Graduate Program

As an interdisciplinary Ph.D. with 60 graduate faculty who work in a wide array of departments and schools across the university, the Ph.D. program in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies provides advanced and systematic course work investigating the multidimensional aspects of gender and sexuality. Approaching feminist knowledge production from multi-cultural and multi-racial perspectives, the program emphasizes the ways in which gender and sexuality have produced--and continue to produce—decisive and oftentimes unjust social and cultural effects in diverse historical and geographical contexts, The graduate course offerings are designed to explore the intricate connections between feminist theory and practice in order to illuminate how genders and sexualities intersect with other socially and culturally produced identities in both local and global contexts. The program requirements include 21 hours of core courses taken within the WGSS department and 18 hours of course work that can be located in units across the university, as well as in the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium (https://grad.rutgers.edu/academics/inter-university-exchange). In addition to course work, the Ph.D. requires the successful completion of a written qualifying and a comprehensive oral examination, as well as a doctoral dissertation. Core courses include Feminist Genealogies, Feminist Theory, Feminist Methodologies, Feminist Knowledge Production, Feminist Pedagogies, and two proseminars from the areas of concentration.

Learn more about the Ph.D. Learning Goals.

See below for more information on:

• Ph.D. Requirements: An Overview
• Course Descriptions
• Areas of Concentration
• Exams and Dissertation

Ph.D. Requirements: An Overview

Consult the current Graduate Student Handbook for detailed requirements.

72 Credits total

• 39 Course Credits (13 courses)
  
  
• Remaining credits may include transfer credits, dissertation research credits, additional course credits.

Proficiency in a second language

• Students without second language proficiency are recommended to begin acquisition as soon as possible.

Qualifying Examinations: Written and Oral Dissertation Proposal and Defense

See below for information on Exams and Dissertation

Required Courses

Core Courses:

• 988:582 Feminist Genealogies
• 988:587 Feminist Pedagogies
• 988:603 Feminist Knowledge Production
• An additional course in Feminist Theory, chosen from designated 988 courses *
• An additional course in Feminist Methods, chosen from designated 988 courses *

* Students may substitute a colloquium (988:525) for their additional theory course or for their additional methodology course.

Proseminars—two of the following:

• 988:510 Technologies and Poetics of Gender and Sexuality
• 988:520 Agency, Subjectivity and Social Change
• 988:530 Gendered Borders/Changing Boundaries

Remaining courses must be selected in consultation with the advisor to form an area of concentration. Transfer credits may be accepted toward meeting the required 39 course credits.

Course Descriptions

Click here for all Graduate Course Descriptions.

Areas of Concentration

Feminist scholars at Rutgers have identified three innovative areas of focus to shape the interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Women’s and Gender Studies. These areas are designed to stimulate original scholarship addressing new research questions and fostering the growth of feminist inquiry and practice. Each area of concentration is introduced through a proseminar that presents key questions, theories, methodologies, and empirical case studies.

Agency, Subjectivity, and Social Change

This concentration investigates women's mobilizations to transform social and political institutions, which also transform women activists themselves. Examining global feminist movements in the past as well as in the contemporary world, this concentration seeks to explicate how women's activism and agency continue to challenge dominant discourses on agency, subjectivity, culture, politics, authority, religion, and society.

Suggested Cognate Courses:

• Women's Movements in Comparative Perspective
• Third World Feminism: Critique or New Paradigm
• Literary Criticism and Social Critique: Feminist Theory, Science, and Epistemology
• Gender and Public Policy
• Urban Poverty, Theory, and Policy
• Proseminar in Women and Politics
• Gender and the Self
• Gender and Mass Politics
• Sociological Perspectives on Feminist Theory
• Colloquium in History of Women
• Colloquium in African American History
• Comparative Labor Movements
• Contemporary Fiction
• Fiction and Narrative Theory: Life Narratives
• Psychological Approaches to Literature: Self, Psychopathology and the Modern Age

Technologies and Poetics of Gender and Sexuality

This concentration investigates the hierarchical production of cultural differences. Technologies of gender and sexuality refer to the manifold practices through which categories of difference are produced and deployed to structure relationships and institutions in particular social and historical contexts. The poetics of gender and sexuality involve the creative and symbolic work of the imagination that reifies and naturalizes difference as a central factor of human relationships and cultural meaning.

