Juliet Hooker

This course explores the variety of feminisms developed by women of color and non-western women to critique the racism and ethnocentrism of white-dominated systems and practices, including feminism. Its overall concern is with the contemporary re-conceptualizations of feminism in light of "difference" as a result of the critical perspectives developed by women of color. We begin by examining the dominant approaches to feminist theory that emerged in the United States and Europe, such as liberal, Marxist, and radical feminism, as well as feminist epistemology and post-modern feminist analyses. We will then focus on the critiques of these traditions developed by women of color and their insistence on the need to address the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class.  Finally, we will examine recent debates regarding the politics of sexuality, the role of men in feminism, the relationship between race, gender and sexuality, and Arab feminism.

Grading Policy

Grades will be assessed based on class participation, 2 short essays, and a final paper. 

STUDY ABROAD COURSE

Course Description

This course will examine the politics of race, culture, nation, and political mobilization among Afro-Caribbean communities on Central America’s Caribbean Coast. It will discuss the historical process by which these communities were formed in the region during the colonial era, different periods of labor migration, the emergence of anti-Black mestizo nationalism, and contemporary struggles for racial justice. Students will learn how Afro-Caribbean populations have drawn from their Caribbean roots to navigate and resist persistent patterns of racial, gender, and economic inequality and have challenged the racially defined limits of citizenship and national belonging within mestizo nation-states. The course will provide students with a foundation for understanding larger racial formation patterns in Central America and ground this analysis in historical and ethnographic studies of Afro-Caribbean populations in Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and Belize.

This course explores the variety of feminisms developed by women of color and non-western women to critique the racism and ethnocentrism of white-dominated systems and practices, including feminism. Its overall concern is with the contemporary re-conceptualizations of feminism in light of "difference" as a result of the critical perspectives developed by women of color. We begin by examining the dominant approaches to feminist theory that emerged in the United States and Europe, such as liberal, Marxist, and radical feminism, as well as feminist epistemology and post-modern feminist analyses. We will then focus on the critiques of these traditions developed by women of color and their insistence on the need to address the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class.  Finally, we will examine recent debates regarding the politics of sexuality, the role of men in feminism, the relationship between race, gender and sexuality, and Arab feminism.

This course explores the variety of feminisms developed by women of color and non-western women to critique the racism and ethnocentrism of white-dominated systems and practices, including feminism. Its overall concern is with the contemporary re-conceptualizations of feminism in light of "difference" as a result of the critical perspectives developed by women of color. We begin by examining the dominant approaches to feminist theory that emerged in the United States and Europe, such as liberal, Marxist, and radical feminism, as well as feminist epistemology and post-modern feminist analyses. We will then focus on the critiques of these traditions developed by women of color and their insistence on the need to address the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class.  Finally, we will examine recent debates regarding the politics of sexuality, the role of men in feminism, the relationship between race, gender and sexuality, and Arab feminism.

Grades will be assessed based on class participation, 3 short essays, and a final paper.