Course Description:
Analysis of categories of contemporary feminist theory including concepts of identity and difference; theories of subjectivity; feminist discourses, strategies and practices. This course is "advanced" because it assumes that students will have background in feminist theory and analysis. Thus, there will not be reviewing of basic feminist terms, politics or theoretical schools. The course assumes the basic stance of viewing the world through the lens of gender. It seeks to interrogate and understand theoretical assumptions based on a shared support for the general goals of women-centered education and politics.

Throughout the course you will be asked to outline and analyze readings, evaluate their arguments, weigh their value in terms of your own education and experiences, and incorporate them into your own world view, scholarship, and political/social activism. The readings are challenging and provocative to give each of us additional tools with which to instigate academic and social change. The readings are intertextual, with one essay referring to and arguing with another. That should forestall any tendency to take any article on face value. Some of the readings are "classic", others provide newer perspectives that reflect the development of feminist theory.


Required Texts:

- Fuss, Diana (1989). Essentially speaking: Feminism, nature and difference. NY: Routledge.

- Nicholson, Linda J.(Ed.). (1990). Feminism/Postmodernism. NY. Routledge.

- Hypatia (Special Issue, vol.13, no.2) Part I. Spring 1998.

- Hypatia (Special Issue, vol.13, no.3) Part II. Summer 1998.

- 603 Reader (available at KB Books)

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