Gender Studies aims to reveal and understand the social structures and power relations that create and reproduce asymmetrical and unequal relations between the sexes. Gender Studies provides students with the necessary intellectual tools to examine society and culture from a critical perspective and to challenge the “taken for granted”—namely, basic assumptions about the division of labor between men and women in different contexts and in different historical periods.
The Gender Studies Program at BGU is a multidisciplinary one, and as such crosses disciplinary boundaries. Given the diverse expertise of our lecturers and the courses they offer, our program exposes students to many fields of knowledge, while ensuring they receive rigorous training on the other. The main fields of study we offer include: feminist theory, queer theory, transgender studies, gender and sexuality, gender and urban studies, women and the periphery, gender and critical race studies, and legal gender studies. Our program actively supports a range of on-campus activism and collaborates with feminist organizations in the Beer Sheva area and beyond. This close collaboration with local feminist groups has led to the development of a number or unique courses that consist of feminist praxis in the community. The Gender Studies Program at BGU offers a full MA program as well as a BA minor.
The BGU Gender Studies Program offers:
· A wide range of elective courses, many which are cross-listed from other departments
· An environment in which our students are encouraged to develop their own fields of interests, and in where each students receives individual guidance
· Our location in Beer Sheva, which enables a unique engagement with questions of women and the periphery
· Encouragement of feminist activism on and off campus
· Courses emphasizing the transformation of theoretical knowledge into praxis
· Faculty members with different disciplinary training (i.e., sociology and anthropology, literature, political science, social work, and public health) which allows students to specialize in a wide range of fields.
Our MA Program
The MA program includes two mandatory introductory courses as well as a range of electives and seminars. Students are also required to participate in the program’s bimonthly seminar in which BGU faculty as well as visiting faculty and advanced PhD students present their current research.
Students without an academic background in Gender Studies can apply but are required to take “make-up” or supplementary courses from the BA program.
We offer two different MA tracks: the research track, in which students write an MA thesis, and a non-thesis track in which students take on more course work but do not write an MA thesis.
Our BA Minor
Our BA program includes three introductory courses: Feminist Theory, Gender and Society, and The Feminist Movements in the West and in the Middle East.
Students also take 3-5 elective courses (up to 10 credit points) and one seminar.
