Dr. Litsa Chatzivasileiou
Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice
Office: Jack Bell Bld, Room 131
Office hours: Tue/Thu 12:30-1:30
Tel: 604-822-9171
E-mail:
ariadnesmaze@gmail.com
litsac@mail.ubc.ca
http://www.grsj.arts.ubc.ca
GRSJ 328-001: Theories of Subjectivity-Feminist Perspectives
Tue/Thu 11:00-12:30 pm.
Buchanan B 318
** Please note that my classroom policy is no laptops unless you have a documented
reason for using one **
**No electronic devices are permitted during class**
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The aim of this course is to provide a study of how women (and in some cases men)
construct, write, and represent selfhood and otherness in particular in their ethical
dimensions. We will examine a variety of theoretical models of subjectivity and
ideologies of self-representation by considering how the construction of the self, its
conceptualization, and its reception depend upon questions of gender, race, class, and
sexuality. The course has two methodological components or works in two different but
simultaneous directions: 1) It explores feminist and post-colonial theories of subject and
other that deconstruct the Western Enlightenment model of an autonomous and
independent (male, white) self that has excluded and marginalized a number of social
groups such as women and others. Our theoretical framework examines both continental
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
and anglo-feminist theories that focus on post-colonial concepts of the subject. Specific
emphasis is given on indigenous feminism. 2) The course has also a practical
component as it applies these theories to autobiographical narratives, diaries, journals,
and testimonial texts and films that attempt to narrate or “speak for the self,” or in many
problematic cases, for/on behalf of others. The practical component ranges from written
to visual life narratives and raises questions of agency, memory, authority, and
authenticity, voice, experience, embodiment, modes of self-knowledge and self-narration.
The autobiographical texts used as pivotal points of discussion are representative of a
variety of women’s writings from different cultural backgrounds and socio-historical
contexts including experimental forms of testimony such as quilt-making. In some cases,
we will work with film and celebrity memoirs, and men’s documentary/visual narratives
that exemplify certain theoretical problems studied in this class. In many of the texts
examined in our discussions we also explore the construction of the subject in terms of its
ethico-political ramifications, that is its role within colonial, neo-colonial and tyrannical
contexts, and within movements of social justice and emancipation. In this course
assignments include opportunities for creative art projects, or other types of assignments
that explore theoretical concepts or autobiography. For these assignments any woman’s
or man’s autobiographical text or testimonial film can be considered regardless of its
country of origin.
Required texts:
1) An anthology of theoretical articles and autobiographical narratives in a course pack
available at Staples at UBC
2) Films:
Phillip Noyce: Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
Jason Reitman: Juno (2007)
SYLLABUS (Tentative schedule)
Assignments and Evaluation
One term project: 30%
A short take- home essay: 25%
Participation: Attendance, participation, reading assignments including two
reports: 20%
Final exam: 25%
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
Note: Class attendance is expected. However, some of the classes may be dealing
with graphic material and strong content. If you feel uncomfortable with some of
the topics covered in class please talk to me.
*If a student misses more than 50% of the classes s/he receives a 0 in participation.
OUTLINE
January
Tuesday 6: Introduction to the course: objectives, assignments, and evaluation. Basic
terminology and methodological issues.
Theoretical readings: From Course Pack.
Elizabeth Grosz: “Essentialism and Its Cognates.”
Bill Ashcroft et al: “Subject/Subjectivity: Psychoanalysis; Ideology; Discourse;
Poststructuralism.”
Thursday 8: Indigenous Feminism and Post-Modernist Feminism.
Theoretical Readings: From Course Pack.
Jane Flax: “The End of Innocence.”
ONLINE: Andrea Smith: Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy:
Rethinking Women of Color Organizing.
http://www.iamsocialjustice.com/images/Color_of_Violence.pdf
Please also read:
Elizabeth Grosz: “Essentialism and Its Cognates.”
Bill Ashcroft et al: “Subject/Subjectivity: Psychoanalysis; Ideology; Discourse;
Poststructuralism.”
Tuesday 13: Radical Deconstructions of the Subject I.
