COURSE OUTLINE

Session 1: January 28, 2025 – Introduction

The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka – chapt 1

Required Readings (34 pages):

• Chanter, T. 2007, “Introduction” and “Formative Moments,” in Gender: Key Concepts in Philosophy (New York: Continuum), pp.1-30.
• 1821, Petition to the Cherokee National Council by the Cherokee Women’s Councils (4 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́. The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. U of Minnesota Press, 1997. pp. 1-30.

Total Pages: Required (34), Suggested (30).

Session 2: February 4, 2025 – Gender and its Discontents

The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka – chapt 2-3

Required Readings (36 pages):

• De Beauvoir, S. 2011, The Second Sex (New York: Vintage), introduction (8 pages).
• Butler, Judith. “Gender is Burning.” In Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge, 2011, pp. 81-99 (18 pages).
• Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: An American grammar book.” In The Transgender Studies Reader Remix. Routledge, 2022, pp. 93-104 (11 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• hooks, bell (1982). Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. pp. 27-49 (22 pages).

Total Pages: Required (36), Suggested (22).

Session 3: February 11, 2025 – A Feminist Grammar

The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka – chapt 4
Required Readings (36 pages):

• Murphy, M. 2015, “Reproduction,” in Mojab, S. (ed.), Marxism and Feminism (Zed Books), pp. 287-305 (18 pages).
• Collective, Combahee River. “The Combahee River Collective Statement.” In Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, 1983: 264-274 (10 pages).
• Anzaldua, G. 1984, Borderlands / La Frontera, pp. 23-35 (12 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• hooks, bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” In Black American Cinema. Routledge, 2012, pp. 288-302 (14 pages).
• Fluegel, J.C. 2004, “The Great Masculine Renunciation,” in Purdy (ed.), The Rise of Fashion: A Reader (Minnesota UP), pp. 102-108 (6 pages).

Total Pages: Required (36), Suggested (20).

Session 4: February 18, 2025 – Racialized Gender, Racialized Feminisms

The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka – chapt 5

Film: Get Out (2017) by Jordan Peele.
Required Readings (34 pages):

• Jones-Rogers, Stephanie. They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, Chapter 1, pp. 1-24 (24 pages).
• The Most Overlooked And Underrated Characters In ‘Get Out’ Are Black Women by Brittany Willis (2 pages). Read online.
• Morrison, Toni. “What the Black ôWoman Thinks About Women’s Lib.” New York Times (1971), pp.ķķ1-8. o⁸

• Farris, Sara R. In the Name of Women’s Rights. Duke University Press, 2017. Introduction (16 pages).
• Gunn Allen, P. 1992, “The Red Roots of White Feminism,” in The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (Boston: Beacon Press), pp. 209-220 (11 pages).

Total Pages: Required (34), Suggested (27).

Session 5: February 25, 2025 – Trans Theory

The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka – chapt 6
Required Readings (35 pages):

• Namaste, Viviane. “Undoing Theory: The ‘Transgender Question’ and the Epistemic Violence of Anglo-American Feminist Theory.” In Hypatia, 24(3), 2009: pp. 11-22 (12 pages).
• McKenzie Wark, “Girls Like Us.” Read online (2 pages).
• Snorton, C. Riley. Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. U of Minnesota Press, 2017. Chapter 1, pp. 17-38 (21 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” In The Transgender Studies Reader Remix. Routledge, 1987, pp. 93-104 (11 pages).

Total Pages: Required (35), Suggested (11).

Session 6: March 4, 2025 – Silent and Revolutionary Dolls

The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka – chapt 7-8

Film: Ex Machina (2015) by Alex Garland – HBO Max.
Required Readings (36 pages):

• Sumi K. Cho, “Converging Stereotypes in Racialized Sexual Harassment.” In Wing, Adrien Katherine (ed.), Critical Race Feminism: A Reader. NYU Press, 2003, pp. 1-10 (10 pages).
• Shimizu, Celine Parreñas. The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene. Duke University Press, 2007, Ch. 1, pp. 1-26 (26 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Trevor Richardson, “Objectification and Abjectification in Ex Machina and Ghost in the Shell.” Read online (4 pages).
• Da’Shaun, L. Harrison. “Pretty Ugly: The Politics of Desire.” In Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. North Atlantic Books, 2021, pp. 11-32 (21 pages).

Total Pages: Required (36), Suggested (25).

Session 7: March 11, 2025 – Ecofeminism (Midterm Exam)

Film: Children of Men (2006) by Alfonso Cuarón – available on Hulu.
Required Readings (35 pages):

• Gumbs, Alexis Pauline. “Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals.” Soundings 78.78 (2021): 20-37 (17 pages).
• Mies, M. and Shiva, V. 2014, Ecofeminism (London: ZED Books), Introduction, pp. 1-18 (18 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Morton, T. 2010, “Queer Ecology,” PMLA 125(2), pp. 273-282 (9 pages).

Total Pages: Required (35), Suggested (9).

March 18 Spring Break – No Class

Session 8: March 25, 2025 – Disembodiment and the Office Wife

Film: Her (2014) by Spike Jonze – available on Apple TV and Amazon Prime.
Required Readings (35 pages):

• Ashley Bardhan, “Men Are Creating AI Girlfriends and Then Verbally Abusing Them,” Futurism.com (2 pages). Read online.
• Eva Gustavsson, “Virtual Servants: Stereotyping Female Front-Office Employees on the Internet,” Gender, Work & Organization 12(5), 2005: 400–419 (19 pages).
• Poster, Winifred R. “Racialized Surveillance in the Digital Service Economy.” In Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life, ed. Ruha Benjamin (Duke University Press, 2019), pp. 133-147 (16 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Benjamin, Ruha. Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life. Duke University Press, 2019. Introduction, pp. 1-15 (15 pages).

