Women's and Gender History
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Women's and Gender History


Convenor: Karen Hagemann

Program Description

Women's and Gender History is a strong and flourishing field at UNC-Chapel Hill. The field is broadly defined, intersects with the interests of a large number of faculty members, and is thoroughly integrated into the culture of the department. It is also structured to provide students with many choices and a great deal of flexibility. Our distinguished and diverse faculty offers a wide range of regularly taught courses that afford students the opportunity to study the history of women and gender around the world and add depth and perspective to the curricula of all history graduate students, regardless of their main fields of study. Courses focus on transnational or global perspectives and encompass South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America; medieval, early modern, and modern Europe; and the United States, including specialized study of Native Americans, African Americans, and the American South. Topics of special interest to our faculty include the history of family, work, and welfare; the history of women's movements; the gendered history of the nation, race, and ethnicities; the history of colonialism; the history of masculinity, the history of sexuality; the history of violence, the military, war and peace; and the gendered history of popular culture and collective memory. In addition, we provide opportunities to explore the discipline of Women's and Gender History itself — that is, we regularly offer classes that introduce students to the foundational theories and methodologies for studying women's and gender history.

Our courses attract not only history students, but also students in literature, art history, anthropology, and other academic disciplines. History students, in turn, may acquire interdisciplinary skills by taking courses offered in departments and curricula across the University. These include courses in Women's Studies, the University Program in Cultural Studies, American Studies, Latin American Studies, and Asian Studies. Our students also have the opportunity to gain valuable research skills by working with the Southern Oral History Program and the Center for the Study of the American South. Our program's close cooperation with Duke University enables UNC students to take women's and gender history courses at Duke and to include Duke faculty on their committees. Students and faculty also participate in events that bring together scholars interested in women's and gender history from other area schools and the National Humanities Center.

The Undergraduate Program

Since the academic year 2007-2008, the History Department  offers a concentration on Women's and Gender History within the undergraduate major. This concentration will enable students to think globally and comparatively and take advantage of the faculty who offer courses on women and gender in a wide variety of geographical areas and time periods.
 
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The Graduate Program

Graduate students at UNC-CH work within one of the department's "major fields" — such as Women's and Gender History, European History, or Latin American History. Students interested in women and gender have two options:

  • Students may choose Women's and Gender History as their major field. Courses and comprehensive examinations will help students who select this option to build expertise in global and theoretical approaches to women's and gender history, as well as in a conventionally defined field, such as U.S. history. For more information see the "regulations page" and Women's and Gender History under the "comprehensive exams" page.
  •  Students may work primarily within another major field (such as African or U.S. history) but emphasize women's and gender history within it (by taking women's and gender history as your "second field," or by taking a segment of your comprehensive examinations specifically on women's and gender history).

Students may designate women's and gender history as their major field when they apply for admission to the program. Those more comfortable within a traditional and regionally-defined field, may decide to select the second option but to indicate a strong interest in gender and women in their statement of purpose. Students who change their mind after a year or two of study, may do so without penalty. Switching between the two options is usually a simple matter of paperwork.

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Prospective students interested in our program and in discussing the suitability of this department for their interests are encouraged to contact faculty members whose interests are closest to their own.

Faculty

Daniel Botsman Associate Professor Prinston Japanese social history, Comparative history of pre-modern societies, law and empire in early modern and modern periods, women and gender; Japanese society in the Tokugawa and Meiji periods
Melissa M. Bullard Professor & Graduate Director  Cornell Early Modern Europe, Italy, economic history, cultural history, language and gender
Kathryn J. Burns Associate Professor Harvard Gender/women's history, Colonial Latin American
Kathleen A. DuVal Assistant Professor  UC-Davis Early America, Spanish and French North America, Native America, Early American women
Crystal Feimster Assistant Professor  Princeton African American history; U.S. Women, gender theory
Jacquelyn D. Hall Julia Cherry Spruill Professor & Director, SOHP Columbia U.S. women's history, oral history, U.S. South with emphasis on labor
Jerma A. Jackson Associate Professor Rutgers African-American history, gender history
John F. Kasson Professor Yale American cultural history; Cultural history of the body and history of childhood in the U.S., masculinities in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American cultural history
Michelle King Assistant Professor   Chinese history, gender history, cross-cultural interactions, Comparative gender, colonialism/imperialism, late imperial China. eighteenth- and nineteenth-century China
James L. Leloudis Associate Professor & Associate Dean for Honors UNC-CH U.S. South, education, poverty and civil rights, North Carolina
Lisa A. Lindsay Associate Professor  Michigan African history, slavery and slave trade, colonialism and imperialism, gender history.
Genna Rae McNeil Professor Chicago Afro-American history, gender history
Louise McReynolds Professor  Chicago Imperial Russia, Popular Culture, and Cultural Studies; Russian history, Medieval and Imperial, intellectual history, gender history
Theda Perdue Atlanta D.P. Georgia Native American history; Native American women’s and Southern women’s history. 
Yasmin Saikia Associate Professor  Wisconsin Memory; Local narratives; Post-Colonial South Asia; Colonialism, nationalism, gender issues, gender history, Islam and Identity politics
Sarah D. Shields Associate Professor Chicago Islamic civilization; modern Middle East, history of gender and nation. 
John Wood Sweet Associate Professor, Placement Director  Princeton Early American history, history of sexuality
Brett Whalen Assistant Professor  Stanford Medieval religious and cultural history, gender history

 

Graduate Students

This list includes both graduate students formally pursuing a degree in Women's and Gender History and graduate students interested in Women's and Gender History, while nevertheless working primarily in another major field.

Local Events

Gatherings, Lectures, Workshops and Conferences:

Resources

Local Resources:

National Resources:

  • Berkshire Conference of Women Historians (The best-known aspect of the Berkshire Conference is the meeting of the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, or "Big Berks," held every three years. The Big Berkshire Conference began in the early 1970s and grew out of the flourishing of interest in women's studies across the country.)
  • Coordinating Council for Women and History (The CCWH, an organization for women in the historical profession, is an affiliate of the American Historical Association. It is committed to exploring the diverse experiences and histories of all women. Its primary goals are to educate men and women on the status of women in the historical profession and to promote research and interpretation in areas of women's history in the United States and internationally. To that end, CCWH seeks to strengthen ties between permanent and adjunct faculty, graduate students, secondary and elementary teachers and students, public historians, and the general public.)
  • The H-Women network and website (H-Women is an international electronic discussion group that has been set up to provide a forum for college and university historians to discuss women's history.)
  • H-Minerva network and website (H-Minerva is the H-Net discussion network devoted to the study of women and war and women in the military, worldwide and in all historical areas.)
  • The Southern Association for Women Historians and H-SAWH Network (The Southern Association for Women Historians supports the study of women's history and the work of women historians. SAWH welcomes as members all women and men who are interested in U.S. southern history and/or women's history, as well as all women historians in any field who live in the U.S. South. The SAWH sponsors H-SAWH, which is an international electronic discussion group for scholars and teachers interested in the history of women and gender in the U.S. South. On June 8-11, 2006, the SAWH Seventh Conference on Women's History will be held at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.)
  • Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830-1930 (directed by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin, this site consists of sets of selected primary documents focusing on specific questions related to women and social movements in the United States between 1830 and 1930.)    

International Resources:
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