Feminist Theory Syllabus 1



Feminist TheoryProfessor Sahar Sadjadi Professor Krupa ShandilyaEmail: ssadjadi@amherst.edu Email: kshandilya@amherst.eduOffice Hours: Tu-TH 11:30-12:30; Morgan Hall 108 Office Hours: Wed. 3pm-5pm; JC 301 Course Description:In this course we will investigate contemporary feminist thought from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and theoretical orientations. We will focus on key issues in feminist theory such as the sex/gender debate, sexual desire and the body, the political economy of gender, and the construction of masculinity among others. This course aims also to think through the ways in which these issues intersect with race, class, colonialism and the nation. We will discuss why we study “theory” and explore the relation between feminist theory and political practice.Course Materials:Books for purchase from Amherst Books are listed below. Few copies of these books will be on reserve at Frost library. All Other Required Readings for this course can be found on E-Reserve [E]. Feminist Theory: A Reader, Fourth EditionEdited by Wendy Kolmar and Frances BartkowskiMcGraw-Hill, New York 2013Course RequirementsAttendance You are required to attend all classes on time. If necessary, you can miss one class during the semester without any explanation required. Your final grade for the course will be reduced by ? of a letter grade (from A- to B+, for example) for each further absence. Two late attendances equal one absence. Reading and Class DiscussionYou are required to read all the assigned material before the class. This class will hinge on your engagement with the readings and the ideas they put forward. Your participation in class discussion is expected and your contribution is indispensible for a dynamic collective learning experience. Statement of Argument ParagraphBefore 9 pm the day before the class, students will post one paragraph online, summarizing the main argument for one of the readings for that day. In addition, students are welcome to pose questions that they might have about the reading. Each student should post overall ten of these single-paragraph statements during the semester. Response PaperYou will write two 2-page response papers during the semester, reflecting upon the course readings. Response papers should be submitted online on Moodle and also in hard copy in Prof. Sadjadi’s mailbox.Speaker ReportYou will attend two five college events related to women, gender and feminism and select one for writing a 4-page report. Speaker report is due on April 17th.Final Essay ExamYou will have a take-home final essay exam.All written assignments should be double-spaced and typed in standard fonts (12 points) with 1’ margins. Please paginate and staple papers. Proofread your essay before submitting it. You are strongly encouraged to benefit from the resources of The Writing Center. DistributionReading and Participation in Class Discussion: 15%Statement of Argument Paragraphs: 20%Response Papers: 20%Speaker Report: 20% Final Exam: 25% Guidelines for Speaker ReportPlease see the following site for a list of possible speakers (but don’t restrict yourself to this site alone): your speaker report you will need to do the following:1. Summarize the thrust of the speaker’s argument. This includes the following: a. What is her/his central point? b. What are some of the methodological tools that he/she deploys to make her point? c. How does he/she deploy feminist thought in her/his work? 2. Think about how the speaker’s talk resonates/challenges/expands some of the issues we have discussed in class. You could think of it from the following perspectives (feel free to add others that you might think are relevant): a. Is his/her methodology similar to that deployed by other thinkers? b. The issues he/she is concerned with?3. What did you learn from the talk? Do you feel that it added to your knowledge of feminist thought? Why/why not?Guidelines for Response Papers Please briefly articulate and analyze the main themes and arguments of the readings. Comment on the major issues and questions raised by the articles. Try to connect the topics and move from one to the other, and in some cases from one article to the other, in an essay form. Your comments may include question or observations about approaches, frameworks, and perspectives; methods; data analyzed in the articles; specific viewpoints; and explicit or implicit points of disagreement (or agreement) among the authors.? We are interested in evaluating a) your comprehension of the content of the texts and, b) your analysis and reflections on the themes of the readings. It is not possible to address all the points the authors raise within your 2-page limit. Select what you consider the most pertinent. ***Week 1 Thurs. Jan 22nd: Introduction FEMINIST THEORIESWeek 2 Tues. Jan 27th: FeminismsRosalind Delmar, “What is Feminism?” 