Women’s Studies 604: Fall 2011
Gender, Culture, and Representation
Dr. Elizabeth Colwill
Office: AL 311; Office Hrs: 10-12 Tues., 3:30-6 Thurs., and by appointment.
Email colwill@mail.sdsu.edu.
What is culture? How do institutions, nations, culture brokers, and communities produce,
transmit, and transform cultural values and (sexual, gendered, racial, religious, national,
ethnic) identities? What kinds of cultural and political work do representations of women
and femininity, men and masculinity perform? How do people in diverse social locations
make meaning of what they see, hear, and feel during visual, oral, and corporeal
performances? How have marginalized groups appropriated and reinterpreted specific
cultural genres to define their own personal and collective identities? How do the politics
of representation and self-presentation--who speaks for whom, under what conditions,
and to what ends?--illuminate the working of power? These are among the guiding
questions of WMNST 604 “Gender, Culture, and Representation.”
This incarnation of “Gender, Culture, and Representation” will take as its focus the
relationships among gender, culture, power, and social change. Drawing upon theories of
“gender,” “culture,” and “representation,” we’ll explore women’s cultural production as
well as gendered and racialized strategies of cultural representation in contexts that range
from the 18th-century Haitian Revolution to Hurricane Katrina and 9/11.
The course begins by asking “how representation matters” through a case study of 9/11.
Here we explore the role of representations of traumatic events in forging local, national,
and transnational allegiances, and encounter gendered and racialized images that may
serve as vehicles for competing narratives of “nation” and “community.”
Next, we tackle the theoretical foundations of “gender, culture, and representation”
through an interdisciplinary exploration of diverse modes of creative expression
including film, oral traditions, dance, poetry, photography, painting, music, and political
performance. How, we will ask, do various cultural performances or languages “speak”
to particular audiences through gendered, racial, and sexual tropes? Feminist cultural
theory broadens prior models of cultural experience by suggesting that all forms of
culture condition, and are conditioned by, intersectional relations of power. In this unit,
we will investigate feminist theories concerning cultural representation and appropriation,
spectatorship and subjectivity, power and disempowerment, silence and voice.
Next, we will apply these theoretical insights to a case study of Haiti, from its origins in
revolution to the earthquake that decimated the country in January 2010. We will explore
how particular representational practices signify “difference” and structure modes of
“seeing” in ways that produce “knowledge” about the “other.” Through what gendered
and racial tropes have culture producers within and outside of Haiti advanced,
interpreted, and resisted social change? How have women and other marginalized groups
challenged dominant representational regimes through their own forms of cultural
production?
1
The last third of the course—co-created and taught by students in the class--will extend
the theme of gender, culture and representation into students’ areas of interest and
expertise. Drawing from gender history, cultural studies, feminist film and media studies,
and feminist theories of performativity and visual culture, this course invites participants
to become more sensitive readers of the gendered dynamics of cultural production and
the global cultures in which we live.
Learning Objectives:
 Develop a deeper understanding of the meanings of culture, and of how culture
informs subjective experience;
 Learn to read the deployment of specific representations of gender, race, ethnicity,
nationality, class, age, and sexuality as interventions in broader social and
political debates;
 Deepen our knowledge of feminist cultural activism and of women as producers
of culture;
 Cultivate an analytical approach to visual, oral, and performance cultures,
including a sensitivity to silences and exclusions in different cultural genres;
 Develop a stronger grasp of cultural representation, cultural appropriation, and
cultural activism and their relationship to gender, religion, sexuality, race,
ethnicity, class, ablebodiedness, and nation.
 Create a classroom space for intellectual exploration, self-reflection and respectful
listening across lines of difference and similarity.
ASSIGNMENTS/GRADING
Seminar Attendance and Participation (20% of grade)
This advanced graduate seminar assumes your dedication, preparation, and engagement.
It provides a unique opportunity, individually and collectively, to push ourselves to
engage passionately, to listen deeply, to think creatively, to read and to write from the
perspective of activists and intellectuals: producers rather than simply consumers of
books and ideas. Graduate school may be one of the few times in life that we have the
privilege to immerse ourselves in books, thought, and discussion. Each seminar is a
potential celebration of the possibilities of collective exchange. The quality of our
discussions depends upon each participant’s level of preparation.
