Admissions Requirements, Doctor of Philosophy

• MA degree from a recognized university in gender studies or cognate fields (women’s studies, feminist studies, sexuality studies) or in another field with evidence of a prior focus on gender.
• Minimum of B+ / 75% in the last two years of university study.
• Consideration will be given to practitioners of gender studies in the public or private sectors who hold the BAH and who demonstrate exceptional and relevant professional experience and achievement in an appropriate field.

Students admitted to the PhD who hold the MA in Gender Studies from Queen’s, and who attained first class standing while taking core courses required in the PhD program, will be granted advanced standing. 

Program Vision

The Gender Studies PhD program sustains our program focus on critical race, gender, and sexuality studies while offering advanced training in applications of gender studies research within work for social change. Students conduct research in Canada and internationally and articulate their scholarship with local and global action for social justice. Students may complete the degree by preparing a monograph, manuscript, or portfolio dissertation. Students produce scholarship that is directly applicable to work for social change and to a wide variety of academic and nonacademic careers. Gender Studies at Queen’s distinctively foregrounds critical race conceptual frameworks at all levels of our undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Admissions Requirements, Master of Arts

• A four-year undergraduate degree (BAHon) from a recognized university in gender studies or cognate fields (women’s studies, feminist studies, sexuality studies) or in another field with evidence of a prior focus on gender.
• A minimum of B+ in the last two years of university study.

Program Vision

The Gender Studies MA program teaches critical race, gender and sexuality studies and their applications within work for social change. Students examine gender, our key category of analysis, in terms of its interdependence with race, class, nation, sexuality, disability, age, religion, colonialism and globalization. Students produce scholarship that is directly applicable to work for social change and to a wide variety of academic and nonacademic careers. Gender Studies at Queen’s distinctively foregrounds critical race conceptual frameworks at all levels of our undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Library

The Queen's library system has excellent gender studies holdings and continues to invest in related areas such as feminist studies, queer studies, trans studies, critical race studies and Indigenous studies, allowing Queen's students and faculty access to online journals covering all facets of the discipline alongside building a substantial holding of books and monographs in the field.

Financial Assistance

Resources for stipends are derived from a combination of Queen’s Graduate Awards (QGA), teaching assistantships (TA-ships) in the department’s undergraduate courses, contributions from research grants and contracts, internal scholarships and awards, and external scholarships and awards. Stipends are typically paid in three equal installments throughout the year.

Students must apply for scholarships awarded by Queen’s University in addition awards from Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS).

Faculty

Head
Lord, S. (interim)

Coordinator of Graduate Studies 
Salah, T.

Professor
Little, M., McKittrick, K., McNeil, D.

Associate Professor
Morgensen, S., Salah, T., Tolmie, J.

Assistant Professor
Adeniyi-Ogunyankin, G., Brulé, E., Lawford, K., Okot Bitek, J., Thompson, V.

Cross-Appointed Faculty
Airton, L., Baines, B., Burfoot, A., Butler, A., Castleden, H., Davies, J., Dubinsky, K.,  Goebel, A., Hanson, L., Hosek, J., King, S.J., Kobayashi, A.L., Kukreja, R., Lahey, K.A., Lee, E-Y., Levine-Rasky, C., Lord, S., MacDonald, E., Moriah, K., Mullings, B., Naaman, D., Pande, I., Pegley, K., Power, E., Prouse, C., Rewa, N., Rivera, M., Robinson, D., St-Amand, I., Thompson, P., Van Anders, S., Varadharajan, A., Walker, B., Xavier, M.S.

Adjunct Faculty
baba, b., Butler, N., Houghtaling, M.

Programs

Courses

All courses are 3.0 credit units, except GNDS 815, which is a non credit course, and GNDS 899 and 999, which are 6.0 credit units.  Not all courses are offered every year. 

GNDS 801     Theories in Gender Studies     
This interdisciplinary seminar provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary theories in gender studies and in such fields as critical race, feminist, women’s, queer or trans studies. Students examine the development and application of theories as well as debates surrounding them. Course materials draw from theories in the social sciences and the humanities. Required of GNDS graduate students.

GNDS 802     Methodologies in Gender Studies     
This interdisciplinary seminar examines methodologies in gender studies and in such fields as critical race, feminist, women’s, queer or trans studies. Course materials connect multiple academic disciplines and local-global perspectives. Students examine anti-oppressive politics of knowledge production and the uses of knowledge in processes of social change. Required of GNDS graduate students.

