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Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Zentrum für Transdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien




to the gender studies programs of Humboldt-Universität of Berlin. The programs are based in the Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies (the ZtG).

We offer the following programs:



Why Gender Studies?

Gender plays a central role in all areas of our lives, whether as our own identity in specific everyday situations in school, in our private sphere or at work, as a classification of people into exactly two sexes as in various forms and documents, as a symbol in literary works, as a factor in biological differentiations or as a statistical category. Gender relations are marked by inequality and hierarchization. Assessments of appearance, ways of acting, social positions, the distribution of income and power and much more is gendered in many different respects. Gender attributions and perceptions structure and determine the access of people and groups of people to resources, spaces and structuring power in the most various ways. Mechanisms of discrimination, normalization, privilege, naturalization, marginalization and identification, which are of great importance for current social, economic, technical, cultural and political developments, can be investigated in terms of gender issues. The need for gender expertise for analyzing gender relations and developing tools for creating equality of opportunities and anti-discrimination for questioning norms and normalities is constantly growing. Gender studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) offers a Bachelor program (BA) and a Master program (MA) as well as opportunities to gain a doctorate for the training of specific subject-based and methodological competences for posing these questions.

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Why Gender Studies at the Humboldt-Universität?

The teaching program encompasses courses in 8 departments and 21 different subjects, ranging from American studies to Education studies, social sciences, legal science, and economics through to medicine. This means that the gender studies program at the HU has a transdisciplinary diversity that exists in no other German-speaking University.

Gender studies transmit fundamental skills, methods and working techniques for analyzing gender relations, discrimination and privilege in social, cultural, historical and political contexts. The central approaches of gender studies at HU are the following perspectives:

  • Critical scholarship: continuous critical reflection on knowledge, ways of generating and forming knowledge, on scholarly positions, methods, theories and applications in conjunction with approaches such as feminist theories, critical whiteness studies, post-colonial studies and queer studies;
  • Interdependence: the connection of gender with other social categorizations such as ethnicity, social positioning, sexuality, age, religion or (dis-)ability, its (non-)existence in various fields, its negotiation and its hierarchization;
  • Transdisciplinarity: topic-led learning and teaching within, across and among many disciplines in relation to both theories and methods, and the simultaneous feedback of this reflection into the disciplines.,
  • Intervention: connecting with practice and application of the acquired knowledge in teaching and learning projects as well as in various internships in Germany and abroad.

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How is Gender Studies taught?

  • Transdisciplinary: you will encounter points of access via disciplines and their particular features and differences in team teaching seminars with several teachers from various subjects and theoretical locations and will experience the synergy effects of different disciplinary approaches in their confrontation with each other.
  • Research: you will develop your own research questions and epistemological interests and carry out projects and project tutorials.
  • Practice oriented: you will develop your own projects and round them off in various forms, perhaps with a conference, a publication or an exhibition.
  • Multi-media: you will acquire key media skills via multi-media-supported courses and virtual projects.
  • International: you can study abroad in Europe or beyond at our partner institutions.

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What will Gender Studies prepare me for?

You will acquire skills which you can apply in many different careers and fields of practice, such as education, industry, public administration, politics, media and culture, and NGOs.

Bachelor in Gender Studies (as secondary subject 60 credit points, as ancillary subject 20 credit points):

  • You will learn about the significance, change and construction of gender and gender relations from the point of view of various scholarly disciplines.
  • You will be able to supplement your core or mono subject with in-depth gender competence.
  • You can approach and analyze topic fields critically with a gender perspective and make suggestions for changes.
  • You get to know the logic of various fields of practice.
  • You acquire cross-sectional competence that can be applied to specific tasks such as personnel management.

Master in Gender Studies (120 credit points):

  • You will extend the basic knowledge gained in the BA Gender Studies program or from a gender emphasis in your chosen BA subject.
  • You will deepen your transdisciplinary gender skills from theoretical, methodological and application-related points of view.
  • You will be able to transfer specialized and theoretically-reflected skills independently to fields of practice.
  • You will plan intervention projects, carry them out in the context of confrontation and discussion between the specific features of the fields of practice involved and evaluate them.
  • You will develop research skills which you will be able, for example, to relate to scholarly research in a doctoral program or apply in practical situations.

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How are students in Gender Studies supported by the ZtG?

The Centers’ office provides the followoing services: course guidance, a computer lab with multimedia equipment, courses for gender studies students, printing and copying facilities, and the Gender Library with the offer of individual consultation on specialist literature. The Student’s Council Initiative in Gender Studies: organizes various activities both within and outside the study program. It is active in all governing bodies, regularly puts on a public "Long Night of Gender Studies", and organizes the orientation days for first semester students, as well as conferences, workshops and exhibitions. It is networked via meetings, and has its own home page and an active mailing list.

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Contact Us

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