The Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program offers students the opportunity to study a wide range of fields from the perspectives of feminist and LGBTQIA critical analysis, in a global context and with the purpose of promoting social justice. Students will learn how gender and sexuality are socially constructed, what these terms mean in various contexts, and how these concepts are used to support social and political institutions. They will also learn how critical analysis and creative questioning of these concepts can help to reshape those institutions.
Students will use the skills they learn in our classes to engage with such disciplines as anthropology, performing and media arts, English literature, Africana studies, comparative literature, Romance studies, music, Asian studies, industrial and labor relations (ILR), science and technology studies, sociology, government, history, history of art and many more. Because of the program’s interdisciplinary focus, our majors are often double majors, and go on to pursue careers in law, medicine or public health, development and international aid, media, research and community activism.
All majors and minors take courses in three key distribution areas of the program: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies (LGBT); the study of intersecting structures of oppression including race, ethnicity and class (ISO); and global perspectives on feminism, gender and sexuality (GLO). These three areas assure that students understand a wider range of issues concerning sexuality and gender identity, the connection of human rights and social justice concerns across identities that are often represented as separate, and the global contexts for all of these discussions.
Department websiteKeyun Tian
Graduate Student
Education
Fudan University, B.A. in Philosophy; Duke University, M.A. in Critical Asian Humanities
Departments and programs
Elias Beltran
Graduate Student, ELSO Writing and Presenting Tutor
Education
BA, Liberal Arts & the Humanities, Bard College/BPI '17
Departments and programs
Oona Cullen
Education
Bard College, BA
Cornell University, MA
Departments and programs
Links
Taylor Pryor
Education
Cornell University, MA
University of Central Florida, BA
Departments and programs
Chijioke Onah
Education
University of Nigeria, Nsukka, BA
Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany, MA
Cornell University, MA
Departments and programs
Noah Tamarkin
Associate Professor
Publications
Book:
- Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020.
Articles and Book Chapters:
- "Legislating Forensic Genetics in South Africa: Science, Justice, and the Occlusion of Race in Postapartheid DNA Databasing" in Law, Practice and Politics of Forensic DNA Profiling: Forensic Genetics and Their Technolegal Worlds, eds. Victor Toom, Amade M'charek, and Mattias Wienroth, 2023. 72-90. New York: Routledge.
- "Afterword: Data, Life, and Worlds in an Anthropology of Bioinformation" in Bioinformation: Worlds and Futures, eds. Silvia Posocco and EJ Gonzalez-Polledo, 2022. 183-188. New York: Routledge.
- “Forensics and Fortification in South African Self-Captivity.” History and Anthropology, 2019. 30.5: 521-526.
- Year in Review Essay: “Time and Relational Possibility: Cultural Anthropology in 2017.” American Anthropologist, 2018. 120.2: 305-327.
- “Engagements with Decolonization and Decoloniality in and at the Interfaces of STS: Introduction,” co-authored with Kristina Lyons and Juno Parreñas. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 2017. 3.1: 1-10.
- “Genetic Ancestry and Decolonizing Possibilities.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 2017. 3.1:14-19.
- “Jewish Genetics.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Jewish Studies, edited by Naomi Seidman. New York: Oxford University Press. October 26, 2015.
- “Genetic Diaspora: Producing Knowledge of Genes and Jews in Rural South Africa.” Cultural Anthropology, 2014. 29.3: 552-574. (Awarded the 2015 American Anthropological Association General Anthropology Prize for Exemplary Cross-Field Scholarship; Reprinted 2016 in Déjá Lu. 4.1: 1)
- “African Indigenous Citizenship,” co-authored with Rachel Giraudo. The Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies, 2014. Edited by Engin F. Isin and Peter Nyers, 545-556. New York: Routledge.
- “Religion as Race, Recognition as Democracy: Lemba ‘Black Jews’ in South Africa.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2011. 637.1: 148-164.
Education
- PhD Cultural Anthropology with a notation in Feminist Studies, University of California Santa Cruz
- MA Cultural Anthropology, University of California Santa Cruz
- BA Anthropology, Colorado College
Departments and programs
- Anthropology
- Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program
- Jewish Studies Program
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies Program
- Science and Technology Studies
- Society for the Humanities
Links
- Department of Anthropology
- WISER Website
- Academia.edu page
- Department of Science and Technology Studies
Keywords
Sociocultural, political, and legal anthropology. Feminist, global, and postcolonial science & technology studies. Jewish studies. Race and ethnicity, citizenship, diaspora, indigeneity, genetics and genomics, policing, gender and sexuality. South Africa.
