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WGS 330: Feminist Theory Spring 2014 Tuesday Thursday, 9:40-11:00a Acland Seminar Room Prof.

. Andrew Ross Department of History Kenyon College Seitz House 3 E-mail: rossa@kenyon.edu Office Hours: Tu-Th 1-3:30 and by appointment Course Website: http://www.andrewisraelross.com/s14feministtheory Course Description: This course introduces students to the varieties of feminist thought as it has addressed concepts central to the humanities and social sciences more broadly. These include the definitions of sex and gender, social, sexual, and gender difference, the relationship between nature and nurture, power and oppression, labor and work, and social change. We will discuss these concepts by way of several feminist frameworks which have evolved their own explanatory power as they address these interrelated issues. These frameworks include liberal, Marxist, postmodern, queer, and transnational feminisms. As we discuss each approach, we will consider both their assessment of social relations and their implications for achieving social change. Course Objectives: By the end of the semester, students will be able to: identify and define key concepts and themes that animate feminist thought relate and distinguish between the varieties of feminist theory develop a mode of analysis that deploys feminist theory to understand a set of social issues, injustices, or relationships communicate complex ideas in a seminar format Required Texts: McCann, Carole R. and Seung-kyung Kim, eds. Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Third Edition. New York: Routledge, 2013. Ahmed, Sara. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003. All other course readings will be available either as a handout or electronically. Course Format: Class will meet twice a week in a seminar format. As a seminar, active participation is expected of all students. Course Requirements: Students are required to attend all classes and complete all assignments. Failure to complete any assignment will result in failing the entire course.

1. Attendance and Participation: Attendance in class is a requirement in order to pass this course and role will be taken everyday. You are permitted to miss two classes before your grade begins to suffer. Active participation in class discussion is expected as well. 2. Readings: All readings are due the day for which they are listed on the syllabus. I reserve the right to give pop quizzes to confirm that you are keeping up with the reading. 3. Reading Response Journals: Using our online forum, you will complete a reading response journal entry once each week using the 3-2-1 method. Each entry should include a) three things you learned from that days reading; b) two things you still dont understand from the reading; and c) one discussion question for the class. By the end of the term, you will have completed 12 entries on the forum. Responses are due 24-hours before the class meeting (e.g. at either Monday at 9:40a or Wednesday at 9:40a). 4. Short Essays: You will complete two short essays (3-5 pages) in response to a prompt provided by me. These essays will not require any outside research, but you are expected to use the course texts. 5. Research Paper: You will complete a single research paper (10-12 pages) on a topic of your choice. You have two choices on how to approach this paper: a. Choose a cultural artifact in any medium (a film, novel, television broadcast, etc) and analyze it by deploying at least two theoretical perspectives addressed in class. b. Choose a moment of social change or contemporary controversy (abortion rights, gay marriage, legalization of sex work, etc) and analyze it by developing a thesis that puts two modes of feminist thought into dialog with one another. Your research paper grade will be based on the assessment of three individual assignments: 1. A research proposal laying out the question you seek to answer (3-5 pages) 2. An annotated bibliography of sources you will use to answer that question 3. The paper itself Grade Breakdown: Reading Responses: 10% Short Essays: 30% Research Paper: 45% -- Proposal: 10% -- Annotated Bibliography:10%

