Shannon Winnubst Office Hours:
Department of WGSS by appointment only
286 University Hall
Theorizing Race & Sexuality
WGSS 7710
Spring 2014
As a core course in the WGSS graduate curriculum, this course aims to offer a theoretical foundation through which to approach the rich fields of scholarship theorizing race and sexuality. Consequently, I have organized the course according to the following schema: 1) an engagement with so-called “foundational” texts, some of which do not address race or sexuality explicitly, that have shaped some of the dominant modes of theorizing race and sexuality; 2) recent meta-accounts of the fields, including an examination of the epistemological and ideological constraints and possibilities of the concept of “intersectionality;” 3) recent scholarship from queer studies, critical ethnic studies, race theory, disability studies and sexuality studies, with a particular emphasis on the work of two scholars who will visit campus this semester, Maria Lugones and Alison Kafer. As we move through this trajectory, we will simultaneously explore the political, ethical and methodological dimensions of studying race and sexuality, particularly as historical and contemporary identity categories that intersect and constitute one another.
Required Texts:
Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks
Cherrie Moraga & Gloria Anzaldúa, eds. This Bridge Called My Back
María Lugones: Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple
Oppressions
Alison Kafer: Feminist Queer Crip
Sara Ahmed: On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life
**texts either accessible online, via OSU Libraries or posted in Buckeye Box
Course Requirements:
**all due-dates on schedule below
Participation (30%)
Critical participation in this seminar is essential to the success of both the seminar and the individual student. This means I expect each of us to arrive at each class meeting fully prepared to enter our ongoing discussion. To be fully prepared means one has completed the reading, taken some time to reflect on it, and formulated some questions, themes, and dynamics to discuss in the seminar. While this kind of engagement includes critiques of the texts under analysis, it also means thinking with and from them as interlocutors. Obviously, this requires all students to speak up and engage the conversation of the seminar.
General Grade Rubric for Participation:
A: Engages the seminar conversation regularly, thoughtfully, and respectfully
B: Contributes once/week
C: Contributes occasionally
D: Makes one or two comments throughout the semester
F: Attends, but never speaks
If you are anxious about speaking in the seminar, I recommend you prepare written questions about the texts and possible comments about sections you deem particularly important before class.
Absences: More than two unexcused absences will lower your participation score by a grade per absence.
Attendance at Events
Every student is required to attend two of the following events: two sessions at the Hip Hop Literacies Conference; the lecture by María Lugones; the lecture by Alison Kafer; the seminar with Alison Kafer; see schedule below. Following the event, write up a 250 word reflection and bring to class the following week. Failure to do so will reduce your Participation grade by .5 letter grade.
Key-Words Exercise (25%)
Please generate and define a list of eight “key-words” for Fanon, Althusser, Foucault, Lacan and Moraga & Anzaldùa. Your definition should include an account of the genesis of the term and its centrality in the author’s thinking. You should choose how to distribute the 8 words across these authors according to the scholarly influence of the concept. The total word count for this exercise should be 2000-2500 words.
Abstract and Annotated Bibliography (5%)
Please write a 250 word abstract of your final essay and an annotated bibliography of at least five texts that you will use. I strongly recommend that you make an appointment to speak to me about your final essay.
Final Paper (40%)
A 3250-3750 word analysis of what you find to be the most methodologically, epistemologically, and politically effective feminist strategy for conceptualizing vectors of social difference. While you must engage positions developed in the course, I encourage you also to draw on material beyond it. You should also be as concrete and specific as possible, perhaps using a prolonged example/case-study to make your argument.
Late Assignments: Any late assignment will be deducted 1/3 of a grade for every day or fraction of a day that it is late. For example, an otherwise “A” paper that is turned in after the due time but not more than one day late will be marked as “A-”; the paper will be marked as “B+” if it is up to two days late, and so on.
Academic Integrity:
As defined by University Rule 3335-31-02, plagiarism is “the representation of another’s works or ideas as one’s own: it includes the unacknowledged word for word use and/or paraphrasing of another person’s work, and/or the inappropriate unacknowledged use of another person’s ideas.” In accordance with university rules, I will report all cases of suspected plagiarism to the Committee on Academic Misconduct.
Accessibility:
I am committed to making the classroom accessible to all enrolled students and would like to be informed of any needs as soon as possible. The Office of Disability Services offers services for students with documented disabilities. They are located in 150 Pomerene Hall, 1760 Neil Avenue; telephone 292-3307, TDD 292-0901; http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu/.
Office Hours:
This is the only seminar I am teaching this semester and, therefore, prefer to meet with students by appointment. My schedule is very flexible! Please email or talk with me at class meetings to schedule an appointment. I strongly recommend you meet with me at least once during the semester.