Glossary terms: From Course Pack. “Self”; “Subjectivity;” “Individual.”
Theoretical Readings:
ONLINE: Lila Abu-Lughod: “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?”
http://org.uib.no/smi/seminars/Pensum/Abu-Lughod.pdf
Blogs:
1) “Why I Can't Celebrate Malala's Nobel Peace Prize”
http://middleeastrevised.com/2014/10/11/why-i-cant-celebrate-malalas-nobel-peaceprize/
2) Murtaza Hussain: “Malala and Nabila: Worlds Apart.”
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/11/malala-nabila-worlds-apart2013111938575499
Theoretical Readings: From Course Pack.
Elizabeth Grosz: “Phallic Sameness.”
Thursday 15: Radical Deconstructions of the Subject II.
Glossary term: From Course Pack. “Cyborg.”
Theoretical Readings: From Course Pack.
Donna Haraway: “A Cyborg Manifesto.”
Tuesday 20: Framing “the Subjugated Subject”
Theoretical reading: From Course Pack
Donna Haraway: “The Persistence of Vision.”
Reading the Subject in Autobiographies: Concepts and Methodological Approach.
Theoretical Reading: From Course Pack.
Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson: “A Tool Kit: Twenty Strategies For Reading Life
Narratives.”
Thursday 22: Visual Life Stories.
Glossary terms: From Course Pack.
Bill Ashcroft et al: “Diaspora”
“Behind the Veil” (Jessica Leeder/Globe and Mail)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/behind-the-veil/
REPORT 1 ON “BEHIND THE VEIL” DUE
Tuesday 27: Diasporic Subjects.
Glossary terms: From Course Pack. “Place.” Robin Cohen: “Comparing Diasporas:
Wittgenstein’s Rope” Only the general traits pp. 161-162.
Theoretical Readings: From Course Pack.
Stuart Hall: “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.”
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
Begin reading Allende’s Aphrodite pp. 5-53, 69-84, 90-92, 104-117
Thursday 29: Diasporic subjects continued.
Literary Text:
Dionne Brand: Selections from A Map to the Door of No Return.
Continue reading Allende’s Aphrodite pp. 122-129, 141-151, 172-175.
February
Tuesday 3: You Are What You Eat: Culinary Memoirs.
Theoretical Readings: From Course Pack.
Edward W. Said: Orientalism.
Paul Smethurst: “Mobility and Empire” (pp. 1-3 in Travel Writing, Form, and Empire)
Short Films:
Picturing Oriental(ist) Girls.
Edward Said: On Orientalism.
Continue reading Allende’s Aphrodite pp. 178-183, 193-199.
Thursday 5: Ravenous Subjectivity.
Glossary term: From Course Pack.
Tony Bennett et al: “Tourism.”
Theoretical Reading: From Course Pack.
Ali Behdad: “The Politics of Adventure: Theories of Travel, Discourses of Power” (pp.
80-84 in Travel Writing, Form, and Empire).
RSAnimate: Slavoj Zizek and the ethics of ravenous subjectivity or capitalist
charity.
Tuesday 10: Ravenous Subjectivity.
Literary Text: You are expected to have finished reading and prepare for this class
the excerpt from Isabel Allende’s: Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.
YouTube short: The Harem: Shohat on Arab Women in US popular culture
Thursday 12: Radical Deconstructions of the Subject III:
Glossary term: From Course Pack. “Exile”
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
Theoretical Reading: From Course Pack.
Theoretical Readings: From Course Pack.
Luce Irigaray: “This Sex Which Is Not One.”
SHORT ESSAY DUE
Tuesday 17/Thursday 19: Reading Break: No classes.
Tuesday 24:
Drucilla Cornell: “Gender, Sex, and Equivalent Rights.”
John Caputo: “The Feminine Imaginary and Messianic Feminism.”
Thursday 26: Messianic Feminism.
Glossary term: From Course Pack. “Nation/Nationalism.”
Theoretical Readings: From Course Pack.
Elizabeth Grosz: “The Force of Sexual Difference.”
Edward Said: “The Mind of Winter.”
March
Tuesday 3: Writing the Nomadic/Exiled Self: Messianic Feminism.
