LGBTQ+ Studies

  • Home
  • LGBTQ+ Studies

The LGBTQ+ Studies Program at Hofstra University is an interdisciplinary program studying gender and sexual minorities, their histories, and their cultures.

Courses in the program are open to and welcome ALL interested students, regardless of their identity or sexuality, and will benefit EVERYONE who takes them.  Our classes will build students’ cultural competence, make them better allies, and help them work successfully with people of all backgrounds.

LGBTQ+ Studies classes prove especially useful to students whose career plans involve working with the public, such as future teachers, healthcare workers, law enforcement officers, attorneys, social workers, salespeople, managers, and more.

A minor in LGBTQ+ Studies is available to students in any major through Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Our core teaching faculty come from many different departments around the University, including Romance Languages and Literatures, Religious Studies, Counseling, Comparative Literature, and Writing Studies and Rhetoric.

The program also sustains a University-wide network of faculty and staff mentors who are either members of the community themselves or allies.

The LGBTQ+ Studies minor allows students to develop an LGBTQ+-inflected syllabus in any relevant course they are taking with faculty cooperation. The faculty mentors listed below may be particularly open to helping students develop such courses.

Scholarships

About the Program

The LGBTQ+ Studies program at Hofstra University investigates the broad spectrum of sexual and gender identities from serious scholarly perspectives, including but not restricted to biology, classical studies, communications, cultural studies, fine arts, health sciences, history, literature, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. The program is interdisciplinary and designed to offer students various viewpoints from which to examine diversity – diversity of culture, but also diversity in families, communities, histories, institutions, languages and literatures, economics, and politics, as well as the complex social and cultural relations between marginalized sexualities and the heterosexual majority. Gender, sexual identities, discourses, and institutions are studied as they intersect with class, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, and transnational movements.

Outcome Assessment Tools

The LGBTQ+ Studies program uses various methods to assess the performance of students and thereby instructors and the curriculum. These methods include but are not limited to periodic exams, final exams, written assignments, term papers, research papers, creative writing projects, and class presentations.

The faculty regularly assesses the effectiveness of these goals through a cyclical examination of one or more components of the program. After careful consideration of the findings of this examination, adjustments are made to the appropriate sector of the program, if needed.

Learning Goals

Learning Goal #1: Students will demonstrate knowledge of social, economic, political, intellectual, and cultural contributions of LGBTQ+ people of the past and present.

Objectives:

  1. Describe the social, economic, political, intellectua,l or cultural contributions of one or more LGBTQ+ person.
  2. Analyze scholarship, literature, art, music, dance, theater, or film created or performed by one or more LGBTQ+ person.

Learning Goal #2: Students will develop an understanding of how sexual identity and gender identity combine with nationality, race and ethnicity, religion, social class, and physical ability to shape the experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Objectives:

  1. Evaluate scholarship on LGBTQ+ intersectionality.
  2. Describe the similarities and differences among LGBTQ+ people in different cultural and historical contexts.

Learning Goal #3: Students will acquire a basic understanding of LGBTQ+ history and queer theory.

Objectives:

  1. Summarize major developments in LGBTQ+ history since the 19th century.
  2. Appraise the thought and scholarship of one or more queer theorists.

Learning Goal #4: Students will engage in interdisciplinary approaches to LGBTQ+ Studies.

Objectives:

  1. Evaluate inter- or multidisciplinary scholarship on LGBTQ+ topics.
  2. Employ at least two different disciplinary perspectives in a paper, oral presentation, or research project on an LGBTQ+ topic.

Click on the title of each event for more information.

For more information about Hofstra’s LGBTQ+ Studies Program’s past, present, and future, check out the 12/17/24 episode of the WRHU podcast Queerly Informed, in which reporter Camryn Bowden interviews Dr. Bernard J. Firestone, former dean of Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, about the founding of the LGBTQ+ Studies Program and interviews Dr. Lisa M. Dresner, current director of the LGBTQ+ Studies Program, about the program’s present and future.

Listen to the podcast on iTunes

Dr. Firestone’s discussion of the founding of the program runs from 0:00-9:21.

Dr. Dresner’s discussion of the program’s current and future projects runs from 9:22-28:56.

Supporting Hofstra’s commitment to inclusion and recognizing that students may identify themselves by a name other than their Legal Name, we have established the Chosen Name Policy. This policy allows students to use their name of choice on select Hofstra communications and platforms, and to be referred to as such by University employees. The creation of this policy was the result of recommendations by the 2015-16 LGBTQ+ Taskforce and is supported University-wide. We encourage everyone to read the policy and reach out to Hugo Morales, Associate Director of Intercultural Engagement and Inclusion (IEI@hofstra.edu), or Brittany Rhoden, Title IX Coordinator for Student Issues (StudentTitleIX@hofstra.edu), for more information.

Contact Us

LGBTQ+ Studies Program Director
Lisa M. Dresner
Room 305 Mason Hall
Department of Writing Studies and Rhetoric
Office Phone:
516-463-0075
Email