Introduces students to a transnational feminist approach by critically analyzing gendered controversies from different historical-political conjunctures and parts of the world. Examples might include debates on Sati (widow immolation) in colonial India, so-called honor-killings in the Middle East, foot-binding in China, female circumcision in Sub-Saharan Africa, veiling and the practices of Muslim parents (such as exempting their children from co-ed swimming and/or gym classes) in contemporary Europe, and gender-testing in the Olympics. Among the questions that this course will ask: What gendered practices tend to elicit public outrage? What kinds of power relations does this outrage both depend on and enable? Which bodies tend to become the objects of moral panic? What anxieties are articulated, projected and displaced through these controversies? And what can we learn about modernity, colonialism, multiculturalism, feminism, humanitarianism, and power by analyzing the politics of such gendered controversies from a critical transnational feminist perspective? Meets the Critical Perspectives: Global Cultures requirement. Meets the Equity and Power: EPG requirement. (Not offered 2024-25).

Degree requirement — Critical Perspectives: G, Equity and Power: EPG

.5 or 1 unit

No offerings are currently scheduled.