Women's and Gender Studies Program
Date of this Version
April 2006
Abstract
What is LGBTQ/Sexuality Studies?
LGBTQ/Sexuality Studies is the academic study of sexuality. At the heart of the field is the recognition that sexuality is a category of difference all its own, one that bears as much intellectual scrutiny as do race, class and gender. Classes in the field cover a wide range of topics — homosexuality and heterosexuality, queer theory and queer communities, inter-racial relationships and miscegenation laws, pornography debates and obscenity laws, birth control practices and eugenics debates — all of which can be assessed through a variety of disciplinary lenses, including anthropology, English, history, philosophy, psychology, and sociology, to name just a few. Although people have long been interested in the study of sexuality, LGBTQ/Sexuality Studies has only emerged in the last thirty years, producing some of the most innovative scholarship to date. UNL has been a part of this new intellectual tradition from its earliest days and is now proud to offer a minor in LGBTQ/Sexuality Studies.