Schedule of Readings:
January
9 - Course Introduction: major concepts and texts
Wendy Brown, “The Impossibility of Women’s Studies”
Early Important Texts in Theorizing Race & Sexuality
16 - Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
http://www.uky.edu/~tmute2/geography_methods/readingPDFs/spivak.pdf
[recommend: Chandra Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes”]
23 - Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes
towards an Investigation)”
Gayle Rubin, “Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of
Sex”
http://www.neiu.edu/~circill/mihic/zhon193/trafficin.pdf
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, excerpts
Chela Sandoval, “US Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World,” Genders (Spring 1991): 1-24
http://www.dialogoglobal.com/barcelona/texts/sandoval/Sandoval%20US%20Third%20World%20Feminism.pdf
30 - Michel Foucault, “Discourse on Language;” “Nietzsche, Genealogy,
History;” “Two Lectures” and “Truth and Power”
[recommend: History of Sexuality, Volumes 1 and 2]
Joan Scott, “Evidence of Experience”
Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex”
Judith Butler, “Against Proper Objects”
February
3 & 4 - http://wgss.osu.edu/events/hip-hop-literacies-conference
6 - [recommend: Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality;
“Femininity,” “Female Sexuality” and “Some Psychical Consequences of
the Anatomical Distinction between the Sexes” and “Mourning and
Melancholia”]
Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage” (Ecrits); “The Signification of the
Phallus” (Ecrits); “Sexuality in the Defiles of the Signifier” (FFC)
(recommend: Chapters 13 and 14 of Four Fundamental Concepts)
Hortense Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar
Book”
Tim Dean, “Introduction: Beyond the Couch,” Beyond Sexuality
13 - This Bridge Called My Back, eds. Anzaldúa and Moraga
Gloria Anzaldúa, “La consciencia de mestiza/Towards a New
Consciousness” (Borderlands/La Frontera)
Norma Alarcón, “Theoretical Subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back
and Anglo-American Feminism” (The Second Wave: A Reader in
Feminist Theory)
Cohen, “Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of
Queer Politics?” glq: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 3.4
(1997) 437ff.
Muñoz, “Introduction: Performing Disidentifications” (Disidentifications)
Ferguson, Black Aberrations, excerpt
17 - Keyword Exercise: Due by 5 p.m. in my box in UH 286
20 - [recommend: Kimberle Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection” &
“Mapping the Margins”
Kathleen Guidroz and Michele Tracy Berger, “A Conversation with
Founding Scholars on Intersectionality: Kimberle Crenshaw, NiraYuval-
Davis, and Michelle Fine,” in The Intersectional Approach: Transforming
the Academy through Race, Class & Gender: 61-78]
Keating, AnaLouise. “From Intersections to Interconnections: Lessons for
Transformation from This Bridge Called My Back: Radical Writings by
Women of Color.” The Intersectional Approach: 81-99
Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: ”Conclusion: “Queer Times, Terrorist
Assemblages”; “‘I Would Rather Be a Cyborg than a Goddess’:
Becoming-Intersectional in Assemblage Theory.” philoSOPHIA 2.1
(2012): 49-66.
Robyn Wiegman, “Critcal Kinship,” from Object Lessons
Roderick Ferguson, “Reading Intersectionality,” Trans-Scripts 2 (2012)
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/collective/hctr/trans-scripts/2012/2012_02_08.pdf
Lynne Huffer, “Introduction: Claiming a Queer Feminism,” Are the Lips a
Grave? A Queer Feminist on the Ethics of Eros
27 - María Lugones, Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes
“Heterosexualism and the Colonial/Modern Gender System,” Hypatia
22.1 (2007): 186-210
“Toward a Decolonial Feminism,” Hypatia 25.4 (2010): 742-759
28 - Lugones’ Lecture, 4 pm; 300 Journalism Bldg;
March
6 - Leo Bersani, “Is the Rectum a Grave?”
Tim Dean, Beyond Sexuality: Chapters 1 & 2 (rec 6)
Antonio Viego, Dead Subjects: Towards a Politics of Loss in Latino
Studies, excerpts
Essays from Loss, eds. Eng and Kazanjian
Spring Break
20 - [recommend: Lisa Duggan, Twilight of Equality;
Samuel Delany, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue]
Jodi Melamed, “The Spirit of Neoliberalism: From Racial Liberalism to
Neoliberal Multiculturalism,” Social Text 24.4 (2006) 1-24
Chandan Reddy, “Time for Rights? Loving, Gay Marriage, and the Limits
of Legal Justice,” Fordham Law Review, 76.6 (May 2008): 2849-
2872
Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans
Politics, and the Limits of Law, excerpts
Loïc Wacquant, “From Slavery to Mass Incarceration,” New Left Review
13 (January-February 2002)
http://newleftreview.org/II/13/loic-wacquant-from-slavery-to-mass-incarceration
[recommend: Winnubst, “The Securities and Punishments of
Neoliberal Cool: Same-Sex Marriage and the Racist Carceral State”]
27 - Kafer, Feminist Queer Crip
April
3 - Kafer’s Lecture at 4 pm [207 Koffolt Lab]
Abstract & Annotated Bibliography DUE by 3 pm, box in UH 286
4 - Kafer’s Seminar, 10-12, UH 156
10 - Sara Ahmed, On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional
Life (Duke UP: 2012)
“Embodying Diversity: Problems and Paradoxes for Black Feminists.”
Race Ethnicity and Education 12.1 (2009): 41-52.
http://www.tandfonline.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/13613320802650931
17 - happy writing!
Final Essays due April 23rd at 12 p.m. in my box in 286 University Hall.