-- Final Paper: 25% Attendance and Participation: 15% Paperless Grading: In an effort to both save trees and improve the quality of my comments to you, your papers MUST be turned in electronically. You will do so via e-mail, with a subject heading Feminist Theory Essay from YOUR NAME. Accepted file formats are .doc, and .docx. Depending on the assignment, I may convert your paper to .pdf prior to grading. I will e-mail you your paper directly after all assignments have been graded. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding this policy. Grade Appeals: There are no grade appeals! Im more than happy to talk to you about your grade and how you can improve your work (in fact, I highly encourage you to do so), but please do not ask me to change your grade. Late Assignments: All assignments are due in class the day they are listed on the syllabus. Late assignments will be deducted one grade for each day late. If I have not received your essay after four days you will automatically fail the assignment. If I never receive an assignment you will fail the course. Contacting Me: The best way to get in touch with me is through e-mail. Please allow 24 hours for a response; if you have not heard from me in that time, do not hesitate to send another note. My office hours are at the top of this syllabus; if those times are not convenient for you I am happy to make other arrangements. I hope you will all come by my office at some point during the semester. Please check your Kenyon e-mail regularly and please keep apprised of materials available on the class website. Online Resources: The course website can be found at http://www.andrewisraelross.com/s14feministtheory. There you will find a copy of the syllabus, announcements, and other resources relevant to the course, including PowerPoint slides. Technology in the Classroom: Please feel free to use your laptops, netbooks or tablets for taking notes in class, but please refrain from checking your e-mail, Facebook, twitter, etc. Also feel free to utilize e-book editions of class texts. I must personally approve all recordings of class lectures. Such approval will only be granted in exceptional circumstances. Plagiarism and Academic Honesty: All students must follow the Colleges policies regarding academic honesty as outlined in the Kenyon College Catalog. It is the responsibility of each student to learn and practice the proper ways of documenting and acknowledging those whose ideas and words they have drawn upon (see Academic Honesty and Questions of Plagiarism in the Course Catalog). Ignorance and carelessness are not excuses for academic dishonesty. If you have any questions regarding this issue, please consult with me before submitting work. Disabilities: If you have a hidden or visible disability that may require classroom or test accommodations, please see me privately as soon as possible during a scheduled office hour. If you have not already done so, you must register with the Coordinator of Disability Services, Erin Salva, salvae@kenyon.edu, or x5145, who is the individual responsible for coordinating

accommodations and services for students with disabilities. All information and documentation of disabilities are strictly confidential. No accommodations will be granted in this course without notification from the Office of Disability Services. Course Schedule: Week 1: January 13 January 17: Introductions Tuesday: Introductions Thursday: Rosalind Delmar, What is Feminism? in Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences, ed. Anne C. Herrmann and Abigail J. Stewart (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), 5-28 (eres); Uma Narayan, The Project of Feminist Epistemology: Perspectives from a Nonwestern Feminist (FTR) Week 2: January 20 January 24: What is Feminist Theory? Tuesday: bell hooks, Theory as Liberatory Practice, Yale Journal of Law & Feminism (4:1, 1991-1992) (eres); Carole Pateman, Introduction: The Theoretical Subversiveness of Feminism (FTR) Thursday: No Class Week 3: January 27 January 31: First Waves Tuesday: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, chs 1-4 (http://www.constitution.org/woll/row.htm); Katherine Binhammer, Thinking Gender with Sexuality in 1790s' Feminist Thought, Feminist Studies 28.3 (Fall 2002): 667-690. (eres) Thursday: Declaration of Rights of Man (handout); Declaration of Rights of Woman (handout); Seneca Falls Declaration (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/senecafalls.asp); Nancy A Hewitt, Re-Rooting American Womens Activism: Global Perspectives on 1848 (FTR) Week 4: February 3 February 7: Second Waves Tuesday: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/tcentury/FeminineMystique.pdf); Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex: Introduction (FTR); Linda Nicholson, Feminism in Waves: Useful Metaphor or Not? (FTR) Thursday: Combahee River Collective, A Black Feminist Statement (FTR); Becky Thompson, Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism (FTR); Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses, Feminist Review 30 (Autumn 1988): 61-88 (eres)

