Graduate Certificate Program

Students in a classroom

Overview

The Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at URI offers an interdisciplinary certificate based on feminist scholarship and pedagogy. The open curriculum of the certificate allows you to pursue the study of women and gender, along with other social, political, and economic factors to complement student learning in discipline-based programs.

The GWS Graduate Certificate will enhance your education and career opportunities by providing you with knowledge to navigate an increasingly diverse and interconnected world. Graduates with this certificate will be well poised to bridge the gap between academic theory and professional or political practice.

The Graduate Certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies is an elective option for matriculated graduate students or non-matriculated students.

Objectives

The graduate certificate program:

  • Offers courses on feminist theory and analysis and course content on gender in its intersections with race, ethnicity, class, religion, and sexuality.
  • Enables students to learn about the role and importance of social, political, and economic power in the opportunities and limitations of people’s lives.
  • Enables students to complement their program of studies by adding analyses of women/gender to areas of study such as environmental studies, peace and justice studies, inter-national development, health studies, communication, history, library sciences, international relations, English and literature, marine and coastal studies, to mention just a few.
  • Provides the opportunity to work on research projects that will complement students’ discipline-specific courses.
  • Provides a professional credential to supplement other programs of study.

Requirements

The Certificate Program requires 12 credits of course work or experiential learning. Students are required to take a minimum of 6 credits in GWS courses (there is no maximum limit to the number of GWS courses that students can take). Students may take up to 6 credits of courses outside of GWS (with the approval of the GWS director or the director of graduate studies). The types of courses that will be accepted are those with a focus on women/gender, race, ethnicity, class, religion, and sexuality, social justice, social theory, or multiculturalism.

Course Offerings

  • GWS 500: Graduate Colloquium in Gender and Women’s Studies (The colloquium may be repeated if the topic changes.
  • GWS 550: Graduate Independent Study (Variable credits from 3-6 credits. If taken for 3 credits, it can be repeated for a total of 6 credits.)

Students may take 400-level courses to fulfill the requirements for the GWS Graduate Certificate

  • GWS 430: Women and Human Rights Policy
  • GWS 490 Advanced topics in GWS
  • 400 level courses from other departments may apply

SPRING 2024 GRADUATE COURSES:                         

GWS 500: Queer Intimacies in the Global South                                    Tues 4-6:45 pm, Roosevelt 311                                                          Prof. Preity Kumar, https://web.uri.edu/gws/meet/preity-kumar/             Description: This interdisciplinary seminar examines queer intimacies in the Global South. Through queer intimacy as an analytic device, this course examines how feelings, emotions, affects, and textures move in and through us, allowing us to uncover how intimacy exists in relation to broader categories of race, gender, sexuality, nation, and class. The framework of queer intimacy attends to practices, embodiments, and experiences that spill out and extend beyond fixed subjective identities, social, political, and economic structures. The course is structured through thematic ideas (kinship, labor, migration), which explores how intimacies became subjected to government intervention, colonial reforms, and post-colonial and decolonial movements.

Other SP24 courses that count for the GWS Graduate Certificate:              ENG 605 Peter Covino                                                                  Seminar in Creative Writing: Built to Last – Developing and Promoting Poetry in a Transforming World                                                                  Prof. Peter Covino, Monday 4-6:45 pm                                                  Description: Finding and trusting a voice (“your voice”); cultivating and preserving originary utterance and syntax; and reaching for greater vision and ambition are significant challenges in contemporary poetry. This workshop-based course will encourage you to develop new ways of tracking that elusive, emerging, and unmediated song (beneath) while also heeding the persistent need to share your work more broadly. We’ll read contemporary collections by emerging and established writers including, Natasha Trethewey, Diane Seuss, A.H. Jerriod Avant, Cynthia Cruz’s New Latina Poets anthology, sam sax, Mai Der Vang, Ocean Vuong, and Edgar Kunz among others.

ENG 625 Christine Mok                                                                Asian American Theory and Literature                                              Professor Christine Mok, Wednesday 4-6:45 pm                                        Description: This graduate seminar focuses on Asian Americanist critique through theory and literature. Asian American literature provides a consideration of, and reflection on, Asian American subjectivities and bodies, collectively and differentially raced, gendered, and sexualized, which condition discourses and politics of American nation-state and empire. The course is structured around pairings of texts, academic and literary, to enhance our scholarly engagement with Asian American fiction and poetry. The course is rooted in women of color feminism and queer of color critique.

For questions, contact Graduate Director Rosaria Pisa.

How to apply for graduate study at URI

A URI graduate application requires evidence of your ability to do graduate level coursework. Applicants submit official undergraduate transcripts, a professional resume, a small application fee, two letters of recommendation, and a personal statement of interest.

Link to URI Graduate School Application: https://web.uri.edu/graduate-school/admission/

Graduate students currently enrolled at URI fill out the Request to Change or Add a Degree Program form and have it approved by the certificate coordinator.