Critical Feminist Studies: An Introduction

Generous Feminism, by Gail Chavenelle, BMC '67

Photos: Choosing a Text Together Final Dinner Party Class Notes Web Papers: 1: What Feminist Issues Interest Us? 2: On the "salience of social location" 3: How better "represent" feminism? 4: Final projects   On-Line Forum Instructions for Checklist & Final Portfolio

“…feminism has already made a difference….On the other hand, that difference has opened up and brought into view the energies of contradiction hidden inside the unsayability of what feminism has now given voice to. Once women begin to speak, we begin to differ with each other….literature is important for feminism…as the place where impasses can be kept and opened for examination, questions can be guarded and not forced into a premature validation of the available paradigms. Literature…is…a mode of cultural work, the work of giving-to-read those impossible contradictions that cannot yet be spoken."
(Barbara Johnson: The Feminist Difference: Literature, Psychoanalysis, Race and Gender, 1998)

Once a week, students will be expected to post short responses to these readings on-line, on Serendip’s Exchange. In a series of four more formal writing projects, students will also become conversant with the current scholarly work being done in the field of gender and sexuality; figure out which of the discipline-or-subject-specific sources might be most useful in developing your own particular stake in these conversations; and define the critical questions you want to pursue. A total of twenty-five pages of writing will be required by semester’s end; the length of each individual project may vary, based on your interest and ambitio

Evaluations: In my experience, grading is a hindrance to the kind of open and productive interactions on which effective education depends. Accordingly, I will comment on, but not grade, your individual assignments during the course of the semester. You will receive grades at the end of the course that reflect my evaluation of your engagement with the course, the progress you have made in becoming a better inquirer, and the level of sophistication you have reached in your thinking, talking and writing.

Weeks 2-5: Trangender and Intersex

2. Tues, Sept. 9
Guest Visitor: Paul Grobstein, What's Biology Got to Teach Us About Gender and Sexuality?
Diversity and Deviance: A Biological Perspective

Thurs, Sept. 11
By 10 a.m. every Thursday morning: post on course forum
Jeffrey Eugenides. Middlesex. New York: Picador, 2002. Book One.

3. Tues, Sept. 16
Middlesex, Book Two.

Thurs, Sept. 18

Middlesex, Book Three.

4. Tues, Sept. 23

Middlesex, Book Four.

5. Tues, Sept. 30
Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Reshaping, Rethinking, Redefining: Feminist Disabilities Studies. Barbara Waxman Fiduccia Papers on Women and Girls with Disabilities. 2007.

Suzanne J. Kessler and Wendy McKenna, "Toward a Theory of Gender" (1978): 165-182.

Judith Butler, "Doing Justice to Someone: Sex Reassignment and Allegories of Transsexuality" (2001): 183-193.

Kate Bornstein, "Gender Terror, Gender Rage" (1994): 236-243.

Susan Stryker, "My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix--Performing Transgender Rage" (1994): 244-256.

Patrick Califia, "Manliness." 434-438.

Arthur Robinson Williams, My Right Self.

Weeks 6-7: The Transitional and Interstitial

6. Tues, Oct. 7
Afsaneh Najmabadi."Truth of Sex." iranian.com. January 12, 2005.

Marilyn Hacker. Canzone. Desesperanto: Poems 1999-2002. New York: Norton, 2003.

Gertrude Stein. "Lifting Belly." Bee Time Vine and Other Pieces, 1913-1927. The Yale Edition of the Unpublished Writings of Gertrude Stein. Vol. 3. Ayer, 1953.

Thurs, Oct. 9
Monique T. D. Truong, The Book of Salt. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Richard Oppel. "Female Suicide Bomber Kills 15 in Iraq." The New York Times. June 23, 2008.

Biddy Martin and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. “Feminist Politics: What’s Home Got to Do with It?” Feminist Studies/Critical Studies. Ed. Teresa de Lauretis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. 191-212

Russell Leong. "Home Bodies and the Body Politic" and Dana Takagi, "Maiden Voyage: Excursion into Sexuality and Identity Politics in Asian America." Asian American Sexualities: Dimensions of the Gay and Lesbian Experience. Ed. Russell Leong. New York: Routledge, 1996. 1-35.

9. Tues, Nov. 4
Guest Visitors: Tamarinda Figueroa and Ingrid Paredes

Cherríe Moraga. "The Breakdown of the Bicultural Mind." Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity. Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi, eds. New York & London: Routledge, 1996. 230-239

Paula M.L. Moya. "Postmodernism, 'Realism,' and the Politics of Identity: Cherríe Moraga and Chicana Feminism." Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. Ed. M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. New York: Routledge, 1997. 125-150.

Thurs, Nov. 6
Gayatri Spivak, "Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism." The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. Second Edition. Edited Catherine Belsey and Jane Moore. New York: Blackwell, 1989. 148-163.

10. Tues, Nov. 11
Mahasweta Devi. “Breast-Giver.” Trans. Gayatri Spivak. In Other Worlds. New York: Routledge, 1988. 222-240.

Gayatri Spivak. "A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: A Woman's Text from the Third World." In Other Worlds. New York: Routledge, 1988. 241-268.

Thurs, Nov. 13
Nancy Scheper-Hughes. “M(O)ther Love: Culture, Scarcity and Maternal Thinking” and "Our Lady of Sorrows." Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California, 1993. 341-373, 400-406.

Paper #2: 5 pp. due on-line by 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14.
Focusing on the Local:
what gender-related issues interest you most in one particular site in the world?
How are they being represented?
How might those representations be altered?
What interventions are needed

Weeks 11-14: Transdisciplinarity

11. Tues, Nov. 18
Peggy McIntosh. "Interactive Phases of Curricular Re-vision: A Feminist Perspective." Wellesley, MA: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, 1983.

Thurs, Nov. 20
James Sosnoski. “ A Mindless Man-driven Theory Machine: Intellectuality, Sexuality and the Institution of Criticism.” Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Robyn Warhold and Diane Price Herndl. New Brunswick, NY: Rutgers University Press, 1997. 33-50.

Jacques Derrida. "Women in the Beehive: A Seminar." Men in Feminism. Ed. Alice Jardine and Paul Smith. New York: Metheun, 1987. 189-203.

12. Tues, Nov. 25
Anne Dalke and Elizabeth McCormack. "Synecdoche and Surprise: Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production." Journal of Research Practice. 3,2 (2007). Article M20.

(see also Dalke, Grobstein and McCormack, Exploring Interdisciplinarity)

Thurs, Nov. 27: Thanksgiving Break