We will read several articles, or a book and an article each week. Students whose
schedule cannot accommodate this reading load should consider a different class. Since
informed, creative discussion is the essence of a seminar, and since each session will
build upon those that came before, plan to arrive in seminar alive, engaged, and prepared
to participate, with writing assignment in hand. Absences, including late arrivals or early
departures, are disruptive to the learning community, and will affect your grade. Plan to
arrive five minutes early rather than two minutes late. (Discuss any absolutely
unavoidable absence with me in advance.) Careful notes on your reading, as well as your
verbal comments, provide me with evidence of your preparation for class.
Seminar Facilitation #1: (10% of grade)
2
All students will co-teach one seminar in the first ten weeks of class. Please look through
the syllabus carefully and make a note of your top three choices. Seminar facilitators
collaboratively: A) Develop a brief (10-minute) powerpoint presentation that provides
background on the authors and contexts of that week’s reading. The powerpoint should
also present an example from the visual or performing arts (music, dance, sculpture,
painting), the media, or other forms of cultural production that illuminates some of the
issues raised by the texts assigned that week. B) Develop a set of primary and subsidiary
questions to guide the class through the seminar. Discuss these questions with the
professor at least one week before the seminar, then email the revised version to
classmates by Saturday night.
Weekly Written Interventions and Questions: (20% of grade)
Since writing challenges us to think clearly, each week there will be a short writing
assignment (approximately two pages, double-spaced, times font, 12-point, 1” margins on
all four sides) on the reading. Each assignment should accomplish three goals: A)
summarize in one or two succinct sentences the most important contributions made by
EACH assigned article or book to your understanding of gender, culture, and/or
representation; B) develop your own reflections on the reading. These reflections may
range from an exposition on the significance of the reading, to a critical review, to
personal reflections that relate directly to the reading. C) Conclude with two interpretive
questions that you would like to discuss in seminar.
Written Review of Cultural Exhibition, Performance, Production (20% of grade)
Attend and write a critical review of a cultural performance or exhibit in the SDSU or
San Diego/Tijuana community that highlights cultural representations that focus upon
women, gender, and/or sexuality. You may attend a museum exhibit, a dance or musical
performance, a theatrical production, a spoken word performance, or a political event.
The goal is to draw upon at least three class readings to open new theoretical perspectives
on the performance or exhibition that you attended. The paper should be at least four
pages, double-spaced, times font, 12-point, 1” margins on all four sides.
Student-Designed Seminar, Paper, and Performance (30% of grade)
In the tradition of feminist pedagogies, the last third of this course will be student
designed and student led. After a class discussion in which students determine
collectively the focus for the last four weeks, we will divide into small groups. Each
group is responsible for designing and teaching one full class period.
Each group will choose and acquire readings for the class (3-4 articles per class session),
develop a class plan, devise discussion questions, and divide responsibilities for
facilitation. Please meet with me (with all members present) at least once early in the
planning process, and send me a class outline at least one full week prior to the
presentation date for my feedback.
Unlike the facilitation in the first 10 weeks, each student-designed session in the last four
weeks of class will incorporate original performances/presentations, based on
independent research. I strongly encourage those with an artistic bent to create and
3
present their own work (poetry, dance, fiction, visual arts, ritual), and to incorporate it
into the presentation. Each presentation must include a creative component (an example
drawn from the visual or performing arts, or from some form of women’s cultural
production), and each must be accompanied by a research paper (at least ten pages,
excluding bibliography; six pages if your project includes an original creative
performance or piece of art). The paper is due on the date of the presentation. I will
distribute further guidelines after students choose themes for those weeks. Meet with me
as early as possible in the semester to discuss your paper.
Performance length will vary depending upon the size of each group, but plan on
approximately 10 minutes per person. The strongest performances are often collaborative,
thus a three-person facilitation group would produce a collaborative performance of ½
hour.
BLACKBOARD:
Blackboard will be an essential method of communication in the class. Please check
blackboard at least two or three times a week. Often I will post items during the week that
need to be printed and brought to class. Alterations in the syllabus will also appear here.
If you have any questions on how to access Blackboard, please check the Blackboard
Help and Support website: http://its.sdsu.edu/bbsupport/.
READINGS: You will find ALL of the required readings for the course on
Blackboard in the Course Documents folder, posted under the appropriate week.
The only exceptions are the following required texts, available for purchase at KB
Books (5191 College Ave, 619-287-2665). We will also try to place copies of the texts
below on Reserve at the SDSU library.
