Dear Friends of GWSS,
As we head into our 55th year of existence at the University of Washington, Seattle, amid political attack on higher education and our field in particular, it bears remembering that the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for the protest of previous generations of students, activists, and community members who insisted on building a program committed to centralizing, examining, and acting upon ways of knowing too long…
In the spring of 2025, we launched a digital archive of our continuously growing GWSS Oral History Collection, a website designed by Sunaina Butler and Micaela Duran for their iSchool Capstone Project, with guidance from consultant Eileen Jerrett.
In the years leading up to the 50th anniversary of GWSS in 2021, faculty members identified the importance of documenting the department’s history. Who better to narrate that history than the…
Almost 25 years ago, a group of University of Washington faculty members formed the Modern Girl Around the World Research Group. Based in the departments of English, History, International Studies, and Women Studies (now Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies) and drawing on regional expertise from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States, they set out to examine the phenomenon of the Modern Girl who emerged around the world in the first half of the twentieth century. Their groundbreaking…
Even in these challenging times, the future of gender, women and sexuality studies scholarship is bright! GWSS undergraduates are producing innovative, creative, and independent research projects that make meaningful contributions across multiple fields of inquiry–underscoring the vital importance of feminist thought on campus and beyond.
On Friday, May 16, eight exceptional GWSS majors will showcase their work at the 2025 UW Undergraduate Research Symposium. Their projects draw from…
How can contemporary queer art challenge violently-imposed colonial models of gendered personhood? What futures become imaginable if we look to Indigenous ideas of embodiment that refuse not just rigid divisions between male and female, but also fixed boundaries between humans and animals, and between social and cosmological structures? These are some of the questions GWSS major Fiona Rivera explores in her newly published article.
Rivera’s article, “Queer Animality and Andean Cosmology…
We are thrilled to share that Christina Yuen Zi Chung, who earned her Ph.D. in Feminist Studies from our department in 2024 and has since been a valued part-time lecturer, has accepted a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Oregon.
Christina brings to her new role a deep expertise in Contemporary Art with a focus on Decolonizing Perspectives. During her time with us, she enriched our curriculum through…
We're proud to share that Lou Chow has been selected as one of this year’s Husky 100, a prestigious recognition awarded to University of Washington students who are making a lasting impact through their academic work, leadership, and community engagement.
Lou’s work at the intersection of Dance and Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies reflects a deep commitment to…
We are thrilled to share that GWSS major Rachel Gardner Willson has been selected as a 2025 Bonderman Fellow!
The Bonderman Travel Fellowship offers University of Washington students the rare opportunity to embark on solo journeys across the globe. Each year, fellows design their own itineraries to explore the world with no academic agenda—just the goal of personal transformation through meaningful travel. In 2025, the cohort will…
For women seeking to make their mark as entrepreneurs and business leaders, the statistics can be daunting. Despite ongoing efforts to promote gender equity in business, research shows that women–particularly women of color–face significant challenges. As of 2023, only 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs were women, with just 1% being women of color. Meanwhile, women-founded startups received less than 2% of venture capital funding.
However, numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. Despite systemic…
GWSS PhD candidate Jey Saung has successfully defended their dissertation, Alien Intimacies: Science Fiction, Queer Kinships, and the Asian Resident Alien.
Drawing on the work of Black feminist science fiction writer Octavia Butler, Saung’s dissertation explores the figure of the Asian American resident alien through the lens of queer kinship, alternative intimacies, and national belonging. In Alien Intimacies, Saung challenges approaches that frame queer kinship solely through…
GWSS Professor Amanda Swarr is featured in The Daily article, “Trans students are carrying the weight of the world. And UW administration’s silence is violent,” by Luna Crone-Barón. The piece highlights the grief, anxiety, and erasure trans students are facing amid escalating anti-trans rhetoric and violence — both nationally and on campus.
Swarr noted that many students are grappling with uncertainty about the future and concern over access to support…
We’re excited to share that several GWSS graduate students and faculty members are among the recipients of Simpson Center for the Humanities funding for the 2025–2026 academic year.
Graduate Research Cluster Awards
Two GWSS PhD students are co-organizing Graduate Research Clusters (GRCs) that have been selected for funding:
Nastasia Paul-Gera (GWSS) and Shelby House (Anthropology) received support…