Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Course Description
In this course we will examine different aspects of gender, race, class, and sexuality, bringing a variety of feminist theoretical lenses to bear. How do we know what we think we know? What are the paradigm shifts that we may need and want to make in order to better understand the world? The course is constructed in concentric circles, moving outward from sex and the body to sexuality, the family, the welfare state, and international politics.
Course Overview
All students will be responsible for each week’s readings and posting brief questions on the course website. This must be done before you come to class. You will also experiment and write at least one letter to the editor of The Tech or another newspaper, an op-ed piece, a letter to local officials, or a pamphlet for voters. Learning to write for the public, for someone we might disagree with, for someone who is an influencer is a critical skill in our times, and I would like you each to try to do this.
All students will also lead an introductory discussion in one class relating to a keyword. Some examples of keywords you might choose include diversity, the political, privilege, misogyny, ableism, performance, intersectionality, toxic masculinity, complementarianism.
You will also each write a longer paper (10–15 pages; 2,500–5,000 words). This can take different forms. It could be a position paper or materials for a Congressperson. It could be a website that has a significant amount of your own writing (not just links). It could be a blog space with your own posts. It could be a lesson plan in which you would explain what materials you would use and how you would teach them. In the past I have had students each choose a local nonprofit organization as the subject of their analysis. This is also a possibility for a more traditional research paper. In all cases you must think carefully who your target audience is, what they know, and what they might not know. I would like you to write in fairly formal language, though there can be some room for play in this.
This class is an undergraduate CI-M subject for Philosophy and Women’s & Gender Studies and counts as a theory class for Political Science.
Recommended Books
- Eli Clare, Exile and Pride (South End Press, 1999). 978-0822360315. [Preview with Google Books]
- Cynthia Enloe, Twelve Feminist Lessons of War (University of California Press, 2023). 978-0520397675. [Preview with Google Books]
- Jack Halberstam, Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability (University of California Press, 2018). 978-0520292697. [Preview with Google Books]
- Ibram Kendi, How to be an Antiracist (Penguin Random House, 2019). 978-0525509301. [Preview with Google Books]
- Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed Editions, 2015). 978-1571313560. [Preview with Google Books]
- Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. (One World, 2021). 978-0525509561. [Preview with Google Books]
All other readings can be found in the Readings section.
Grading Policy
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Class participation | 25% |
| Discussion points | 10% |
|
Parts of the final project
|
25% |
| Five-minute oral presentation | 5% |
| Final research paper | 25% |
| Op-ed | 10% |
For further detail on the activities above, see the Assignments section.
