With and Against All Things – 20 Years of Gender Studies at RUB
Exhibition at the University Library Bochum, October 13 – November 30, 2025
To mark the 20th anniversary of the Gender Studies program at Ruhr University Bochum, the University Library presents the photo collection “With and Against All Things”, created by the Gender Studies Student Council.
The exhibition will be on view from October 13 to November 30, 2025, on the first floor of the University Library during regular opening hours. Admission is free.
Twenty Years of Questioning, Researching, Rethinking
Gender Studies at Ruhr University Bochum celebrates its 20th anniversary – two decades of teaching, research, and reflection. For twenty years, the discipline has engaged with the recurring question, “So, what exactly are Gender Studies?” – responding in ways that are humorous, critical, and constantly inquisitive.
The exhibition is an invitation to make this development visible. It shows how Gender Studies endures, persists, and resists – moving far beyond a simple stance of opposition. At its heart are community and the vision of an open, inclusive society.
In times of social tension, Gender Studies offers space for new perspectives and utopian thinking. The exhibition takes up this idea and invites visitors to connect different viewpoints on the field and its ongoing evolution.
Image: © RUB, Rosenkranz
Images of With and Against
The exhibition presents fifteen photographs offering diverse perspectives on Gender Studies at RUB. The images weave together personal, institutional, and social dimensions, forming a multifaceted picture of the field.
At the center is the idea of “with” – shared spaces, shared time, collaboration, and exchange among people, groups, and institutions. At the same time, the “against” points to the collective resistance to the notion of the isolated individual.
The photographs reveal how connections extend across boundaries of space and time, and how relationships, solidarity, and shared experiences shape the discipline.
They look back on the history of Gender Studies – and forward to the years to come: years of engagement, community, and hope.