FEMINIST, QUEER, and Indigenous Methods

Spring 2026, tuesDAYS, 6:00-9:00PM; MEETS AT boston university

While academic inquiry and research from the west/global north has been responsible for some of civilization's greatest achievements, it has also been a powerful tool of domination, oppression and erasure. This interdisciplinary graduate seminar seeks to explore non-normative research methodologies that are robust, ethical, and culturally informed to counter this history and to enhance our own comprehension and awareness. Working at both a theoretical and practical level, the seminar will train students to interrogate the ways that normative approaches to knowledge production - especially in Western contexts - contribute to a blunting of understanding and a silencing of already vulnerable communities.

FACULTY

Sandra McEvoy is a Clinical Associate Professor of Political Science and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Boston University. McEvoy’s primary research interests include the dynamics of political change including women’s participation in political violence; and gender-focused strategies that incorporate perpetrators of political violence into long-term conflict resolution strategies. She has written extensively on the Northern Irish conflict including, the gendered motivations for women's participation in political violence and the impact that such participation has on notions of men and masculinity. McEvoy’s secondary area of interest explores the vulnerabilities of LGBT+ populations during conflict and natural disasters. Her current project is as coeditor of The Oxford Handbook on Global LGBT Politics (expected fall 2019). The Handbook is one of the earliest collections that uses sexuality as a critical lens through which to understand global politics.