CWS M.A.

M.A. in Women's Studies:

Programme Description:

The two-year MA program, that starts from Monsoon Semester 2026, will offer a comprehensive training in the key areas of Women’s Studies and immerse students in frontier areas of research. It will draw on conceptual frameworks and research practices from multiple disciplines and contexts and examine how these interactions invigorate the field.

Admission to the MA programme shall be conducted in accordance with the eligibility criteria, admission procedures and reservation policies prescribed by Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University Grants Commission.

In this interdisciplinary MA program, the courses in the first year will offer students a well-rounded and comprehensive training in the field of Women’s Studies. The core course on Women’s Movements will provide students with knowledge about the formations of the women’s movement in India and globally. The second core course ‘Feminist Theory and Methodology’ will function as a gateway course to enable students to understand the foundational concepts and debates in the field. In this course, students will engage with the key building blocks of knowledge production in Women’s Studies. In the first year students will have optional courses on core concerns of the field such as family and kinship in India, culture and society, caste, religion, violence, sexuality and labour. 

In the second year of the MA program students  will gain an in-depth understanding of research practices in Women’s Studies. There will be a core course on research methods and writing in Women’s Studies that will give students a rigorous grounding in practices of research and writing in the field. The second core course, ‘Disciplinary Formations in Women’s Studies’, will immerse students in the histories and conceptual frameworks in the development of Women’s Studies. There will also be a course focused on writing and publication practices that will support students in the dissertation writing process and hone their writing skills useful for multiple avenues in the future. 

In the second-year students will gain exposure to key research areas that have shaped the field. These courses will train students in multiple disciplinary and methodological orientations. This will include a focus on cultural forms and practices such as visual forms, narrative forms and performance forms. Students will be able to take optional courses on pioneering fields such as Development Studies, Comparative Race Studies and also gain exposure to the formations of gender in different regional contexts within and outside India. Students will also gain research experience by writing a dissertation in the second year of the MA program.

Students doing a two year MA program can take 4 electives from outside the Center for Women’s Studies.
 

First Year:

All courses will be for 4 Credits

Second Year:

All courses will be for 4 Credits

Course Structure: M.A. (Women's Studies)