Spring 2012
Professor Hawkesworth
mhawkes@rci.rutgers.edu
988:603:01
Voorhees Chapel, Room 9A
Office Hours:
Mondays 9-11 a.m.; 4-5 p.m.
Feminist Knowledge Production
French philosopher Michelle LeDoeuff (Hipparchia’s Choice, 1991, 29) defines a feminist as
one “who does not leave others to think for her (or him).” Feminist inquiry regardless of specialization
lends force to that observation. Interrogating accepted beliefs, challenging shared assumptions, and
reframing research questions are hallmarks of feminist scholarship in the humanities, social sciences,
and natural sciences. Feminist scholars take issue with dominant disciplinary approaches to
knowledge production. They contest anglocentric and androcentric “ways to truth” that universalize
the experiences of a fraction of the human population. They challenge power dynamics structuring
exclusionary academic practices that have enabled unwarranted generalizations to remain unchallenged
for centuries or indeed millennia. They identify and develop alternative research practices that further
feminist goals of social transformation.
The course is designed to introduce students to a range of epistemologies (theories of
knowledge) and methodologies that feminist scholars have drawn upon, critiqued, and adapted to their
research purposes. Far from suggesting that there is one feminist mode of knowledge production, the
course seeks to foster students’ critical engagement with the complexity and plurality of
epistemological and methodological approaches in feminist scholarship. Students will be asked to
consider what problems of knowledge particular epistemologies are devised to address; how well they
succeed in that endeavor, and what kinds of knowledge exceed specific epistemological frameworks.
We will also consider when and under what conditions a particular methodology is helpful, exploring
the kinds of research questions it makes visible as well as those it masks. Particular attention will be
given to the epistemological assumptions that inform particular methodologies and to the standards of
evidence and argument upon which they depend.
Knowledge is a convention rooted in the practical judgments of a community of fallible
inquirers who struggle to resolve theory-dependent problems under specific historical conditions. This
course will treat feminist knowledge production as a rich and varied tradition. It will explore various
conceptions of truth operative in feminist research practices and the diverse cognitive practices that
enable feminist inquiry. In this way, the course will assist students in determining the level of analysis,
type of explanation, standards of evidence, criteria of evaluation, tropes of discourse, and strategies of
argumentation most appropriate for the subject of inquiry s/he wishes to pursue in practicum, thesis, or
dissertation research.
To produce knowledge, scholars and activists must engage not only questions about the nature
of knowledge and the demands of particular research methods but also cutting-edge debates within
their fields of inquiry. To foster heightened understanding of all three of these dimensions, the course
will focus on recently published scholarship in leading feminist academic journals.
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Course Requirements
The quality of any seminar is a direct result of the level of preparation and degree of
participation of class members. In this seminar, each student will be expected to:
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Read all assigned texts by the dates specified below;
Participate constructively in seminar discussions;
Present one seminar paper and one research proposal in class;
Complete first writing assignment by March 5; and
Complete a feasible research proposal by April 30.
Seminar Presentations
The purpose of seminar presentations is to identify central issues for debate and to stimulate
engaged and constructive discussion of those issues. Although students are encouraged to be creative
in developing their presentations, minimally each seminar presentation must address the following
questions:
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What is the primary object of inquiry in the assigned readings?
What theoretical frames are used to make it legible?
What methodologies are deployed to give it substance?
How do different theoretical, analytical, and methodological frameworks constitute the
object differently?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of various constitutions of the research object?
Each student must make one oral seminar presentation and provide a written copy (typed, doublespaced) of the paper for evaluation. The hard copy is designed to facilitate faculty feedback. It is not
intended as a text to be read aloud in class. Seminar presentations will be graded both on the liveliness
of the oral presentation and on the cogency of the substantive content.
Depending on the number of students in the seminar, there may be more than one student presenting a
seminar paper each week. If so, students are responsible for coordinating their presentations to avoid
duplication.
In addition to a seminar paper and presentation related to the assigned readings, during the last two
class sessions, each student must make a 15 minute presentation on her research proposal, addressing
the same kinds of issues noted above.
Writing Assignments
Knowledge production is both a collective and a deeply individual enterprise. A criterion for
completion of a graduate degree and for academic publication is an original contribution to the field.
