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This seminar focuses on key theoretical concepts and practical problems of gender and queer theory. The aim of the course is to introduce students to feminist and gender theories from different regions (from the north to the south, from Europe to (Latin)America) and disciplines, and to identify alternative methodological and epistemological approaches. From an historical and conceptual approach, we will reconstruct the fundamental debates regarding the relation between sex, gender, sexuality, desire and knowledge. The aim is to reflect on how the production of knowledge and the feminist critical approaches reveal or reproduce the social mechanisms of structural gender inequalities and violence. A central point of the course is the analysis of relevant concepts such as identity, heteronormativity, patriarchy, performativity, diversity, that grounds the framework for the analysis of contemporary challenges for feminism, e.g. discrimination, violence, inequality, injustice, underrepresentation, political participation, agency, subordination and domination in concrete cases. The seminar will develop in four moments: first, the analysis and critique of the notion of women and feminity; second, the discussion of the relation of gender and sex; third, the question on the interdependence of sexuality, body and desire; finally, the importance of the practical analysis of the intersection of class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and disability as necessary condition for the deconstruction of binaries, hierarchical and power relations.
Weekly schedule and readings:
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Session 1
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Introduction to the course. Fundamental problems, concepts and practical cases
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Gender
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Session 2
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Beauvoir, de Simone. 1989 The Second Sex. London, Jonathan Cape. Introduction and Conclusion.
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Session 3
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Rubin, Gayle. “The Traffic in Women Notes on the ‘Political Economy` of Sex”. Women, Class, and the Feminist Imagination, 74-113.
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Session 4
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Delphy, Christine. 1993. Rethinking Sex and Gender. Women’s Studies Int. Forum, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1-9.
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Gender and Epistemology
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Session 5
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Scott, Joan W. 2008: “Unanswered Questions”. The American Historical Review, 113 (5): 1422-1430.
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Session 6
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Haraway, Donna. 1988: “Situated Knowledges. The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”. Feminist Studies. 14 (3): 575-599.
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Performativity of sexuality
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Session 7
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Butler, J. (1988). “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519.
Butler, Judith. 1990. “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire” in Gender Trouble. New York, Routledge Classics.
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Session 8
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Butler, Judith. 1994. “Against Proper Objects. Introduction”. Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 6.2, 1994: 1-26.
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Queer analysis
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Session 9
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Kosofsky Sedwick, Eve. 1991. “Introduction. Axiomatic” in Epistemology of the Closet. University California Press.
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Session 10
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Hark, Sabine. 2001. "Disputed Territory: Feminist Studies in Germany and Its Queer Discontents”. Amerikastudien / American Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1, Queering America, pp. 87-103
Halperin, David.2003. “The Normalization of Queer Theory”. Journal of
Homosexuality, 45:2-4, 339-343
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Queer across the Americas
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Session 11
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Viteri, Maria. 2008. “‘Latino’ and ‘queer’ as sites of translation: Intersections of ‘race’, ethnicity and sexuality”. Graduate Journal of Social Science, vol. 5 Issue 2.
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Session 12
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Anzaldúa, Gloria. 2012. “Rebellion movements and the
cultures that betray”, in Borderlands/La Frontera. The New Mestiza, San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1988: “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”. Feminist Review, 30: 61-68.
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Materializing Queer & Queer Politics
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Session 13
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Halberstam, Judith (2005). "Queer temporality and postmodern geography." In In a queer time and place, ed. Judith Halberstam. 1-21. New York: New York University Press.
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Session 14
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McRuer, Robert. 2006. "Compulsory able-bodiedness and queer/disabled existence." The disability studies reader, ed. Lennard David, 301-308. New York: Routledge.
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Session 15
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Castro Varela, María do Mar / Dhawan, Nikita. 2011. “Normative Dilemmas and the Hegemony of Counter-Hegemony” in Hegemony and Heteronormativity. Revisiting 'The Political' in Queer Politics. England, Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Castro Varela, María do Mar / Dhawan, Nikita. 2016. “What difference does difference makes? Diversity, Intersectionality, and Transnational Feminist Politics”, Wagadu, Volume 16 Special Issue.
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Session 16
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Examination week
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Teaching Format: Each session will include a lecture component and seminar-style discussions with the active engagement of students.
Assessment: Students are expected to read all the required readings and come to the sessions well-prepared with questions and comments that are informed by the readings. The final grade is based upon a midterm exam (30%), a final paper (45%), and participation (25%). In each session, one student prepares a discussion of a reading assignment in form of a short introduction and presentation.
Goals: The course should engage students in critical thinking concerning the conceptual and theoretical framework, linking the abstract to concrete life events. Students are enabled to elaborate on different currents of thought and present their own arguments related to gender and queer theory.
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