Roosevelt University - Women's and Gender Studies M.A.

Master of Arts Degree Program Description
Women's and Gender Studies

Roosevelt University is the only secular university in Chicago offering a master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies. The program aims to introduce students to a wide range of WGS topics and approaches and also maintains several foci that represent the strengths of our core faculty. In many ways, our MA program is organized around several core questions that emphasize the dynamism of the field of women’s and gender studies. That is, our program is grounded in the belief that feminism and WGS do not represent a finite or universal set of topics or definitions. Rather, the field’s uniqueness comes from its definition as an ongoing process of inquiry. In fact, we understand WGS as representing a certain way of asking questions about the worlds in which we live and the histories that have produced them.

Students in our program will gain a deep understanding of this process of inquiry as they engage in coursework that interrogates the following questions:

• What defines feminism(s)? How have these definitions been constructed? How have they been contested?

• What are the historical and contemporary sites of interest in which definitions of gender and sexuality are paramount? How have such definitions of gender and sexuality been employed to further particular ways of knowing and being in the world?

• How can we use our understandings of gender, sexuality, and feminism to enact social justice and transformation?

To tackle these questions, WGS core courses focus on these sites of inquiry:

• Cultural representations of women, gender, and sexuality (for example, literature, film, video, music, fashion, and other historical and popular cultural forms)

• Social institutions that organize and produce meanings of gender and sexuality

• Avenues of resistance and change, including social movements and forms of activism

• Ways of knowing and feminist epistemologies

For further details about the Master of Arts degree in Women’s and Gender Studies, or to set up an appointment to discuss the program, please contact the WGS Program Director.