Courses

Workshop for Dissertation Writers in Women's and Gender Studies

Fall/Spring: Tuesdays, 5:30 PM– 8:30 PM
September 13. 2016 – May 9, 2017
Meets *every other week* at MIT, Building and Room TBD
MIT Course Number: WGS.600


This workshop will provide intellectual and practical guidance for students at any stage in the dissertation process. Class sessions will be structured with four primary goals:

  1. to address challenges in the conception and completion of a dissertation;
  2. to explore the methodological and theoretical issues attendant on discipline-based and interdisciplinary feminist research;
  3. to foster the professional development of participants; and
  4. to provide a structure of group work, hands-on exercises, and peer review that will help students move most effectively through their own projects.

Flexibly shaped to meet the needs of its participants, the dissertation workshop will entail minimal reading assignments so that the majority of the students’ time can be directed to their own projects. The class will provide a forum for working out problems of conceptualization and structure, the use of evidence, the development of individual chapters, techniques for effective research, drafting and revising, and preparing abstracts. We will also discuss and practice techniques for presenting conference papers, publishing articles, and preparing for the academic job market.

FACULTY

Sue Lanser is Professor of Comparative Literature and English, and Professor and former chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, at Brandeis University. She has written or edited five books and published over fifty essays in disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals. She has extensive experience in teaching research seminars, directing dissertations in several disciplines, and serving as an editor or editorial consultant for journals and presses.  Her most recent monograph, The Sexuality of History, received the Joan Kelly Award for the year’s outstanding book in women’s history/feminist theory.

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Contact Us

Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 14N-211
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: 617-324-2085