 Stuart Hall, ed., Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying
Practices (Sage, UK, 1997)
 Leonora Sansay, Secret History: or, The Horrors of St. Domingue and Laura, ed.
Michael J. Drexler (Broadview Editions:Petersborough, Ontario, 2007)
 Martin Munro, ed., Haiti Rising: Haitian History, Culture, and the Earthquake of
2010 (University of the West Indies Press: Mona, Kingston, Jamaica, 2010)
 Edwidge Danticat, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work
(Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2010)
COURSE OUTLINE
INTRODUCTION: IN THE EVENT—HOW REPRESENTATION MATTERS
Week 1: August 29
Constructing the Nation: Domesticity, Race, and Representation
READ:
Morrison,“The Dead of September 11,” Ann Cvetkovich, “Trauma Ongoing,” and
Marianne Hirsch, “I Took Pictures,” and Suheir Hammad, “first writing since,” in
Trauma at Home: After 9/11, ed. by Judith Greenberg (Lincoln: University of Nebraska,
2003)”
(don’t miss the link to Suheir Hammad’s spoken word performance—thanks to Kari
Szakai: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fhWX2F6G7Y)
4
Inderpal Grewal, “Transnational America: Race, Gender and Citizenship after 9/11,”
Social Identities 9/4 (2003): 535-561.
UNIT I: FOUNDATIONS: THEORIZING GENDER, CULTURE, and
REPRESENTATION
Week 2: September 12
Cultural Studies and Feminist Cultural Theory (Since two weeks elapse between our
first and second class meetings, plan to divide your time as follows: by Sept. 5, complete
Stuart Hall on cultural studies, and by Sept. 12, complete the feminist cultural theorists.)
READ: Stuart Hall, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices
chap 1, The Work of Representation.
Gloria Anzaldúa, “Haciendo Caras, una entrada,” introduction to Making Face, Making
Soul.
Recommended: Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic,” in Sister Outsider (1984).
Anne Donadey with Françoise Lionnet, “Feminisms, Genders, Sexualities,” Introduction
to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literatures, ed. David G. Nicholls (New York:
Modern Language Association, 2007), 225-244.
Recommended: Suzanna Danuta Walters, “From Images of Women to Woman as
Image,” Material Girls: Making Sense of Feminist Cultural Theory (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1995).
Week 3: September 19
Viewing Positions: Gender, Visual Culture, and Feminist Film Theory
In class screen John Berger, “Ways of Seeing”
READ:
Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”; bell hooks, “The Oppositional
Gaze: Black Female Spectators”; and Judith Halberstam “The Transgender Look” in
Gender and Visual Culture
Jane Gaines, “White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film
Theory”
Kobena Mercer, “Reading racial fetishism: the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe,” in
Visual Cultures: A Reader
Week 4: September 26
Corporeal Performance: Music and Dance
READ:
Susan Leigh Foster, Choreographing Empathy (excerpts)
Judy Kutulas, “’You Probably Think This Song is About You’: 1970s Women’s Music
from Carole King to the Disco Divas,” in Disco Divas: Women and Popular Culture in
the 1970s, ed. Sherrie A. Inness (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003)
pp. 172-194.
Alice Echols, Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture (NY: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2010), chaps. 2-3
Week 5: October 3
Artistic Encounters
5
READ:
Griselda Pollock, “Differencing: Feminism’s encounter with the canon,” in Differencing
the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art’s History (London: Routledge, 1999),
pp. 23-38.
Gloria Anzaldua, “La conciencia de la mestiza—Towards a New Consciousness,” and
“To Live in the Borderlands means...,” in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza,
pp. 99-113, 216-217
Laura E. Pérez, Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities. Duke
University Press, 2007, pp. 1-16, 257-296.
October 5: SDSU Women's Studies Department--Day of Action: The Effects of Budget
Cuts on Women. See https://www.facebook.com/dayofactionsdsu
Week 6: October 10
Cultural Performance, Political Protest, and The Spectacle of Violence: Katrina and
its Legacies
READ:
Emmanuel David, “Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Gendered Collective Action: The
Case of ‘Women of the Storm’ Following Hurricane Katrina,” NWSA Journal (2008):
138-162
Rachel Luft, “Looking for Common Ground: Relief Work in Post-Katrina New Orleans
as an American Parable of Race and Gender Violence, ” NWSA Journal (2008)
Stuart Hall, chap 4 “The Spectacle of the ‘Other’” in your textbook, Representation
In class SCREEN: clips from Spike Lee, “When the Levees Broke” (documentary 2007)
In class VIEW: graphic art of Kara Walker, After the Deluge
UNIT 2: CONTEXTS: SPOTLIGHT ON HAITI
Week 7: October 17
Representations of Revolution: Heroes and Villains
Marlene Riaud Apollon, “When They Write History,” and “Blood-Sun” in I Want to
Dance (Baltimore: American Literary Press, 1996), pp. 33-35.
