Cross-Cultural Women's and gender History 

Women's and gender History (CCWgH) is one of the minor fields that doctoral students in the Department of History may choose. The CCWgH minor offers graduate students the opportunity to enrich their own research with a grounding in historically informed gender theory and transnational approaches to history.

The CCWgH minor field prepares doctoral students to teach thematic and world history courses — preparation that serves them well on the job market and in their ongoing professional lives.

Students pursuing a minor field in Women's and gender History choose a faculty adviser to direct the minor field of study at the end of their first year in the graduate program. This adviser must work in a geographic region outside the student's major field. Together with their adviser, students will submit a Record Sheet (to be signed by the adviser and filed with the graduate assistant and the program coordinator) outlining the planned or completed coursework in a one-page statement describing the area of study.

Students choosing this minor field are required to take two graded, 200-level courses, as well as prepare and analyze a detailed syllabus for a one-quarter or one-semester undergraduate course on a theme in women's and/or gender history.

  • Coursework

  • All students are required to take one HIS 201Q seminar, which the department offers once per year, organized around a different theme each year or each quarter. You may view syllabi from past 201Q courses. The second seminar could be any one of the following that advances the student's research interests in gender history, gender theory, or women's history: 
    - a second History 201Q on a different theme
    - Women's Studies 200A or 200B (part of the designated emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research) 
    - History 202H, if focused significantly on cross-cultural women's and/or gender history (to be approved by the minor field adviser)
    - History 201 or 202, directed readings courses arranged with one or more professors. (If the professor is outside of the Department of History, the student will present a petition to the GPC.) This option is especially appropriate for students with strong research interests in a particular historical topic area, such as labor or law, not covered by existing course offerings.
     

    With the permission of the minor field adviser, additional courses, taught outside of the department, may count toward the second seminar. Such courses should focus significantly on gender. Students in the past have taken:
    - Social Theory and Comparative History 250 or 290 (part of the designated emphasis in Social Theory and Comparative History)
    - Geography 220 (see also other courses offered for the Gender and Global Issues program)

  • Syllabus
  • In the second or third year of graduate study, students preparing for the minor will design a syllabus for a one-quarter or one-semester undergraduate course on a theme in Women's and/or gender History. Recent past syllabi have focused on themes such as: women and work; gender and the body; women's nationalisms; and women and transnational activism. To accompany their syllabus, students will write a 15– to 20-page historiographical and analytical essay justifying the choices of readings and of interpretation embedded in the course design. The syllabus and essay must be approved by the minor-field adviser.
  • Community Service Awards
  • In addition to its curricular base as an academic minor within the doctoral program, the Women's and gender History Program (WgH) sponsors various community service activities.
  • Past 201Q Syllabi

  • The 201Q seminar is a graduate course offered annually by a faculty member affiliated with the Women's and gender History (WgH) minor within the Department of History doctoral program. The courses focus on a theme in women's and/or gender history and incorporate readings from across the geographical spectrum. Here is a year-by-year list of past offerings, including subject matter and the faculty members who taught each seminar.

    2021. Gender, Poverty, and the Welfare State—Cecilia Tsu

    2019. Gender and Revolution—Ellen Hartigan-O’Connor 

    2019. Global Intimacies–Howard Chiang

    2018. Gender and Biography– Kathryn Olmsted

    2017. Gender and the Law—Quinn Javers

    2015. Marriage, Sexuality and the Law — Rachel Jean-Baptiste

    2015. Oral History: From Memory to Meaning — Lorena Oropeza

    2014. Sexuality and Imperialism — Corrie Decker

    2012. Youth and Gender in the Modern World — Corrie Decker

    2011. Nations, Nationalism, and Gender — Lisa Materson

    2011. Space, Gender and the Historical Imagination — Susan Miller

    2010. Gender, History and the Creative Imagination — Catherine Kudlick

    2009. Gender and Trade — Hartigan-O'Connor

    2008. Gender and Memory — Victoria Langland

    2007. Gender and Comparative Colonialisms — Lisa Materson

    2006. Gender, Sexuality and Modernity — Omnia El Shakry

    2005. Women and the State — Cathy Kudlick

    2003. International Political Movements — Lisa Materson

    2001. Womens' Sexualities in Cross-Cultural Perspective   Joan Cadden

    1998. Biography — Susan Mann

    1995. The Female Body Across Time and Space — Beverly Bossler