Interdisciplinary studies have always been a complicated endeavor. But as a Women’s Studies major myself, I think they’re well worth the effort. Disciplines are not so separable, and, increasingly, universities, entrenched in the ideologies of postmodernity, must and are, realizing this. Plus, as I’ve said before, I do love a good theme. All the better when a good theme can bring together various other themes, disciplines, and theories.
That’s why, I’m all for the idea of a Queer and Sexuality Studies minor that has been proposed at the University of Oregon. At my college, we had a Queer Studies concentration within our Women’s Studies department, which I completed. The first time they offered the Intro class, the lecture hall was completely flooded a couple hundred students squished into the corners and huddled on the sides of the aisles. Could our own UO have a similar learning-desire fire hazard? I think so. And to bust out of the Women’s Studies department would be even better. We had continual conversations about renaming our department Gender Studies, which many schools have, but the chairs felt that this took away emphasis from a group that we were surely investigating. So to have been able to say I have a minor in Queer Studies, as a separate entity from a Women’s Studies department, would have been quite nice instead of continually explaining my concentrations. This is not to say that resources can’t be combined. Of course they must. And the overlap of resources, theories, and informed faculty and students is another factor I find terribly exciting.
