skip to content

University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies

 

 

Introduction

The MPhil in Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies provides rigorous advanced training in the multi-disciplinary study of gender. The course is designed for those students who wish to prepare for PhD or further research and also, for those who want to enhance their understanding of 'gender' by undertaking a 9-month MPhil only.

The primary objective of the course is to introduce students from a wide variety of academic, business and policy backgrounds to the traditions, methods and front-line research that shape an advanced gender analysis of human society. Up to 25 different departments within the University of Cambridge come together on this course to address a range of topics such as:

  • Conflict
  • Globalisation
  • Labour Market inequality
  • Public Policy
  • Bio-medical advances
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Human Rights and Justice
  • Literature and the Arts
  • Culture and Antiquity

A key theme of the MPhil programme is 'intersectional' approaches to gender inequality. Systems of gender inequality cannot be properly understood, analysed or addressed without taking into consideration specific histories of the ways in which issues of sexuality, race, colonialism, class, disability and more inflect gender analysis. This approach is taught in the programme in Gender and Methods and Theory, Controversy and Methodology seminars, and throughout the diverse seminars in our Multi-disciplinary Text Seminars series.

Graduates from this MPhil should emerge as highly desirable candidates for a wide range of careers including those specialising in government, policy, business, NGO, journalistic and academic careers. Former students have gone on to work with the Centres for Migration and Labour Solutions, The European Commission, for Policy Research in India, with the UN Development Programme and UN Women.

The Research Dissertation

Applicants may apply to study any gender related topic - we will match students with an appropriate academic supervisor from across the University to guide the research. Recent research topics have included:

  • Snake in the Cooking Pot: Decoding the Colonial Origins and Social Impact of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act
  • Contested Realities in the Anti-Khatna Movement in India: Negotiating the Ideals of Female Respectability and the Performance of Sexuality
  • Contesting Rape Narratives: Medicalisation and the Trauma Model of Victimhood
  • Clinical Management of Gender Dysphoria
  • Whose Idea Was That? Examining Gatekeeper Mindsets in Producing the Modern Slavery Act of 2015
  • The Islamic State of Dispossession
  • Consuming Gender: Using Ellipses to Read Nostalgic Masculinity in The Great Gatsby

Eligibility

Applicants will have the equivalent of at least a high 2:1 undergraduate honours degree in the British university system, in any subject.

Enquiries

Please contact the Centre Administrator, University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies at gender@gender.cam.ac.uk