GNDS 810    Black Geographies
This course studies the spaces and places of the Americas and the black diaspora in relation to slave and post-slave geographies. It closely reads theorists of race and blackness, as well as creative texts, and thinks about the ways in which ongoing plantocratic logics shape geographic thought, anti-colonial practices, and struggles for liberation.

GNDS 815       Proseminar
Course provides professional training to Gender Studies graduate students and invests students in the public intellectual life of the department and the field. Required activities include: attendance at talks and symposia by visiting scholars; participation in workshops on teaching, grant writing, research, publishing, and careers; and involvement in planning or organizing intellectual activities within the departmental community. Graded Pass/Fail.

GNDS 820     Special Topics in Gender Studies I     
Seminars focus on specific topics related to gender studies under the guidance of a faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. The offering of the course depends upon faculty availability.

GNDS 821     Special Topics in Gender Studies II     
Seminars focus on specific topics related to gender studies under the guidance of faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. The offering of the course depends upon faculty availability.

GNDS 822 Special Topics in Gender Studies III
Seminars focus on specific topics related to gender studies under the guidance of a faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. The offering of the course depends upon faculty availability. (3.0 credit units)

GNDS 825 Special Topics in Black Studies I
Seminars focus on specific topics related to black studies under the guidance of a faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. The offering of the course depends upon faculty availability.  (3.0 credit units)

GNDS 826 Special Topics in Black Studies II
Seminars focus on specific topics related to black studies under the guidance of a faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. The offering of the course depends upon faculty availability. (3.0 credit units)

GNDS 827 Special Topics in Black Studies III
Seminars focus on specific topics related to black studies under the guidance of a faculty member in an area of the instructor’s expertise. The offering of the course depends upon faculty availability.  (3.0 credit units)

GNDS 830 Trans Literatures/Theories 
This seminar is a graduate level introduction to transnational trans literatures and studies. It provides a foundation in the aesthetic, political and epistemological projects of trans literature, art and theory and will contextualize them historically and in relation to non-binary, transsexual, Two Spirit and non-Western “transgender” cultural production and knowledges. (3.0 credit units)

GNDS 831 Debates on Feminism and Islam
This course focuses on the theories, political activities, and organizing of Islamic feminists. It situates itself in relation to contemporary debates around the status of women in Islam and problematizes the nature of feminism and its assumed relationship to Islam. The course will focus on questions of religion, race, class, and nationalism in relation to Islam and Muslim women.  Offered jointly with GNDS 401.
EXCLUSION: GNDS 401

GNDS 832 Gender and Poverty
This course is designed to provide an in-depth exploration of poverty issues in Canada. It includes discussions about working poor and welfare poor and addresses how race and sexuality can compound the issues of poverty. The course will also acknowledge how poor people are actively engaged in attempting to improve their lives through antipoverty organizing.  Offered jointly with GNDS 421.
EXCLUSION: GNDS 421

GNDS 833 Towards the Human: Race and the Politics of Expression
This interdisciplinary seminar will explore the ways in which modernity shapes cultural ‘difference’ and ‘the human’. Readings will focus on the racial and geographic contours of colonialism, transatlantic slavery and The Enlightenment in order to bring into focus communities that challenge racial-sexual categorization through creative expression (music, fiction, poetry, and visual art as well as theory).  Offered jointly with GNDS 427. 
EXCLUSION: GNDS 427.

GNDS 834 Gender Performance
This seminar addresses some of the many meanings and manifestations of ‘gender performance’ in literature and popular culture. Primary sources include a wide variety of media - novels, plays, poems, films, magazines and cartoons. Primary material will be balanced with careful consideration of work in areas such as feminist theory, identity politics, queer and performance theory.  Offered jointly with GNDS 428. 
EXCLUSION: GNDS 428

GNDS 835 Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Politics
Examines critical theories and case studies of politics and governance in Indigenous and settler societies, based in Indigenous feminist thought. Cases examine the relation between nationality, gender, and sexuality within colonial relations of rule, methods of Indigenous governance, Indigenous sovereignty struggles, and theories and practices of decolonization.  Offered jointly with GNDS 432. 
EXCLUSION: GNDS 432

GNDS 836 Feminist and Queer Ethnography
Examines the critical theories, methods, and products of feminist ethnography and queer ethnography, which we approach as unique subfields, areas of inquiry, genres of writing, and ethical methods within research and social life. Topics include historical formations of ethnography and of anti-colonial and anti-racist ethnographic criticism; adaptations of ethnography to trans, queer, and feminist work; and ethnography’s theoretical and methodological importance to gender studies.  Offered jointly with GNDS 445. 
EXCLUSION: GNDS 445

