News & Events

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• • BA/MA DEGREE IN WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES, WITH A TRACK IN FEMINIST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
  • NEW TRACK IN FEMINIST PRACTICES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE IN MA DEGREE IN WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES

  The Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS), Rutgers-NB, is pleased to announce the implementation of two new academic programs: a five-year BA/MA Degree in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, with a track in Feminist Practices for Social Change; and a new track in Feminist Practices for Social Change in our Master’s Degree in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Both initiatives are innovative in that they address the growing demand for professional leaders devoted to social justice and human rights initiatives in local through international contexts.
  
  Since its initiation in 1995, the WGSS MA Program has provided courses interdisciplinary and comparative in content that examine conditions under which women and men live, engage challenges, and devise strategies to promote gender justice. Increasingly, strategies for social change have become a consistent component of the WGSS curriculum in response to the growing demand for courses addressing the diverse ways in which women and men have mobilized at various levels, from local to global, to challenge racial, sexual, and gender injustice.
  
  The BA/MA Degree in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, with a track in Feminist Practices for Social Change is designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to assume leadership roles in contemporary social justice activism and human rights through a combined Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree that they can earn within five years. Students interested in the degree will apply for admission to the BA/MA Program in their sophomore year. If accepted, they will initiate Master’s coursework in the spring of their junior year and complete academic requirements for the degree by their fifth academic year.
  
  Students will complete traditional courses in feminist theory as well as courses specifically developed for the newly implemented Master’s Degree (see below), 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 nonconforming 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.
  
  The new track in Feminist Practices for Social Change is designed to properly equip Master’s students with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively assume leadership roles in contemporary social justice activism and human rights. Students will complete the thirty-credit degree by taking traditional courses in feminist theory as well as courses specifically developed for the Degree, 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 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 nonconforming human beings in the contemporary world. Students will complete their 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.
  
  For more information, please contact: Ileana Nachescu, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Julie Rajan, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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• The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) at Rutgers University has established collaboration with Erasmus Mundus Joint European Master’s Degree in Women’s and Gender Studies (GEMMA), coordinated by the University of Granada and in cooperation with the GEMMA Consortium. 

  Since 2013, our department has participated in a student exchange program with GEMMA, the first Erasmus Mundus Master´s Degree in Women's and Gender Studies in Europe supported by the European Commission since 2006. Through this Program, WGS Masters students have the opportunity to complete courses in women’s and gender studies taught by distinguished and highly recognized professors in one of eight universities across 6 different countries, including: University of Granada and University of Oviedo, Spain; the University of Bologna, Italy; Central European University (Vienna); University of Hull and University of York, UK; University of Lódź, Poland; and University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. In addition, the exchange program provides students the opportunity to take advantage of non-academic opportunities outside of the classroom, such as working with local grassroots organizations and NGOs in European cities, to enhance their academic learning in the classroom. Engaging in this exchange allows WGS MA students to enhance the academic work they complete locally at Rutgers University in New Brunswick with new ways of understanding the complexities of how feminism may be manifested in different locales globally, in fulfillment of Rutgers University’s motto: “Jersey roots, global reach.”

  In Spring 2019, WGS MA student Mariel DiDato chose to study at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

  Mariel states that "participating in the GEMMA program has been the highlight of my educational experience thus far. With support from the Women’s and Gender Studies department, I was able to live in Utrecht, the Netherlands for 5 months and complete my degree requirement for two elective courses.

  Through the courses I took at Utrecht University, I learned about my field not just through a new academic perspective, but also through a new global perspective. I studied new techniques of research and writing that I hadn’t previously had access to, surrounded by both Dutch students and other international students as well.

  Additionally, my learning surpassed that of just the classroom. I was able to see a different way of life firsthand by being immersed in Dutch society and culture. As someone with an interest in policy, I was also able to see the ways in which different types of legislative systems and infrastructure design have benefits for Dutch citizens. I had affordable healthcare, the food was generally less processed and healthier, and instead of sitting in traffic in a car I largely relied on biking and public transportation to take me where I needed to go.

  I lived in an on-campus apartment with other international students, and we were all able to bond quickly being in a new place to live and study. I made great friends that I still keep in contact with, and plan on seeing again in the future. Being so close to other countries, I also took the opportunity to travel and see so many new places and meet new people!
  

  In short, I recommend the GEMMA program for any student that is looking to widen their academic perspective and gain lifelong memories of a wonderful adventure abroad. I am so grateful to Rutgers and the Women’s and Gender Studies Department for providing me with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and highly encourage other students to take advantage of this program."

