Purdue University College of Liberal Arts
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The Women's Studies Program offers systematic attention to gender and women's experience in all aspects of life. Our curriculum is committed to the scholarly understanding of difference and diversity through interdisciplinary courses that lead to an undergraduate major and minor, as well as a graduate minor. The program reexamines the traditional disciplines and explores complex bodies of knowledge. Courses address the intersection of gender with factors such as race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and nationality in U.S. and global contexts.
What is Women's Studies?
Women's Studies expands our intellectual vision and our capacity to resolve problems through challenges to the traditional disciplines and development of new bodies of knowledge. Recognizing that a neglect of women in most of the established disciplines has led to inadequate and incomplete understanding of human experience, Women's Studies courses critically assess the historical and social context of the status, roles, and relations of the sexes. Women's Studies is committed to an expanding recognition of the impact and strength of difference and diversity in women's lives.
The field of Women's Studies emerged out of the women's movement in the late 1960's; today, programs exist on hundreds of college campuses all over the world. Feminist scholarship has invigorated and transformed traditional disciplines, from history and psychology to education and philosophy. Women's Studies places special emphasis on the study of gender and its relationship to race, class, and sexual orientation. Women's Studies courses pay close attention to women's personal and public experiences, and look at the meaning and impact of events, ideas and social institutions for women as well as for men.
Who Should Take Women's Studies Courses?
Women's Studies courses should be taken by women and men of all ages, races, and cultures. These courses are truly interdisciplinary, integrating theories, research, and discoveries from a variety of fields. All students will find Women's Studies courses intellectually, politically and personally challenging. Students may select a variety of Women's Studies courses to fulfill requirements of the core curriculum of the School of Liberal Arts, as well as the Women's Studies Major and Minor.
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