Suggested Cognate Courses:

• Sociology of Gender
• Race, Class, Gender
• Anthropology of Gender
• Conceptualizing Gender
• Recent Advances in Gender Scholarship
• Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective
• Economic Anthropology: Culture and Capitalism
• Black History and the Fictive Imagination
• Literature and Politics: Textuality, Embodiment, Community
• Women and Work
• Women Writers of Modernism
• The Sixties and Postmodernism
• Theater of the 20th Century
• Literature and Social Commentary
• Problems in 20th Century Art: Constructions of the Female Body
• Topics in Comparative Literature: Genre and Gender
• Topics in Comparative Literature: The Body in Literature
• Literature and Social Order: Literature and Class

Gendered Borders/Changing Boundaries

Feminist scholarship has sought to challenge and de-center many traditional boundaries by cultivating voices “from the margin” and exploring dimensions of women’s experiences that defy these boundaries. This concentration examines how feminist scholarship can illuminate phenomena such as fluctuating national borders, shifting contours of sovereignty, displacement, immigration, and diaspora, uncertain global economies, hybrid identities, and changing sexualities.

Suggested Cognate Courses:

• Anthropology of Industrial Society: Transnationalism
• Gender and Comparative Politics
• American Literary Women: Black Literature and Migration
• Postcolonial Literature and Theory
• Postcolonial Writers, Postmodern Conditions
• 20th Century Black Women Writers: Imagining the Diaspora
• Japanese Literature/Queer Theory
• US Latino/a Theater and Performance: From Rural and Urban Roots to Queer and Feminist
• Border Mappings
• Women in African Diaspora
• Black Diaspora

Exams and Dissertation

Ph.D. Students in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies must complete Written and Oral Qualifying Examinations within 12 months of the completion of course work (minimum 39 credit hours) and prior to admission to candidacy status. Qualifying exams include a written component and an oral component to demonstrate mastery of the field of Women’s and Gender Studies, expertise in a specific area of interest, and preparation for independent research in the dissertation. Written examinations may be taken in the first week of September or the first week of March of each academic year. Oral examinations are scheduled on an individual basis no more than 3 months later. Students are expected to submit and defend a Dissertation Proposal within 7 months of passing the Qualifying Exams.

The WGSS MA Program is pleased to allow students to matriculate in the spring semester each year. For Spring '27 Matriculation, applications are due September 15, 2026. For Fall '27 Matriculation, applications are due to December 20, 2026.

The M.A. in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) offers liberal arts degrees that enable students to become active practitioners in a wide range of areas related to this rapidly expanding field of study. The degree is specifically designed so that full-time students can complete the program in one calendar year. The program is structured as a terminal master's degree for students and professionals who seek to deepen their feminist, gender-, and sexuality-related perspectives on activism, policy/advocacy, and research.

Centered at the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University, this master’s degree draws on the strengths of a core faculty with twenty-five members working on various aspects of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies who have made major scholarly contributions to the field. In addition, the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies is part of the Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL), a consortium of nine units at Rutgers University dedicated to the study of women and gender, to advocacy on behalf of gender equity, and to the promotion of women’s leadership locally, nationally, and globally.

WGSS offers two distinct options to complete a Masters in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Either M.A. option may serve as a supplement for professional degrees in fields such as law, social work, human rights and social justice, public health, labor studies, public policy, or clinical psychology. With an increasing emphasis on careers focusing on the delivery of services to women and families worldwide, WGS helps to fill a growing demand for experts versed in women's and gender issues. The M.A. program is designed to emphasize global and multicultural perspectives on these matters.

• Master’s Degree with Thesis
  This option reflects the traditional Master's Degree offered by WGSS. Students completing this option will complete the Masters with a traditional Thesis. This option is best suited for students interested in continuing academic work upon graduation, for example, in a doctoral program. For more information, please see the links listed “MA Program” in the right-hand navigation bar.
  
  
• Master’s Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change:  Fall 2020 Flyer
  WGSS has approved this new Track for implementation in Fall 2020. This Track prepares students interested in activism work in social justice and human rights for professional placement in those fields upon graduation. Students completing this Track will complete core classes different than those required of the traditional Master’s Degree with Thesis. Students will also complete a Practicum rather than a Thesis. For more information, please click here. 

Please note that students must apply for only one option. Once accepted into the MA Program, students may not switch into the alternate option.

PROGRAM FEATURES

Strength of Scholarship: Faculty members have a strong research profile and have published widely in their fields. A number of faculty are also directly involved in activist/advocacy work related to critical issues challenging feminism and racial equality, among others.

Commitment of Scholarship: Courses are taught by full-time faculty members committed to teaching and advising.

Small classes: Enable extensive and personal interaction between students and faculty.

