Debates in Contemporary Feminism

Catalog description

This course is an advanced seminar in feminist and gender theory. The primary focus is critical engagement with social, political, and cultural theories of the social construction of gender and gender difference, and of the sources, causes, and effects of gender inequality and strategies for reducing or eradicating inequality. While emphasis will be placed on gender difference and inequality, substantial time will be spent on theories of how gender is implicated in and supported by other forms of inequality such as sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class. Standpoint and intersectional approaches will ground much of the course, and provide one dominant framework for thinking about identity, oppression and social power inequalities. Students will also take on more advanced readings addressing feminist epistemology and ontology, methodology and praxis. While topics change from instructor to instructor (for example: reproductive rights; women's health; labor; politics and voting; creative arts and representation; individual and social identities; gender and militarism) students can expect a balance between US and transnational contexts. This balance reflects contemporary feminism's acknowledgement of US global hegemony, and thus the impacts of US policies on the welfare of other nations and regions, while also emphasizing both oppositional and coalitional movements in those same nations and regions. Case studies of effective activist intervention at both local and global levels will support the bi-focal emphasis of the course.