The Gender and Sexuality Studies minor (15 credits total) invites students to explore issues of gender, sexuality, desire, reproduction, and the body through a diversity of critical traditions, emphasizing interdisciplinary, comparative, and intersectional approaches. Students learn about the history of ideas and social movements that have shaped the field and gain context-specific knowledge on issues of gender and sexuality in relation to sociohistorical forces such as colonialism, slavery, global capitalism, migration, and struggles for social equality and justice. The program emphasizes queer, women-of-color, and post/decolonial approaches to the understanding of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and indigeneity while foregrounding cross-continental, cross-cultural, and diasporic perspectives. It draws on Pratt’s courses across the humanities and social sciences, allowing students to explore the intersectional, cultural, and historical dimensions of gender and sexuality through the visual and performance arts, literature and creative writing, and through architectural, urban, and design environments. Students have the opportunity to bring critical analysis to a wide range of visual, textual, and material environments and develop a deeper understanding of the role of the arts in social and political change, while generating strong critical contributions in their preferred medium.

Minor Coordinator
Zhivka Valiavicharska
zvaliavi@pratt.edu