   ^{Jenny K., Camilla P. & Mariel D.}  

  
  
  
  Below is the Cambridgelaan apartment complex where Mariel stayed for student housing.

                                                    

                                                                                                              This is just one of many canals in Utrecht’s city center.

  To learn more about the WGS GEMMA European Exchange Program click here

• Event Start Date: May 8, 2019
• Event Start Time: 12:30 PM
• Event Location: Cook Student Center 59 Biel Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies invites graduating seniors and their guests to a joyful send-off honoring the Class of 2019.

• Casual attire encouraged
• Each graduate may bring up to 3 guests
• RSVP by April 26: https://forms.gle/DbWbyiG5BCT756pa6

Family & Friends are welcome to join you up to 3 Guest(s).  
NON-RU Vehicle Parking Registration is required. They can register here: https://rudots.nupark.com/events/Events/Register/891993ca-7e97-4b77-b8b9-4ae9ae353399 

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• Naomi Klein, Gloria Steinem Discuss Media, Politics, #MeToo at Rutgers-New Brunswick

  The Rutgers University Board of Governors approved the appointment of Klein on September 12, 2018.

  Naomi Klein, a public intellectual whose best-selling explorations of social, economic and ecological injustice have made her a global thought-leader, has been selected as the inaugural Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.  The Rutgers University Board of Governors approved the appointment of Klein today.

  Klein’s appointment comes at a critical time in the American political and media landscape as women progressive leaders link human rights and economic justice with climate change and other global challenges.

  “I am honored to have been chosen for this prestigious position and eager to join Rutgers students in connecting the dots between some of the most critical issues of our time,” Klein said.

  Steinem, a feminist and human rights leader since the 1960s, will join Klein to kick off the Steinem program with a public discussion on Sept. 21. The conversation will focus on the ways that information technology and new media are reshaping culture and power relationships as well as the challenges ahead for progressive movements in the United States and beyond. The chair is a collaboration among Rutgers’ School of Communication and Information (SC&I), the Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL) and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies within the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS).

  Over the next three years, Klein will teach, organize public events, conduct research and immerse students in debate and scholarship on a range of issues. Topics will include the role of activist journalists in revolutionary movements from abolition to feminism as well as the complex relationships among new media technologies, market forces, democracy and movements for racial, gender and economic justice.

  “Naomi Klein represents intellectual brilliance and innovative thinking about the way inequalities are being perpetuated in our society,” said SC&I Dean Jonathan Potter. “Engaging with students in the classroom and beyond, she will contribute to Rutgers’ leading role in educating the next generation of responsible citizens committed to social justice.”

  Dafna Lemish, who chaired the selection committee, said Klein was chosen from an accomplished and diverse pool of candidates, all highly enthusiastic about what the chair might bring to Rutgers. “She broadens the discussion of feminism to encompass the big questions of our time, such as climate change, participatory democracy and poverty,” said Lemish, associate dean for programs and a professor of Journalism and Media Studies.

  Klein is the author of The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists (2018), No is Not Enough: Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need (2017), This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate (2014), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007), and No Logo (2000). Her work has been translated into more than 30 languages.

  "Our late IWL director Alison Bernstein had the magnificent idea to create an endowed chair named for Gloria Steinem,” said Lisa Hetfield, IWL interim director. “Her leadership, along with a team of determined volunteer fundraisers and hundreds of generous donors, made this endowed chair possible."

  In, 2014, Steinem told Rutgers Today, “When I learned of your interest in creating a chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at Rutgers – and doing it in my name – it was hard to wrap my mind around. It is both a first and unique combination of two growing fields of study, and a personal honor for the work and the global movement that matter most to me.”

  During Rutgers’ campaign to fund the endowed chair, the university received financial support from several major foundations and individuals, including the Ford Foundation; the John and James L. Knight Foundation; the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation; the Fran Zone/John Mack Carter Fund; Like a River Fund of the California Community Foundation; and more than 400 individual donors.  

  Photo credit: Kourosh Keshiri

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• Event Start Date: April 26, 2018
• Event Start Time: 4:00 PM
• Event End Time: 6:30 PM
• Event Location: Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building, Conference Room 103 162 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ

Join us for the launch of The Right to Maim: Debility / Capacity / Disability by Prof. Jasbir Puar (Rutgers University), a groundbreaking work interrogating biopolitics, state violence, and disability through transnational frameworks.

