Graduate Students
Opportunities for Graduate Students
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 workshops, 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. The CGS also assists faculty and graduate research when funds are available. Teaching opportunities at the CGS include co-teaching in the core of the undergraduate concentration (Problems in Gender Studies I and II, a M.A.-level Theory course and B.A. Preceptorship) as well as free standing courses in the College. The core undergraduate courses for the program promote collaborative teaching among faculty and graduate students. Fellowships are available for advanced graduate students, providing funding and/or residency at the Center. University of Chicago Ph.D. candidates from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. Application deadlines for teaching and fellowships may be found on our Fellowships page.
A library of textual materials related to the curriculum and the workshops, together with information about gender and women's studies programs at other institutions and funding opportunities for research on women's and gender studies, is kept in the conference room at 5733 South University, 1st Floor. Additionally, a viable student caucus made up of graduate and undergraduate students is a strong Center commitment. Ongoing activities of the Center include regular brownbag lunch presentations featuring faculty and students as well as artists and activists from around Chicago and the nation; film series, lecture series, and conferences; and social hours every Third Thursday that present art, music, and dramatic readings by students. Visit the CGS Events Calendar for listings.
Curriculum
The Center for Gender Studies (CGS) at the University of Chicago encompasses diverse disciplines, modes of inquiry, and objects of knowledge. CGS 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. For more information, see the Graduate Courses page.
Workshops and Projects
The Gender and Sexuality Studies Workshop provides an interdisciplinary forum for the development of critical perspectives on gender and sexuality. Its primary purpose is to promote analyses of the ways in which these categories intersect with other practices, constructs, or systems of domination. The workshop welcomes new and old members to the workshop. Students and faculty can submit works in progress in the field of gender and sexuality studies to be considered for the winter and spring workshops.
The University of Chicago has become a major center for research and graduate training in lesbian, gay and queer studies. The Lesbian and Gay Studies Project (LGSP), an integral part of the Center for Gender Studies, coordinates graduate and undergraduate courses, provides dissertation-year fellowships to graduate students, co-sponsors the bi-weekly Gender and Sexuality Studies Workshop, and organizes research projects and conferences.
Faculty
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 for information regarding courses and programs. Visit the Faculty page for a listing of affiliated faculty.