Study at the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation
Feminist, Interdisciplinary, Transformative
Welcome to the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation (FIST) at Carleton University. We’re an interdisciplinary academic unit committed to advancing feminist scholarship, social justice, and transformative change.
Who We Are
Offering programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels in Women’s and Gender Studies and in Feminist and Gender Studies, FIST is a dynamic and inclusive intellectual community where students and faculty engage with critical issues related to gender, race, sexuality, disability, colonialism, and other intersecting structures of power.
Our programs are rooted in feminist, anti-racist, and decolonial approaches to research, learning, and community collaboration.
FIST is also home to the Joint Chair in Women’s Studies, a prestigious position shared between Carleton University and the University of Ottawa that supports public-facing scholarship and community-engaged programming. Our interdisciplinary curriculum includes core and cross-listed courses from across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and offers students opportunities for hands-on learning, activist research, and applied feminist praxis. Through our teaching, mentorship, and partnerships, FIST fosters a learning environment that connects theory to action and builds toward more just and equitable futures.
Where you’ll go
Our grads work in non‑profits, public policy, media, education, advocacy, law, health, creative industries, and more. Some continue to graduate school. All leave with the tools to make change.
Explore our programs
Women’s and Gender Studies Undergraduate Program
Engage in critical understandings of feminist scholarship across different historical, socioeconomic, cultural and political contexts. Our interdisciplinary program will encourage you to question accepted notions and interpretations of gender roles in society, as well as analyze the multiple ways gender affects our local, national and global environment.
Critical Race Studies Minor
Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from across the university, this minor explores white supremacy, settler colonialism, anti-black and systemic racisms, and histories of racialization, migration, and diaspora in Canada and around the world.
Disability Studies Minor
This minor allows students to explore the ethics, politics, history and contemporary cultural dynamics of ‘disability’ from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students will focus on the discourses that create the category of disability in society.
Global Genders and Sexualities
Global Genders and Sexualities explores the historical and contemporary interdependent relationships between bodies, identities, and space to better understand the dynamics shaping the transnational world.
Sexuality Studies Minor
This minor offers an interdisciplinary approach to a rapidly evolving field of study. Examine sexuality in its historical context and through current social, political and cultural practices. Topics include queer and trans theory and politics, marriage and the family, pornography and censorship, reproductive rights and HIV/AIDS activism.
Masters of Arts
We offer the MA or choose from the following collaborative specializations: Accessibility, African Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
