Gender Studies examines the social processes, cultural representations, relations of power, and forms of knowledge that generate a range of gendered perspectives and experience worldwide. Our focus on gender as an analytic category facilitates an array of scholarly collaborations, generating cutting-edge research across fields as diverse as the social sciences, the arts and humanities, the natural sciences, and policy studies.  Categories of difference that articulate with gender - such as race, ethnicity, class, and religion - are vertical grids of attention throughout the doctoral degree program. The Department emphasizes integrative and transdisciplinary modes of analysis for the study of sexualities and sexual identities; bodies and their technologization and medicalization; representation and social/cultural production; and feminist epistemologies.

Five unique core courses form the heart of the program: Concepts of Gender; Sexualized Genders/Gendered Sexualities; Contemporary Debates in Feminist Theory; Researching Gender Issues; and Gender Studies Professional Development. In addition, students select one of three areas of concentration: