WS 539: Feminist Theories and Movements

Wednesdays, 3:30-6                                    Dr. Laura Briggs
ILC 129                                                       Office Hours: Mon 11-1
                                                                    Comm 114F (until further notice)


Description
This course will provide a survey of some of the major issues, debates and texts of feminist theorizing. It will situate feminist theories in relation to a variety of other politically significant theories (including Marxism, poststructuralism, critical race theory and postcolonial theory). It will also explore the role of theory in social movements and focus on theory-making as itself a political practice.

Assignments and grades
5%--In-class presentation on one of the readings
5%--In-class presentation of your final paper
20%--Class participation
10%--2 pp. paper (Aug. 31)
25%--5 pp. paper (Sept. 21)
35%--10 pp. paper (Dec. 9)

Day-to-day business of the course
One of the peculiarities of U.S. American life in the contemporary period is the impoverishment of the public sphere, to the point where we talk more readily about Britney Spear’s pregnancy than about what would constitute a good and just world. This course is not going to solve that problem, but we will try to keep alive an old tradition in the U.S. and a current one in much of the rest of the world, where people discuss weighty idea with each other. You don’t have to be right, you certainly don’t have to agree with the professor or anyone else, but you are expected to be interesting. Come to class with something to say, even or especially if seminars make you feel shy.

Texts
Jennifer Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement
Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed
Diane Nelson, Finger in the Wound
Wendy Brown, States of Injury
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble
Linda Garber, Identity Poetics
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed.
Judith Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place
Marjorie Garbor, Vested Interests


SCHEDULE

Activism
Aug 24-- Jennifer Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement
Aug 31—Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed

What are Intellectuals For?
Sept. 7—Diane Nelson, Finger in the Wound, chs. 1-4 and intro
Sept. 14—Nelson, chs. 5-6 and Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak”

Identity Politics
Sept 21— Linda Garber, Identity Poetics, first half, and relevant poems (from Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Pat Parker, Gloria Anzaldúa, Judy Grahn)
Sept 28— Linda Garber, Identity Poetics, second half, relevant poems, and Joan Scott, “The Evidence of Experience”
Oct. 5— Wendy Brown, States of Injury (preface to ch. 3); Joan Scott, “Gender, A Useful Category of Historical Analysis”
Oct. 12— Wendy Brown, States of Injury (ch. 4-7); Chela Sandoval, "Theory of Oppositional Consciousness”
October 19— Judith Butler, Gender Trouble
October 26—Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed.

Queer Studies
November 2— Judith Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place
November 9— Marjorie Garbor, Vested Interests, intro and section 1 and Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
November 16— Garber, Vested Interests, section 2 and Eve Sedgwick, "How to Bring Your Kids up Gay"

Globalization, Transnationalism, Racialization
November 30—Lisa Lowe and David Lloyd, "Introduction" The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital; Aihwa Ong, “Introduction” Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Politics of Transnationality; Lisa Lowe,  “Immigration, Citizenship, Racialization” from Immigrant Acts; Hardt and Negri, from Multitude
December 7—In-class presentations