Doctoral Emphasis Program in Women’s Studies

The Women's Studies Program, with almost fifty core and affiliated faculty members in over nineteen disciplines, serves as a model of interdisciplinary work and scholarly collaboration at UCSB. Women’s Studies doctoral emphasis students are required to complete successfully four seminars that will enhance their understanding of feminist pedagogy, feminist theory, and topics relevant to the study of women, gender and/or sexuality. Women's Studies as an inter-departmental set of conversations and intellectual questions supports a multifaceted undergraduate curriculum at UCSB. Graduate emphasis students are encouraged to apply to teach Women’s Studies courses as teaching assistants and associates as part of their Women’s Studies training.
Applicants must first be admitted to, or currently enrolled in, a UCSB Ph.D. program participating in the Women’s Studies graduate emphasis: Anthropology; Comparative Literature; Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology; Dramatic Art and Dance; English; French and Italian; Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies; History; History of Art and Architecture; Music; Political Science; Religious Studies; Sociology; or Spanish and Portuguese. Candidates complete four graduate courses and select a member of the Women’s Studies faculty or affiliated faculty to serve on their dissertation committees. Applications to the Women’s Studies Doctoral Emphasis may be submitted at any stage of Ph.D. work, and applications will be considered throughout the year.

The Graduate Curriculum
Students pursuing the emphasis in Women’s Studies will successfully complete four graduate courses. Only one may be taken in the student’s home department.

Issues in Feminist Epistemology and Pedagogy (Women’s Studies 270). A one quarter seminar that considers Women’s Studies as a distinct field. It offers an interdisciplinary exploration of feminist theories of knowledge production and teaching practices. Readings cover past and present critical debates and provide theoretical approaches through which to analyze interdisciplinary epistemological and pedagogical issues.

Special Topics in Women’s Studies (594 AA-ZZ). A one quarter seminar offered by a Women’s Studies faculty member on topics of central concern to the field of Women’s Studies. Or Research Practicum (Women’s Studies 280). A cross-disciplinary seminar in which fundamental questions in contemporary feminist research practice are considered in light of students’ own graduate projects. Students may fulfill the Area 2 requirement by taking either a Special Topics Seminar or the Research Practicum.

Feminist Theories. A one quarter graduate seminar in feminist theory offered by any department, including Women’s Studies.

Topical Seminar. A one quarter graduate seminar, outside the student’s home department, that addresses topics relevant to the study of women, gender, and/or sexuality.

To apply, please submit the following materials:

Application Form (doc)
Application Form (pdf)

Letter of Application
The letter should describe any relevant previous coursework, the applicant’s anticipated research specialty in the home department, and its relation to interdisciplinary scholarship in Women’s Studies. (Lack of prior course work in Women’s Studies does not preclude admission, so long as a compelling statement of research interest congruent with the graduate emphasis makes the case.) In the letter, please indicate your home department and include full contact information, including address, email, phone number(s), and perm number.

Letter of Recommendation
A letter of recommendation from a UCSB faculty member should be sent to Barbara Tomlinson, the graduate advisor in the Women’s Studies Program.

Send application materials to Barbara Tomlinson, Graduate Advisor, Women’s Studies Program, 4701 South Hall, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. Your application will be reviewed by a faculty committee within approximately two weeks. For additional information on the Program, contact btomlinson@womst.ucsb.edu or visit Women's Studies Home Page . It is particularly advisable to consult with the grad adviser to help plan course selections to insure that courses satisfy the doctoral emphasis requirements.

Core Faculty

Jacqueline Bobo, Ph.D., University of Oregon, Professor: film/television, cultural studies, Black feminist cultural theory
Eileen Boris, Ph.D., Brown University, Hull Professor of Women's Studies: gender, race, and class; feminist theory; labor studies; social politics; women, work, and welfare; women’s and gender history
Grace Chang, Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley, Associate Professor: women of color, immigrant women, globalization studies, social justice movements for immigrant and welfare rights
Barbara Herr Harthorn, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, Associate Professor: gender, race, and health inequality; social construction of risk; science and new technologies; geographies of inequality
Ellie Hernandez, Ph.D., University of California, Assistant Professor: 20th Century American literature and cultural studies; Chicana/o and Latina/o literature and cultural production; gay/lesbian studies and queer theory; comparative sexualities
Mireille Miller-Young, Ph.D., New York University, Assistant Professor: black feminist theory, black sexual politics, the racialized political economy of sex work, and American film and visual cultures
Laury Oaks, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, Associate Professor: The politics of reproduction in the U.S. and Ireland; anthropology of health, medicine, and science; transnational social movements
Leila J. Rupp, Ph.D., Bryn Mawr College, Professor: women’s movements, sexuality, gay/lesbian history, women’s history
Barbara Tomlinson, Ph.D., University of California, Riverside, Associate Professor: feminist theory, rhetoric and feminist politics, cultural studies
Juliet Williams, Ph.D., Cornell University, Associate Professor: public law, political theory, feminist jurisprudence

