The School of Liberal Arts is pleased to announce a Certificate in Women and Gender Studies following success of its courses on women and gender in the past few years. This Certificate hopes to inspire rigorous interdisciplinary training, connecting varied disciplinary gender research to conversations taking place within a broader intellectual community.

The Certificate in Women and Gender Studies also offers a unique opportunity to professionals in the areas of development, law, academe, medicine and, arts to explore transnational gender polemics. The programme will be most useful for people working for electronic and print media and for media students, medicine, law psychology, education and the non-profit sector.

Students will benefit by supplementing their disciplinary training with concentrated inquiry in a specific field. Distinguished participants may be offered apprenticeships with leading national/international development organization.

Graduate Certificate in Women& Gender Studies aims to provide:

• a challenge to the traditional separation of academic theory from political and professional practice
• an inclusive approach that examines the intersection of gender and other social identities and categories of analysis
• an opportunity to broaden and enrich analytical skills in one or more disciplines while drawing on the interdisciplinary perspectives of Women and Gender Studies

Coursework for the Certificate in Women and Gender Studies involves core courses in feminist theory and methodology; advanced courses on women and gender in the discipline and; brown-bag Lectures on significant issues. It culminates in an advanced research project designed to incorporate a feminist perspective.

Requirements for the Certificate in Women and gender studies

Applicants for the Women and Gender Studies programme are expected to hand in a 500-word statement of interest. Their statement should explain why they are interested in studying about women and gender.

Programme Structure:
Women & Gender studies certificate is an evening programme spanning one semester (four-months). It will involve 18 credits.

Core Courses for the Certificate in Women and gender Studies

(2 credits) Gender Scholarship and the Humanities: Explores how scholars of gender conduct research in the humanities by investigating questions of authority, evidence and argument in terms of the uses of history and the role of theory. The course is designed as a brown-bag lecture series. Participants will be expected to attend weekly lectures and discuss diverse issues involving gender, race, religion, development, reproduction, violence, and law.

(3 credits) Gender Scholarship and the Social Sciences: Aims to examine critically quantitative and qualitative methods by which social scientists study women, sex, and gender, including feminist empiricism and standpoint epistemologies.

(3 credits) Race, Identity and, culture: Exposes students to methodological strategies in gender studies scholarship on race, identity and culture ensuring knowledge of work written by women of colour and race and an understanding of how even feminist paradigms have excluded them.

(3 credits) Gender polemics: Theories and Practice: Explores various schools and waves of feminist thought and analyze feminism, anti-racism, and multicultural praxis by studying the relationship between theory and practice in different disciplines and professional settings.

(3 credits) Media, women & Gender: The course will provide tools for media studies critique in issues ranging from feminist analysis to issues of race, labour. Participants will be expected to analyze critically both electronic and print media.

(4 credits) Advanced Research: Every student will carry out a final project that integrates a gender perspective with the discipline. The final version should include a student framing statement and faculty advisor statement.