While the Women and Gender Studies Program does not offer an MA or PhD, the following programs may be of interest to students who wish to pursue graduate studies in Feminist Theory and Research.

Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research

The Women & Gender Studies Program at UC Davis offers a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory & Research with graduate programs in: Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, Education, English, French, German, Geography, History, Native American Studies, Performance Studies, Psychology, Sociology, and Spanish.

The Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory & Research allows graduate students to receive a Ph.D. in the field of their choice while completing a special emphasis in feminist theory & scholarship.  The courses listed for the Designated Emphasis are open to all graduate students in good standing, but graduates in affiliated departments who complete the Designated Emphasis requirements will receive official credit on their transcripts for a Ph.D. with “Special Emphasis in Feminist Theory & Research.”

Cultural Studies Graduate Group

The Graduate Group in Cultural Studies at UC Davis offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of culture and society that highlights how sexuality, race, ability, citizenship, gender, nationality, class and language organize embodied identities, social relations and cultural objects.  Our program, one of the few advanced degrees in Cultural Studies in the United States, emphasizes the linked analyses of these factors in relation to local community formations, transnationalism, (post)(neo)colonialism, and globalization.  Drawing on faculty from a wide range of disciplines and intellectual interests, the program cuts across the humanities, social sciences, the law school, and agricultural and environmental studies. 

With the close guidance and supervision of a faculty committee, students in the program pursue interdisciplinary research in areas including studies of comparative and critical race, ecocriticism, fashion, queer theory, media and popular cultural representation, science and technology, Marxist theory, travel and tourism, food, physical and cognitive abilities, cultural geography, transnational culture and politics, globalization, religion, rhetoric, performance, and critical theory. Students also take courses in disciplinary areas including Anthropology, English, Comparative Literature, History, and Sociology among others. Many of our students are enrolled in designated emphases programs in Critical Theory, Feminist Theory and Research, and Social Theory and Comparative History. Although both the Ph.D. and MA are offered, the majority of students are admitted to the Ph.D. program.

D.E. in Critical Theory (affiliation pending)

From the program's founding, the D.E in Critical Theory has provided graduate students at UC Davis with invaluable, and in some cases, unique, opportunities to participate in cross-disciplinary seminars focused on questioning and understanding the bases of interpretation and analysis. By studying critical theories through the optics of competing perspectives and different disciplinary prisms, Critical Theory at Davis offers students an intellectual context conducive as much to a better understanding of the stakes of their own critical choices, as it is to fostering an enriched understanding of other people's critical perspectives. As a result of bringing together students with diverse disciplinary specializations, the Program's seminars are vibrant and effective research groups. By the time students complete the D.E. in Critical Theory, they are equipped to understand, and explore, both the enabling and the constraining dimensions of the critical choices they make when interpreting different cultural phenomena.

Students also understand much better the reasons why people make the critical choices they do, an understanding that in turn, grounds meaningful dialogue between different critical perspectives in their future research and teaching.

On many campuses in the U.S., critical theory has settled primarily in the literature departments and programs. This institutional and disciplinary location means that Critical Theory ends up frequently associated with a primary focus on the theories of literary criticism. The D.E. in Critical Theory at UC Davis has sought, instead, from its early days, to situate the place of literature as cultural object within a broader based definition of Critical Theory.

In this respect, the CT program extends and explores the Frankfurt School's emphasis on social thought, ideology critique, social and philosophical analysis, and cultural criticism. At the same time, the program fosters exploration of the contributions made by Althusser, Barthes, Butler, Derrida, Foucault, Irigaray, Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Lyotard, and Machery. Together with other postwar writers and critics, these contributions to Marxism, historiography, semiology, structuralism, post-structuralism, hermeneutics, psychoanalytically informed prisms, and epistemology constitute essential interpretive tools for research across the disciplines.

Likewise, the work of the DE does not neglect the historical dimension of Critical Theory, offering courses that explore the roots of critical theory from Plato and Aristotle through Kant and Hegel. Just as significantly, our Critical Theory program at UC Davis fosters working environments that explore the work of feminist engagements with these theorists. Feminist engagement with critical theory has had a major impact on writing and criticism inside and outside of the Academy, and has made major contributions to an extension and critique of, and an innovation on, the androcentrism inherent in certain critical perspectives

Gender and Global Issues Program—Post Baccalaureate Program

The Post-Baccalaureate Program in Gender and Global Issues at the University of California, Davis, is designed for students who already have a B.A./B.S. but seek additional training in order to strengthen their preparation for graduate school or for the workplace.
Our Program merges academic knowledge with practical professional development and allows participants to gain a competitive edge for positions in areas where issues of gender competency and global awareness have growing significance. This uniquely flexible and wide-ranging field of study covers topics from the arts to agriculture to human rights from a feminist perspective. Questions of gender equity constitute the primary focus of this program and provide tools for assessment and action applicable in the US and abroad. Post-bac study offers students the opportunity to gain experience in graduate study at a major research university while also allowing flexibility in time scheduling.

This Certificate is of particular interest to:

• agency workers from the non-profit and government sectors
• teachers
• activists
• pre-MA students
• international development professionals