Recently in A. About CGS Category

To mark the second anniversary of CGS Online, we redesigned the whole content! The previous version will be closed on April 10 2006. Please visit our new website at http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/cgs/. We'll further
try to improve the design and content so as to make the website more usable and accessible for anybody interested in our activities.

The Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies (PGSS) at ICU started in the Spring Term of 2005. Also starting this term is the new foundation class, "Approach to Gender Studies", in which 15 scholars lecture on the possibilities of gender and sexuality studies in a diverse range of fields, including natural science.

Moreover, on Friday, May 27, CGS will commemorate the establishment of PGSS with a guest lecture, "What Can Gender and Sexuality Studies Do?" by Chizuko Ueno, a professor of Tokyo University and a recognized authority on gender studies.

The Interdisciplinary Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies provides a　model curriculum for students who wish to create an interdisciplinary major that focuses on issues of gender and sexuality. Human experience is inextricably linked with sex and gender. We enter the world with the biologically defined sex of our bodies and then over the course of our lives become gendered social actors. In doing so, we encounter and engage the wide array of socio-cultural ideas, values and practices that define gender, with its associated ideas regarding masculinity, femininity, and other gender identities. In recent decades scholarly research in multiple disciplines has explored the profound ways in gender and sexuality are constructed and defined in social life and also influence and inform social action. This research has demonstrated not only the centrality of sex, gender, and sexuality in social life, but also their critical linkages to such basic everyday issues as access to education, language use, and political participation, or such large scale theoretical issues as inequality, class, power, and nature versus nurture debates.

The term "Gender", which was not very common in a while ago, has been gradually becoming familiar to people today. On the other hand, "Gender" has also received a negative image by mass media. In particular, since the enforcement of Basic Law for a Gender-Equal Society, the criticism has been made on the notion of a "Gender Free" ideology. It is argued from the mass media perspective that "Gender Free" is a vicious ideology that that invalidates the importance of fixed gender roles among human beings and dismantles the traditions of Japanese society.

The College of Liberal Arts and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of International Christian University (ICU) form a united department system in both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Students are able to study and research freely without being constrained by their own departments. Similarly, CGS brings together professors from a diverse range of fields, who share an interest in gender and/or sexuality. Below you will find a list of the CGS members and their 1) majors & research areas, as well as their 2) current interests & a short message about their research and its relation to gender studies.

In addition, we will introduce the research institute assistants who are involved in the management of CGS, as well as the researchers associated to the center.

(2017.10.24 update)

Tanaka, Kazuko : Director of the Center for Gender Studies [CGS NewsLetter 001]

The Center for Gender Studies (CGS) at International Christian University (ICU) opened in April 2004.

The CGS has three primary goals: (1) to facilitate a network of Asia-based researchers in the fields of women's studies, men's studies and gender studies, (2) to go beyond the mere absorption and translation of Western-based studies and to make Asia-based studies available worldwide, and (3) to develop a tri-fold genderstudies model that incorporates not only the social sciences and the humanities but also the natural sciences.

CGS will enrich gender-related links in order to facilitate the network among Asian centers and universities. If you would like to introduce some suggested website for our link page, please contact us at cgs@icu.ac.jp.

The CGS stands for the Center for Gender Studies at International Christian University (ICU) in Tokyo. Established in April 2004, this center offers a new communication space to anyone who is interested in the issues of gender and sexuality.