S1410 Gender Studies

This course will begin with excerpts from Judith Butler’s now classic study Gender Trouble. With that foundation laid, we will read several well-known essays by a variety of gender and queer theorists. A short segment of the course will feature French feminists (Cixous, Kristeva, Irigaray); another will present American feminists (from the pioneers of feminism, Gilbert and Gubar, to post-humanist feminism, Donna Haraway); and we will zero in on the issue of the exclusion of certain (ethnic and racial groups of) women from feminist theory itself (through Spivak’s work, for example). Taking up Britain’s Laura Mulvey, we will think psychoanalytically about representations of women in film and engage the questions of voyeurism and the “male gaze.” Insofar as it intersectswith gender theory, queer theory will also be introduced (e.g., Bersani, Edelman, Sedgwick). Two papers: one short (5-6 pages), one long (10 pages). Discussion will be our primary mode of engagement.