Women's Studies - Spring 1999

Time: T TH 12-1:45

Professor: Emily Honig

Feminism is a form of subversion: it challenges assumptions about history, society, and personal relationships that are based on male dominance. By centering women's experience, feminism forces us to reconceptualize such basic concepts as power, politics, and work.

This course subverts the subversive: it introduces feminism by focusing on the third world. Instead of beginning with the development of feminism in North America and "looking out" to the third world, we will be centering third world feminism and "looking back in." My agenda in doing this is 1)to make it absolutely clear that there is no single definition of feminism, but rather that meanings of feminism are created in very specific historical and local contexts; and 2)that feminisms have histories and meanings that extend far beyond the North American continent.

This course has no prerequisites. It does presume a willingness to engage in hard thinking, questioning, and respectful listening to the voices (spoken and written) or others.

Readings for the course include Buchi Emecheta, THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD; Cynthia Enloe, BABANAS, BEACHES, AND BASES; Yuan tsung Chen, THE DRAGON'S VILLAGE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BOVEL OF REVOLUTIONARY CHINA. The course includes films, such as "Small Happiness," "Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza DeMayo," "La Operacion," as well as music.

Revised 8/3/04.