Feminism in the Americas

Catalog description

Students in this seminar will choose their own research topic in the history of feminism. With guidance and support each person will produce a twenty-page paper based on intensive work with primary sources. Readings will range across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. We’ll take a long view, beginning in the sixteenth century, and use an expansive frame. Our purpose will not be to decide who was or wasn’t ‘a feminist’ but instead to try to understand actors within their contexts. Readings include scholarship on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Sojourner Truth, the struggle for voting rights across national lines, opposition to dictatorship, and organizing against racism and homophobia. *For History Majors and Minors: Geographic requirement fulfilled by this seminar is dependent on research paper topic.