About the Program

PhD students at Berkeley may add a Designated Emphasis (DE) in Women, Gender, and Sexuality (DEWGS) to their major fields. Designed to enhance interdisciplinary graduate studies at Berkeley, the DEWGS provides curricular and research resources and opportunities to students who are already admitted to graduate degree programs on campus.

The designated emphasis program was developed to accommodate some of the many students who conduct graduate-level research in gender and/or sexuality related topics across numerous fields. Administered by the Department of Gender and Women's Studies, the designated emphasis program provides its students with certification as well as with a context for the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and development of research.

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Admissions

To be admitted to the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality, an applicant must already be accepted into a PhD program at the University of California, Berkeley. For further information regarding admission to graduate programs at UC Berkeley, please see the Graduate Division's Admissions website .

Applicants for the DE will be selected according to their academic qualifications, the appropriateness of their interests to the program's teaching resources, and the enrollment capacity of its graduate seminars. Graduate students should apply in their third semester for admission to the program in their fourth semester. Students must apply before completing their qualifying examinations.

Materials should include four copies of the following:

1. A one-page statement of purpose which includes: your academic training in the field of Gender/Sexuality Studies, a short description of your dissertation project, and your stated interest in the DE.
2. One letter of recommendation from your home department faculty indicating readiness to complete the DE requirements (letter can be mailed under separate cover or emailed).
3. A gender/sexuality relevant writing sample (25 pages or less).
4. A curriculum vitae.

Deadline for spring admission: October 30 (If October 30 falls on a weekend, please submit materials the following Monday.)

Send all application materials to:
Director
DEWGS
c/o Gender & Women's Studies Department
608 Barrows Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-1070

Designated Emphasis Requriements

Coursework/Curriculum

Students may petition the DEWGS director to use a gender or sexuality-focused graduate course taught outside GWS to fulfill the elective requirement. That request must include a copy of the course syllabus and a cover letter indicating how that course was directly related to your studies in DEWGS (assigned readings, research focus, or paper completed). GWS 200 and GWS 220 can not be substituted by other classes.

Students admitted to the designated emphasis program should enroll in the required introductory seminar (GWS 200) offered the following spring if possible, and must complete that seminar before taking their qualifying exams. Students must fulfill the aforementioned requirements before completion of the degree.

Qualifying Examination

A member of the GWS department or its affiliated faculty must be on the qualifying examination committee; a topic on women, gender, and sexuality must be on the qualifying examination.

Dissertation

A member of the GWS department or its affiliated faculty must be on the dissertation committee.

Degree Conferral

The DE will be acknowledged solely in conjunction with the PhD in an established PhD program and will be signified by the transcript and diploma designation, “PhD in [major] with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality.” The GWS department also provides each DE graduate with a DEWGS medal at the GWS commencement ceremonies.

Research Resources

Stipends

Students admitted to the DEWGS Program can apply for stipends to support research and activities related to their participation in the program. Awards are made available once a year in the fall. The total budget for graduate student stipends varies each year; individual awards can be up to $500.

Purpose of the Stipends

The stipends are intended to provide a source of funding for students in the DEWGS to engage in DEWGS-related activities or to pursue DEWGS scholarship. As such, it is for projects that are outside of the normal range of your home department activities. Examples would be: travel to conferences or workshops that focus on gender or sexuality; travel to an archive or field work site for the purpose of engaging in gender or sexuality-related scholarship; purchase of primary research materials that are necessary for your gender-related project and are not readily available on campus. Deadline to apply: October 30. (If October 30 falls on the weekend, please submit materials the following Monday.)

Application Procedure

Download the electronic application from the program's website  and forward the completed form to:
DEWGS Graduate Student Affairs Officer
Althea Grannum Cummings
cummings@berkeley.edu

You do not need letters of recommendation.

Evaluation Criteria

The executive committee of the DEWGS will meet shortly after each deadline to decide which applications to fund. Evaluation will be based on the following considerations:

1. Does the student have a well-defined use for the stipend, and has the student documented the specific costs involved?
2. Does the student have a previous history of DEWGS funding, and if so in what amount? Students who have never received funding will be given the highest priority.
3. Has the student exhausted other avenues of funding including their home department and Graduate Division?
4. Would the funds contribute to the student's intellectual growth and/or professionalization in DEWGS scholarship?
5. Is the project clearly a DEWGS related project which would not be likely to be funded elsewhere?

Receiving Your Award

You will be notified by email immediately after the committee has met as to whether you received a stipend or not. In the event that your application was successful, you will be given instructions on how to receive your stipend. If your application was not successful, your message will contain an indication of why it did not succeed.

Teaching Opportunities

GWS provides GSI opportunities for DE Students to assist the instructor of record for:

 Calls for applications go out every semester via the DE listserv, and all DE students are encouraged to apply.

Courses

Women, Gender and Sexuality

Faculty and Instructors

Faculty

Paola Bacchetta, Associate Professor. Ethnicity, postcolonial theory, transnational feminist and queer of color theories, theories of the inseparability of gender, theories of the inseparability of sexuality, theories of the inseparability of, theories of the inseparability of class, theories of the inseparability of nation, theories of the inseparability of religion, global political and religious conflict (especially Hindu nationalism and racializations of Muslims and Islam), theories of resistance and transgression, right-wing movements, geographic areas of specialization outside the U.S- India and France.
Research Profile

Mel Y. Chen, Associate Professor. Queer and feminist theory, Disability theory, Critical animal studies, Materiality studies, Cultural politics of race, sexuality, ability, and immigration, Critical linguistics, Paradigms of inter- and transdisciplinarity.

Minoo Moallem, Professor. Transnational and Postcolonial Feminist Studies, cultural studies, Visual and Material Cultures of Religion, Immigration and Diaspora Studies, Middle East Studies, and Iranian Studies.
Research Profile

Laura C. Nelson, Associate Professor. Gender, medicine, and politics, Cultural, political, and experiential aspects of breast cancer in South Korea, How, why, and to what effect constructions of gender, class, and race are mobilized and manipulated in South Korea, Structures of cultural temporality (future, present, or past orientation) and anti-poverty policies (US and South Korea).

Juana Maria Rodriguez, Professor. Sexual politics, LGBTQ communities, Latino issues, women of color feminisms, ethnic studies, queer activism, transgender studies, queer kinship.
Research Profile

Leslie Salzinger, Associate Professor. Political economy, feminist theory, finance, sociology of gender, Gender and Work, gendering of transnational processes.
Research Profile

Charis M. Thompson, Professor. Science & technology studies, environmental ethics, feminist theory, reproductive technology, genetics, stem cell & cloning technology, personalized medicine, biodiversity conservation, transnational studies of reproduction & population, ethnography.
Research Profile

Minh-Ha Trinh, Professor. Gender and sexuality, women's studies, rhetoric, feminist postcolonial theory, film theory and production, music composition, ethnomusicology, contemporary critical theory and the arts.
Research Profile

Lecturers

Ayse Agis, Lecturer.

Jac Asher, Lecturer.

Barbara A. Barnes, Lecturer.

Visiting Faculty

Hila Shamir, Visiting Associate Professor.

Emeritus Faculty

Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Professor Emeritus. Labor, citizenship, undocumented students, caring work, settler colonialism, skin color bias.
Research Profile

Barrie Thorne, Professor Emeritus. Feminist theory, gender theory, ethnography, qualitative methods, sociology, women, sociology of gender, sociology of age relations.
Research Profile

Irene Tinker, Professor Emeritus. International development and women, Electoral quotas in legislatures for women.
Research Profile