Core Faculty
Nicole Erin Morse, Director, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.
Dr. Morse came to Florida Atlantic University from the University of Chicago in 2018 after completing a PhD in Cinema and Media Studies. Their research has been published in Jump Cut, Feminist Media Studies, Porn Studies, [in]Transition, and elsewhere. Their book manuscript Selfie Aesthetics explores the political, theoretical, and aesthetic implications of self-representation by trans women and trans feminine artists. Further writing, including media pedagogy blog posts, can be found at NEMorse.com.
Josephine Beoku-Betts, Professor, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Sociology
Dr. Beoku-Betts arrived at Florida Atlantic University in 1997 as one of two faculty members in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Prior to coming to FAU, she was on the faculty in the Departments of Women’s Studies and Sociology at the University of Georgia. Her primary research is on postcolonial and feminist standpoint discourses on science with emphasis on the educational and career experiences and perspectives of African scientists. Her current research is on Women’s Peace Movements and Post-War Reconstruction in Sierra Leone. Dr. Beoku-Betts has co-edited one book and several articles and book chapters in feminist and other scholarly journals. She was formerly co-regional editor for Women’s Studies International Forum, and co-Book Review Editor for Gender & Society. She is currently the co-President elect for the RC 32 Committee (Women and Society) of the International Sociological Association. In 2011, she was received the Florida Atlantic University Presidential Leadership Award. In 2012, she received the Florida Commission on the Status of Women Florida Achievement Award.
Jane Caputi, Professor, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Communication
Dr. Caputi is a Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Caputi’s primary research is in contemporary American cultural studies, including popular culture, gender and violence, and ecofeminism. Dr. Caputi has written many articles and authored four books: Call Your Mutha' : A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene; The Age of Sex Crime; Gossips, Gorgons, and Crones: The Fates of the Earth; and Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power and Popular Culture. She also has made two educational documentaries, The Pornography of Everyday Life (2006) and Feed the Green: Feminist Voices for the Earth (2015). In 2008 she curated the popular culture section of an exhibit “Political Circus 2008: Hating Hillary, Baiting Barak, and Pandering with Palin” and followed this up in 2016 with From (Castrating) Bitch to (Big) Nuts and Beyond: Political Sideshow 2016, co-curated with Adrienne Gionta. Both of these exhibits were sponsored by the Schmidt Galleries, Florida Atlantic University. A new exhibit sponsored by the Schmidt Galleries “Political Pandemonium: Presidential Popular Culture from 2008-2008” opens online on Oct. 1 2020, http://fau.edu/artsandletters/galleries/
Jane Caputi's newest book Call Your “Mutha’: A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene, was published by Oxford University Press in a series on “Heretical Thought.” Please visit this link for more information.
Dr. Caputi was FAU’s Distinguished Teacher for 2001, and received FAU’s Research and Scholarly Activities award (Professor level) for 2005 and for 2012. In 2013, she was named “Feminist of the Year” by the Palm Beach County National Organization for Women (NOW). In 2016, she was named Eminent Scholar of the Year by the American Culture/Popular Culture Association and in 2020 the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology selected her for their Saga Award 2020 for Special Contributions to Women’s History and Culture.
Executive Committee
In addition to the core Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty, a dedicated group of FAU staff and professors serve on the WGGS executive committee in order to facilitate the research, curriculum and programming goals of the WGSS Center.
- Bianca Nightengale-Lee, Department of Curriculum, Culture, & Educational Inquiry
- Ashvin R. Kini, Department of English
- Christine Scodari, School of Communication and Multi-Media Studies
- Dawn Frood, Collection Development Librarian
- Mary Ann Gosser-Esquilín, Department of Languages, Linguistics & Comparative Literature
- Lotus Seeley, Department of Sociology
- Susan Love Brown, Department of Anthropology
Faculty Affiliates
In addition to the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies faculty, there are faculty affiliates. They include faculty in the departments across the university. Their representation signifies the truly interdisciplinary nature of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Some of the affiliates include:
Department of Anthropology
- Susan Love Brown, Ph.D., University of California-San Diego
- Mary Cameron, Ph.D., Michigan State University
School of Communication and Multi-Media Studies
- Nanetta Durnell-Uwechue, Ph.D., Ohio State University
- Noemi Marin, Ph.D., University of Maryland-College Park
- Marquese McFerguson, Ph.D., University of South Florida
- Andrea Miller, Ph.D., University of California-Davis
- S. Marek Muller, Ph.D., University of Utah
- Christine Scodari, Ph.D., Ohio State University
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
- Dawn L. Rothe, PhD., Western Michigan University
Department of Curriculum, Culture, & Educational Inquiry
- Traci Baxley, Ed.D., Florida Atlantic University
- Dilys Schoorman, Ph.D., Purdue University
Department of English
- Barclay Barrios, Ph.D., Rutgers University
- Eric Berlatsky, Ph.D., University of Maryland
- Sika Dagbovie-Mullins, Ph.D., University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
- Andy Furman,Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University
- Taylor Hagood, Ph.D., University of Mississippi
- Wendy Hinshaw,Ph.D., Ohio State University
- Ashvin Kini,Ph.D., Uiversity of California San Diego
Department of History
- Graciella Cruz-Taura, Ph.D., University of Miami
- Candace Cunningham, Ph.D., University of South Carolina
- Adrian Finucane, Ph.D., Harvard University
- Kelly Shannon,Ph.D., Temple University
Department of Languages, Linguistics & Comparative Literature
- Nora Erro-Peralta, Ph.D., University of Toronto
- Yolanda Gamboa, Ph.D., Purdue University
- Mary Ann Gosser-Esquilín, Ph.D., Yale University
- Michael Horswell, Ph.D.,University of Maryland, College Park
- Marcella Munson, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles
Department of Political Science
- Rebecca LeMoine, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Angela Nichols , Ph.D., The University of North Texas
School of Public Administration
- Patricia Patterson, Ph.D., The American University
Department of Sociology
- Mark Harvey, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Stephanie Ortiz, Ph.D., Texas A&M University
- Lotus Seeley, Ph.D., University of Michigan
- Patricia Widener, Ph.D., Brown University
Department of Visual Arts and Art History
- Karen Leader, Ph.D., New York University
Affiliate Faculty
William L. Leap, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the American University (Washington, DC) and an Affiliate Professor in the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, FL). He is the founding senior editor of the Journal of Language & Sexuality and, since 1993, has coordinated the annual program of the Lavender Language Conference. His writings about language and sexuality address topics as varied as race/class inequities, gender differences, language socialization, homophobia/hate speech, gay pornography, trans-national circulations, subaltern voice, and problems of queer historiography. Key publications include American Indian English (1993), Word’s Out: Gay Men’s English (1996), Out in Public: Reinventing Lesbian/Gay Anthropology in a Globalizing World (co-edited with Ellen Lewin), Speaking in Queer Tongues: Gay Language and Globalization (co-edited with Tom Boellstorff), and the widely reprinted papers “Language, socialization and silence in gay adolescence,’ “Queering gay men’s English,"and “Homophobia as moral geography.” He is currently completing a multi-disciplinary study of language, identity and same-sex desire in the US military, in Renaissance-era Harlem, in women’s softball teams, in cruising sites, and in other locations “before” Stonewall.