College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Northern Arizona University
Women’s and Gender Studies: SPRING 2008
Instructor: Dr. Sanjam Ahluwalia
Office: LA 232
Phone # : 523-8709
E-mail: Sanjam.Ahluwalia@nau.edu
Office Hours: T TH 1.00-2.00 and by appointment
Class Meetings: LA: 204; Tuesday: 4.00-6.30
WGS 350w: Feminists Writing Histories
NAU Policy Statements http://www2.nau.edu/academicadmin/plcystmt.html
Classroom Management Statement http://www4.nau.edu/stulife/handbookmanagement.htm
Course Description: This course introduces students to numerous issues and debates that have
animated feminist movements and activism across the globe from the nineteenth century to
contemporary times. We will focus on multiple feminist interventions and modalities adopted
over time and space to transform/ alter the social, cultural, political, and sexual scapes. While
paying close attention to multiple histories of feminisms across the globe, we will conclude our
class discussions by examining how activists and scholars have sough to build alliances and
initiate conversations across various cultural and political borders. Our readings and class
discussions for the latter part of the course will therefore, explore both the predicaments and
promises of building cross-border alliances for feminist activism and theorizing.
Course Objectives: The course will emphasize the historical variations in feminist theorizing
and organizing across time and space. As a course designed to meet the Junior Writing
Requirement for Liberal Studies and the WGS Major, writing is, obviously, central to this
course. Students will understand and write about how competing variables of race, class,
ethnicity, sexual preference, nationality, and religion have differently determined women’s
locations within different cultures. Instead of imposing models, blue-prints or templates
borrowed from dominant historical experiences, the course readings will enable us to better
appreciate the diversity of historical experiences that has shaped and continues to shape gendered
structures of power and privilege around the world.
Course Texts: The following texts are required and recommended reading; they may be
purchased at the Aradia Bookstore: 116 W. Cottage, Flagstaff, AZ 86001; Phone # : 779-3817.
All the E-READINGS can be accessed via Vista.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
1. bell hooks and Amalia Mesa-Bains, Homegrown : Engaged Cultural Criticism. (Boston:
South End Press, 2006).
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2. Uma Narayan & Sandra Harding, Decentering The Center : Philosophy for a Multicultural,
Postcolonial, and Feminist World. (Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press, c2000).
3. Miriama Bâ , So Long a Letter. (Heinemann Reprint, 1989).
RECOMMENDED READINGS:
4. Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns. (Riverhead Hardcover, 2007).
5. Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban : A Novel. (New York : Ballantine Books, 1993).
Requirements and Evaluation: WGS 350w will be conducted as a seminar, with emphasis on
timely reading of all assigned materials and informed discussion of ideas and issues. Written
assignments include reaction papers and a major paper at the end of the semester. Participation
will be evaluated. Students are encouraged to read carefully, to bring reading notes to class to
facilitate seminar discussion and to incorporate when ever possible previous weeks= work into
seminar discussions.
Evaluation is based on:
–Participation. Evidence of preparation and active participation in class discussions will be
considered in evaluating student performance. Participation will be graded on the basis of
content and quality rather than on quantity. Peer grading will also constitute part of class
participation. I will take into account how much your interventions reveal a critical engagement
with the assigned materials. Participation will constitute 20 points of your course grade.
–Reaction papers. These papers (1-2 pages, typewritten) should address the assigned readings
for each of our class session. You may summarize concepts, arguments, or debates, although the
objective of your writing should be to raise questions, respond to issues you identify, and
otherwise provide a critical position with relation to the readings. Also make sure your papers
present a clear and coherent argument. Please pay attention to staying within the stipulated word
limit. These papers are due in class on day of the discussion. Please note, NO late OR e-mail
submissions will be accepted! Together there papers are worth 20 points.
–Lead class discussion. Each student will be responsible for leading one class discussion on a
week of their choice. In the week you lead discussion you will be required to report on the
readings assigned for that week. In your presentation provide a brief summary of the work,
highlight its contributions, and outline its limitations and weaknesses. Also try to make some
intellectual connections with previous readings when possible. Handouts are encouraged. Oral
presentation selections will be made on the first day of class based on a voluntary first- comefirst served basis. You are not required to turn in a reaction paper on the day of your in-class
presentation. This will count 10 points towards the final grade.
–Final paper. This paper should be 10-12 pages, typewritten. You will select a topic related to
the themes covered in class, in consultation with the Instructor. Your paper can either be a
survey of literature on any one of topics discuss in class, or a theoretical essay on a course topic.
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You are expected to conduct independent research for this paper which will go substantially
beyond the readings covered in this course. A preliminary description and bibliography for your
paper needs to be submitted in class on February 19. For this final paper you are expected to
familiarize yourselves with prevailing citation styles. This paper will count 50 points towards the
final grade. You will be submitting two drafts of this paper–the first draft will be peer reviewed
and will be due on March 11. The revised version of this paper will be due in my office on
April 22.
Grades will be awarded on the following basis:
90-100 points = A
80-89 points = B
70-79 points = C
60-69 points = D
59 points and below = F.
Course policy. Students are expected to: attend all class sessions; to observe norms of courtesy
and respect for others that will facilitate serious discussion of sometimes controversial matters of
policy and politics; to submit work on the dates listed in the Course Calendar; and to observe
university and professional standards of academic integrity. Please see the additional university
policies. Plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in any of the
assignments, and will result in failing the course. Please consult the section on “Academic
Integrity” in the Student Handbook for further details. IT IS THE STUDENTS'
RESPONSIBILITY TO FAMILIARIZE THEMSELVES WITH THESE MATTERS AS
DEFINED BY THE UNIVERSITY.