Panelists:

• Prof. Ethel Brooks (Rutgers University)
• Prof. Sherene Seikaly (UC Santa Barbara)
• Prof. Kehualani Kauanui (Wesleyan University)
• Prof. Paul Amar (UC Santa Barbara)
• Prof. Jasbir Puar (Rutgers University)

Sponsored by:

• Department of Women's and Gender Studies
• Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Transnational Race, Gender, and Sexuality

WGS Statement on Academia and Free Speech Rights:  

It is inherent to the discipline of Women's Studies to deal with complex subjects through theoretical lenses, which question conventional knowledge production. This department, one of the most distinguished departments of WGS in the country, has a highly visible faculty of national and international reputation invited to speak in various fora on sometimes highly controversial subjects. Such faculty members, as scholars, have not only a right, but also an obligation to produce and disseminate knowledge within and beyond the academy. Moreover, as private citizens, our faculty continue to enjoy the same freedoms of speech and expression as any private citizen and in accordance with university policy the department supports their protection from institutional discipline in the exercise of these academic and free speech rights. 

• Event Start Date: October 5, 2018
• Event Start Time: 8:30 AM
• Event End Time: 5:00 PM
• Event Location: Alexander Library, Rutgers University

This full-day conference explored embodied politics, queer theory, decolonial feminisms, and state surveillance through panels, performances, and keynote dialogue.

Keynote Speakers:

• C. Riley Snorton
• Virginia Grise Keynote Panel: Decolonizing Flesh: Words, Scars, and the Body Moderated by Lauren Raval & Reena Goldthree

Panel Themes Included:

• Queer Kinships & Icons
• Decolonial Feminisms
• Bodies in Motion
• Surveillance & the State
• Queer of Color Critique & Health

Organized by: WGS Graduate Students Sponsored by: Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences & Department of Women’s and Gender Studies 🎨 Artwork: Redline by Mary Valverde

 Click here for more details (PDF)

• Event Start Date: April 12, 2018
• Event Start Time: 4:30 PM
• Event End Time: 7:00 PM
• Event Location: Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building, Conference Room 103 162 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ

Join Professor Brittney Cooper (Rutgers University) for a lecture on her groundbreaking book Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women. This talk explores the radical contributions of Black women thinkers to political theory, cultural criticism, and feminist scholarship.

Sponsored by:

• Department of Women’s and Gender Studies
• Center for Women and Work
• Institute for Research on Women
• Center for Race and Ethnicity

• Event Start Date: March 22, 2018
• Event Start Time: 4:30 PM
• Event End Time: 7:00 PM
• Event Location: Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building 162 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ

Join Professor María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo (NYU) for a lecture on her book Indian Given: Racial Geographies across Mexico and the United States, which explores how colonial and racial legacies shape national imaginaries and spatial politics.

The event includes a dialogue with Professor David Kazanjian (University of Pennsylvania), author of The Brink of Freedom: Improvising Life in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World.

Presented by:

• Department of Women’s and Gender Studies
• Henry Rutgers Term Chair in Comparative Cultural Studies
• Rutgers University

📧 RSVP by March 16 to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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• Event Start Date: February 15, 2018
• Event Start Time: 6:00 PM
• Event End Time: 7:30 PM
• Event Location: Academic Building, Room 4052 15 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, NJ

Join the Center for Cultural Analysis for a seminar and celebration of Kyla Schuller’s groundbreaking book The Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century (Duke, 2018). The event explores how scientific discourse shaped racial and sexual hierarchies in the 19th century.

Panelists:

• Peter Coviello (University of Illinois, Chicago)
• Che Gossett (Rutgers University)
• Banu Subramaniam (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Moderator: Dana Luciano (Georgetown & Rutgers University)

📘 Graduate student seminar on Introduction and Chapter 5 available—contact for details.

Presented by: Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers University

• Event Start Date: February 1, 2018
• Event Start Time: 4:00 PM
• Event Location: Academic Building West Wing Room 103, Rutgers University

This interdisciplinary series brought together scholars whose work reimagines race, gender, sexuality, and embodiment through critical textual engagement.

Featured Lectures:

• Feb 1 – The Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century Speaker: Prof. Kyla Schuller Explores how scientific discourse shaped racial and sexual hierarchies in the 19th century.
• Feb 15 – Indian Given: Racial Geographies Across Mexico and the United States Speaker: Prof. María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo Co-sponsored with the American Studies Seminar at CCA. Examines colonial legacies and racial mapping across borders.
• Mar 1 – Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women Speaker: Prof. Brittney Cooper Highlights the radical intellectual contributions of Black women to political and cultural thought.
• Apr 5 – The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability Speaker: Prof. Jasbir Puar Investigates biopolitics, state violence, and disability through transnational frameworks.