PLU Women's and Gender Studies Program

03/05/2026

“FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists is an online initiative from Ms. reflecting on the semiquincentennial of U.S. democracy from a feminist perspective, launched during Women’s History Month on March 2, and continuing through April 16, with a commemorative section in the Summer 2026 print issue. The series explores how feminist histories laid the foundations that shaped 250 years of ideas about equality, freedom and social justice.”
https://msmagazine.com/feminist-250/?fbclid=IwZnRzaAQV8kxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeJju3_Rz0fG0uZnwgdpf03CxsMBWC4hLYlMX7BqYRZR6gGVvXu5rs_uyEjEY_aem_zfDGva4wp31Fvodx3h-MPw

America turns 250 this year. Who actually built this democracy? Founding Feminists centers the women and gender-nonconforming people written out of the origin story—from Phillis Wheatley to Ona Judge to Haudenosaunee women leaders.

02/06/2021

Registration is required but access to the virtual film festival is free.

"The SDSU Brazilian Film Series has Brazilian film streaming on demand for free. The 2019 documentary, Amazônia: O despertar da florestania, is available in February and followed by an interview with co-directors Christiane Torloni and Miguel Przewodowsky. All films and interviews are available with subtitles in English.
To watch, visit and SEE TRAILERS BELOW:

1. Amazonia: The Awakening of Florestania
https://youtu.be/ER5dRXgXxwc
“Discussing how the Amazon forest and Nature itself have been treated in Brazil since the beginning of the 20th century, the documentary brings together the testimonies of many different personalities in Brazilian society, such as indigenous leaderships, environmentalists, representatives of the third sector, journalists, artists, and intellectuals who have been somehow fighting to preserve this most precious Brazilian legacy.”

2. Café con canela/Coffee with Cinnamon
https://youtu.be/N9ZULi44fko
“Margarida lives in São Felix, isolated after the loss of her son. Violeta leads her life in Cachoeira, between the adversities of her day-to-day and traumas of the past. When Violeta re-encounters Margarida, she begins a process of transformation, marked by visits, cleanings, and coffee with cinnamon, capable of awakening new friendships and old loves.”

3. The Devil’s Knot/O No do Diabo
[No trailer available]
“Two centuries ago, during slavery, a sugar cane farm is a stage for horror. Nowadays, the cruel past remains marked on the walls of that place, even if no one notices. Strange events begin to unravel and death becomes evident in the five tales that illustrate the narrative.“

4. No coraçao do mundo/In The Heart of The World
https://vimeo.com/364858418
“Dona Sônia borrowed a gun from her neighbor Alcides, to avenge her son, Joca, who was killed by Beto, who is Miro’s brother, who is Rose’s lover, who is Selma’s friend, who works with Marcos, who is Ana’s boyfriend, who wants to leave Contagem and have a better life in the heart of the world”

5. Praça Paris
https://vimeo.com/232060188
“Praça Paris is a thriller that shows the conflict between Camila, a Portuguese psychoanalyst who came to Brazil to conduct research on violence, and her patient, Gloria, in the Therapy Center of a Brazilian university (UERJ). Gloria is an elevator attendant at the university and has a very difficult history of violence: r***d by her father, she has only her brother, who always protected her, but was also a drug lord. Fear, traumas, action and obsession merge in a game of pleasure and guilt, madness and sanity, construction and deconstruction - from the urban Rio de Janeiro surrounding Camila and Gloria and, above all, from their own lives.”

6. Queen of Lap
https://vimeo.com/418083940
“A proud transgender s*x worker since the age of eleven, Luana Muniz, now fifty-nine, shapes a new reality in her “hostel” by housing a new generation of transgender s*x workers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Queen of Lapa is a documentary that explores the day-to-day lives, rivalries, and quests for love of s*x workers, as Muniz’s guides them in a city full of hostility towards its LGBTQ community.”

https://www.digitalbrazilproject.com/film-series?fbclid=IwAR1wJK5wjzWX1Bh_bO5OiOnZfNS3HHQ99lVwHE2HULfzy3cBPPruAejpbyI

The Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University interviewed Maurílio Martins and Gabriel Martins in November 2020 to discuss filmmaking in Brazilian peripheries, their process as filmmakers, and their film, No coração do mundo/In the Heart of the World. In the Heart ...

10/20/2020

Dr. Laura Shneidman in Psychology at PLU, is with us today - with her feminist kiddo! Dissent your beard and give to GSRS. Link in bio.

