Alice Rutkowski received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and became a member of the Geneseo faculty in 2003. She often teaches the courses Literature and the Civil War, the Queer Nineteenth Century, Safe Zone Train-the-Trainer, Feminism and Pornography, and Major Authors: Melville, among others. Her research centers on the Civil War and Reconstruction as well as queer theory and trans politics. She received the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2012 and the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service in 2022. Recent articles include the articles "Bad Sex Ed" and "Trans Feeling in the Nineteenth Century." She has also published in Radical Teacher, the volume Mothers and Sons: Centering Mother Knowledge, Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers and Studies in the Literary Imagination.
Rutkowski has been Chair of the Department of English since 2021, and is the chair of the Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society selection committee. In 2013, she founded the LGBTQ Issues Working Group. Rutkowski is the coordinator of the Geneseo Safe Zone Network. To request a Safe Zone training for your group, please click here.
Classes
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WGST 205: Top: Art & Politics of Drag
This is a slot course that focuses on one or several related topics in gender, sexuality, and/or queer studies. Each section will incorporate recent feminist scholarship, methodologies, concepts, and analyses. In addition, each section will utilize feminist pedagogy to foster a climate of mutual inquiry and exchange of ideas between faculty and students. This course may be taken for credit multiple times with different subtitles.. Not offered on a regular basis
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WGST 232: Safe Zone Train-the-Trainer
This course, which trains students to become facilitators in Geneseo's Safe Zone program, covers LGBTQ history and identities in addition to more contemporary issues and problems. It also emphasizes: developing an effective public speaking style; learning how to facilitate discussions; developing activities that require active learning; critically evaluating and revising Safe Zone program curriculum; and marketing and outreach to the campus community. Students who demonstrate mastery of skills in this course will be eligible to become Safe Zone Trainers the following semester; in addition, they also have the option to apply to the Safe Zone Leadership Program in subsequent semesters for which they can earn internship credit.