The Center for Gender Studies

The Center for Gender Studies coordinates courses and activities that take up gender and sexuality as primary objects of study and categories of analysis. Courses engage these domains in many different ways, including: the study of gender and/or sexuality as historical practice; scientific concept and site of representation; in social movements such as feminism and gay and lesbian liberation; feminist and queer theory; family structures; the gendering of labor force participation; representations of women in literature and the visual arts; intersections of race and gender, transnationalism; and women's and men's participation in politics.

Our courses both fall into traditional disciplinary rubrics, and use gender and sexuality as categories of analysis to track contemporary transformations in these and other domains of knowledge. We are interested in developing points of comparison within and among diverse areas of organized knowledge, not assuming that gender means the same thing in different disciplines, historical moments, epistemologies, or cultural frameworks. We are also dedicated to fostering debate about the construction and implications of categories of gender difference and sexual identity. Further, we promote engagement with ways that gender and sexuality give us insight into other modes of social organization and change, including transformations of economic and political systems; media public spheres; forms of repression and resistance; modes of production, knowledge and experience; and everyday life.

The Center for Gender Studies confers no graduate degrees at this time. It does, however, foster many kinds of graduate participation in the center. In addition to offering undergraduate and graduate courses, and an undergraduate concentration in gender studies, it sponsors lectures and symposia of interest to graduate students. It also encourages and supports graduate student initiatives for conferences and speakers, as well as student participation in the governance of the center. In addition, many Gender Studies faculty and students participate in the graduate workshops conducted under the auspices of the Council on Advanced Study in the Humanities and the Social Sciences that engage questions of gender, sexualities and identities. The CGS also assists faculty and graduate research, through various grant monies, usually available through an application in the Spring quarter. Problems in Gender Studies, the core undergraduate course for the program, promotes collaborative teaching among faculty and graduate students. A library of textual materials related to the curriculum and the workshops, together with information about gender and womens studies programs at other institutions and funding opportunities for research on womens and gender studies, is kept in the Gender Studies office on the fourth floor of Judd Hall. Additionally, a viable student caucus made up of graduate and undergraduate students is a strong center commitment.

The resource faculty draws from departments, committees, and professional schools dispersed throughout the University. Members of this faculty have confirmed their interest in supporting work in gender studies in their own and across different fields, even when their major course offerings are not directly "gender studies" courses. Faculty also regularly direct master's essays and Ph.D. dissertations in the field of gender studies within the MAPSS and MAPH programs as well as in their own disciplines. Students interested in gender studies who wish to earn advanced degrees leading to careers in research and teaching should apply for admission to the department in which their chief interest falls. They should also, however, contact the Center for Gender Studies, (773) 702-9936, for information regarding courses and programs.

This text was last revised on 7/2/2001.