10/20/2020

Dr. Lathiena Nervo is with us today! Here’s her message to friends of GSRS: “Today and tomorrow are – a fun, philanthropic tradition that honors PLU’s bearded founder, the Rev. Bjug Harstad, and raises money for PLU and student success. As a member of the Gender, Sexuality and Race Studies (GSRS) Program Executive Committee, I’m excited to be a part of this wonderful new program and the PLU community. We in the GSRS program are exchanging the Bjug Harstad’s beard for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s protest collar. . If you love PLU too, I encourage you to make a gift of any size. “ https://www.givecampus.com/campaigns/15173/donations/new

10/20/2020

Today is the seventh annual Bjug Day of Giving at PLU! We are in an exciting, transitional moment for the Gender, Sexuality and Race Studies Program, as we launch our newly revised program and new minor in Critical Race Studies. Please give to support student learning in Gender, Sexuality and Race Studies. To do so, visit the Academics Bjug Day page and seek out the GSRS gift designation in the drop-down menu under “Interdisciplinary Programs." https://www.givecampus.com/schools/PacificLutheranUniversity/academics/?a=3890018

10/05/2020

Check us out at our new page for the revised Gender, Sexuality and Race Studies Program! And follow us there to keep updated on our news, events and programming.

Gender, Sexuality, and Race Studies (GSRS) at Pacific Lutheran University provides students with an intersectional and interdisciplinary curriculum that examines how gender, s*xuality and race are embedded in complex dynamics of power and resistance.

09/18/2020

Featured articles from our Racial Injustice collection
Impact Factor: 0.715
The articles featured in this collection seek to inform our understanding of various systems of racial injustice, from healthcare, to education, to business, to politics

Access the collection
http://info.sagepub.com/q/12FGmAjIeELKiKF7XpBGMi9T/wv
About the journal
The first open access journal of its kind dedicated to the social sciences that publishes original research and review articles spanning the full extent of the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities.

09/10/2020

Tomorrow, Sept 10. Free streaming and panel discussion but requires registration (find link for that clicking below).
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-labor-week-screening-panel-discussion-of-waging-change-tickets-116784594867
"A film screening and virtual discussion examining issues of economic, racial, and gender justice for restaurant workers. During Labor Week 2020, the second week of September, Women Make Movies, One Fair Wage, and Social Action Media will be hosting a virtual screening of Abby Ginzberg's new film WAGING CHANGE, which examines the relationship between economic, racial, and gender justice for restaurant workers. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Abby Ginzberg (filmmaker), Saru Jayaraman (president, One Fair Wage), Nikki Cole (National Policy Campaign Director, One Fair Wage), and Cheadza Kundidzora (restaurant worker)."

09/05/2020

"Krug, who adopted the moniker Jess La Bombera, wasn’t only satisfied with becoming a tenured professor, publishing a book through a major academic trade press, and being regarded as an expert in African American studies. She also had to become a gatekeeper of Blackness—a moral pillar who determined who was working on behalf of Black people and who needed to be held accountable for not doing enough. “She consistently trashed women of color and questioned their scholarship,” political anthropologist Yarimar Bonilla, who teaches at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, tweeted. “She even described my colleague Marisa Fuentes as a ‘slave catcher’ in the introduction to her book. Kind of amazing how white supremacy means she even thought she was better at being a person of color than we were.”"

Everything about her behavior screams of whiteness.

06/19/2020

The following is a statement from the faculty executive committee for the Gender, Sexuality, and Race Studies Program at PLU:

We, the faculty of the Gender, Sexuality, and Race Studies Program, are devastated by the recent killings of black Americans, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Manuel Ellis. These names join far too many others in a tragic list of African Americans brutalized and killed by police. We deplore the racist systems that have devalued black lives. We recommit ourselves to equipping students with the knowledge and tools to dismantle white supremacy and to imagine radical alternatives to the current unjust and inequitable systems that govern our societies.

The past several weeks have underlined that we live in a deeply unjust nation. The legacy of over two centuries of slavery and another century and a half of segregation have created persistent inequalities. In particular, African Americans have suffered disproportionately from police brutality and a discriminatory criminal justice system. White Americans have created systems that preserve white supremacy by destroying black bodies. In the face of such injustice, we affirm that black lives matter.

For that affirmation to matter, we must act. This is a moment where all of us must take concrete steps towards attacking racism and building a more just and equitable world. In our roles as GSRS faculty, we pledge to our students and colleagues that we will continue to revise courses, develop new curricula, and agitate for changes at PLU to make our university a more just and equitable institution. This work will include:

1. Revising and/or building antiracist courses that equip students to attack white supremacy by illuminating the history of race and racism, as well as the legacy of black persistence and resistance
2. Working with the Offices of Student Life, the Provost, and the President to redress injustices and inequalities that persist at PLU
3. Developing fall programming devoted to the legacies of anti-black racism, black activist resistance and persistence, and the work of dismantling white supremacy

We must push PLU to live up to its stated commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This will invite difficult conversations about racism in our own community, and it will ask those who enjoy racial privilege to sacrifice on behalf of those who suffer from racism. We know there is still much work to be done. We commit ourselves to that work and invite our students and colleagues to join us.