Total Pages: Required (35), Suggested (15).

Session 9: April 1, 2025 – Ho Theory: Controlling Images 

Film: WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion (Music Video).
Required Readings (35 pages):

• Srinivasan, Amia. “Talking to My Students About Porn.” In The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-first Century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021, pp. 33-38 (5 pages).
• Harrison, Da’Shaun L. “Pretty Ugly: The Politics of Desire.” In Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. North Atlantic Books, 2021, pp. 11-32 (21 pages).
• Lomax, Tamura. “Black Venus and Jezebel Sluts: Writing Race, Sex, and Gender.” In Jezebel Unhinged: Loosing the Black Female Body in Religion and Culture. Duke University Press, 2018, pp. 13-25 (12 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Srinivasan, Amia. “Talking to My Students About Porn.” In The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-first Century, pp. 38-65 (27 pages).

Total Pages: Required (35), Suggested (27).

Session 10: April 8, 2025 – Family Affair: Wife, Daughters, Motherhood

Film: The Zone of Interest (2023) by Jonathan Glazer.
Required Readings (35 pages):

• Hill Collins, Patricia. “Black Women and Motherhood.” In Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Taylor & Francis Group, 1990, pp. 198-205 (7 pages).
• Rich, Adrienne. “Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity.” In Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979–1985, 1986, pp. 100-123 (22 pages).
• Moslener, Sara. “White Women’s Bodies and the Dilemma of Purity Culture Recovery.” Read online (4 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Hill Collins, Patricia. “Black Women and Motherhood.” In Black Feminist Thought, pp. 187-215 (28 pages).
• Mattheis, Ashley A. “#TradCulture: Reproducing Whiteness and Neo-Fascism Through Gendered Discourse Online.” In Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness, 2021, pp. 91-101 (9 pages).

Total Pages: Required (35), Suggested (37).

Session 11: April 15, 2025 – Queer Theory

Film: Black Mirror – San Junipero (Season 3, Episode 4).
Required Readings (34 pages):

• Philyaw, Deesha. “Eula.” In The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Pushkin Press, 2022, pp. 1-11 (11 pages).
• Rich, Adrienne Cecile. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (1980).” Journal of Women’s History 15(3), 2003, pp. 18-23 (5 pages).
• Smith, Andrea. “Queer Theory and Native Studies: The Heteronormativity of Settler Colonialism.” In Queer Indigenous Studies, 2010, pp. 42-52 (10 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Rich, Adrienne Cecile. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (1980).” Journal of Women’s History, pp. 1-39 (39 pages).

Total Pages: Required (34), Suggested (39).

Session 12: April 22, 2025 – From Marxist Feminist to Girl Bossing

Film: Barbie (2023) by Greta Gerwig.
Required Readings (35 pages):

• Rich, Adrienne. “What Does a Woman Need to Know.” In Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose, 1985, pp. 1-9 (8 pages).
• Cecilia Rio, “‘On the Move’: African American Women’s Paid Domestic Labor and the Class Transition to Independent Commodity Production.” In Rethinking Marxism 17, 2005, pp. 489-510 (19 pages).
• Federici, Silvia. “Women, Reproduction, and the Commons.” In The South Atlantic Quarterly 118(4), October 2019, pp. 711-724 (23 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• مَست قَلَندَر, “Barbie’s White Feminism Problem.” Read online (2 pages).
• First International Congress of Working Women, Washington, D.C., October 28–November 6, 1919 (4 pages).

Total Pages: Required (35), Suggested (6).

Session 13: April 29, 2025 – The Violence of Women: Monsters, Revenge, and Saviors

Films:

• Monster (2003) by Patty Jenkins – Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
• Promising Young Woman (2020) by Emerald Fennell – Amazon Prime, Canal+.
• Gone Girl (2014) by David Fincher – Disney+ and Canal+.

Required Readings (35 pages):

• Cardi, Coline, and Geneviève Pruvost. “Thinking Women’s Violence.” In History of the Present 5(2), 2015: 200-216 (14 pages).
• Jordan, June. “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies.” (1 page).
• Gentry, Caron E., and Laura Sjoberg. “Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores.” In Thinking About Women’s Violence in Global Politics, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, Introduction, pp. 1-20 (20 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Gross, Kali. Vengeance Feminism: The Power of Black Women’s Fury in Lawless Times, 2024, pp. 1-13 (13 pages).

Total Pages: Required (35), Suggested (13).

Session 14: May 6, 2025 – Future(s)

Film: Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) by James Cameron – Disney Plus.
Required Readings (34 pages):

• James, Joy. “Captive Maternal Love: Octavia Butler and Sci-Fi Family Values.” In Literature and the Development of Feminist Theory, 2015, pp. 185-199 (14 pages).
• Asenap, Jason. “Avatar: The Way of Water or How Not to Make Indigenous Futurism Movies.” Read online (4 pages).
• Goeman, Mishuana. “‘Remember What You Are’: Gendering Citizenship, the Indian Act, and (Re)Mapping the Settler Nation-State.” In Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations, University of Minnesota Press, 2013, pp. 41–60 (20 pages).

Suggested Readings:

• Muñoz, José Esteban. Cruising Utopias: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, NYU Press, 2009, Introduction, pp. 1-18 (18 pages).

Total Pages: Required (34), Suggested (18).