Feminism, Empire and Postcoloniality
Gallatin School of Individualized Study
New York University
Professor: Marie Cruz Soto
Office: 1 Washington Place Room 615
Office Hours: T 2-4pm (TR 8:30-9:30am by appt.)
Link for Appointments: http://goo.gl/K9GwY
Contact: m.cruz@nyu.edu or 212 992-7761
Course: IDSEM-UG 1523
& SCA-UA 721
Semester: Fall 2015
Time: Tues. & Thurs. 11-12:15pm
Location: 527, 1 Washington Place
Photograph of street art in Mallorca, Spain
(http://urbanartgallery.blogspot.com/)
Course Description:
Jamaica Kincaid once said, “I now consider anger as a badge of honor. [It is] the first
step to claiming yourself.” Anger, rather than Betty Friedan’s “problem that has no
name,” has haunted the lives of many women marked by the violence of (post)colonial
encounters. Imperial projects, in fact, have long been sustained through hierarchical
categorizations that marginalize colonized subjects and more specifically women. Yet,
amidst the violence and anger, women challenge on a daily basis the most common
conceptions of what may constitute feminist struggles and solidarities.
The course “Feminism, Empire and Postcoloniality” delves into the particularities of
women’s experiences, struggles and solidarities through an exploration of the following
questions. How have (post)colonial encounters shaped gender, racial, class and sexual
identities? How have women built solidarities amidst (or perhaps based on the shared
experience of) violence? And, how have gender, racial, class and sexual negotiations
redefined the history of colonies, empires and the broad postcolonial world? The course
builds on an expanded definition of violence that includes but is not limited to overt
physical and/or verbal abuse. It also does not take (post)coloniality as a geographically
bound category, but rather as a reference to the unequal power relationships resulting
from modern colonial-imperial interactions.
Course Objectives:
The main goals of the course are to: familiarize with feminist postcolonial thought,
delve into the experiences of women particularly affected by (post)coloniality, explore
the multiple meanings of violence and solidarity in the context of (post)colonial feminist
struggles, and understand the relevance of gender, race, sex and class in the study of
colonial and imperial histories.
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Course Requirements:
To successfully complete the course, students are required to attend and participate
actively in class, write twelve reactions and two essays, and do a class presentation.
The final grade for the course is divided into four parts: participation, first essay, second
essay and class presentation. Participation and the two essays are each worth 30% of
the final grade. The class presentation is 10% of the final grade.
The participation grade depends on the careful reading of course texts, attendance, and
active involvement in class discussions. Students are expected to contribute on a
regular basis to discussions with respectful and informed comments that engage the
course texts. In terms of attendance, each student is entitled to one non-justified
absence. Each absence thereafter will result in a one-fifth deduction of the participation
grade.
The participation grade also depends on the writing of twelve reactions. These should
identify connections between the readings and topic for a particular week. Reactions are
not summaries, but rather critical and creative commentaries. The reactions are to be
posted online at NYU Classes by the Saturday of the week assigned.
The first essay, due on Tuesday October 6th, will address postcolonial feminist theory.
The second essay, due on Tuesday December 15th, will focus on a particular postcolonial
feminist struggle. The two essays, together comprising at least 20 pages of written
work, are to be handed in at the beginning of class. In addition, digital copies must be
submitted in NYU Classes by the assigned deadlines. Students should visit NYU
Classes for detailed instructions about the writing of these essays.
The class presentation will be based on the second essay. Students will develop their
own topic in close dialogue with the professor. The grade will depend on the
rigorousness of the research, as well as on the creativity and effectiveness in
communicating with class peers. The class presentation should help students think
about their final essay.
Deadlines:
Reactions and essays should be submitted within the established deadlines. Late papers
will not be accepted except with valid and preferably written medical excuses.
Incompletes are not an option. If a student has a compelling reason for wanting an
incomplete, the student should talk to the professor before the last day of class.
Accommodations:
Students who require accommodations because of a disability should visit the Henry and
Lucy Moses Center (726 Broadway, 2nd Floor) and talk to the professor during the first
week of class.
