FEMINIST AND QUEER METHODS

Spring 2027, Tuesdays, 4:00-7:00PM; Meets at MIT

What does it mean to do research from a feminist perspective? A queer one? And how can the wide-ranging, interdisciplinary field of women's, gender and sexuality studies shape research on almost any topic, whether qualitative or quantitative?

This seminar takes those questions seriously and applies them to your own work. The focus is on methodology: the how of research. Students read foundational and recent scholarship in women's, gender and sexuality studies. They use it to examine the assumptions and habits they bring to their projects, and to design research that responds to the challenges feminist and queer theories pose.

The course doesn't hand you a toolkit of "feminist methods." Instead, it asks how ideas like knowledge, research and methodology have themselves been shaped by gender, race, sexuality and class.

How the seminar works

• Built around your project. Students workshop their research throughout the semester and bring in readings, archives and materials relevant to their own work.

• Across fields. You'll learn to engage productively with peers whose disciplines, methods and positions differ from yours.

• Discussion-driven. The seminar depends on active participation and ongoing reflection, both in class and on the readings.

Who should enroll
Graduate students at GCWS member schools working in any discipline and using any method.

FACULTY

V Varun Chaudhry (they/he) is a cultural anthropologist at Brandeis University whose work focuses on gender, race, sexuality, and class in the United States. His research and teaching focuses on the institutionalization of racialized and gendered categories and logics in US-based nonprofit and funding organizations, as well as the US academy. V's writing spans academic scholarship, organizational training materials, and public scholarship. Their writing appears in GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies; Signs: journal of women and culture in society; Transgender Studies Quarterly (TSQ); Feminist Theory; Feminist Anthropology; differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies; American Anthropologist; Critical Inquiry; and The Foundation Review.

V is currently at work on their book manuscript, Transcraft: Pedagogies of World-Building, which traces how transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) communities of color and their allies identify, garner, and mobilize resources from institutions such as nonprofit organizations, philanthropic organizations, and the US academy.