The interdisciplinary academic arena that is Women’s Studies, Gender Studies or Sexuality Studies is one that is rife with opposing opinions. Indeed, that is one of its great strengths and great frustrations. I attended Smith College in the early aughts and what to call this specific department was contonually under debate, even though the decision to keep it Women’s Studies (because we had to keep the “We study women in a major way” button tradition alive..) and to focus on spotlighting the “fairer sex” had already been “decided.”
Now our local public university, Portland State, is having that discussion as well. This Thursday 21st (tomorrow) the PSU WST Dept is holding a meeting from 7:-9 pm in Smith Memorial room 296 to discuss the possibility of changing the department’s name to reflect changes both internally in the program, and externally in the field as a whole.
Here is some of the discussion so far:
Continue reading »
