differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies first appeared in 1989 at the moment of a critical encounter—a head-on collision, one might say—of theories of difference (primarily Continental) and the politics of diversity (primarily American). In the ensuing years, the journal has established a critical forum with an international readership where the problematic of differences is explored in texts ranging from the literary and the visual to the political and social. Recent articles have focused on Kurdish women fighters, the ecological novel in France, the sculpture of Simone Leigh, trans feminism and free speech, and the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Among the most recent, most-read and most-cited contributors are Hortense J. Spillers, Andrea Long Chu, Elizabeth Freeman, Robyn Wiegman, Lauren Berlant, Shoniqua Roach, Kevin Quashie and Rijuta Mehta.

In December 2023, differences launched an online forum that features short critical prose, including essays, commentaries, provocations, reviews, works-in-progress, dialogues, and other experiments.

Supported by and located within the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University, the journal is published three times a year.