Juno Salazar Parreñas
Associate Professor
Publications
Book:
- Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2018.
Edited Books:
- Pandemics Past and Pending. An open access eBook of student essays, co-edited with Alena Zhang, Rodrigo Guzman Serrano, Mari Kramer, and Vishal Nyayapathi. Cornell University. 2023.
- Gender: Animals. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA. 2017.
Articles and Chapters:
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"Ethnography after Anthropology: Become Moles not Mining Corporations." 2023. American Ethnologist 50(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13201
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"Afterward: Ecological Inqueeries." Co-authored with Nicole Seymour. 2022. Environmental Humanities 14 (3). https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-9962992
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"Pronouns for an apocalyptic future: asymmetrical terms for a new era." 2021. Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society 4 (1): 1989849. https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2021.1989849
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"Power, Care and Species Difference in Orangutan Rehabilitation in Sarawak: A Roundtable." Co-written with Alicia Izharuddin, Monamie Bhadra Haines, Faizah Zakaria, and Robert Cribb. Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 94, no. 1 (2021): 203-215. https://doi.org/10.1353/ras.2021.0019
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“From Decolonial Indigenous Knowledges to Vernacular Ideas in Southeast Asia.” September 2020. History and Theory. 59(3):413-420. https://doi.org/10.1111/hith.12169
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“Specificity.” April 2020. Indonesia. 109: 65-70. https://doi.org/10.1353/ind.2020.0008
- "An Anthropology of Primatology Exceeds the Primate Order: a feminist and queer critique." 2019 Cahiers d’anthropologie sociale (18: Primates):126-143. https://doi.org/10.3917/cas.018.0126
- “The Job of Finding Food is a Joke: Orangutan Rehabilitation, Work, Subsistence, and Social Relations.” 2019. How Nature Works. Alex Blanchette and Sarah Besky eds. School for Advanced Research Seminar. University of New Mexico Press, pp. 79-98.
- “Arrested: Orangutan Sexuality and the rehabilitation of wildness through captivity in Malaysia.” 2019. History and Anthropology. 30(5): 527-532. https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2019.1638773
- “Orangutan Rehabilitation as an Experiment of Decolonization.” 2017. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. Peer-reviewed Critical Perspectives. 3(1).
- “Engaging Decolonization and Decoloniality in Science and Technology Studies.” 2017. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. Peer-reviewed Critical Perspectives. 3(1). Co-authored with Kristina Lyons and Noah Tamarkin. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v3i1.28794
- “Introduction.” 2017. Gender: Animals. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA.
- “Hunting.” 2017. Gender: Animals. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA.
- “The Materiality of Intimacy: Rethinking ‘Ethical Capitalism’ through Embodied Encounters with Animals in Southeast Asia.” 2016. positions: asia critique. 24(1):97-107. https://doi.org/10.1215/10679847-3320065
- “Producing Affect: transnational volunteerism in a Malaysian orangutan rehabilitation center.” 2012. American Ethnologist. Volume 39, Issue 4, pp. 673-687. 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2012.01387.x
Public Scholarship:
- Mellon Sawyer Lecturers at University of Washington. Rethinking Humanitarianism and Seeing Beyond the Human. Co-convened by Arzoo Osanloo and Cabeiri Robinson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlkvnCwSaGs
- “The Semi-Wild.” Ö1 Kunstradio (Art Radio on Austrian national public radio). October 14, 2018. This was a 20-minute sound installation stemming from collaboration with the artist Ines Lechleitner: http://www.kunstradio.at/2018B/14_10_18.html
- "A Joke of a Job: Naturalizing the Work of Semiwild Orangutans." 2018. Theorizing the Contemporary, Fieldsites, July 26. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/a-joke-of-a-job-naturalizing-the-work-of-semiwild-orangutans
- “YNK: You Never Know #17, Blasted Landscapes/Abundant Futures #4 with Juno Salazar Parreñas.” Documenta 14: Savvy Funk Radio Broadcast, FM 103.0 MHz in Berlin, FM 90.4 MHz in Kassel, SW 15560 kHz, and streamed worldwide on Deutschlandfunkkulture (German national radio’s culture station). July 4, 2017. This was a 13-minute interview about my forthcoming manuscript followed by a live soundscape by Islands+Songs. Other broadcasts featured Dipesh Chakrabarty and Juanita Sundberg. Available online: https://www.mixcloud.com/Islands_Songs/ynk-12-_-june-29th-_-blasted-landscapes-abundant-futures-3-_-with-juno-salazar-parre%C3%B1as/
- "Multispecies Ethnography and Social Hierarchy." Engagement: a Blog Published by Anthropology and Environment Society of the American Anthropological Association. September 15, 2015.
