Doctoral programs at CEU are fully funded study programs with a standard duration of 4 years that award a US and an Austrian degree.

The Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Gender Studies program seeks to contribute to the development of studies in gender which are interdisciplinary, integrative, and grounded in analyses of social processes, theories, institutions, and the material conditions of life. The program aims to promote the study of gender and its correspondence with categories such as class, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation, and to do research on diversified patterns of social and cultural change. Students are encouraged to understand the complexity of gender. They will combine the critique of androcentrism with a critique of Eurocentric perspectives and epistemologies, particularly—but not exclusively—in Central and Eastern Europe. Within this framework, gender is understood as an element and product of processes of global, regional, and local development.

Program Objectives

The rationale and design of the Ph.D. Programs in Comparative Gender Studies are theoretical, methodological and practical.

The program aims to combine theoretical and empirical inquiry into a wide range of gender issues. Its activities and courses facilitate the examination of diversified patterns of gendered social and cultural change. While the program has long supported research on Central and Eastern Europe we have been steadily expanding our areas to places outside of Europe; research projects may address any geographical or theoretical area that is supported by faculty expertise.

Whatever regional, methodological, or topical focus students choose, the program helps them understand gender along continua of local and global or national and transnational, through both material and symbolic relations and always with an eye to cross-cutting hierarchies of power. In general, the program trains students to critically analyze gender as historically and culturally contextualized, with thorough consideration of salient institutions, epistemological reference points, and social, cultural, political, and economic processes. The program also strives to constantly attend to gender in intersection with other significant social categories such as race, nation, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, ability, and so on.

Understanding the way gender works in symbolic and social orders requires new epistemologies and methodologies. The Ph.D. Program in Comparative Gender Studies aims to empower students to combine competence in traditional disciplinary skills in the social sciences and humanities (e.g. archival research, textual analysis, qualitative interviewing, participant observation, theoretical inquiry, discourse analysis, etc.) with the formulation of new questions and techniques arising from emerging or marginalized perspectives and areas of study. Students receive methodological training that encourages them to broaden the range of material and information they consider and the scope of questions they ask in their research while maintaining the highest standards of scholarly quality.

Sample Courses for the Doctoral Program

The Uses of Comparative and Integrative Perspectives for Women's and Gender Studies; Research Methods in Gender Studies; Intimacy, Sexuality and Citizenship.

Program Accreditation/Registration

• The program was approved and registered by the New York State Education Department
• Program accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation Austria (AQ-Austria)