INTRODUCTION: The academic experience of gender. A reflective approach drawing on the example of a Postgraduate Program at the University of the Aegean
Kostas Yannakopoulos and Venetia Kantsa
Abstract
The establishment of the postgraduate studies program (PSP) “Women and Genders: Anthropological and Historical Approaches”, -which was later renamed as PSP “Gender, Culture, and Society”,- in 2003 at the Department of Social Anthropology and History, University of the Aegean is not only related to the formation of undergraduate and postgraduate studies in gender and equality in the Greek academia during the first years of the 21st century but mainly reflects the Department’s yearlong teaching and research experience in the fields of gender and sexuality. Several years later, the present special feature addresses a reflective discussion on what the study of social relations “from the point view of gender” means based on the experience of teaching and studying in the PSP. The authors of the special feature -lecturers and students of the PSP- attempt in their articles to highlight a) the connection of the academic goals of the PPS with the academic and political Greek socio-cultural context, b) the way studies in the PPS are connected to the academic, professional and personal choices of its graduates, as well as c) the shifts and differentiations of an approach that adopts the “gender perspective”.