Welcome

The Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research offers an interdisciplinary forum for the study of gender, its function in cultures and societies, and its intersection with race and class. Students may choose from three areas of concentration within the BA program: General Concentration, Concentration in Theories and Politics of Sexuality, Concentration in Gender and International Development. A minor in Women's Studies and a minor in Theories and Politics of Sexuality are also available. The Center offers master's and doctoral students the Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies in conjunction with (other) degree programs. Graduate students may choose a thesis or non-thesis Master of Arts degree.  For more information on specific programs, please refer to the Undergraduate or Graduate pages.

News and Announcements

Gender Conversation Series Continues

Intersections of Gender and American Prison Narratives
Jodi Schorb, Assistant Professor 
Department of English
Wednesday, February 17th
11:45 a.m. -  12:45p.m.
Ustler Hall Third Floor Reading Room

The popular Gender Conversation Brown Bag Lecture Series continues again this 2009-2010 academic year.  The series, an open forum for research discussion,  aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue within the UF community about the scholarly and political issues surrounding gender and sexuality by creating an informal setting for sharing insights drawn from research, activism, and pedagogy, both inside the university and beyond. Everyone is welcome - local community members as well as UF faculty, staff, and students. So bring your friends, students, classmates - and bring a brown bag lunch!

Don't miss this month's  Gender Conversation, on  Wendesday, Febraury 17th at 11:45 a.m.  in the third floor Reading Room in Ustler Hall,  featuring Department of English Assistant Professor Jodi Schorb, discussing Intersections of gender and early American Prison Narratives.  For a copy of the abstract for this conversation, please click on this link.

The Gender Conversations Series is commonly held in the third floor reading room of Ustler Hall.  Please click on this link for a spring 2010  schedule  or for more information, please contact Donna Tuckey at tuckey@ufl.edu or call the Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research at 352-392-3365. 

Diverse Magazine Honors Dr. Stephanie Evans

Congratulations to our own Stephanie Evans, an associate professor of Women's Studies and African American studies at the University of Florida, who has been chosen as one of 12 “Emerging Scholars” by Diverse magazine.

Diverse, who first published its “Emerging Scholars” edition in 2002,  honored Evans in its Jan. 7 edition.  Diverse profiles 12 “under 40” scholars from around the country who are making their mark in the academy through teaching, research and service.

The magazine’s editors selected honorees from a pool of candidates recommended by various scholars, department chairs, university public information officers, and others. Each scholar is selected based on research, educational background, publishing record, teaching record, competitiveness of field of study, and uniqueness of field of study.

For more information on Evans, including her community mentoring projects, visit www.professorevans.com.

Anita Anantharam Nominated for International Educator

Congratulations to Women's Studies Assistant Professor Dr. Anita Anatharam for being nominated for International Educator of the Year.  Dr. Anatharam's  nomination came  from her support of UF's strategic goal of internationalizing the campus and curriculum. 

Dr. Anantharam's research focuses on gender and nationalism in South Asia (India and Pakistan). She has two books forthcoming, an edited volume, Mahadevi Varma: Political Essays on Women, Nation, and Culture and a scholarly monograph, Bodies that Remember: Women’s Indigenous Knowledge and Cosmopolitanism in South Asia. 

In 2007, she won an Internationalizing the Curriculum grant to enhance her Transnational Feminism course. In addition, Dr. Anantharam taught a course on food and globalization for the 2009 UF in Paris Spring Break program. Together with her colleague Travis Smith (Religion), she launched the first UF in India study abroad program in CLAS.

Judith Page Named New Director

A message from Dean Paul D'Anieri: 

"I am pleased to announce that Judith Page, Professor of English, has agreed to become Interim Director of the Center for Women’s Studies.   Please join me in congratulating and thanking Judith for taking this important role. "

Judith W. Page was appointed Interim Director of Women’s Studies in August.  She is Professor of English and Waldo W. Neikirk Term Professor of Arts and Sciences, 2009-10, and has been an affiliate faculty with the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research and the Center for Jewish Studies.  A PhD from the University of Chicago, she has been the recipient of several awards and fellowships from the NEH as well as a Skirball Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (2003), and, most recently, a Visiting Fellowship at the Chawton House Library in the UK (2008), a repository of texts and manuscripts pertaining to early British women writers.  

Dr. Page has had a long engagement with Women’s Studies, having served as founding director of the program at Millsaps College, where she taught and held several administrative positions before coming to the University of Florida.  She is the author of numerous articles, and her books include Wordsworth and the Cultivation of Women, Imperfect Sympathies: Jews and Judaism in British Romantic Literature and Culture, and Disciples of Flora: Women and the Domesticated Landscape of England 1780-1870 (forthcoming), co-authored with art historian Elise L. Smith.  Analyzing women’s literature, botanical writings, and visual arts, as well as horticultural and educational texts, this book argues that gardens broadly defined provided women with a new language and authority to negotiate between domestic space and the larger world. 

Kathryn Chicone Ustler Hall

Built in 1919, the structure fell into disuse in 1979 but was saved from demolition in 1988 when it was granted protection under the National Register of Historic Places. A generous donation from sociology alumna Kathryn Chicone Ustler in 2000 allowed for the vacant gym to be transformed into a 14,700 square-foot academic treasure. The restoration process began in 2004, and Women’s Studies moved into the facility in July, 2006.

Ustler Hall is the only freestanding campus building in the United States devoted solely to Women’s Studies. The renovated three-story hall includes classrooms, seminar rooms, and faculty and administrative offices for the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research. This building is the first one on the UF campus renamed to honor a woman.  To support the Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research, please click on this link.