Gender and Women's Studies

University of California, Berkeley

Overview

The Department of Gender and Women's Studies offers interdisciplinary perspectives on the formation of gender and its intersections with other relations of power, such as sexuality, race, class, nationality, religion, and age. Questions are addressed within the context of a transnational world and from perspectives as diverse as history, sociology, literary and cultural studies, postcolonial theory, science, new technology, and art.

The department offers an undergraduate major and minor. It also houses an undergraduate minor in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Studies, a program whose courses overlap productively with feminist and gender studies. Faculty in the department collaborate with an extensive group of affiliated faculty in Women, Gender and Sexuality, which provides graduate students across campus with a site for transdisciplinary learning and teaching. The department is now in the process of developing a PhD program. The department fosters connections with scholars in feminist and sexuality studies throughout the campus by cross-listing courses, collaborating in research, and participating in the Gender Consortium, which links research and teaching units that focus on gender.

Community-Engaged Scholarship

The Gender and Women's Studies Department promotes engaged scholarship through our unique internship courses. Students commit to working with a community-based organization for a minimum of three hours a week for the semester. The hope and challenge of these courses is to go beyond standard educational models in which learning is bound by the classroom and confined to the University. This effort to bridge the gap between the University — as a place of study — and community organizations — as agents of action, grows from the urgent need for opportunities to engage in a coordinated exploration where theory and action inform each other.

Research

The Beatrice Bain Research Group (BBRG) is Berkeley’s critical feminist research center, and is the keystone research program within the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. Each year BBRG hosts approximately 25 visiting scholars from around the globe whose research is centrally on women and gender. In addition, BBRG organizes public scholarly panels on cutting-edge topics in the field of gender studies. Established in 1986 to support and coordinate feminist scholarship across disciplines, the BBRG fosters research on gender and women, and is particularly interested in enabling research on gender in its intersections with sexuality, race, class, nation, religion, postcoloniality, and transnational feminisms.

The Gender Consortium is intended to bring together several campus units dedicated to issues surrounding gender and sexuality. The goal of the Gender Consortium is to provide an infrastructure for coordinating public events, fundraising, applying for external grants, and enhancing undergraduate and graduate education.

Undergraduate Programs

Gender and Women's Studies: BA, Minor
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Studies: Minor

Graduate Program

The department does not currently offer a graduate program. A Designated Emphasis (DE) in Women, Gender, and Sexuality is offered by the Graduate Group in Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

Visit Department Website

Courses

Select a subject to view courses

Gender and Women's Studies

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies

Contact Information

Department of Gender and Women's Studies

680 Social Sciences Building

Phone: 510-642-2767

Fax: 510-642-0246

Visit Department Website

Department Chair

Leslie Salzinger, PhD

616 Social Sciences Building

lsalzinger@berkeley.edu

Vice Chair for Research

Paola Bacchetta, PhD

pbacchetta@berkeley.edu

Vice Chair for Pedagogy

Laura C. Nelson, PhD

620 Social Sciences Building

lcnelson@berkeley.edu

Undergraduate Major Advisor

Eric Cheatham

608C Social Sciences Building

Phone: 510-642-8513

eric_cheatham@berkeley.edu

Department Manager

Sandra Richmond

622 Social Sciences Building

Phone: 510-642-7084

sandyjbr@berkeley.edu

Back to Top