Writing:
Writing is an essential part of the course and of academic life in general. Great ideas
can be lost if the writing is not clear and evocative. Students are therefore encouraged
to visit the professor during office hours and the Gallatin Writing Center (1
Washington Place, Room 423) to discuss the writing process.
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Gallatin Statement on Academic Integrity:
“As a Gallatin student you belong to an interdisciplinary community of artists and
scholars who value honest and open intellectual inquiry. This relationship depends on
mutual respect, responsibility, and integrity. Failure to uphold these values will be
subject to severe sanction, which may include dismissal from the University. Examples
of behaviors that compromise the academic integrity of the Gallatin School include
plagiarism, illicit collaboration, doubling or recycling coursework, and cheating. Please
consult
the
Gallatin
Bulletin
or
Gallatin
website
[www.gallatin.nyu.edu/academics/policies/policy/integrity.html] for a full description
of the academic integrity policy.”
Additional Information:
The use of laptops and/or other electronic devices is not permitted in class.
Course Readings:
Kincaid, Jamaica. The Autobiography of My Mother. New York: Plume, 1997.
Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Ed.
Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. Trans. Ann Wright. London: Verso, 1987.
The rest of the readings are either in the coursepack or can be accessed through NYU
Classes. The books and coursepack can be purchased at the NYU Bookstore (726
Broadway).
Course Schedule:
WEEK I:
INTRODUCTION
 September 3rd 
Reading for September 3rd:
Mbembe, Achille. “What is Postcolonial Thinking?: An Interview with Achille
Mbembe.” Trans. John Fletcher. Esprit (December 2006). Eurozine. January
9, 2008. Eurozine. August 20, 2014 <http://www.eurozine.com/articles/200801-09-mbembe-en.html>. -NYU ClassesWEEK II:
POSTCOLONIAL FEMINISMS
 September 8th and 10th 
Reaction One
Readings for September 8th:
Narayan, Uma. “Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of
Cultural Essentialism.” Hypatia 13:2 (Spring 1998): 86-106. -NYU ClassesSunder Rajan, Rajeswari and You-me Park. “Postcolonial Feminism/Postcolonialism
and Feminism.” A Companion to Postcolonial Studies. Eds. Henry Schwarz and
Sangeeta Ray. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2005. 53-71. Coursepack-
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Readings for September 10th:
Anzaldúa, Gloria. “Toward a Mestiza Rhetoric: Gloria Anzaldúa on Composition,
Postcoloniality, and the Spiritual.” Interviews/Entrevistas. Ed. AnaLouise
Keating. New York: Routledge, 2000. 252-255. -CoursepackMohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Transnational Feminist Crossings: On Neoliberalism and
Radical Critique.” Signs 38:3 (Summer 2013): 967-991. –NYU ClassesSharpe, Jenny. “A Conversation with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Politics and the
Imagination.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28:2 (Winter
2003): 609-624. -NYU ClassesWEEK III:
FEMINIST DIALOGUES…FROM THE UNITED STATES
 September 15th and 17th 
Reaction Two
Readings for September 15th:
Friedan, Betty. “Chapter 1: The Problem That Has No Name.” The Feminine
Mystique. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1963. 15-32. America
in Class.
2014.
National Humanities Center.
August 20, 2014
<http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ows/seminars/tcentury/FeminineMystiq
ue.pdf>. -NYU Classes“Robin Morgan, Radical Feminism, 1975.” Out of Many: A History of the American
People (Documents Set). II. 4th ed. Eds. John Mack Faragher et al. Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003. 445-447. -CoursepackSeneca Falls Convention. The Declaration of Sentiments. 1848. Internet Modern
History Sourcebook. Ed. Paul Halsall. 1998. Fordham University. August 20,
2014 <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Senecafalls.asp>. –NYU ClassesCobble, Dorothy Sue, Linda Gordon and Astrid Henry. Feminism Unfinished: A Short,
Surprising History of American Women’s Movements. New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, Inc., 2014. –Suggested BookReadings for September 17th:
Anzaldúa, Gloria. “Making Choices: Writing, Spirituality, Sexuality and the Political.”
