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Faculty & Staff

The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies has two full-time faculty members at its core. In addition, more than 30 faculty members from other departments, divisions, and programs participate by offering courses, serving on the Steering Committee, advising students, supervising honors projects and internships.

WGSS Core Faculty

Myrl Beam
  • Myrl Beam
  • Associate Professor and Chair, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
  • Queer and trans social movements, critical race theory, affect, political economy, oral history, and feminist and queer theory
Sonita Sarker
  • Sonita Sarker
  • Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English
  • Feminist and literary theories; cultural studies of globalization as it intersects with nationalism, democracy, and imperialism; “minoritized” literatures, with a transnational comparative basis in Western Europe and Asia.
Melanie Yazzie
  • Melanie Yazzie
  • Assistant Professor, WGSS
  • Research Interests – American Indian History, Diné/Navajo Studies, Environmental Studies & Political Ecology, Queer & Feminist Studies, Social & Political Movements, Urban Native Experience, Social & Political Theory, Carcerality and Policing, and Media & Popular Culture
Layla Zbinden
  • Layla Zbinden
  • Wallin Postdoctoral Fellow 2025-2027, WGSS
  • Anti-colonial Methodologies; Arab and Palestinian Feminisms; Disability Studies; Illness and Pain in Literature; Memoirs and Oral Histories; Narrative Medicine

WGSS Steering Committee

Myrl Beam
  • Myrl Beam
  • Associate Professor and Chair, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
  • Queer and trans social movements, critical race theory, affect, political economy, oral history, and feminist and queer theory
Erika Busse-Cardenas
  • Erika Busse-Cardenas
  • Associate Professor, Sociology
  • How immigration influences family, gender, identity, work, and culture.
Rothin Datta
Juliette Rogers
  • Juliette Rogers
  • Professor, French and Francophone Studies
  • 19th century French writers, particularly from the Belle Epoque (1880-1914), and the literature of francophone Quebec, especially contemporary women writers.
Sonita Sarker
  • Sonita Sarker
  • Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English
  • Feminist and literary theories; cultural studies of globalization as it intersects with nationalism, democracy, and imperialism; “minoritized” literatures, with a transnational comparative basis in Western Europe and Asia.

WGSS Cross-Listing Faculty

Morgan Adamson
Samuel Asarnow
Beth Cleary
Paul Dosh
  • Paul Dosh
  • Associate Professor and Chair, Political Science
  • Comparative politics, Latin American politics, urban social movements
  • 651-696-6776
Susanna Drake
Rachel Gold
  • Rachel Gold
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, English
  • Fiction writing: especially young adult and middlegrade; LGBTQ+ Literature, comic book literature, game narratives
  • they/them/theirs or she/her/hers
Walter Greason
Duchess Harris
Tara Hollies
Joanna Inglot
  • Joanna Inglot
  • Edith M. Kelso Associate Professor, Art History
  • Focuses on modern and contemporary art, particularly in Europe and the United States
  • 651-696-6657
Liz Jansen
James W. Laine
Brian Lush
  • Brian Lush
  • Associate Professor, Classical Mediterranean and Middle East
  • Greek and Latin Languages and Literatures, Greek Drama
  • 651-696-6820
Victoria Malawey
Alicia Muñoz
  • Alicia Muñoz
  • Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese
  • Contemporary Latin American narrative, popular culture, gender studies, border studies, and U.S. Latino/a literature
  • 651-696-6509
Ahoo Najafian
Joan Ostrove
Jessica Pearson
  • Jessica Pearson
  • Associate Professor, History
  • Modern Europe, Empire/Decolonization, International Organizations, Global Health, Travel
  • 651-696-6665
Jenna Rice Rahaim
  • Jenna Rice Rahaim
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, International Studies
  • Charity, Humanitarianism, and Gifts; Empathy and Obligation; Migration and Refugees; National and Sectarian Sentiment; Genealogy and Kinship; Postcolonial and feminist literatures; the Middle East and Islamic World
  • 651-696-6847
Khaldoun Samman
  • Khaldoun Samman
  • Professor, Sociology
  • Focuses on world historical-comparative and urban sociology, globalization, sociology of religion, and modes of identities in the Middle East
  • 651-696-6845
Beth Severy-Hoven
Morgan Sleeper
  • Morgan Sleeper
  • Associate Professor, Linguistics
  • Music and language, Patagonian Welsh, and language in Japanese popular media, along with language contact, code-switching, and revitalization.
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Jaine Strauss
  • Jaine Strauss
  • Professor, Psychology MFSCO
  • Clinical, Community, and Health Psychology
Linda Sturtz
Satoko Suzuki
Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento
Xin Yang
  • Xin Yang
  • Associate Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures
  • Cross-listed courses: Gender and Sexuality in China
Della Zurick