Faculty
The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department enjoys a distinctive international reputation as a pioneering program. Our core and associate faculty, drawn from 13 Brandeis departments and programs, includes some of the most renowned women's, gender and sexuality studies scholars in their fields.
Together, our faculty have received nearly every major national fellowship — including ACLS, Carnegie, Fulbright, Ford, Guggenheim, MacArthur, NEH, NSF, and Radcliffe awards, have collectively published dozens of important books and scores of articles, have received a significant percentage of the university's teaching awards and have held many offices in professional organizations.
Department Faculty
Pronouns: she/her
Director of Graduate Studies (Fall 2025)
Expertise: Climate Activism, German Action on Climate Change, Antisemitism on Social Media, Jewish-German Dialogue, German as a Foreign Language, German and European Culture
Expertise: Nonprofit organizations and foundations, transgender and gender nonconforming communities of color, queer of color critique
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Expertise: Asian American studies, transnational U.S. history, modern Korea, women’s history, gender and sexuality, oral history, critical mixed race studies
Expertise: Jewish history, women's, gender and sexuality studies
Expertise: Social-cultural theory, anthropology of aging, gender and sexuality, person and self, medical anthropology, immigrant and transnational communities, understandings of mModernity, South Asia, South Asian Americans, U.S. cultural-historical practices of aging
Expertise: Culture theory, women's studies, gender studies, gender theory, nonheternormative sexualities, fandom and fan identity, agency and identity, medical anthropology, anthropology of the body, intentional communities, consciously created culture, folklore, magical practice
Expertise: Black feminism, Black sexuality studies, performance theory, African American literary and visual cultures
Expertise: Postcolonial literature and theory, colonial studies, South Asian novel, Indian film, immigrant literature, women's, gender, and sexuality studies, South Asian studies
Core Faculty
Expertise: Modern and contemporary art and culture with emphasis on gender, hybridity, trauma and the immigrant experience, Palestinian and Israeli art, Frida Kahlo
Expertise: 19th- and 20th-century American literature, African American literature, film / media, and gender and sexuality studies, horror studies
Expertise: Anglophone and Francophone African literature, Caribbean literature, critical theory, film/media, gender and aexuality studies, postcolonial theory and literature
Expertise: American politics, political behavior, political socialization, public opinion, women and politics, research methods
Expertise: Anti-discrimination law and policy (gender and race)
Expertise: Queer anthropology, queer of color critique/queer theory, popular culture, global South queer activism and social life, African diasporas in India, race, digital anthropology, virtual subjectivities, social media, South Asia
Expertise: Modern and contemporary art
Research Interests: Race, gender, digital humanities, medieval women's literary cultures.
Expertise: Caribbean literatures in English, literary and sexual histories of the African diaspora, sovereignty and the postcolonial imagination
Expertise: Modern Hebrew literature, Israel studies, feminist theory, psychoanalysis, trauma studies, disability studies, film studies
Expertise: Gender, sexuality, transnational social movements, development, labor and labor movements, feminist theory, HIV/AIDS, ethnographic and interview methods, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa
Pronouns: she/her
Director of Graduate Studies (Fall 2025)
Expertise: Climate Activism, German Action on Climate Change, Antisemitism on Social Media, Jewish-German Dialogue, German as a Foreign Language, German and European Culture
Lecturers and Fellows
Expertise: Asian American studies, global Asias and Asian
Expertise: Intersection of feminist, social science, and public health theory, current practice in intimate partner violence, sexual assault, child abuse, animal abuse, and intellectual and developmental disabilities, supervising internships
Expertise: transnational American studies; post-45 multiethnic American literatures; Indigenous literatures; horror studies; queer theory/queer of color critique; comparative ethnic studies.
Faculty Emeritae
Expertise: Movement for the actor, historical dance and movement styles, modern dance, composition and choreography, clown, mask, Rudolf Laban and Francois Delsarte movement theory and systems, history of dance and movement training, lecturer in dance composition, poetry, literature, design and the visual arts serving as sources for creating dance movement theater and the creative process
Expertise: Sociology of gender, class and race/ethnicity, families and kinship, historical sociology, community studies
Expertise: 17th- and 18th-century English literary and cultural studies, Renaissance drama, theatre and performance studies, gender, sexuality, and queer studies
Expertise: Religion, psychoanalytic theory, memory and trauma, anthropology of the body, commodification, East Asia, Japan
“The Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies program at Brandeis has provided me with an enriching group of colleagues whose scholarship inspires me. My work is interdisciplinary at its core and WGS has been my academic home. This is a set of colleagues, students and staff who believe in the value of laughter, food and a welcoming environment for all.”
Professor Harleen Singh