While class reading assignments and discussions are designed to explore collective aspects of
knowledge production, the writing assignments for this course focus on individual research projects.
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Over the course of the semester, each student must complete a research proposal that engages each of
the following challenges:
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discerning the relevant literature;
devising coherent strategies of critique;
identifying innovative theoretical frameworks;
envisioning a sophisticated research methodology;
grappling with the construction and assessment of evidence;
developing a feasible research project and time-table for completion.
Assignment #1
The first writing assignment should take up the first three challenges—identifying the
literature(s) relevant to the research project, drafting a literature review that provides cogent and
constructive critiques of the relevant literature, and analyzes the theoretical frameworks that might be
brought to bear on the project in order to break new ground. By criticizing the omissions, distortions,
and lapses of existing work, the first assignment should create a space for your innovative research
project.
A good literature review does not summarize everything that other authors say about a topic.
Rather, it crafts an argument by building on selective explication and analysis of other authors’ views
of the issue, developing a comparative assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of varying accounts
by interrogating their assumptions, examining their methodologies, and evaluating the comparative
merits of alternate approaches. The central objective of the literature review is to structure a coherent
research question by engaging with the current state of the field.
The deadline for the first assignment is March 5.
Assignment #2
The second assignment builds upon the first, moving from identification of a research question
to the design of an innovative methodology that can produce new knowledge. As we will be
discussing in class, different methodologies construe the object of inquiry differently. In this
assignment, each student should consider how various methodologies might constitute the research
topic at the heart of her project. By comparing diverging epistemological assumptions, problem
identifications, standards of evidence, models of explanation, analytic categories, techniques and
investigative methods, data collection, analysis of results, narrative strategies, and discursive styles, the
student should begin to hone in on the appropriate research strategy for her project. In developing this
comparison, the student should tailor her particular research design to the phenomenon she seeks to
study, explaining the advantage afforded by the methodological approach to the understanding of the
research topic. The deadline for the comparative methodology paper is April 30.
Grading Policy
In calculating grades for the course, student performance will be assessed according to the
following weighting scheme:
Informed seminar participation
Seminar Presentation and Paper
20%
30%
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Writing Assignment #1
Writing Assignment #2
25%
25%
Required Readings
Reading assignments for the course are drawn from leading scholarly journals such as Signs:
Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Representations, Hypatia, and Politics & Gender, which are
available in hard copy and online at no charge (http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/) through Rutgers
University Libraries. Copies of manuscripts forthcoming in Signs will be provided in class.
Course Schedule:
Jan. 23
What’s at Stake in Questions of Knowledge and Method?
Jan. 30
Codifying and Contesting Knowledge
Reading:
Wayne A.Wiegand and SarahWadsworth, “By Invitation Only: The American
Library Association and the Woman’s Building Library of the World’s
Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture
and Society 35(3): 699-722, Spring 2010.
Claire Snyder, “What is Third Wave Feminism?” Signs: Journal of Women in
Culture and Society 34(1): 175, Autumn 2008
Rebecca Clark-Mane, “Transmuting Grammars of Whiteness in Third-Wave
Feminism: Postmodern Abstraction, Post-race Histories and the Proliferation of
Difference in Third Wave Texts,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society 38(1), forthcoming, Autumn 2012.
Erica Townsend Bell, “Writing the Way to Feminism,” Signs: Journal of Women
in Culture and Society 38(1), forthcoming, Autumn 2012.
Feb. 6
Strategies of Interpretation: Shifting Paradigms
Reading:
Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus, “Surface Reading: An Introduction,”
Representations 108(Fall 2009): 1-21.
Christopher Nealon, “Reading on the Left,” Representations 108(Fall 2009): 22-50.
Leah Price, “From The History of a Book to a ‘History of the Book,”
Representations 108(Fall 2009): 120-138.
Margaret Cohen, “Narratology in the Archive of Literature,” Representations
108(Fall 2009): 51-75, particularly pp. 51-62.
Mary Thomas Crane, “Surface, Depth, and the Spatial Imaginary: A Cognitive
Reading of the Political Unconscious,” Representations 108(Fall 2009): 76-97.
Anne Anlin Cheng, “Skins, Tattoos, and Susceptibility,” Representations 108(Fall
2009): 98-119.
