Back when I was an undergrad, one would hear references to the “Holy Trinity” of sociology, meaning “Weber, Marx, Durkheim” (with the order perhaps switched around in ways that might or might not be telling about the speaker). Sometime between then and my first years as a faculty member, this changed so that when somebody referred to the “Holy Trinity,” they were at least as likely to be making a reference to “Race, Gender, and Class” (with the order perhaps switched around in ways that might be telling about the speaker). The graduate applications I’ve been reading–in addition to other indicators, such as the tagline here–lead me to think this may be changing again, with the new trinity being “Race, Gender, and Sexuality” (perhaps reflecting its new entrant status, I’ve not yet heard ‘sexuality’ said before race or gender). For those applicants who are interested in issues of “class,” it seems very closely bound up with an interest in either race or gender, whereas numerous applicants are interested in sexuality (mostly, sexual orientation) as a thing in and of itself, as something that “intersects” with gender and race.
I wonder if the “Race, Gender, and Class” section will eventually change its name to include sexuality. Or if a whole new “Race, Gender, and Sexuality” section will form.
Complete non sequitur: Continue reading “comes in threes”
