Program Overview

PhD in Women's and Gender Studies

The PhD in Women's and Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary program that provides a research environment for students to explore a wide range of gender issues. The program is 3 years in length (or part-time equivalent) and starts in September or February. Students are required to submit a thesis of 70-90,000 words.

Program Structure

• The program includes research supervision in the student's main area of study, supported by an academic thesis panel.
• Students are given specialized research supervision and are expected to participate in the research culture of the Centre.
• The program also includes taught modules, which students audit to support their research and develop their research skills.
• The choice of modules is decided in consultation with the student's supervisor.

Degree Components

• Research: The main focus of the PhD degree is in research and the writing of a thesis.
• Taught modules: All students will audit one or more modules to support their research and to develop their research skills.
• Transferable Skills Programme: The University and the Centre offer sessions to help professionalize the degree, including writing skills, developing an academic CV, conference participation, and writing for journals.
• Research seminars: The Centre offers a regular program of research seminars where academics from other institutions offer papers on their research.

Research Areas

The Centre's core staff have expertise in the following areas:

• Dr Rachel Alsop: Gender and migration; gendered violence; contemporary developments in feminist theory; issues of body image; masculinities; girls' rights.
• Dr Boriana Alexandrova: Medical humanities; disability theory; modern and contemporary global literatures; contemporary women’s writing and performance; trauma theory and survivors’ narratives; embodiment; feminist and queer art-activism; ethics; literary multilingualism and translation; postcoloniality.
• Dr Clare Bielby: Violence, representation and gender; violence, subjectivity and affect/emotion; terrorism and gender; the field of perpetrator studies. History of feminism, particularly German feminisms; queer studies and feminist queer theory; masculinities; subjectivity and narratives of the self; gender, sexuality and representation.
• Dr Asha Abeyasekera: Marriage and kinship; the everyday practices of intimacy and care; and the gendered impacts of global capitalism on women’s homemaking in contemporary South Asia. The gendered dimensions of urban poverty and precarity; the materiality and emotional dimensions of intimate relations and domestic violence; and the creative strategies women use to survive, resist, and flourish even as they claim ethical lives.

Facilities for Research Students

• The Centre provides a shared space for research students with desks, computers, printing, photocopying, and other key facilities.
• A kitchen space is also available for student use, with chairs, a kettle, microwave, fridge, and toaster.