Doris Garraway, “Race, Reproduction and Family Romance in Saint-Domingue,” in The
Libertine Colony, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), pp. 240-292.
David Geggus, chap. 1, “The Haitian Revolution,” in Haitian Revolutionary Studies
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), pp. 5-29.
Elizabeth Colwill, “Bearing Witness to Freedom”
Week 8: Oct. 24
Silencing the Past
Leonora Sansay, Secret History: or, The Horrors of St. Domingo, and Laura
Week 9: October 31
Reclamation: Writing, Ritual, and Resistance
Edwidge Danticat, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work
Marlene Rigaud Apollon, “We Were Never Young,” in I Want to Dance, pp. 6-7
6
Claudine Michel, “Vodou in Haiti: Way of Life and Mode of Survival,” in Invisible
Powers: Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture (NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006), pp. 27-37.
In class VIEW: art of Eduard Duval Carrié
Week 10: November 7
Representation and Self-Presentation: Who Speaks for Whom?
Martin Munro, ed., Haiti Rising: Haitian History, Culture, and the Earthquake of 2010
(University of the West Indies Press: Mona, Kingston, Jamaica, 2010)
Screen: Updates from “Poto Mitan”
APPLICATIONS (Student Created)
November 14
November 21
November 28
December 5
7
CLASS POLICIES:
Technology
I check email every evening. It may take me one or two days to get back to you, depending
upon my schedule. I do not answer work-related emails on the weekends, in the belief that it
is important for us to create and to model for one another a world in which there is some
harbor from technology and space for other aspects of our lives.
Please, no cell phones or laptops in class, unless specifically required for a presentation.
______________________________________________________________________
Regarding Students with special needs
Students who need accommodation of disabilities should contact me privately to discuss
specific accommodations for which they have received authorization. If you have a
disability, but have not contacted Student Disability Services at 619-594-6473 (Calpulli
Center, Third Floor, Suite 3101), please do so before making an appointment to see me.
_______________________________________________________________________
Regarding Plagiarism
Cheating and plagiarism are serious offenses. You are plagiarizing or cheating if you:
 For written work, copy anything from a book, article or website and add or paste
it into your paper without using quotation marks and/or without providing the full
reference for the quotation, including page number
 For written work, summarize / paraphrase in your own words ideas you got from
a book, article, or the web without providing the full reference for the source
(including page number in the humanities)
 For an oral presentation, copy anything from a book, article, or website and
present it orally as if it were your own words. You must summarize and
paraphrase in your own words, and bring a list of references in case the professor
asks to see it
 Use visuals or graphs you got from a book, article, or website without providing
the full reference for the picture or table
 Recycle a paper you wrote for another class
 Turn in the same (or a very similar paper) for two classes
 Purchase or otherwise obtain a paper and turn it in as your own work
 Copy off of a classmate
 Use technology or smuggle in documents to obtain or check information in an
exam situation
In a research paper, it is always better to include too many references than not enough.
When in doubt, always err on the side of caution. If you have too many references it
might make your professor smile; if you don’t have enough you might be suspected of
plagiarism.
If you have any question or uncertainty about what is or is not cheating, it is your
responsibility to ask your instructor.
8
Consequences of cheating and plagiarism
Consequences are at the instructor’s and the Judicial Procedures Office’s discretion.
Instructors are mandated by the CSU system to report the offense to the Judicial
Procedures Office. Consequences may include any of the following:






failing the assignment
failing the class
warning
probation
suspension
expulsion
For more detailed information, read the chapter on plagiarism in the MLA Handbook for
Writers of Research Papers (6th edition, 2003); visit the following website
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml and talk to your professors
before turning in your paper or doing your oral presentation if anything remains unclear.
The University of Indiana has very helpful writing hints for students, including some on
how to cite sources. Please visit http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets.shtml for more
information.
9