Theoretical Reading: From Course Pack.
Elizabeth Grosz: “Drucilla Cornell, Identity, and Politics.”
Literary Text: From Course Pack.
Nora Strejilevich: “Too Many Names.”
Thursday 5: Continuation of “Too Many Names.”
Theoretical Texts: From Course Pack.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: “Can The Subaltern Speak?”
ONLINE: Linda Alcoff: “The Problem of Speaking for Others.”
https://depts.washington.edu/egonline/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/AlcoffReading.pdf
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
Please view film: Rabbit-Proof Fence
Tuesday 10:
ONLINE: Katherine M. Bell: “Raising Africa?: Celebrity and the Rhetoric of the White
Savior”
http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/article/viewFile/3185/3399
BLOG: Claudette Carr: “The Banality of Pity: Aid, Africa, and the White Savior
Complex”
Literary Reading: From Course Pack.
Angelina Jolie: Selections from Notes From my Travels. (“Introduction”, pp. 3-5, 19-21,
22-23, 26-30, 58-64, 67-68, 79-81, and pictures by L. Taylor, pp. 127- 131, 136-149,
164-166, including “Afterword” and maps.)
Thursday 12: Under the Western I/Eye
Theoretical Reading: From Course Pack.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty: “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial
Discourses.”
BLOG: Pippa Biddle: “The Problem With Little White Girls (and Boys).”
https://medium.com/race-class/the-problem-with-little-white-girls-and-boysb84d4011d17e
Return to “The Persistence of Vision”: Compassionate Tourism or the cannibal
“I” /EYE of Corey Ogilvie
YouTube video: Streets of Plenty
Tuesday 17: Weaving/Writing Trauma: Textile Testimonies I.
Theoretical Text: From Course Pack.
Linda S. Maier: “Origins and Development of Testimonial Literature.”
Marjorie Agosín: selections from Tapestries of Hope, Threads of Love: The Arpillera
Movement.
The Ethics and Politics of the Pro-vocative Subject: Textile Testimonies II.
Viewing and discussion of Chilean Arpilleras.
Thursday 19: Under Western Eyes.
Literary Text: From Course Pack.
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
Elena Poniatowska: “And Here’s To You Jesusa.”
Tuesday 24: Indigenous Feminism and Anti-colonial Struggle.
Theoretical Text: From Course Pack.
1) Andrea Smith: Excerpt from Conquest: “Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide” and
“Anti-colonial Response to Gender Violence.”
2) ONLINE: Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang: “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor.”
http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18630/15554
Thursday 26: Indigenous Feminism and Anti-colonial Struggle and Organizing.
Theoretical Text:
BLOG:
Leanne Simpson: “Not Murdered and Not Missing.”
http://nationsrising.org/not-murdered-and-not-missing/
Film:
Rabbit-Proof Fence (Phillip Noyce, 2002)
REPORT 2 ON RABBIT-PROOF FENCE DUE.
Tuesday 31: The Fetus as Subject. Reproductive Politics.
Film:
Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007)
TERM PAPER/PROJECT DUE
April
Thursday 2: Continuation of Juno.
Tuesday 7: “Feminism from the gut”: The Cultural Politics of Emotion.
Theoretical Reading:
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
Sara Ahmed: “Feminist Attachments”.
Thursday 9: Conclusion and wrap-up of the course.
.
BREAK DOWN OF ASSIGNMENTS
For all assignments listed below you will be given detailed guidelines ahead of time.
1) The take-home short essay (Feb. the 12 th: 25%) This short take-home essay (6
pages minimum, 7 maximum) will ask you to analyze an autobiographical text
and apply to it theoretical concepts studied in class so far. You can use any of the
theory done in class so far to support your analysis of the text.
2) Participation (20%). Attendance and active contribution to class discussion is
expected. Participation does not mean just coming to class but implies your active
response to readings. Part of your participation mark is based on two oral
reports:
On “Behind the Veil” due on January 22.
On Rabbit-Proof Fence due on March 26.
