Centre for Women’s, Gender and Queer Histories

About Us

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The Centre for Women’s, Gender and Queer Histories (WGQ) brings together scholars in those vibrant and forward-thinking subfields, with a lively sense of their overlap, their contributions to theory and method, and the tensions and promise in considering them together. We are interested in intersectional approaches to women as historical actors, to gender as a plural category of historical analysis, and to LGBTQ+ histories. We grapple with dilemmas of archives and historical interpretation, and the ongoing relationship between past and present. 

WGQ has its origins in the Centre for Gender, identity and Subjectivity which was established by the Faculty of History in 2014. Today, WGQ gathers a welcoming weekly research seminar, graduate-led reading groups and networks, extra events, and annual or biennial lectures and conferences. Signalling the university’s commitment to these fields, in 2020 the Faculty established the Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair of Women’s History and in 2024 the Jonathan Cooper Chair in the History of Sexualities. WGQ seeks to ensure that women’s, gender and queer histories remain major themes of research for which Oxford is known internationally, and to collaborate with fellow travellers in adjacent fields. 

WGQ does its work with the support of the Faculty of History, the Clinton and Cooper Chairs, and Mansfield and St John’s Colleges.

Research in women's, gender and queer histories, and all their rich interdisciplinarities is well represented in the Intersectional Humanities at Oxford's TORCH hub. 

You can contact us here: wgq@history.ox.ac.uk

People
Events

Term Cards - Michaelmas Term 2025

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Trinity Term 2025

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Hilary Term 2025

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Michaelmas Term 2024

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Studying WGQ at Oxford

The History Faculty offers courses and programmes that enable students to develop their understanding of, and interest in, women’s, gender, queer and sexuality histories.  Many of these courses are taught by WGQ directors and steering group members.   

We run flourishing MSt and DPhil programmes in Women’s, Gender and Queer Histories, and teaching in these areas also weaves through the undergraduate offer. There are dedicated sessions on the core historiography courses as well as specialist papers focussed substantially on WGQ themes.  Our sister programme is the MSt in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | University of Oxford

WGQ's regular research seminars and workshops (including undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation workshops)  supplement these taught courses and support and encourage undergraduate and graduate students to develop their independent research interests.