Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies

MA Gender Studies is available on a 12-month full-time or 24-month part-time basis. The course has five modules: four compulsory, one elective.

Compulsory modules

Researching Gender provides you with the opportunity to focus on researching gender with a particular emphasis on feminist research practices. In exploring a range of disciplinary perspectives, you will focus on epistemological, methodological and ethical considerations. In particular, the course looks at these considerations with relation to research design and methods.

The module also encourages you to think beyond disciplinary boundaries and develop an understanding of the possibilities of interdisciplinary research. You will critically analyse research practice from a gender and feminist perspective, review and appraise research findings, and synthesise information and knowledge from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary sources and perspectives.

Theorising Gender engages with contemporary theoretical approaches within gender studies. Exploring the social and individual processes involved in the enactment of gender relations, the module investigates alternative, complementary and conflicting explanations for the source and operation of gender.

Investigating the historical, social and individual significance of gender, you will examine various areas of social life where gender shapes interactions and forms meaning: in particular, you will consider family roles, reproductive technologies, citizenship, sexuality, culture and personal biography.

Que(e)ring Sexualities examines gender and sexuality as effects of historically specific socio-cultural and geo-political power relations. You will investigate the key theoretical concepts in the study of gender, sexuality and queer theory, and use interdisciplinary approaches to challenge normalisations, hierarchies and relations of domination.

You will also explore the powerful processes and languages that fix gender and sexuality as 'natural', and examines how these powerful ideas come to affect the lives intimacies and politics of queer subjects.

Dissertation allows you to tailor your own programme of training and research in consultation with a member of staff drawn from the centre's MA/PhD supervisory panel.

Through the dissertation, you demonstrate your ability to develop and complete an in-depth analysis, select and use appropriate research methods, deploy advanced theoretical concepts and relate a focused study to broader debates and concerns.