University of Texas Establishes the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department

In 1979, the University of Texas at Austin began offering courses in women’s and gender studies. Now 44 years, later the university has established the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies department. Lisa Moore, the Archibald A. Hill Professor of English at the university, was appointed chair of the department.

“Although the university has had a major in women’s and gender studies for about 20 years, and we’ve had a master’s degree in women’s and gender studies for even longer than that, as well as a concentration in LGBTQ studies, we’ve also had to staff those courses and make sure students have access to all the requirements for these degrees,” Dr. Moore said. “So as an academic department, the ability to hire full-time professors provides a lot of stability and continuity for our students. That allows us to plan for the future and begin to develop a Ph.D. program, the only one in the South.”

Dr. Moore added that “there’s always been strong student demand for our courses. With these additional resources, we’re going to be able to serve more students. Now it’s a more important time than any to be able to provide that education and context that will help students engage in a responsible way in some of the main debates over gender, sexuality, race, and citizenship. The women, gender, and sexuality studies perspective is going to bring more equity, compassion, justice, and abundance into people’s lives.”

Dr. Moore joined the faculty at the University of Texas in 1997 and was promoted to full professor in 2012. She is the author of Sister Arts: The Erotics of Lesbian Landscapes (University of Minnesota Press, 2011). Professor Moore is a graduate of Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, where she majored in English literature. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English literature from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.