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Feb. 13
Cogent Critique: Taking on the Giants
Reading:
Ernesto Javier Martinez, “On Butler on Morrison on Language,” Signs: 35(4): 821-842,
Summer 2010.
Mridula Nath Chakraborty, “ Everybody’s Afraid of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak:
Reading Interviews with the Public Intellectual and Postcolonial Critic,” Signs:
35(3): 621-646, Spring 2010.
Sally Markowitz, “Occidental Dreams: Orientalism and History in The Second Sex,”
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 34(2): 271-294, Winter 2009.
Feb. 20
Cogent Critique: Challenging Received Views
Reading:
Ruth Miller, Rights, “Reproduction, Sexuality and Citizenship in the Ottoman Empire
and Turkey,” Signs 32(2):347-374, Winter 2007.
Seema Arora‐Jonsson, “Discordant Connections: Discourses on Gender and Grassroots
Activism in Two Forest Communities in India and Sweden,” Signs: 35(1):213240, Fall 2009.
Elizabeth Bernstein, “Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The
Politics of Sex, Rights, and Freedom in Contemporary Antitrafficking
Campaigns,” Signs: 36(1):45-72, Autumn 2010.
Erica Michelle Lagalisse, “Marginalizing Magdalena: Intersections of Gender
and the Secular in Anarchoindigenist Solidarity Activism, Signs:
36(3):653-678, Spring 2011.
Feb. 27
Changing Research Questions; Shifting Intellectual Sites
Reading:
Aniko Imre, “Lesbian Nationalism,” Signs: 33(2): 255-282, Winter 2008.
Natalie Oswin, “Producing Homonormativity in Neoliberal South Africa: Recognition,
Redistribution, and the Equality Project,” Signs 32(3): 649-670, Spring 2007.
Ashley Currier, “The Aftermath of Decolonization: Gender and Sexual Dissidence
in Postindependence Namibia,” Signs 37(2): 441-467, Winter 2012.
Davina Cooper, “Caring for Sex and the Power of Attentive Action: Governance,
Drama, and Conflict in Building a Queer Feminist Bathhouse,” Signs 35(1):
105-130, Fall 2009.
Mar. 5
Excavating Theoretical Presuppositions
Reading:
Anna Kirkland, “What’s at Stake in Transgender Discrimination as Sex
Discrimination?” Signs 32(1): 83-111, Autumn 2006.
Leslie Bow, “Transracial/Transgender: Analogies of Difference in Mai’s America,”
Signs 35(1): 75-104, Autumn 2009.
Talia Mae Bettcher, “Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence
and the Politics of Illusion,” Hypatia 22(3):43-65, Summer 2007.
Raewyn Connell, “Transsexual Women and Feminist Thought: Toward New
Understanding and New Politics,” Signs: 37(4), forthcoming, Summer 2012.
David Rubin, “‘An Unnamed Blank that Craved a Name’: Genealogy of Intersex,”
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Signs 37(4), forthcoming, Summer 2012.
Mar. 12
Spring Break
Mar. 19
Constructing the Object of Inquiry: Reprogenetics
Reading:
Joan Fujimura, “Sex Genes: A Critical Sociomaterial Approach to the Politics and
Molecular Genetics of Sex Determination,” Signs 32(1):49-82, Autumn 2006.
Silja Samerski. “Genetic Counseling and the Fiction of Choice” Taught SelfDetermination as a New Technique of Social Engineering,” Signs 34(4):735762, Summer, 2009.
Lisa C. Ikemoto, “Eggs as Capital: Human Egg Procurement in the Fertility Industry
and the Stem Cell Research Enterprise,” Signs 34(4): 763-782, Summer 2009.
Dorothy Roberts, “Race, Gender, and Genetic Technologies: A New Reproductive
Dystopia? Signs 34(4):783-804, Summer 2009.
Olivia Banner, “‘Sing now, O Muse, of the recessive mutation’: Interrogating the
Genetic Discourse of Sex Variation with Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex,” Signs
35(4):843-868, Summer 2010.
Mar. 26
Constructing the Object of Inquiry: The Politics of Intimacy
Reading:
Meena Khandelwal, “Arranging Love: Interrogating the Vantage Point in Cross‐Border
Feminism,” Signs 34(3): 583-610, Spring 2009.
