WS 586: Transnational Feminisms
Friday 3:00-5:30pm
Spring '07
EDUC 432
Dr. Laura Briggs Office
Hours: Tues 1-3
Ph: 626-9149 1443
E. 1st St. Rm.201
COURSE OVERVIEW
How do we think about feminism in a time of war? In a period
of intensifying upward redistribution of wealth, between nations and within
them? At a time of rising racism, specifically couched as anti-immigrant
fervor? There is, of course, nothing new about these questions; they have
haunted generations of feminists. But answers must be found anew for each
historical and political moment. Specifically, then, this class will take up
questions of secularism, neoliberalism, human rights, health, imperialism,
epistemology, transnationalism, reproduction, and sexuality. It asks how
feminists finds themselves on both sides
of multiple debates—for and against imperialism (think of Afghanistan),
neoliberalism, migration, and secularism, to name a few.
DAY-TO-DAY BUSINESS OF THE COURSE
Academe has trained us all to think of learning as a competitive affair. One scholar right, another wrong; students compete against each other for the highest grade. In truth though all learning takes place in the context of intellectual communities—written, virtual or face-to-face. Institutions of higher education like this afford us the privilege and pleasure of reading together and learning from each other. Our job in this seminar is to create an intellectual community, one in which all are enriched by each othersÕ readings of difficult material. And this is difficult material, without a doubt, which is why we need each otherÕs help to read it as well as to try to understand how it can (or fails to) speak to our situation in the world. This imposes on each of us the responsibility of reading carefully, speaking up about our insights and questions, and listening respectfully to each other (which is not to say always agreeing).
GRADING AND ASSIGNMENTS
Option one: Research (Generally for advanced graduate students)
Class participation: 30%
Research paper: 70%
Research paper. Use the theoretical material in relation to something else, perhaps a thesis or dissertation topic. For example, you could use the material on genital cutting in Africa to think about refugee cases in the U.S. related to African gay men and lesbians, or Spivak to think about the work of a particular NGO. You could read Stoler to comment on Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone and related newspaper reporting. If you write a research paper, it will be due May 9 by 5 pm.
Option two: Reading (Generally for MA students)
class participation: 25%
papers:
one 2pp reading response 5%
Two 5-7pp papers 20% each
Final paper: 30%
1. Write one 2 pp. reading
response paper. Dates for this assignment will vary; students will sign up for
a due date for the reading response at the first class meeting. This assignment
is meant to ensure that someone at each meeting will have thought clearly and
in detail about topics for discussion that week.
2. Write two 5-7 pp
reading-response papers bringing together at least two of the readings in the
weeks prior to the paper. One due week 6, one due week 12.
3. Write and present a 9 pp. conference
paper that includes original research on a subject of your choosing related to
the course material. Subject matter might include historical research (relying
on an archive of published or unpublished sources), a reading of a novel
or a play, a reading of public policy problem or feminist issue using fresh
sources (that is, tell us something new that we did not already know, based on
your own research). This list is meant to be suggestive rather than inclusive.
Final paper is due on the date you present your "conference paper"
(either 4/20 or 4/27).
Attendance Policy
You're expected to come to class with the reading done. If you must miss a class, email the instructor. Two absences are a cause for concern. If you miss three or more classes, plan on meeting with me to discuss options related to making up the work, taking a grade reduction, or repeating the course.
Expectations
There is a lot of reading, and some of it is difficult.
There are also regularly scheduled breaks to ensure that you have adequate time
to develop your thinking, writing, and ultimate research paper. If you
sometimes find that you don't understand all of the reading before class,
that's ok, as long as you bring your questions for discussion. If you don't
understand the reading after class
discussion, that's a problem. Students are expected to take responsibility for
their own learning, and come talk to the instructor if they are struggling.
WEEK-BY-WEEK SCHEDULE
Week 1 (Jan 12): Introduction and overview
Michael Ignatieff, "Democratic
Providentialism," New York Times Magazine (12
Dec. 2004).