3) Term project (30%). For your term project you can choose ONE of the
following:
a) A research paper that requires that you analyze an autobiographical text or
film/visual narrative not discussed in class and in consultation with me.
b) A theory paper that takes the form of a discussion of a theoretical issue.
For both a) and b) choices your paper should use bibliographic references that
support your thesis or argument. The strict number of minimum references
for a) and b) choices is 7 different sources. Minimum length of the paper is 8
pages maximum 9.
c) There is also the option of completing a creative project that deals with
issues of subjectivity raised in class. This option entails: the creative
project itself accompanied with a written commentary (minimum 7 pages)
that explains its theoretical aspects. Bibliographic references are also
required here: minimum 6 sources.
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
The creative projects will be exhibited/presented the last day of classes to
share with all students.
DEADLINE: Term paper/project is due on March the 31st: There will be
no extensions for the term project unless there are exceptional
circumstances which you are expected to discuss with me. A penalty of
2% off the mark for each day of not handing it in will be applied to the
final mark of the paper.
Note: all term projects must be discussed with me ahead of time.
4) Final exam (25%). The final exam will consist of two parts: PART I will ask you
to give a brief answer to a theoretical question based on the theory readings done
in class; PART II will ask you to write a brief essay analyzing an autobiographical
text.
TERM PROJECT CONSULTATION TIMES
Whether you choose to work on theory, autobiography or do a creative project your
topic and texts for your project are subject to approval. Please ensure that you
make an appointment with me ahead of time to discuss your project as the schedule
is fixed and there will be no guarantees that you will find a spot once all spots are
filled. Consultation hours for the term project are scheduled as follows:
January 15, 21, 20, 22, 27, 29: 1:30-3:00 pm
February 3, 5, 10, 12, 24, 26: 1:30-3:00 pm
March 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26: 1:30-3:00 pm
STATEMENT OF ACADEMIC STANDARDS
INSTITUTE FOR GENDER, RACE, SEXUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE COURSES
Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) is a multidisciplinary field, which
brings together teachers and students from a variety of academic backgrounds with often
quite different ways of articulating and responding to assignments. This diversity is an
intellectual asset. Nevertheless, some basics need to be set out so that evaluation
procedures can continue to be relatively standardized across all Institute courses. Each
instructor will, of course, adapt these general guidelines where necessary in their own
course but students should expect that the following guidelines are basic to all courses in
the GRSJ Program. GRSJ course assignments follow the conventions of grammar and
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.
punctuation expected in all academic writing. Language in GRSJ course assignments is
non-sexist, non-racist, and non-heterosexist. Arguments are logical and coherent, and
organization of materials is appropriate to the topic. Sources are cited following a
consistent footnote and bibliography format as appropriate in the field. Since plagiarism
is a serious offense, care should be taken to ensure that materials from other sources are
correctly attributed to their authors. How a paper is written and what it says are not
separate issues, but rather, components of the whole project and are evaluated
accordingly.
Statement of Respect: Students, instructors, visitors and readings/media in Institute for
Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice courses often raise controversial issues in the
course of classroom discussion. It is vital that your fellow students and the instructor be
treated respectfully at all times and in all interactions. Remember, one can disagree
without being disagreeable.
Support resources:
University students frequently encounter difficulties with time management, anxiety,
mood regulation and substance use that can impact academic performance and may
balloon into long-term problems. The following resources are just a few that are available
to UBC students.
UBC Live Well Learn Well (http://students.ubc.ca/livewell) UBC’s healthy living portal.
Find information about various healthy living initiatives on campus.
UBC Mental Health Network (http://www.ubcmhn.com/) List of mental health groups,
services, and initiatives on campus.
The Kaleidoscope (http://the-kaleidoscope.com/) On campus mental health support
group. Weekly meetings provide a safe, stigma-free environment to discuss mental health
concerns and coping strategies.
UBC Counseling/Health services (http://students.ubc.ca/livewell/services/counsellingservices) Your use of these services is in no way associated with your academic/student
record; this is a good place to seek referrals to treatment and support services.
 Litsa Chatzivasileiou. Not to be copied, used, or revised without explicit written
permission by the copyright owner.