Department of Gender Studies
The history of the Gender Studies Department reaches back to the academic year 1994/1995 when the “Project on Gender and Culture” was established at CEU under the direction of Nancy Leys Stepan. Offering education on gender studies to all interested students of CEU was one of the “projects” initial commitments. The first introductory seminar was held in the autumn of 1994. Equally important at this time were outreach activities, mainly on the faculty level, targeted to the region of Central Eastern Europe (entitled Regional Seminar in Gender and Culture), and with the wider academic community of Budapest and Hungary.
In the academic year 1995/1996 the CEU Board of Trustees voted to establish a one-year graduate interdisciplinary certificate in gender studies. The first cohort of students was admitted the following year when Joanna Regulska and Kim Lane Scheppele were Program Co-Directors. In this same academic year, the option to grant an M.Phil degree through the Open University (London) was added. By May 1997 the accreditation of the MA program with the Board of regents of the State of New York was successfully completed.
In the academic year 1998/1999 Miglena Nikolchina became program director and student enrollment had reached a level of approximately 50 students. The Program on Gender and Culture was instrumental in organizing important international conferences such as Women in History, Power & Pleasure in a Gendered Perspective, as well as a graduate student conference. It also hosted a number of leading scholars in the field of gender and women’s studies throughout the world.
By the end of 2001, the Program in Gender and Culture had received full departmental status and began to operate as the Gender Studies Department pursuing independent faculty lines and developing its curriculum. During this era, the department became increasingly committed to understanding gender as related to other categories and social hierarchies; concerned with analyzing gender both locally and globally; and committed to supporting research that helps unpack the particular histories and social realities of gender in Central Eastern Europe.
Under the direction of then Head of Department Susan Zimmermann, the years 2000-2002 brought major developments in possibilities for Ph.D. study in gender at CEU. From academic year 2001/2002, students could pursue a specialization in gender studies within CEU’s Ph.D. program in Comparative History of Central and Eastern Europe. More significantly, in 2001 a Ph.D. in Comparative Gender Studies was established. And in September 2002 the first students were admitted to do a Ph.D. in Comparative Gender Studies within the Department of Gender Studies.
Today the department continues to thrive, working to maintain a tradition of excellence in gender analysis and pedagogy, as well as participate in important new directions in the field of gender and women’s studies. We are currently developing a 2 year MA program in “Critical Gender Studies,” pursuing cooperations and exchanges with other universities through Erasmus Mundus and other schemes; and the department is organizing a variety of conferences and special workshops. See “Special Events” on the website menu for an updated list of upcoming conferences and workshops.
Master Program(s)