Week 2 (Jan 19): Lisa Duggan, Twilight of Equality
Week 3 (Jan 26):
David Harvey, A Brief History of
Neoliberalism
Week 4 (Feb 2): Zapatismo
Lynn Stephen, , ÁZapata
Lives!: Histories and Cultural
Politics in Southern Mexico (Berkeley: U
of California Press, 2002), ch. 7 ÒConversations with Zapatistas: The
Revolutionary Law of Women and Military OccupationÓ , 176-218.
Lynn Stephen, "Indigenous
Women's Activism in Oaxaca and Chiapas"
Shannon Speed, "Actions Speak
Louder than Words: Indigenous Women and Gendered Resistance in the Wake of
Acteal." Eber and Kovic, Women of Chiapas NY: Routledge, 2003)
Karen Kampwith, "Also a women's rebellion: The rise of the Zapatista army," in Women in Guerilla Movements: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas, Cuba (2002)
Week 5 (Feb 9): Greg Gandin, EmpireÕs Workshop
Week 6—Paper Due **No class Feb 16
Week 7 (Feb 23): What is Subaltern Studies a critique of?
Dipesh Chakrabarty, "A Small History of Subaltern Studies," in Habitations of Modernity (2002)
Gyan Prakash, "Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism," American Historical Review 99:5 (December 1, 1994): 1475-
Gayatri Spivak, "Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography," in Spivak and Ranajit Guha, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies (New York: Oxford, 1988)
Ella Shohat, "Notes on the Postcolonial," Social
Text, nos. 31/32 (1992): 99-113.
Week 8 (March 2): Feminisms and Transnationalisms
Joan Scott, "Feminist Reverberations," Differences 13:3 (Fall 2002):1-24.
Amy Kaplan, "Violent Belongings and the Question of Empire Today" American Quarterly 56: 1 (Mar2004): 1-18.
Inderpal Grewal, "Women's Rights as Human Rights': The Transnational Production of Global Feminist Subjects" from Transnational America
Ann Stoler, "Tense and Tender Ties: The Politics of Comparison in North American History and (Post) colonial Studies," Journal of American History 88:3 (Dec. 2001): 829-65.
Week 9 (March 9): The Problem
with Liberalism and Secularism: Islam and Feminism
Afsaneh Najmabadi,
"(Un)Veiling Feminism," Social Text 18:3 (Fall 2000): 28-45.
Mahmood,
Saba. "The Subject of Freedom," from The Politics of Piety (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005): 1-39.
Lila Abu-Lughod, "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others" American Anthropologist 104:3 (September 2002): 783-90.
Week 10**Spring Break March 10-18
Week 11 (March 23):
Representing the Arab Mind
Edward Said, from Orientalism, intro, part I
Melanie McAlister, Epic Encounters, ch. 6, conclusion
Raphael Patai, from the Arab Mind (rev. ed.). Section VI: "The Realm of Sex"
Seymour Hersh, "The Gray Zone: How a secret Pentagon
program came to Abu Ghraib," The New Yorker May 15, 2004.
Week 12—Paper 2 due **No Class March 30
Week 13 (April 6): Stratified
Reproduction
Arlie
Hothchild, The Second Shift (NY:
Penguin Books, 1989 and 2003): 1-21.
Linda
Basch, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc, "The Making of
West Indian Transmigrant Populations," in Nations Unbound (Routledge, 1993): 49-94.
Shellee Colen, Ò'Like a Mother to
Them': Stratified Reproduction and West Indian Childcare Workers and Employers
in New YorkÓ in Ginsberg, Faye, Rayna Rapp, eds., Conceiving the New World
Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction,
(Berkeley: UC Press, 1995): 78-102
Week 14 (April 13): Solidarity or Representation? Genital Cutting
Christine Walley, "Searching for 'Voices': Feminism, Anthropology, and the Global Debate over Female Genital Operations," Cultural Anthropology 12:3 (1997): 405-438.
Lynn Thomas, "'Ngaitana (I will circumcise myself),'" Gender and History 8:3 (April 1997):338-363.
Leslye Amede Obiora, "Bridges and Barricades:
Rethinking Polemics and Intransigence in the Campaign Against Female
Circumcision," Case Western Reserve Law Review 47: 2 (Winter 1997): 275-378.
Week 15 (April 20):
Student Presentations of Research
Week 16 (April 27):
Student Presentations of Research continued.