Interviews/Entrevistas. Ed. AnaLouise Keating. New York: Routledge, 2000.
156-158, 173-174. -CoursepackBhavnani, Kum-Kum and Angela Y. Davis. “Complexity, Activism, Optimism: An
Interview with Angela Y. Davis.” Feminist Review 31 (Spring 1989): 66-81. NYU Classeshooks, bell. “Sisterhood: Political Solidarity between Women.” Feminist Review 23
(Spring 1986): 125-138. –NYU ClassesLorde, Audre. “I am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities.”
Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Eds. Carole R.
McCann and Seung-Kyung Kim. New York: Routledge, 2003. 255-259. –
CoursepackTruth, Sojourner. “Ain’t I A Woman?” feminist.com. 2002. feminist.com. August 20,
2014 <http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/genwom/sojour.htm>. NYU Classes-
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WEEK IV:
WOMEN AND THE LEGACIES OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES
 September 22nd and 24th 
Reaction Three
Screening:
Daughters of the Dust. Dir. Julie Dash. Kino, 1991.
Reading for September 22nd and 24th:
Hill Collins, Patricia. “The Past Is Ever Present: Recognizing the New Racism” and
“No Storybook Romance: How Race and Gender Matter.” Black Sexual Politics:
African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York and London:
Routledge, 2004. 53-85 and 247-278. –NYU ClassesWEEK V:
(POST)COLONIAL BODIES, SEXUALITIES AND IMPERIAL POLICIES
 September 29th and October 1st 
Reaction Four
Reading for September 29th:
Stoler, Ann Laura. “Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual
Morality in Twentieth Century Colonial Cultures.” American Ethnologist 16:4
(November 1989): 634-660. -NYU ClassesReading for October 1st:
Levine, Philippa. “Orientalist Sociology and the Creation of Colonial Sexualities.”
Feminist Review. 65 (Summer 2000). 5-21. -NYU ClassesWEEK VI:
RACE, SEX AND GENDER IN THE CARIBBEAN
 October 6th and 8th 
First Essay Due Tuesday October 6th
Reaction Five
Readings for October 6th:
La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence. “1898 and the History of a Queer Puerto Rican
Century: Gay Lives, Island Debates, and Diasporic Experience.” Centro: Journal
of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies 11:1 (Fall 1999): 90-109. –NYU ClassesLa Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence. “Queer Diasporas, Boricua Lives: A Meditation on
Sexile.” Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas 41:2 (2008): 294-301. –
NYU ClassesReading for October 8th:
Mohammed, Patricia. “But most of all mi love me browning: The Emergence in
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Jamaica of the Mulatto Woman as the
Desired.” Feminist Review 65 (2000): 22-48. -NYU Classes-
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WEEK VII:
ANGRY FEMINISM FROM THE POSTCOLONIAL CARIBBEAN?
 October 15th 
Reaction Six
Reading for October 15th:
Kincaid, Jamaica. The Autobiography of My Mother. New York: Plume, 1997. –Book–
WEEK VIII:
ECOFEMINISM
 October 20th and 22nd 
Reaction Seven
Screening:
Science for Survival. Dir. Ani King-Underwood. Bullfrog Films, Inc., 1995.
Reading for October 20th:
Shiva, Vandana. “Golden Rice and Neem: Biopatents and the Appropriation of
Women’s Environmental Knowledge.” Women’s Studies Quarterly XXIX:1&2
(Spring/Summer 2001): 12-23. -NYU ClassesReading for October 22nd:
White, Monica M. “Sisters of the Soil: Urban Gardening as Resistance in Detroit.”
Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts 5:1 (Autumn 2001): 13-28. –
NYU ClassesWEEK IX:
(POST)COLONIAL BODIES, VIOLENCE AND TRADITIONS
 October 27th and 29th 
Reaction Eight
Screening:
Warrior Marks. Dir. Pratibha Parmar. Hauer Rawlence, 1993.