GNDS 837 Race and Gender in Modern US History
This seminar examines race, gender, and their intersections through a focus on modern African American history. Topics include: gender in the post-Emancipation era; the law, racist science and racialization; racial and sexual violence and Jim Crow; the Great Migration, the New Negro and the Harlem Renaissance; mass consumption; the modern civil rights movement; and, from Black feminism to Black Liberation.  May be offered jointly with HIST 817. 
EXCLUSION: HIST 817

GNDS 838 Institutional Ethnography: Mapping the Social 
 Developed by feminist sociologist Dorothy E. Smith, Institutional Ethnography (IE) is a method of inquiry that begins in the everyday world of people and analyzes how institutional processes frame people’s social relations and interactions with one another. The course examines the theory that informs IE, discusses its core concepts and procedures, and provides opportunities for practice.

GNDS 839 Writing the Body
This course is a hybrid seminar/workshop that will introduce students to theories and creative practices of writing (from) the body. Critically engaging theories of how bodies are socially “written” and creative (feminist, anti-colonial, queer/trans, critical disability) theories of embodied writing, students will also write, read and workshop their own creative/critical texts. (3.0 credit units)

GNDS 840     Gender Studies Directed Reading I     
In consultation with the Graduate Co-ordinator, MA candidates may enrol in a Gender Studies Directed Reading course. This is an intensive theory and reading course for individual MA candidates researching areas not offered in required and elective seminars. Students arrange their assignments with individual faculty.

GNDS 841     Gender Studies Directed Reading II     
In consultation with the Graduate Co-ordinator, MA candidates may enrol in a Gender Studies Directed Reading course. This is an intensive theory and reading course for individual MA candidates researching areas not offered in required and elective seminars. Students arrange their assignments with individual faculty.

GNDS 842     Directed Reading
Under the supervision of an individual faculty member, MA students may conduct intensive reading in a research area not offered in core or elective courses. Readings are to be arranged in consultation with the faculty supervisor, and accompanied by meetings during the term to discuss reading and submission of written assignments. (This course will be offered when faculty resources are available.)

GNDS 843  Directed Reading
Under the supervision of an individual faculty member, MA students may conduct intensive reading in a research area not offered in core or elective courses. Readings are to be arranged in consultation with the faculty supervisor, and accompanied by meetings during the term to discuss reading and submission of written assignments. (This course will be offered when faculty resources are available.)

GNDS 850     Practicum:  Engaging Feminist Activisms     
This seminar addresses contemporary issues in activism, research, and methodologies, with a specific focus on local community work. In addition to critically analysing interdisciplinary and feminist approaches to activist work, students working with a local organization may integrate this into their MA thesis with approval of their supervisor. The offering of the course depends upon faculty availability. A GNDS faculty member will oversee each placement. Equal to other one-term course offerings, the internships run 5 hours/week over 12 weeks; Winter.

GNDS 898     Major Research Paper     

GNDS 899     Master's Thesis     
An intensive and required written project based on student’s own research questions. Consists of a number of chapters which form a single coherent work. PREREQUISITE:  GNDS 801, GNDS 802; two Gender Studies elective courses or courses from cognate graduate programs (e.g Cultural Studies, Global Development Studies, Sociology, Geography, English) or permission of the Gender Studies Graduate Coordinator.

GNDS 903 Applications of Gender Studies
Examines critical theories of applications of gender studies research in work for social change, on such themes as power in research and representation, researcher responsibilities, academic and nonacademic research, research careers, and community-based research. Students plan applications of original research, and evaluate plans by utilizing critical theories of application.

GNDS 940 Directed Reading
Under the supervisions of an individual faculty member, PhD students may conduct intensive reading in a research area not offered in core or elective courses. Readings are arranged in consultation with the faculty supervisor, and accompanied by meetings during the term to discuss reading and submission of written assignments. This course will be offered only when faculty resources are available.

GNDS 941 Directed Reading   
Under the supervisions of an individual faculty member, PhD students may conduct intensive reading in a research area not offered in core or elective courses. Readings are arranged in consultation with the faculty supervisor, and accompanied by meetings during the term to discuss reading and submission of written assignments. This course will be offered only when faculty resources are available.

GNDS 950 Preparatory Doctoral Research
Advised by the PhD supervisor, students conduct preparatory research for the planned doctoral project. The purpose of this research is to investigate and establish relationships, and study and practice theories and methods that support the applications of the doctoral project within work for social change. This experience of preparatory research will inform the student’s preparation of the PhD proposal. This course is graded on a Pass/Fail basis. (3.0 credit units; the course is a two term course).

 GNDS 999 Ph.D. Thesis Research