- “Queerly Questioning.” A regularly featured column that I have written since July 1997. The Lesbian News. Oldest monthly magazine of its kind, publishing since 1975.
Education
- PhD, Anthropology, Harvard University, 2012
- MPHIL in Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam, 2002
- BA, Women’s Studies with Highest Honors, UC Santa Cruz, 2001
Departments and programs
Rachel Kerr
Professor
Publications
Journal Publications
- Bezner Kerr, R., Young, S., Young, C., Santoso, M., Magalasi, M., Entz, M., Lupafya, E., Dakishoni, L., Morrone, V., Wolfe, D. W., & Snapp, S. (2019). Farming for change: developing a participatory curriculum on agroecology, nutrition, climate change and social equity in Malawi and Tanzania. Agriculture and Human Values. 18.
- Wittman, H., Abson, D., Bezner Kerr, R., Blesh, J., Hanspach, J., Perfecto, I., Fischer, J., & Chappell, M. (2016). A social-ecological perspective on harmonizing food security and biodiversity conservation. Regional Environmental Change.
- Nyantakyi-Frimpong, H., Mambulu, F. N., Bezner Kerr, R., Luginaah, I., & Lupafya, E. (2016). Agroecology and sustainable food systems: Participatory research to improve food security among HIV-affected households in northern Malawi. Social Science & Medicine. 164:89-99.
- Nyantakyi-Frimpong, H., & Bezner Kerr, R. (2016). Land grabbing, social differentiation, intensified migration and food security in northern Ghana. The Journal of Peasant Studies.
- Hwang, T., Ndolo, V. U., Katundu, M., Nyirenda, B., Bezner Kerr, R., Arntfield, S., & Beta, T. (2015). Provitamin A potential of landrace orange maize variety (Zea mays L.) grown in different geographical locations of central Malawi. Food Chemistry. 196:1315-1324.
- Nyantakyi-Frimpong, H., & Bezner Kerr, R. (2015). The relative importance of climate change in the context of multiple stressors in semi-arid Ghana. Global Environmental Change. 32:40-56.
- Bezner Kerr, R., & Nyantakyi-Frimpong, H. (2014). A political ecology of high-input agriculture in northern Ghana. African Geographical Review.
- Bezner Kerr, R. (2014). Lost and Found Crops: Agrobiodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge, and a Feminist Political Ecology of Sorghum and Finger Millet in Northern Malawi. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 104:577-593.
- Bezner Kerr, R. (2012). Lessons from the old Green Revolution for the new: Social, environmental and nutritional issues for agricultural change in Africa. Progress in Development Studies. 12:213-229.
- Snapp, S. S., Blackie, M. J., Gilbert, R. A., Bezner Kerr, R., & Kanyama-Phiri, G. (2010). Biodiversity can support a greener revolution in Africa. PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 107:20840-20845.
Education
Doctorate
Cornell University
2006
Master of Science
University of Guelph
1998
Bachelor of Science
University of Toronto
1996
Departments and programs
Links
Keywords
feminist, gender, and sexuality studies
Lori Leonard
Professor
Publications
Journal Publications
- Leonard, L. Women who change into men: A gendered history of precarity in 'useful' Chad. Africa. 89.
- Leonard, L. (2016). Pharmaceutically-made men: Masculinities in Chad's emergent oil economy. Qualitative Sociology.
Books
- Leonard, L. (2016). Life in the time of oil: A pipeline and poverty in Chad. Life in the time of oil: A pipeline and poverty in Chad Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.
Education
Sc.D./1996, Harvard University, Health & Social Behavior and Population & International Health
M.S./1992, Harvard University, Health & Social Behavior
B.A./1985, St. Olaf College, English Literature and Psychology
Departments and programs
Keywords
feminist, gender, and sexuality studies