The Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies
The GCWS is a program that offers interdisciplinary, team-taught seminars to students who are enrolled in graduate programs at our member institutions. GCWS faculty explicitly integrate gender analysis with issues of class, race, culture, ethnicity, and sexualities and consider the practical implications of feminist theory. There is no fee for GCWS courses. Students are granted credit for participation by their home institutions and are admitted by application.
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Engaging Feminist Pedagogy and Collaboration
In team-taught, interdisciplinary seminars at the cutting edge of their research questions, faculty and graduate students explore new avenues of inquiry, develop new knowledge, and learn new pedagogical skills.
Join a Teaching Team »"Teaching in the Consortium is an opportunity for so much intellectual stimulation. It creates a looser, more collaborative environment and a strong sense of community in the classroom."
- GCWS faculty
Professional Development and Networking
GCWS events include conferences, course development workshops, panels, symposia, and more. All are catered towards the needs and interests of the students and faculty at our member schools and provide skills-building opportunities and discussions that deepen participants' knowledge in their fields.
"I love hearing about new scholarship and new approaches (even literature I have never heard of!) As a doctoral student one tends to get tunnel vision, and opportunities like this help widen the view."Find out more about our conferences and events »
- GCWS conference presenter
Expanded Graduate Education
Courses are designed to foster a dynamic interchange between and among scholars and to provide intellectual stimulation for faculty and students doing work across disciplines. Our initiatives critically address gender, race, class, nation, sexualities, and the practical implications and applications of feminist theory.
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Building Intellectual Community
Our courses are designed to break new intellectual ground and to advance the field of Women's and Gender Studies.
"The incredible thing about GCWS courses is the attention to pedagogy, methodology, and feminism not as something studied or a flavor or research, but as a way of living and being a scholar."Sign up for a course »
- GCWS student
2012-2013 GCWS Graduate Courses
GCWS offers interdisciplinary, team-taught seminars to students enrolled in graduate programs at our member institutions. Courses are designed to open paths to the creation of new knowledge and provide intellectual support for students pursuing feminist work within the framework of traditional disciplines. more »
Propose a Course to the GCWS
Courses proposed through the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies extend and enhance the course offerings available to graduate students enrolled at member institutions and provide faculty with a unique opportunity for professional growth. more »
The Mother Board Writing Prize
This writing prize is dedicated to the ‘Mother Board’, the seven feminist intellectuals who together conceptualized and brought the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies into existence in 1988. It is an annual award honoring graduate student research and writing in the field of Women’s and Gender Studies. The prize submission deadline is April 15th, 2012. more »
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Mission Statement
The Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology brings together feminist scholars and teachers at nine Boston area institutions devoted to graduate teaching and research in women's studies and to advancing interdisciplinary women's studies scholarship.
Our mission is to advance the field of Women's Studies. For the twenty-first century, Women's Studies needs to develop new scholarship and theory across disciplines and attend to the integration of theory and practice as well as pedagogical innovations. A new Women's Studies agenda must address the shifting global context of women's social and economic lives, the effects of poverty and war, the implications of technology and a deteriorating environment, and the interconnected dynamics of race, class, sex, gender and power across cultures.
In pursuit of this mission, the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies provides graduate courses, promotes faculty development, builds intellectual community, and offers a model of institutional change.
Next Steps
Contact Us
The Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 14N-211
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: 617-324-2085
Profile
Faith Smith
Associate Professor
African and African American Studies and English
Brandeis University
GCWS Board of Directors Co-Chair
Faith Smith is Associate Professor of African and African American Studies and English at Brandeis University and is the GCWS Board Co-Chair. A native of Jamaica, her research interests are gender, nationalism and culture in the Caribbean. Smith recently published the book Sex and the Citizen (U. of Virginia Press, 2011), a multidisciplinary collection of essays that draws on current anxieties about "legitimate" sexual identities and practices across the Caribbean to explore both the impact of globalization and the legacy of the region's history of sexual exploitation during colonialism, slavery, and indentureship. She has been a member of the GCWS Board on two occasions and this is her third year as Board Co-chair.