Pei‐Chia Lan, “Migrant Women’s Bodies as Boundary Markers: Reproductive Crisis
and Sexual Control in the Ethnic Frontiers of Taiwan,” Signs 33(4): 833-862,
Summer 2008.
Juliet A. Williams, “Unholy Matrimony? Feminism, Orientalism, and the Possibility of
Double Critique,” Signs 34(3): 611-632, Spring 2009.
Lois Harder, “The State and the Friendships of the Nation: The Case of Nonconjugal
Relationships in the United States and Canada,” Signs 34(3): 633-658, Spring
2009.
Cori Hayden, “Kinship Theory, Property, and the Politics of Inclusion: From Lesbian
Families to Bioprospecting in a Few Short Steps,” Signs 32(2):337-346, Winter
2007.
April 2
NO CLASS MEETING (International Studies Association Meeting)
Use the time to work on research proposal
April 9
Constructing the Object of Inquiry: The Microphysics of Power
Reading:
Cawo Mohamed Abdi, “Convergence of Civil War and the Religious Right:
Reimagining Somali Women,” Signs 33(1): 183-208, Fall 2007.
Miriam Ticktin, “Sexual Violence as the Language of Border Control: Where French
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Feminist and Anti-immigrant Rhetoric Meet,” Signs 33(4): 833-862, Summer
2008.
Alev Cinar, “Subversion and Subjugation in the Public Sphere: Secularism and the
Islamic Headscarf , Signs 33(4): 891-914, Summer 2008.
Amal Hassan Fadlalla, “State of Vulnerability and Humanitarian Visibility: Lubna’s
Pants and the Sudanese Trans-politics of Rights and Dissent,” Signs 37(1): 159184, Autumn 2011.
Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, “Gender Trouble at Abu Ghraib,” Politics & Gender
1(4):597-619, 2005.
April 16
Constructing the Object of Inquiry: Gendered Violence
Reading:
Meg Samuelson, “The Disfigured Body of the Female Guerrilla: (De)militarization,
Sexual Violence, and Redomestication in Zoe Wiicomb’s David’s Story,” Signs
32(4):833-856, Summer 2007.
Aaronette White, “All the Men are Fighting for Freedom, All the Women are Mourning
their Men, but Some of Us Carried Guns: A Raced-Gendered Analysis of
Fanon’s Psychological Perspectives on War,” Signs 32(4):857-884, Summer
2007.
Dorit Naaman, “Brides of Palestine/Angels of Death: Media, Gender, and Performance
in the Case of the Palestinian Female Suicide Bomber,” Signs 32(4):933-956,
Summer 2007.
Rosemary Marangoly George, “(Extra)Ordinary Violence: National Literatures,
Diasporic Aesthetics, and the Politics of Gender in South Asian Partition
Fiction,” Signs 33(1): 135-158, Autumn 2007.
Melissa Wright, “Necropolitics, Narcopolitics, and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the
Mexico-U.S. Border, Signs 36(3): 707-732, Spring 2011.
Amanda Lock Swarr, “Paradoxes of Butchness: Lesbian Masculinities and Sexual
Violence in Contemporary South Africa,” Signs 37(4), forthcoming, summer
2012
April 23
Presentation of Student Research Proposals
April 30
Presentation of Student Research Proposals
Deadline for Research Proposal
Suggestions for Further Reading:
Alcoff, Linda Martín, Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory (Cornell University
Press, 1996).
Alcoff, Linda Martín, Epistemology: The Big Questions (Blackwell, 1998)
Burt, Sandra and Lorraine Code, Changing Methods: Feminists Transforming Practice (Broadview
Press, 1995)
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Code, Lorraine, What Can She Know? Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
Devault, Marjorie Liberating Method: Feminism and Social Research (Temple University Press,
1999).
Eichler, Margaret. 1980. The Double Standard: A Feminist Critique of Social Science. New York: St.
Martins Press
Fonow, Mary Margaret, and Judith Cook. 1991. Beyond Methodology: Feminist Scholarship as Lived
Research. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Friedman, Susan Stanford. 1998. Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of Encounter.
Princeton: Princeton University Press
Grant, Judith, 1993. Fundamental Feminism: Contesting the Core Concepts of Feminist Theory.
(Routledge, 1993).
Gilmore, Leigh. Autobiographics: A Feminist Theory of Women’s Self-Representation (Cornell
University Press, 1994).