Affiliated Faculty

Paul Amar, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Law and Society: the race/sex politics of police brutality, authoritarian legacies, and security regimes in Latin America and the Middle East, particularly Brazil and Egypt
Ingrid Banks, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Black Studies: African American Studies, race and racism, Black feminist theory
Edwina Barvosa-Carter, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Chicana and Chicano Studies: social and political theory, Latino/a politics, multicultural democracy and citizenship
Aaron Belkin, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Political Science, and Director, Michael D. Palm Center: masculinity, violence, and sexuality in the military
Ann Bermingham, Ph.D., Professor, History of Art and Architecture: 18th and 19th –century European art, particularly British art
Silvia Bermúdez, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese: twentieth-century peninsular and Latin American poetry and politics, literary and cultural theory
Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Professor, Sociology: women, culture, and development; transnational activism; feminism and race
Gayle Binion, Ph.D., Professor, Political Science: public law, law and society, feminist jurisprudence
Maurizia Boscagli, Ph.D., Associate Professor, English: gender studies and feminist theory, the body, theories of subjectivity, British and European modernism, critical and cultural theory
Mary Bucholtz, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Linguistics: sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, language, gender, and sexuality, African American English, Mexican and Chicano Spanish
Julie Carlson, Ph.D., Professor, English: British Romanticism, feminist and queer theories, social revolutions of the 1790s and 1960s
Sarah Cline, Ph.D., Professor, History, and Director of Latin American and Iberian Studies: Latin American history, Atlantic world history, comparative studies of gender, race, ethnicity, and colonialism
Patricia Cline Cohen, Ph.D., Professor, History: U.S. women's history, history of sexuality
Sharon A. Farmer, Ph.D., Professor, History: medieval women and gender, medieval towns, medieval poor, relations between western Europe and the east
Sarah Fenstermaker, Ph.D., Professor, Sociology and Director of the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research: women and work, gender inequality, feminist epistemologies, ethnographic methods
L. O. Aranye Fradenburg, Ph.D., Professor, English: Medieval English and Scottish literature, critical theory, gender and sexualities, public humanities
Nancy Gallagher, Ph.D., Professor, History, and Chair of Middle East Studies Program: modern Middle Eastern and North African history
Bishnupriya Ghosh, Ph.D., Associate Professor, English: postcolonial theory and film; feminist theory and gender studies; literatures written in English
Avery Gordon, Ph.D., Professor, Sociology: social theory, race, gender, culture and art, radical theory and politics
Mary Hancock, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Anthropology and History: South Asian anthropology and history, ethnohistory
Tania Israel, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Clinical, Counseling, and School Psychology; School of Education: gender issues, feminist psychology, LGBTQ issues, social justice, sexuality education and counseling
Ursula R. Mahlendorf, Ph.D., Professor Emerita, Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies: German language and literature, comparative literature, women’s studies
Scott Marcus, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Music: North Indian and Middle Eastern music and performance practice, Arab music theory, North Indian folk music, tuning and temperament, gender and music
Stephan Miescher, Ph.D., Associate Professor, History: nineteenth and twentieth-century social history of west Africa, colonialism, gender, masculinities, oral historiography, history of sexualities
Catherine Nesci, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, French and Italian: nineteenth-century French literature and cultural studies, literary theory, feminist and gender studies
Christopher Newfield, Ph.D., Professor, English: nineteenth and twentieth century American literature, literary and social theory, gender, sexuality, and race
Constance Penley, Ph.D., Professor, Film Studies: film history and theory, media studies, literary and rhetorical studies, cultural studies, feminist theory, science and technology studies, contemporary art
Ann Plane, Ph.D., Professor, History, and Director of Public Historical Studies: American colonial history, Native American history, history of women and the family
Erika Rappaport, Ph.D., Associate Professor, History: modern Britain and its empire, modern European gender history, comparative consumer cultures
Horacio Roque-Ramírez, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Chicana and Chicano Studies: queer/LGBTQ community history and theory, Central American studies, oral history theories and methods
Chela Sandoval, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Chicano Studies: cyber and millennial studies, third space feminism, critical media theory and production, oppositional consciousness, social movement
Beth Schneider, Ph.D., Professor, Sociology, and Associate Dean of the Division of Social Sciences: sexuality, feminist studies, social movements, AIDS, health
Denise Segura, Ph.D., Professor, Sociology: gender, feminist studies, Chicano/a studies, race relations, work and community studies
Lisa Parks, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Film Studies: global media and broadcast history, cultural studies
Celine Parreñas Shimizu, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Asian American Studies: film and performance theory and production, theories of sexuality, Asian American cultural studies and transnationalism, feminist postcolonial studies and social theory
Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Ph.D., Professor, History of Art and Architecture: photography, contemporary art, nineteenth-century French art, feminist and critical theory
Ines Talamantez, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Religious Studies: Native American religious traditions and philosophies, religions of Mexico and Chicano religion, women and healing, religion and ecology
Verta Taylor, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Sociology: social movements, gender, feminist studies, sexuality, and health
France Winddance Twine, Ph.D., Professor, Sociology: gender, girlhood, racism/anti-racism, feminist theory, critical race theory, field research methods, multiracial/transracial families
Janet Walker, Ph.D., Professor, Film and Media Studies: film history and historiography, documentary film, film and ethnography
Mayfair Yang, Ph.D., Professor, Religious Studies and East Asian Languages and Cultures: anthropology of the state, modernity, China and Chinese diaspora in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and the West
Xiaojian Zhao, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair, Asian American Studies: U.S. history, Asian American history, immigration, family, gender, and law

Rev. 11/1/07