Faculty & Staff
The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies has two full-time faculty members at its core. In addition, more than 30 faculty members from other departments, divisions, and programs participate by offering courses, serving on the Steering Committee, advising students, supervising honors projects and internships.
WGSS Core Faculty
- Myrl Beam
- Associate Professor and Chair, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
- Queer and trans social movements, critical race theory, affect, political economy, oral history, and feminist and queer theory
- mbeam@macalester.edu
- Sonita Sarker
- Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English
- Feminist and literary theories; cultural studies of globalization as it intersects with nationalism, democracy, and imperialism; “minoritized” literatures, with a transnational comparative basis in Western Europe and Asia.
- sarker@macalester.edu
- Melanie Yazzie
- Assistant Professor, WGSS
- Research Interests – American Indian History, Diné/Navajo Studies, Environmental Studies & Political Ecology, Queer & Feminist Studies, Social & Political Movements, Urban Native Experience, Social & Political Theory, Carcerality and Policing, and Media & Popular Culture
- Layla Zbinden
- Wallin Postdoctoral Fellow 2025-2027, WGSS
- Anti-colonial Methodologies; Arab and Palestinian Feminisms; Disability Studies; Illness and Pain in Literature; Memoirs and Oral Histories; Narrative Medicine
- Sabina Vaught
- Humphrey Distinguished Professor 2025-2026 in Educational Studies & WGSS
WGSS Steering Committee
- Myrl Beam
- Associate Professor and Chair, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
- Queer and trans social movements, critical race theory, affect, political economy, oral history, and feminist and queer theory
- mbeam@macalester.edu
- Erika Busse-Cardenas
- Associate Professor, Sociology
- How immigration influences family, gender, identity, work, and culture.
- ebusse@macalester.edu
- Rothin Datta
- Instructor, Political Science
- rdatta1@macalester.edu
- Juliette Rogers
- Professor, French and Francophone Studies
- 19th century French writers, particularly from the Belle Epoque (1880-1914), and the literature of francophone Quebec, especially contemporary women writers.
- jmrogers@macalester.edu
- Sonita Sarker
- Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English
- Feminist and literary theories; cultural studies of globalization as it intersects with nationalism, democracy, and imperialism; “minoritized” literatures, with a transnational comparative basis in Western Europe and Asia.
- sarker@macalester.edu
WGSS Cross-Listing Faculty
- Morgan Adamson
- Associate Professor Media Studies
- Cross-listed course: Critical and Creative Practices of Everyday Life
- madamson@macalester.edu
- Samuel Asarnow
- Assistant Professor, Philosophy
- Ethics, Action Theory, Metaethics
- sasarnow@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6246
- Beth Cleary
- Associate Professor, Theater and Dance
- cleary@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6281
- Paul Dosh
- Associate Professor and Chair, Political Science
- Comparative politics, Latin American politics, urban social movements
- dosh@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6776
- Susanna Drake
- Professor, Religious Studies
- sdrake@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6544
- Rachel Gold
- Visiting Assistant Professor, English
- Fiction writing: especially young adult and middlegrade; LGBTQ+ Literature, comic book literature, game narratives
- rgold@macalester.edu
- they/them/theirs or she/her/hers
- Walter Greason
- Dewitt Wallace Professor of History
- Cross-listed course: Narrating Black Women’s Resistance
- wgreason@macalester.edu
- Duchess Harris
- Professor, American Studies
- Focuses on 20th-century African American political history and civil rights
- harris@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6478
- Tara Hollies
- Visiting Assistant Professor
- Cross-listed course: Women in African History
- treyelts@macalester.edu
- Joanna Inglot
- Edith M. Kelso Associate Professor, Art History
- Focuses on modern and contemporary art, particularly in Europe and the United States
- inglot@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6657
- Liz Jansen
- Assistant Professor, Biology
- Neuroscience and human reproductive biology
- jansen@macalester.edu
- James W. Laine
- Arnold H. Lowe Professor, Religious Studies
- laine@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6789
- Brian Lush
- Associate Professor, Classical Mediterranean and Middle East
- Greek and Latin Languages and Literatures, Greek Drama
- blush@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6820
- Victoria Malawey
- Associate Professor, Music
- vmalawey@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6182
- Alicia Muñoz
- Associate Professor, Spanish & Portuguese
- Contemporary Latin American narrative, popular culture, gender studies, border studies, and U.S. Latino/a literature
- amunoz@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6509
- Ahoo Najafian
- Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, Religious Studies Dept.
- Cross-listed courses:
- anajafia@macalester.edu
- Joan Ostrove
- Professor, Psychology
- Psychology and Social Structure
- ostrove@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6775
- Jessica Pearson
- Associate Professor, History
- Modern Europe, Empire/Decolonization, International Organizations, Global Health, Travel
- jpearso4@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6665
- Jenna Rice Rahaim
- Visiting Assistant Professor, International Studies
- Charity, Humanitarianism, and Gifts; Empathy and Obligation; Migration and Refugees; National and Sectarian Sentiment; Genealogy and Kinship; Postcolonial and feminist literatures; the Middle East and Islamic World
- jrice2@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6847
- Khaldoun Samman
- Professor, Sociology
- Focuses on world historical-comparative and urban sociology, globalization, sociology of religion, and modes of identities in the Middle East
- samman@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6845
- Beth Severy-Hoven
- Professor, Classical Mediterranean and Middle East
- Roman History, Gender & Sexuality in Ancient Italy, Roman Archaeology
- severy@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6721
- Morgan Sleeper
- Associate Professor, Linguistics
- Music and language, Patagonian Welsh, and language in Japanese popular media, along with language contact, code-switching, and revitalization.
- msleeper@macalester.edu
- kt shorb
- Assistant Professor Theater and Dance
- Cross-listed course: Gender and Race Theory in Performance
- kshorb@macalester.edu
- Jaine Strauss
- Professor, Psychology MFSCO
- Clinical, Community, and Health Psychology
- strauss@macalester.edu
- Linda Sturtz
- Professor, History
- Cross-listed course: The Law, Economy and Family in the Anglo-American Tradition
- lsturtz@macalester.edu
- Satoko Suzuki
- DeWitt Wallace Professor, Asian Languages and Cultures
- suzuki@macalester.edu
- Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento
- Professor and Chair, Theater and Dance
- tatinge@macalester.edu
- 651-696-6928
- she/her
- Xin Yang
- Associate Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures
- Cross-listed courses: Gender and Sexuality in China
- xyang@macalester.edu
- Della Zurick
- Visiting Assistant Professor Political Science
- Cross-listed course: Reproductive Justice: Theory and Praxis
- dzurick@macalester.edu