For Current Students

Welcome to the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison! Our inter- and multi-disciplinary department is home to 22 award-winning faculty whose expertise spans the arts and humanities, social sciences, and health sciences, and a robust curriculum and community of undergraduate and graduate students.

The PhD degree in Gender and Women’s Studies provides advanced feminist training for students with a variety of academic backgrounds and career plans. The degree engages the multidisciplinary perspectives associated with gender studies, including queer studies, transgender studies, sexuality studies, race and ethnicity studies, postcolonial and settler-colonial studies, disability studies, area and global studies, cultural studies, and art, visual culture, and performance studies.

Faculty and students in our program, often working within other departments as well, develop scholarly expertise in areas such as: Gender and Health; LGBTQ2SIA+ Studies; Visual Culture, Art, and Performance Studies; Disability Studies; Gender and Sexuality in History; Gender and Politics; Psychology, Gender, and Sexuality; Transnational, Postcolonial, and Settler Colonial Studies; Care Work, Community Action, and Social Movements.

A unique feature of the Wisconsin PhD program in GWS is that all students complete a 15-credit concentration (mostly) outside GWS. The concentration may be in a traditional discipline (e.g., History or Political Science) or an interdisciplinary area (e.g., Gender and Health, or LGBTQ+ Studies). With the concentration, students will have expanded options on the academic and non-academic job markets, and they will learn research methods and content that will be useful for their dissertation and research beyond that. For more information, see the Concentration tab.

The Department benefits from numerous campus resources including a dedicated Office and Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian, the McBurney Disability Resource Center, the Gender and Sexuality Campus Center, and other vital resources that may be found under the Campus Resources tab.