Research Proposals Due Friday, February 7 by 5:00p Week 5: February 10 February 14: Marxism and Feminism Tuesday: Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (handout); Alexandra Kollontai, Communism and the Family (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism-family.htm); Eileen Boris, Class Returns, Journal of Womens History 25.4 (Winter 2013): 74-87. Thursday: Heidi Hartmann, The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a Progressive Union (FTR); Nancy C. M. Hartsock, The Feminist Standpoint: Toward a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism (FTR) Essay Prompt 1 Handed Out in Class Week 6: February 17 February 21: Essentialisms and Constructionisms, I Tuesday: Shulamith Firestone, The Culture of Romance (FTR); Valerie Solanis, The SCUM Manifesto, (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/ockman/pdfs/feminism/ solanis.pdf) Kathy Miriam, Stopping the Traffic in Women: Power, Agency and Abolition in Feminist Debates over Sex-Trafficking, Journal of Social Philosophy 36, no. 1 (2005): 117 (eres) Thursday: Angela P. Harris, Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory, in Critical Race Feminism, ed. Adrien Katherine Wing (New York: New York University Press, 1997); Carole S. Vance, Social Construction Theory: Problems in the History of Sexuality, in An Introduction to Womens Studies: Gender in a Transnational World, 2nd Ed, Eds. Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (New York: McGraw Hill, 2006), 29-32 (eres) Essay 1 Due Friday February 21 by 5:00p Week 7: February 24 February 28: Essentialisms and Constructionisms, II Tuesday: Judith Butler, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory (FTR) Thursday: 1. Joan W. Scott, Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis, The American Historical Review 91, no. 5 (1986): 10531075 (eres); Laura Lee Downs, If "Woman" is Just an Empty Category, Then Why Am I Afraid to Walk Alone at Night? Identity Politics Meets the Postmodern Subject, Comparative Studies in Society and History 35.2 (April 1993): 414-437; Joan W. Scott, The Tip of the Volcano, Comparative Studies in Society and History 35.2 (April 1993): 438-444; Laura Lee Downs, Reply to Joan Scott, Comparative Studies society and History 35.2 (April 1993): 444-451.

Spring Break Week 8: March 17 March 22: Subjects of Feminism, I Tuesday: Kimberl Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, Stanford Law Review 43.6 (July 1991): 12411299; Bonnie Thornton Dill and Ruth Enid Zambrana, Critical Thinking About Inequality: An Emerging Lens (FTR) Thursday: Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, Servants of Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work (FTR); Lila Abu-Lughod, Orientalism and Middle East Feminist Studies (FTR); Mrinalini Sinha, Gender and Nation (FTR) Week 9: March 24 March 28: Subjects of Feminism, II Tuesday: Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (FTR); Audre Lorde, I am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing across Sexualities (FTR); Patricia Williams, On Being the Object of Property, in The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1991) (eres). Wednesday: Raewyn Connell, The Social Organization of Masculinity (FTR); Susan Bordo, Gentleman or Beast? The Double Bind of Masculinity, in The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private (New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux, 1999) (eres). Annotated Bibliographies Due Friday March 28 Week 10: March 31 April 4: Sexuality, I Tuesday: Adrienne Rich, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, ed. Henry Abelove, et. al. (New York: Routledge, 1993) (eres); Monique Wittig, One is Not Born a Woman (FTR) Thursday: Gayle Rubin, Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality, in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 1993) (eres); Cheshire Calhoun, Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist Theory (FTR) Week 11: April 7 April 11: Sexuality, II Tuesday: Michel Foucault, We Other Victorians and The Repressive Hypothesis, in The History of Sexuality Volume One, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage, 1980), 1-49 (eres). Thursday: Biddy Martin, Sexualities without Genders and Other Queer Utopias, Diacritics 24.2/3 (Summer-Autumn 1994) (eres): 104-121; Lauren Berlant and Michael

Warner, Sex in Public. In Publics and Countepublics (Cambridge, Mass: Zone Books, 2002), 187-208 (eres) Essay Prompt 2 Handed Out Week 12: April 14 April 18: Bodies and Minds Tuesday: Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sex Glands, Hormones, and Gender Chemistry, in Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (New York: Basic Books, 2000) (eres); Donna Haraway, Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (FTR); Kathy Davis, Reclaiming Womens Bodies: Colonialist Trope or Critical Epistemology? (FTR) Thursday: Anne McLintock, Massa and Maids: Power and Desire in the Imperial Metropolis, in Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995) (eres) Essay 2 due Friday April 18 by 5:00p Week 13: April 21 April 25: Queer Theory Tuesday: Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology, Introduction and Chapter 1 Thursday: Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology, Chapter 2 Week 14: April 28 May 2: Conclusions Tuesday: Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology, Chapter 3 and Conclusion Thursday: Nancy Fraser, Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History, New Left Review 56 (March-April 2009): 97-117; Ozlem Aslan and Zeynep Gambetti, Provincializing Frasers History: Feminism and Neoliberalism Revisited, History of the Present 1.1 (2011): 130-147 (eres). Final Paper due Monday, May 5 at 10:30a (our scheduled final exam time).

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