Letters to the Editor
-
WS in American Universities
There are a lot of posts stating that WS can be studied in any other department or departments. But that would mean only a very limited approach to the subject. In other words, gender questions would either be studied as literary questions, or sociological, legal, etc. WS allows an interdisciplinary approach to this.
Another way of thinking of this is through the example of less "ideological" or "political" approaches. For example, my university has Renaissance Studies and Medieval Studies, should these be dismantled because it is something that can be studied in a variety of fields? How would you reconcile an archeological approach to the Renaissance vs a literary approach to it?
Also, I think a lot of posts are collapsing the difference between the idea of majors and minors at the undergraduate level and the structure of graduate studies. A WS major would have also taken a wide array of courses in other areas and disciplines. On the other hand, at the graduate level, there is no, at least not usually, a WS department but only academic programs that serve as a intellectual meeting place of like minded scholars--women´s studies, hellenistic studies, Latin American studies, etc.