Special Contract*
TR 10:30-11:45 am

PSYC 299-04 ST: Women's Health (Nonterah)
MW 10:30-11:45 am

RELG 347 Women in Early Christianity (Cobb)
W 3:00-5:40 pm

SOC 379  ST: Gender, Sexuality, & Body (Troia)
TR 10:30-11:45 am

*NOTE: Courses designated as "Special Contract" carry GSS credit only if students make a contract with the professor at the beginning of the semester to do work specific to the GSS component of the course. Interested students should consult with the professor within the first couple of weeks of class to complete paperwork for GSS credit.

Please contact the program coordinator, Dr. Crystal Hoyt, with any questions.

Updated 3/20/2026