1986. Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” 1979.Uma Narayan, “Contesting Cultures: “Westernization,” Respect for Cultures, and Third-World Feminists. In Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminisms” 1997.Thurs. Jan 29th: Why Theory?bell hooks, “Theory as Liberatory Practice” Yale Journal of Law & Feminism 4:1, 1991-1992. Maria C. Lugones and Elizabeth V. Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You!” Women's Studies International Forum, 1983.Charlotte Bunch. “Not by Degrees: Feminist Theory and Education” 1979.THE CATEGORY OF ANALYSES: THE SEX/GENDER DEBATEWeek 3Tues. Feb. 3rd: Being a Woman/Becoming a WomanSimone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex: “Introduction” and excerpts of “Childhood” 1949. [R1:161] & Chapter 1, Vintage: 1989 [1949]. [E]Judith Butler, “Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex” Yale French Studies No. 72, Simone de Beauvoir: Witness to a Century (1986), pp. 35-49. [E]Thurs. Feb. 5th: The Category of WomanSandra Harding, “The Instability of the Analytical Categories of Feminist Theory” SignsVol. 11, No. 4 (Summer, 1986), pp. 645-664. [E]Sojourner Truth. Ain’t I a Woman? 1851. [R1: 91]Audre Lorde. “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” 1984. [R1:289]Week 4Tues. Feb 10th: Gender as Performance Esther Newton. Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America. University of Chicago Press, 1972. Chapter 1, pp. 1-21. [E]Judith Butler, “ Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” Theatre Journal 40(4): 1998, pp. 519-531. [E]Optional: Pascoe, Cheri J. Dude You are a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. University of California Press, 2007. Introduction. [E]Thurs. Feb 12th: Between Man and WomanJ. Halberstam, “An Introduction to Female Masculinity” In Female Masculinity 1998. [R1: 493]Ann Fausto Sterling, “Should There Be Only Two Sexes?” In Sexing the Body 2000. [R1: 507]Julia Serano, “Trans woman Manifesto.” 2007. [R1:547]Optional: Leslie Feinberg, “Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come” 1992. [R2:148]Week 5 Tues. Feb. 17th: Feminism, Science and Epistemology Sandra Harding, “The Woman Question in Science to the Science Question in Feminism”, 1986. [R1: 354]Donna Haraway, “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective” Feminist Studies 14(3): 575–599, 1998. [E]Emily Martin, “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science and Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles” Signs 16(3): 485-501, 1991. [E][Our Bodies, Our Selves Project]THE BODY, SEXUALITY AND DESIREThurs. Feb. 19th: Feminism and SexualityAnn Koedt, “The Myth of Vaginal Orgasm” 1970 [R1:196]Shulamith Firestone, “The Culture of Romance” 1970 [R2:123]Elizabeth Lloyd, “Pre-theoretical Assumptions in Evolutionary Explanations of Female Sexuality” Philosophical Studies 69 (2-3), 1993, pp. 139-153. [E][Our Bodies, Our Selves Project]Week 6 Tues. Feb. 24th: The BodySusan Bordo, “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity” from Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body 1994. [R1:460] Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory” 2001. [R1:515]Kathy Davis, “Reclaiming Women’s Bodies: Colonialist Trope or Critical Epistemology?” 