Information For:

Gender & Sexuality Studies at Brown

The Gender and Sexuality Studies Program encourages students to examine the complex ways that “differences” are produced culturally, politically, and epistemologically: sexual and gender differences in concert with differences 

that are fundamental to the categories of "race" and ethnicity, nationality, class, religion, and so forth.

Interdisciplinary in its intellectual framing as well as its institutional structure, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program is housed in the Pembroke Center and supported by a multidisciplinary faculty advisory board.  The Program shares with the Pembroke Center a questioning of what counts as foundational knowledge in a given discipline. This questioning of the production of knowledge is related, in turn, to the challenges that studies of "difference" present to the academy.  Such studies include gender and sexuality studies; studies of race, ethnicity, multiculturalism; and cross-cultural and postcolonial studies.


Graduate Certificate Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies

 The graduate certificate program enables graduate students already enrolled in PhD programs at Brown to develop methodological and theoretical expertise and credentials in the interdisciplinary field of gender and sexuality studies while fulfilling the graduate requirements of their degree-granting department. It will give students the opportunity for advanced training in the field; provide them with specialized professional training in Gender and Sexuality Studies; and foster a community of scholars dedicated to the study of the intersections of gender and sexuality and other related methodologies, such as critical race studies, cultural studies, legal theory, psychoanalytic theory, as well as more traditional disciplinary methods.

Certificate Requirements
The requirements for Certificate Program include coursework, teaching or TAing a course relevant to gender and sexuality studies, and the presentation of a paper in our Graduate Student Colloquium.

1. Courses (4 total) 
Courses must be completed with at least a grade of B in each course and include:

  • GNSS 2000 – Method, Evidence, Critique: Gender and 
Sexuality Studies across the Disciplines (currently offered once per year)
  • Three approved relevant electives (1000- or 2000-level) from across the university 
curriculum

2. Research Paper
Students must complete a research paper that reflects the student's training in the field, to be presented to the Graduate Colloquium in Gender and Sexuality Studies. The paper may be completed for a course or a draft dissertation chapter. The Graduate Colloquium consists of a core group of related faculty and graduate students enrolled in the certificate program.

3. Additional Experience: Teaching or Proctorship

  • The teaching requirement can be met by teaching one's own seminar on a relevant 
theme or TAing for the Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies or another approved course in Gender and Sexuality Studies. For students whose funding precludes their serving as teaching assistants, instructors, or proctors, appropriate accommodations will be made.

  • Upon approval, students may fulfill the additional requirement with a semester-long proctorship in the Pembroke Center Archives instead of the teaching component. Students must demonstrate an intellectual and professional rationale for a proctorship in lieu of teaching. 

Application
To apply to the GNSS Graduate Certificate Program, please complete and return the application form to the Director of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Please note that the application requires the approval of the applicant's home department.

For More Information
Please contact Drew Walker, Director of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, to learn more about the graduate certificate. 

Additional Opportunities for Graduate Students

The Pembroke Center invites graduate students  to apply for: