Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Taught)

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2025). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.

The MSt in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies is a nine-month, interdisciplinary course designed to equip you with the critical and research tools needed for women’s, gender and sexuality studies in the humanities.

The course provides a systematic introduction to feminist theory (including queer and trans theory) and highlights women's contribution to culture and history alongside critical analysis and theorisation of the meanings assigned to the category 'woman' in philosophical, literary, socio-cultural and historical thought.

It also provides the practical equipment necessary to engage in original research into topics in the humanities relating to women, gender and sexuality, in a university with excellent facilities for both traditional and computer-age research. Teaching is delivered through close individual supervision, as well as a carefully designed programme of lectures and classes led by specialists from a wide variety of disciplines, promoting collaborative work as well as the development of independent and original scholarship.

Course structure
You will follow an intensive core course, in the form of seminars combining introductions to feminist theory and to methodologies/methods of research. In addition to this, you will take two options, drawn from a list covering a very wide range of topics.

The options allow deepening of skills acquired in a first degree or the development of new skills under specialist teaching, which can be further practised in the third assessed element of the course, a dissertation on a subject of your choice for which you will receive up to six contact hours from your dissertation supervisor.

Five faculties within the Humanities Division contribute option choices and supervision expertise to the degree: the Faculties of English Language and Literature, History, Classics, Philosophy and Medieval and Modern Languages.

The programme does not formally involve departments within the Social Sciences Division but draws on the expertise of social scientists.

Whilst you are pursuing the MSt in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies you are also encouraged to go to lectures and seminars organised by individual faculties, which might help you to frame your immediate or future projects.

Further opportunities for exchange are provided by the interdisciplinary communities fostered within individual colleges. The Oxford Centre for Research in the Humanities (TORCH) offers a stimulating range of interdisciplinary activities.

For progression from the taught MSt to a research degree, the five participating faculties (Classics, English Language and Literature, History, Medieval and Modern Languages and Philosophy) accept the MSt in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies as equivalent to their respective MSt degrees, though there is no automatic right to acceptance and some faculties demand a distinction in the MSt dissertation.

In the case of the Faculty of Philosophy, applications by students who have completed the MSt will be considered for both the BPhil and the DPhil programmes on a case-by-case basis. It is the responsibility of students applying to other faculties within Oxford to clarify any conditions for progression which these faculties may impose.