English Master's students may elect the Concentration in Women’s and Gender Studies simply by putting their intentions in writing to the Graduate English Director and by filing a form available from the Director of Women's Studies. Supported by the R-N Graduate School, this 12-credit interdisciplinary Concentration is offered within the 30-credit English M.A. Program as well as six other advanced degree programs here–History, Political Science, Global Affairs, Criminal Justice, Liberal Studies, and Public Administration. English students who elect this Concentration are able to pursue questions of feminist thought and gender differences  in more depth and in dialogue with outstanding teachers and graduate students in other fields. Among the critical mass of Rutgers-Newark faculty engaged in research pertinent to these questions, English professors are well-represented.

General Rationale: Women’s Studies emerged in the 1970's, the decade after the establishment of African American Studies and film studies in higher education; in the 1980's and 1990's, it helped to open areas that we now know by the names of cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and global studies. Over the  three decades of its institutionalization, Women’s Studies–in the form of undergraduate and graduate programs, courses,  university-based institutes and centers, scholarly conferences, professional organizations, journals, and a large body of published research–has demonstrated how feminist epistemologies have reshaped the agendas of intellectual inquiry in numerous fields. Because of their interdisciplinary methods, women’s and gender studies is among those places in higher education where the liberal arts remain central to networked areas of inquiry. In the last 30 years the field we call “English” has proved to be a richly rewarding site for the study of gender as it has drawn from and built links in this network.

The Concentration and Students’ Objectives: There is an ongoing demand in graduate education to address the issues in our culture which are based on our assumptions about differences between men and women. Mature students taking this Concentration can expand their knowledge and mastery of political and cultural issues by examining their gender dimensions, while taking a cluster of courses that intensify and clarify what they are learning in their primary discipline. Some will go on to pursue women’s or gender studies at the doctoral level in  programs like those offered at Clark, Emory, and the University of Michigan. Understanding the histories, theories, and ideologies of gender differences can enrich work in any literary period or genre.

Graduate-level analysis of gender relations  sheds light on many global issues, in the present and the past, including postcolonial and the 19th-century  literature of  travel and empire. The workplace is enriched by those who have had occasion to examine and research gender issues, especially for educators of girls and boys in the U.S. and aboard, for shapers of school curricula, and college teachers; for librarians, writers, journalists, and editors, including those who work on trade journals; for publicity directors; for professionals who deal with personnel and equity issues, marketing and consumer behavior, the psychology of families, law and public policy. Whatever the career, gender analysis can be extremely useful in reshaping life in the communities where we work and live.

Course of Study

English Requirements

3 credits for Introduction to Graduate Literary Study (26:350:503)--offered in fall

6 credits for two pre-1800 literature courses

3 credits for one American literature course

6 credits in English electives or the Master’s Thesis

Concentration Requirements

3 credits for History and Theory of Women’s/Gender Studies (26:988:532)*

3 credits for Feminist Research Methods (26:988:570)*

6 credits in courses designated for W&GS in the English Program

*The W&GS core courses:

History and Theory of Women’s/Gender Studies

Often taught by faculty members in literature, history, or anthropology, this core course focuses primarily on the intellectual history within which feminism has come to be defined. As social and political changes have altered the map of the world, the everyday lives of women have changed. As laws and constitutions are framed, as religions are established, the situation of women is reframed accordingly. This course addresses the complex dynamic of women’s histories in various times and places as it intersects with gendered social and cultural formations. Cross-cultural issues and differences are crucial to this seminar. The development of feminist theory is placed in the contexts of differing global histories.

Feminist Research Methods

This is an interdisciplinary study of approaches to research and research methodologies used by feminist scholars across the disciplines study women and gender issues. The course is designed to expand the graduate student's knowledge of feminist theories and methods in both the humanities and the social sciences, and to encourage discussion and critical thinking about contemporary debates among feminist and gender studies scholars. The course also provides the graduate student with basic tools to apply feminist research methods in their disciplinary research.

Dr. Jyl Josephson, Director of Women’s Studies (Conklin 419), can be reached at 973-353-1026 or <jylj@andromeda.rutgers.edu>, Web: womenstudies.newark.rutgers.edu
Dr. Janet  Larson, Director of Graduate English (Hill Hall 529), is at 973-353-5193 or <engma@andromeda.rutgers.edu>.