Schedule: Week 1 24-26 Sept Introduction Gloria Steinem “What would it be like if women win” Krolokke and Sorensen “Three Waves of Feminism: From Suffragettes to Grrls” Toril Moi “Feminist, Female, Feminine” Week 2 1-3 Oct Social Construction of Gender Simone de Beauvoir “Second Sex” Carol Gilligan “Concepts of Self and Morality” R. W. Connell “Men’s Bodies” “The Social Organization of Masculinity” Katherine Mansfield “Story of an Hour”, Jamaica Kincaid “Girl”, Lucille Clifton “My Hips”, Maya Angelou “Phenomenal Woman” “I Rise”, Adrienne Rich “The Knight” Week 3 8-10 Oct Social Construction of Gender film “Tersine Dunya” Thomas Laqueur “Destiny is Anatomy” “Discovery of the Sexes” “Sex Socialized” from Making Sex, Ann Fausto-Sterling “Five Sexes” Further reading: Carole S. Vance, “Social Construction Theory: Problems in the History of Sexuality” Rubin “Traffic in Women” Week 4 15-17 Oct Performativity of Gender Judith Butler “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” film “Tersine Dunya” Further reading: Monique Wittig “One is not Born a Woman” Luce Irigaray “This Sex which is Not One” Week 5 22-24 Oct Ursula le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness Week 6 Feminism as Politics of Difference 29 Oct Mon NO CLASS 31 Oct Wed Joan Scott “Deconstructing Equality-Versus-Difference: Or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism” Marilyn Frye “The Necessity of Differences: Constructing a Positive Category of Week 7 5-7 Nov “Woman” as a political identity Feminist anthems and songs Helen Reddy “I Am Woman” “Kadinlar Vardir” Aretha Franklin “Real Woman”, “Respect”, James Brown “It’s a Man’s World” Chaka Khan “I Am Every Woman”, Meredith Brooks “Bitch”, Queen Latifah “U.N.I.T.Y.” Sojourner Truth “Ain’t I A Woman?” Christina Rossetti “Goblin Market”
Week 8 12-14 Nov Black Feminism Patricia Hill Collins “Defining Black Feminist Thought” Combahee River Collective “A Black Feminist Statement” Toni Morrison, Tillie Olson, Alice Walker Further reading: Audre Lorde “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” Alice Walker “Womanist” In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens Week 9 19-21 Nov Sexuality: Sex-Positive Feminism Grand “The New Woman”, Kate Chopin “The Storm” “No More Miss America”, Anne Koedt “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” Erica Jong “The Zipless Fuck” from Fear of Flying Further reading: Gayle Rubin “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” Helene Cixous “The Laugh of the Medusa” Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Week 10 26-28 Nov Sexual Liberation and the Second Wave Catherine McKinnon “Sexuality”, Ann Ferguson “Forum: The Feminist Sexuality Debates” Eve Ensler Vagina Monologues Week 11 3-5 Dec Sexuality in the Third Wave and Postcolonial Feminism Jessica Valenti Full Frontal Feminism Fatima Mernissi “The Muslim Concept of Active Female Sexuality” Assia Djebar from Women of Algiers in Their Apartment Week 12 10-12 Dec Motherhood and Reproductive Rights Bordo “Are Mothers Persons? Reproductive Rights and the Politics of Subject-ivity” Adrienne Rich “The ‘Sacred Calling’” “Violence: The Heart of Maternal Darkness” Amy Richards Opting In: Having a Baby without Losing Yourself Levinas “Like a Maternal Body” Week 13 17-19 Dec Motherhood and Reproductive Rights Plath “Metaphors”, Gwendolyn Brooks “The Mother” Katherine Mansfield “Bliss” Amy Opting In