GENDER STUDIES IS CURRENTLY FUNCTIONING UNDER PARTIAL IN-PERSON STAFFING AS WE TRANSITION TO HYBRID STAFFING THAT INCLUDES REMOTE AND IN PERSON FOR ALL STAFF, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE THIS MAY CAUSE.

ALERTING STAFF IN ADVANCE WHEN YOU WILL BE ON CAMPUS AND NEED SUPPORT IS ADVISED.

Sherene H. Razack

Welcome to the UCLA Department of Gender Studies. Gender Studies is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the complex interaction of gender, race, class and sexuality in social relations, institutions, and systems. The Department is deeply committed to social justice and offers a multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate program that fosters critical scholarship from diverse intellectual fields in the humanities and social sciences.

Our department has grown significantly since 1975, when Women’s Studies first gained formal status as an academic program at UCLA. Today, the Department of Gender Studies has 18 core and 20 joint faculty and is home to approximately 250 undergraduate majors, 50 minors, and 30 Ph.D. students. Each year we welcome many transfer students, as well as international and returning students to the Gender Studies major and minor.

Our distinguished interdisciplinary faculty offer classes that range from large lecture courses, like our introductory Gender Studies 10, to small, student research-based senior seminars, like GS187. Popular undergrad courses focus on racial violence, mass incarceration, disability rights, Black, Indigenous and woman of color feminisms. Our grad program also emphasizes intersectionality with particular strengths in transnational feminist studies, Black feminism, Queer and Trans studies, racial violence, issues of Indigenous sovereignty, migration, critical disability studies and critical digital studies and media. The Department is home to the Racial Violence Hub, a virtual community of scholars and resources The Hub is directed by the Penny Kanner Endowed Chair, a position I occupy.

For the Gender Studies faculty and students, the last year and a half has been challenging, but also hopeful. In March 2020, the COVID-19 global pandemic forced us to move to remote work and learning. Two months later the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and too many more, sparked a mass movement against police brutality and for racial justice, which inspired hope and optimism. As Angela Davis stated in a June 2020 interview, “This moment holds possibilities for change we have never before experienced.” By June 2022 when the Supreme Court overruled Roe v Wade and decided that abortion was not a protected right, it is hard to hold on to Davis’s optimism. But we do know that at a time when women are being denied the right to reproductive freedom, Gender Studies has to step up to the challenge.

As we approach the 2022-23 academic year, we will continue to prepare students to become anti-colonial, anti-racist critical feminist thinkers ready and able to confront the immense challenges of our times. This is a promise.

If you would like to learn more about Gender Studies at UCLA, please explore this website or email us at info@gender.ucla.edu for more information.

Sherene H. Razack
Chair
Distinguished Professor and Penny Kanner Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies

Current Projects