The Graduate Curriculum

Students pursuing the emphasis in Women's Studies will complete four graduate courses. Only one may be taken in the student's home department.

1. Issues in Feminist Epistemology
A one-quarter course in Women's Studies that acquaints students with the scope and range of feminist epistemological critiques across the disciplines, and pursues issues relevant to the problematizing of knowledge seeking. Topics will include the "logic" of binary thinking, the construction of subjectivities and theories of agency rooted in gender, race, class, and sexuality, methodological implications of race and class privilege, the role of language in shaping the world, and issues of positionality, power, and privilege.

2. Feminist Theories
A one-quarter feminist theory course offered in a department other than Women's Studies (home department, or other).

3. Topical Seminar
A one-quarter graduate seminar offered either in Women's Studies or in another department that addresses topics relevant to the study of women and gender.

4. Research Seminar in Women's Studies (Women's Studies)
A one-quarter seminar that focuses on the students' own research projects and that explores fundamental issues in the philosophy, process, and tools of feminist research. This course should be taken at the point when the student is well launched on the dissertation project, most typically after the Ph.D. exams.