COURSE SCHEDULE: SUBJECT TO MODIFICATION
Week 1
January 15
Introduction to Course
Week 2
January 22 Nationalist Politics of Reform and Empowerment
Required Readings:
1. Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran,” in Lila Abu Lughod, ed.,
Making Women: Feminism and Modernity in Middle East. (Princeton University Press, 1998)
PP: 91-125. E-READING
2. Sumanta Banerjee, “Marginalization of Women in Popular Culture,” in Sangari and Vaid eds.,
Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. (Rutgers University Press, 1990) PP127-179. EREADING
3. Film: Home and the World.
Week 3
January 29
Suffrage and Citizenship
Required Reading:
1. Antoinette Burton, “A Girdle Round the World: British ImperiaL Sisterhood and the Ideology
of Global Sisterhood”, in Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial
Culture, 1865-1915. (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1994): PP :171-206; 260-268. EREADING
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2. Ann Curthoys, “Citizenship, Race, and Gender: Changing Debates Over the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples and Rights of Women,” in Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan eds., Suffrage
and Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives. (NEW York: New York University Press,
1994): PP: 89-106. E-READING
3. Ann D.Gordon, “Stanton and the Right to Vote: On Account of Race and Sex,” in Ellen Carol
DuBois and Richard Cndida Smith eds., Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Feminist as Thinker: A Reader
in Documents and Essays. (New York: New York University Press, 2007)PP: 111-127. EREADING
Week 4
February 5
Feminist debates on Female Genital Mutilation
Required Reading:
1.Isabella R. Gunning, “Cutting Through Obfuscation: Female Genital Surgeries in Neoimperial
Culture,” in Ella Shohat, ed., Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age.
(Boston: MIT Press, 1998) PP: 203-224. E-READING
2. Leslye Amede Obiora, “Bridges and Barricades: Rethinking Polemics and Intransigence in the
Campaign Against Female Circumcision,” in Adrien Wing ed., Global Critical Race Feminism:
An International Reader. (New York: New York University Press, 2000) PP: 260-274. EREADING
3. Isabelle R. Gunning, “Uneasy Alliances and Solid Sisterhood: A Response to Professor
Obiora's 'Bridges and Barricades.'” in Adrien Wing ed., Global Critical Race Feminism: An
International Reader. (New York: New York University Press, 2000) PP: 275-284. EREADING
4. Film: Warrior Marks
Week 5
February 12
Politics of Veiling
Required Reading:
1.Joan Scott, “Introduction,” AND “The Headscarf Controversies,” in Politics of the Veil.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007) PP:1-41; and 185-187.E-READING
2. Saba Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on
the Eyptian Islamic Revival,” Cultural Anthropology 6, no.2, (2001) PP: 202-236. E-READING
3.Film: Under One Sky.
Week 6
February 19
Sex and Reproduction
Required Reading:
1. Andrea Smith, Chapter 4,“Better Dead than Pregnant: The Colonization of Native Women’s
Reproductive Health,”in Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. (Boston:
South End Press, 2005) PP: 79-108. E-READING
2. Loretta Ross, "African American women and Abortion, 1800-1970;" in Rima D. Apple and
Janet Golden, eds., Mothers and Motherhood: Readings in American History. (Columbus: Ohio
State University Press, 1997) PP: 259-277. E-READING
3. Sarah Hodges, “Introduction, “ Towards a History of Reproduction in Modern India,” in
Hodges ed., Reproductive Health in India: History, Politics, Controversies.( India: Orient
Longman, 2006) PP:1-21.E-READING
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Week 7
February 26
Globalization and Prostitution
Required Reading:
1. Kamala Kempado, “Unpacking the Trafficking Discourse”, in Kempadoo ed., Trafficking and
Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration. (Paradigm Publishers, 2005) PP: 326. E-READING
2. Gail Hershatter, Part IV: “Interventions: Reformers, Regulators and Revolutionaries,” in
Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth Century Shanghai. (Berkkeley:
California University Press,1997) PP: 245-326; and 495-519. E-READING
Week 8
March 4
Building Global Feminist Connections: Promises and
Challenges–I
Required Reading:
Uma Narayan & Sandra Harding, Decentering The Center : Philosophy for a Multicultural,
Postcolonial, and Feminist World. Chapters: 1,2,4.
Week 9
March 11
Building Global Feminist Connections: Promises and
Challenges–II
Required Reading:
Uma Narayan & Sandra Harding, Decentering The Center : Philosophy for a Multicultural,
Postcolonial, and Feminist World. Chapters: 5,11,15.
Week 10
March 18
SPRING BREAK!
Week 11
March 25 Mapping Feminist Conversations Across Borders
Required Reading:
1. bell hooks and Amalia Mesa-Bains, Homegrown : Engaged Cultural Criticism. (Boston:
South End Press, 2006).
Week 12
April 1
Negotiating Patriarchal Control and Expressions of Feminist
Subjectivities-I
Required Reading:
1. Miriama Bâ , So Long a Letter. Heinemann Reprint, 1989.
2. Film: Nu-Shu
Week 13
April 8
Negotiating Patriarchal Control and Expressions of Feminist
Subjectivities-II
Required Reading:
Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns. (Riverhead Hardcover, 2007).
OR
Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban : A Novel. (New York : Ballantine Books, 1993).
Week 14
April 15—NO CLASS! Work on the final paper!
WEEK 15: April 22 Final paper due !
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