Hacking, Ian. The Social Construction of What? (Harvard University Press, 1999).
Harding, Sandra, and Merrill Hintikka. 1983. Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on
Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. (D. Reidel, 1983).
Harding, Sandra. The Science Question in Feminism (Cornell University Press, 1986)
Harding, Sandra. Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues (University of
Illinois Press, 2006
Harding, Sandra. Sciences from Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, Modernities (Duke University
Press, 2008)
Hawkesworth, Mary. Feminist Inquiry (Rutgers University Press, 2006)
Hekman, Susan. Gender and Knowledge. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992
Hesse-Biber, Sharlene, Christina Gilmartin, and Robin Lydenberg. 1999. Feminist Approaches to
Theory and Methodology: An Interdisciplinary Reader. New York: Oxford University Press
Hesse-Biber, Sharlene, and Patricia Leavy. 2004. Approaches to Qualitative Research. New York:
Oxford University Press
Hesse-Biber, Sharlene. Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis (Sage, 2007)
Hesse-Biber, Sharlene. Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis, 2nd Ed. (Sage, 2012)
Jaggar, Alison and Susan Bordo, eds., Gender/Body/Knowledge. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press,1989).
Jaggar, Alison. Just Methods: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Reader (Paradigm Publishers, 2008)
Lather, Patti. 1991. Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy With/In the Postmodern. New
York: Routledge.
Le Doeuff, Michele. The Sex of Knowing (Routldege, 2003).
Letherby, Gayle. 2003. Feminist Research in Theory and Practice. Buckingham and Philadelphia:
Open University Press
Longino, Helen. Science as Social Knowledge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990)
Longino, Helen. The Fate of Knowledge (Princeton University Press, 2001).
Naples, Nancy. Feminism and Method: Ethnography, Discourse Analysis, and Activist Research
(Routledge, 2003).
Nelson, Lyn. 1990. Who Knows? From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press
Oakley, Ann. 2000. Experiments in Knowing: Gender and Method in the Social Sciences. New York:
New Press
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Proctor and Schiebinger, Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance (Stanford University
Press, 2008).
Ramazanoglu, Caroline, with Janet Holland. 2002. Feminist Methodology: Challenges and Choices.
London and Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications
Reinharz, Shulamit. 1992. Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford University Press
Riley, Denise. 1988. Am I that Name? Feminism and the Category of ‘Women’ in History.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Scott, Joan. 1986. "Gender: A Useful Category for Historical Analysis." American Historical Review
91: 1053-1075.
Scott, Joan. 1988. “Deconstructing the Equality vs. Difference Debate: Or the Uses of Poststructuralist
Theory for Feminism.” Feminist Studies 14 (1): 575-599.
Scott, Joan. 1992. “Experience.” In Judith Butler and Joan Scott, eds., Feminists Theorize the Political,
22-40. New York: Routledge.
Stanley, Liz, and Susan Wise. 1983. Breaking Out: Feminist Consciousness and Feminist Research.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
Strum, Shirley, and Linda Fedigan. 2000. Primate Encounters: Models of Science, Gender, and
Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Tanesini, Allesandra. 1999. An Introduction to Feminist Epistemologies. Oxford: Blackwell
Tuana, Nancy. 1989. Feminism and Science. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Walby, Sylvia. 2001. “Against Epistemological Caverns: The Science Question in Feminism
Revisited.” Signs: 26 (2): 486-509
Walby, Sylvia. The Future of Feminism (Polity Press, 2011).
Westkott, Marcia. 1979. “Feminist Criticism of the Social Sciences.” Harvard Educational Review 49:
422-430
Windance Twine, Frances and Jonathan Warren, eds., Racing Research, Researching Race
(NYU Press, 2000)
Wolf, Diane. Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork (Westview, 1996)
Wylie, Alison. Thinking From Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology, (University of
California Press, 2002).
Wylie, Alison. When Difference Makes a Difference: Epistemic Diversity and Dissent: special issue of
Episteme: Journal of Social Epistemology 3.1-2 (2006)
Wylie, Alison and Margaret W. Conkey, Doing Archaeology as a Feminist, special issue of the
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Volume 14.3 (2007).
Wylie, Alison, Harold Kincaid and John Dupre, Value-Free Science? Ideals and Illusions (Oxford
University Press, 2007).
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