Access to Practicum Sites: Students who complete the new MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change will have the opportunity to complete a Practicum for their degree. This experience will encourage students to relate the academic knowledge they have gained in the classroom to real-life situations and work related to their field of interest. Our department has access to, and relationships with, practicum sites in New York City, such as UN Women, and throughout New Jersey. In addition, the units of the IWL, including the globally-renowned Center for Women’s Global Leadership, have hosted a number of our students through the years. Though students have generally completed practicum work within the United States, students have the option to complete this portion of their degree in sites internationally that have been approved by WGSS.

Research Resources: As a major state university, Rutgers offers extensive resources to support graduate research, including a comprehensive collection of library material related to feminism, gender, and sexuality. Rutgers is a member of the Association of American Universities—the nationwide consortium of leading research universities—as well as the prestigious Big Ten Academic Alliance.

Teaching Experience: Offers potential teaching opportunities through WGSS Social Justice Minor.

Study Abroad Program: As of 2020-2021, the WGSS Master’s Program is pleased to MA students in either option the chance to take advantage of either of two study abroad options. One MA student will be selected to complete up to three classes during a semester abroad (with a majority of expenses paid) in one of a select number of European Universities affiliated with the Erasmus Mundus Master´s Degree in Women's and Gender Studies, sponsored by the European Commission. A number of MA students may also apply to study abroad for six weeks at the University of Kassel in Kassel, Germany, through the European Institute at lower tuition rates.

Accessibility: Close to the Turnpike and NJ Transit, the program is available to students throughout New Jersey and beyond.

Educational Value: As the State University of New Jersey, a Rutgers education offers tremendous value.

Admission to the M.A. program is entirely separate from admission to the Ph.D. program. Students in the M.A. program who wish to pursue doctoral work in Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers must apply to the Ph.D. program directly, where they will compete with the general pool of applicants for admissions.

Learn more about the M.A. Learning Goals.

The WGSS BA/MA Program is pleased to allow students to matriculate in the spring semester each year. For BA/MA only matriculation into the fall '26 semester, we can accept through April 1, 2026.

The WGSS BA/MA Track in Feminist Practices for Social Change is a combined BA and MA degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies that is designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to assume leadership roles in contemporary social justice activism and human rights. Undergraduate students majoring in WGSS who are interested in this track will apply for admission to the BA/MA Program in their sophomore year or junior years. If accepted, students will initiate Master’s coursework during the final semesters of their undergraduate degree. They will complete academic requirements for the Master's degree by either their fifth year, if admitted as a sophomore, or by their sixth year, if admitted as a junior.

Students will complete traditional courses in feminist theory as well as courses specifically developed for the newly implemented Master’s Track, including “Social Justice Movements” and “Advocacy: Tactics and Techniques.” These core classes, in conjunction with a range of electives including Gender and Human Rights and Gender and Development, will guide BA/MA students to best cultivate their abilities to think creatively about short-term tactics and long-term strategies for social transformation. They will examine in detail the inequities and challenges facing diverse women, men, non-binary, transgender and gender non-conforming human beings in the contemporary world.

Students will complete the degree by translating what they have learned in the classroom into social justice and human rights initiatives through placement in professional settings resonant with their interests, including in: units of the Institute for Women’s Leadership Consortium at Rutgers-NB; non-governmental organizations; and the United Nations.

ADVANTAGES OF THE BA/MA TRACK

The BA/MA track is structured to allow current Rutgers undergraduates to complete both undergraduate and professional degree courses to earn both a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree in WGSS in less time than it would take to earn both degrees separately.

During the senior year of their Bachelor’s Degree, students receive the benefit of undergraduate tuition rates while completing UP TO THREE graduate WGSS courses toward their Master’s Degree. This will help to reduce the costs and time commitment required of the two degrees if pursued separately.

In addition, while completing their BA, students may also complete one undergraduate WGSS course at the 400 level or above that can be applied toward the MA degree: PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EXTRA COURSE CANNOT BE APPLIED TO THE BA DEGREE. This option is advantageous as it allows undergrads to complete one additional course toward their MA degree at undergraduate tuition rates and to cut back the time and work required of their MA Degree.

The GRE is not required. This will help to reduce the costs and time commitment required to matriculate into the MA Program.

Graduates of the Feminist Practices for Social Change track will be trained to work in social justice and social change organizations, NGOs and international governmental organizations (IGOs) at local, regional, national, and transnational levels.

Click here for information about Admissions to the BA/M.A. program. This admissions process is separate to the M.A. and Ph.D. program. Students in the BA/M.A. program who wish to pursue doctoral work in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers must apply to the Ph.D. program directly, where they will compete with the general pool of applicants for admissions.