2007 [E] [Our Bodies, Our Selves Project]Thurs. Feb. 26th: Writing Desire: L’ecriture FeminineHélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa” Signs, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer, 1976), pp. 875-893. [R1: 224]Luce Irigaray, “This Sex Which Is Not One” 1977. [R1: 273][Our Bodies, Our Selves Project]Friday Feb. 27th: PAPER 1 DUEWeek 7Tues. March 3rd: Feminist Sex WarsCarole Vance, “Pleasure and Danger: Toward a Politics of Sexuality” 1984. [R1:335]Katherine MacKinnon, “Sexuality” from Toward a Feminist Theory of the State 1989. [R1: 415]Emma Goldman, “The Traffic in Women,” from Anarchism and Other Essays, 1910 [R1:126] [Our Bodies, Our Selves Project]Thurs. March 5th: Women Desiring Women:Audre Lorde, “A woman Speaks” ; “A Litany for Survival” ; “Meet”“Bicentennial Poem”; “Walking our Boundaries”; “Sister Outsider” from The Black Unicorn [E]Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality & Lesbian Existence”, 1980. [R1: 298][Our Bodies, Our Selves Project]March 8th: International Women’s DayWeek 8 Tues. March 10th: Feminism and Queer Theory Eve Sedgwick, “Epistemology of the Closet” Epistemology of the Closet, 67-90. 1990 [E]Suzanna Danuta Walters, “From Here to Queer: Radical Feminism, Postmodernism and the Lesbian Menace” 1996 [R2:553][Our Bodies, Our Selves Project]Thurs. March 12th: Fifty Shades of Grey (film)SPRING BREAK: March 14th-22ndGENDER AND LABOURWeek 9Tues. March 24th: Feminism and MarxismFriedrich Engels, “Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State,” The Essential Feminist Reader (ed.) Estelle Freedman, Modern Library: 2007, 104-11. [E]Alexander Kollontai, “Working Woman and Mother,” 1914 [R1:132]Heidi Hartmann, “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism” 1981 [R2: 187]Nancy Hartsock. The Feminist Standpoint: Toward a Specific Feminist Historical Materialism. 1983. [E]Thurs. March 26th: Theorizing Women’s LaborGayatri Spivak, “Introduction”, Breast Stories Seagull Books: 1997 [E]Mahasveta Devi, “The Breast Giver” and “Behind the Bodice” Breast Stories, Seagull Books: 1997 [E]Friday March 27th: PAPER 2 DUEWeek 10Tues. March 31st: Political Economy of GenderHeidi I. Hartmann, “The Family as the Locus of Gender, Class, and Political Struggle: The Example of Housework” Signs, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Spring, 1981), pp. 366-394 [E]Gayle Rubin, “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex” in Rayna Reiter, ed.,?Toward an Anthropology of Women, 157-210. [E]Thurs. April 2nd: The Neoliberal Economy and Gendered Labor David Harvey. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, 2005. Introduction 1-5. [E]Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, “Servants of Globaization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work” 2001 [R2:202]RACE AND NATION: CRITICAL RACE THEORY, POSTCOLONIAL THEORY AND FEMINISMWeek 11Tues. April 7th: Race as a Critical Category for Feminist ThoughtThe Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” Feminist Theory: A Reader 1977 [R1: 268]Patricia Hill Collins, “The Politics of Black Feminist Thought” Feminist Theory: A Reader 1990 [R1: 445]Angela Davis, “Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties” 1991 [R1: 452]Thurs. April 9th: Race and FeminismAndrea Smith, “Native American Feminism, Sovereignty, and Social Change” 2005. [R1: 543]Elizabeth Martinez, “La Chicana” [E]Week 12Tues. April 14th: Intersectionality Kimberle Crenshaw, “Intersectionality and Identity Politics: Learning from Violence against Women of Color” 1997 [R1:484]Grillo, Trina and Stephanie Wildman. "Sexism, Racism, and the Analogy Problem inFeminist Thought," in Jeanne Adleman and Gloria M. Enguidanos, (eds.) Racism in the lives of women [E] Thurs. April 16th: Race, Nationalism, Colonialism and GenderAnne McClintock, “Massa and Maids: Power and Desire in the Imperial Metropolis” Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest, pp. 75-131 [E]Anne McClintock, “‘No Longer in a future Heaven’: Gender Race and Nationalism” Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives (ed.) Anne Mcclintock, Aamir Mufti and Ella Shohat, Univ. of Minnesota Press: 1997, pp. 89-112 [E]Dear White People (film)Friday April 17th: SPEAKER REPORT DUEWeek 13 Tues. April 21st: Women, Nation and MilitarismMrinalini Sinha. “Gender and Nation.” 2004 [E]bell hooks, “Feminism and Militarism: A Comment” Women’s Studies Quarterly 23(3/4): 58-64, 1995.Thursday April 23rd Transnational FeminismChandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles” 2003. [R2: 536]Leila Ahmed, “The Veil Debate Again” 2005 [R2: 306]bell hooks. Sisterhood is Still Powerful.Week 14Tues. April 28th: Field TripThurs April 30th: STUDENT CONFERENCESWeek 15Tuesday May 5th: FINAL PAPER DUE ................
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