Reading for October 27th:
Mani, Lata. “Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India.” Cultural
Critique 7 (Autumn 1987): 119-156. -NYU ClassesReadings for October 29th:
Darby, Robert and J. Steven Svoboda. “A Rose by Any Other Name?: Rethinking the
Similarities and Differences between Male and Female Genital Cutting.”
Medical Anthropology Quarterly 21:3 (2007): 301-323. -NYU ClassesShell-Duncan, Bettina. “From Health to Human Rights: Female Genital Cutting and
the Politics of Intervention.” American Anthropologist 110:2 (June 2008): 225236. -NYU Classes-
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WEEK X:
REPRODUCTION, EMPIRE AND FEMINISMS
 November 3rd and 5th 
Guest Speaker Prof. Iris López on November 5th
Reaction Nine
Screening:
La Operación. Dir. Ana María García. Skylight Pictures, 1982.
Readings for November 3rd:
Roberts, Dorothy. “Black Women and the Pill.” Family Planning Perspectives 32:2
(March-April 2000): 92-93. –NYU Classes“Roe v. Wade (1973).” Out of Many: A History of the American People (Documents
Set). II. 4th ed. Eds. John Mack Faragher et al. Upper Saddle River, New
Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2003. 452-454. -CoursepackSanger, Margaret. “The Case for Birth Control.” Woman Citizen 8 (February 23,
1924): 17-18.
About.com.
2008.
About.com.
August 20, 2014
<http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_sanger_1924.htm>. -NYU
ClassesReadings for November 5th:
Briggs, Laura. “Discourses of ‘Forced Sterilization’ in Puerto Rico: The Problem with
the Speaking Subaltern.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies.
10:2 (1998). 30-66. -NYU ClassesLópez, Iraida. “Interview with La Operación’s Ana María García: Not many options for
contraception.” Jump Cut 29 (February 1984): 38-39. Jump Cut: A Review of
Contemporary Media.
2006.
Jump Cut.
August 20, 2014
<http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC29folder/AnaMariaGarciaI
nt.html>. -NYU ClassesLópez, Iris. “Chapter 7” and “Chapter 8.” Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women’s
Struggle for Reproductive Freedom. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press,
2008. 125-155. –NYU ClassesWEEK XI:
WOMEN, INDIGENEITY AND VIOLENCE IN CENTRAL AMERICA
 November 10th and 12th 
Reaction Ten
Reading for November 10th and 12th:
Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Ed.
Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. Trans. Ann Wright. London: Verso, 1984. -BookWEEK XII:
ISLAM AND FEMINISMS
 November 17th and 19th 
Reaction Eleven
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Screening:
Persepolis. Dir. Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi. Sony Pictures Classic, 2007.
Reading for November 17th:
Mahmood, Saba. “Retooling Democracy and Feminism in the Service of the New
Empire.” Qui Parle 16:1 (Summer 2006): 117-143. -NYU ClassesReading for November 29th:
Scott, Joan W. “Symptomatic Politics: The Banning of Islamic Head Scarves in French
Public Schools.” French Politics, Culture and Society 23:3 (Winter 2005): 106127. -NYU ClassesWEEK XIII:
MILITARISM AND FEMINIST CRITIQUE
 November 24th 
Reaction Twelve
Mama, Amina and Margo Okazawa-Rey. “Militarism, Conflict and Women’s Activism
in the Global Era: Challenges and Prospects for Women in Three West African
Contexts.” Feminist Review 101 (2012): 97-123. –NYU ClassesMohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Imperial Democracies, Militarised Zones, Feminist
Engagements.” Economic & Political Weekly XLVI:13 (March 26, 2011): 76-84.
–NYU ClassesWEEK XIV:
CLASS PRESENTATIONS
 December 1st and 3rd 
WEEK XV:
CLASS PRESENTATIONS
 December 8th and 10th 
WEEK XVI:
CONCLUSIONS
 December 15th 
Final Essay Due Tuesday December 15th