Course Syllabus Ver. 1.0 (Subject to Change) Foundations in Gender Studies II Winter 2022-23, Thurs 15:40-17:20, QS A419 Instructor: Hyaesin Yoon (YoonH@ceu.edu, Office: QS A205) Office Hours: TBA
Building on the FGS I, this course explores major contributions in feminist scholarship after the first and second waves of feminism. In this course, we will discuss the feminist inquiries that emerge from questioning the universal category of “woman,” tracing the multiple (and sometimes conflicting) approaches to gender and sexual difference, relations of power, agency, embodiment, and postcolonial and neoliberal conditions. In this light, the curriculum is designed to address the potential and challenges in feminist engagements with
poststructuralist theories, psychoanalysis, postcolonial criticism, and new materialist discourses. This course also invites reflections on the investment in theory in the context of transnational knowledge production, beyond the binary opposition to praxis.
Course Requirements and Assessment
1. Participation and Attendance (20%): This is a discussion-based course, and therefore your active and responsible participation is crucial. Please arrive on time and attend each class ready to ask questions and share thoughts, having closely read the assigned texts. Some of these texts will be challenging and might require multiple readings. Curiosity, humility, generosity, respect, and risk-taking are expected for our collective learning. Absences due to a medical issues or family emergency will be excused in principle (if possible, you’re advised to have your absences due to illness officially documented). However, in case of repeated and prolonged absence due to illness or family emergency, you might be asked to do a make-up assignment depending on the situation. Otherwise, missing a class will negatively affect your grade, and missing more than three weeks might result in failing the course. Repetitive lateness will also negatively affect your grade. If you are late, it is your responsibility to notify Hyaesin of your presence after the class.
2. Discussion Leading (10%): Each week, we will have a 20-minute small group discussion divided into three groups. And each of you’ll be asked to lead a small group discussion twice during the semester. The role of the discussion leader is to facilitate the group conversation and report it back to the whole class at the end of the group discussion. The leader does not need to prepare a set of discussion questions for this purpose, but more focused reading on the given text will definitely help her to better facilitate and present the result of the discussion.
3. Two Analytic Response Papers (25% for the first, 35% for the second): You are asked to write two analytic response papers on the weekly readings. Please submit the first ARP (700-800 words, on the weekly reading) during Week 1-Week 5 and the second ARP (1100-1300 words, on the weekly reading, in conversation with another reading discussed in class) during Week 6-Week 10. An AR paper should be posted on the course e-learning site by 23:59 on the day before the relevant class. The primary goal of an AR paper is to develop your own analysis based on close reading of and theoretical engagement with the chosen texts. These papers will also help you to prepare for class discussion, and may be
4. Hypothetical Interview Questions (10%): For the last two weeks of the course, please choose one author (from the course materials) you’d like to interview and write up with 3~5 hypothetical interview questions (200-300 words). 2~3 questions you’d like to ask to this chosen author, and 1~2 questions this author might ask you as a gender studies researcher. Alternatively, you may think of two authors interviewing each other. Please upload the questions by 8am on the day of your presentation to Moodle and be prepared to share your questions and explain why/how you come up with these questions (5-7 minutes per person).
Course Policies and Logistics
1. Please turn off or silence all cell phones before class begins (vibration-mode does not constitute turning off). I also have a no-laptop, no-cell phone, no-recording policy during class discussions, so that we can fully engage with and pay attention to other participants.
However, if you need a laptop (or any other device) for disability-related or other meaningful reasons, you’re welcome to use it; just let me know in advance.
2. Everyone is encouraged to visit my office hours to go over classroom discussions, assignments, and any other thoughts you might have related to the course. To reserve a time slot during my office hours, please sign up here: https://bit.ly/hyaesin. Please sign-up for, change, or cancel appointments by 8:00 on the day of the appointment. If it is
necessary to cancel after this time, please email me (without revising it on the sign-up sheet). No prior communication is needed. If you have conflicting class schedule with all my regular office hours, please send me an e-mail to set an appointment.
3. I’ll be communicating with you by e-mail during the term, and you’re responsible for knowing what is in those emails. When you write me an email, please use the subject line followed by “[FGS II]”
4. Disability and access need: If, at any point in the term, you find barriers to accessing the space, content, or experience of this course, you are welcome (but not required) to contact me by email or during office hours to discuss your needs and options. You're also
encouraged to contact the Disability Rights Officer (Natalia Nagyné Nyikes, QS 51, B201, nyikesn@ceu.edu, ext 2890). The DRO can help you to determine appropriate sources of support, create an accommodations plan, and protect your right to
confidentiality. For further information, please refer to CEU’s Policy on the Rights of Students with Disabilities (https://documents.ceu.edu/documents/p-1402v2201).
5. Academic Integrity and Plagiarism: Plagiarism will not be tolerated – any instance of plagiarism may result in an “F” for the assignment and potentially a failing grade in the course. Please see the regulations on academic integrity as they are outlined by CEU. You are responsible for knowing and adhering to these regulations.
Learning Outcomes:
After taking the course, students should have a solid knowledge of the major theoretical strands after the first and the second waves of feminism. Students will also develop their skills in critical and analytic reading, writing, and verbal presentation
Weekly Schedule Part I. Poststructuralist thoughts and Feminisms Week 1
Michel Foucault, “The West and the Truth of Sex,” Substance Vol. 6/7, No 20 (1978): 5-8 Jana Sawicki, “Foucault and Feminism,” Hypathia Vol.1, No. 2 (1986): 23-36.
Week 2
Joan W. Scott, “The Evidence of Experience,” Critical Inquiry Vol 17., No 4 (1991): 773-797 Week 3
Donna Haraway: “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women (New York: Routledge, 1991).
Week 4
Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Sings Vol.1, No. 4 (1976): 875-93.
Week 5
Judith Butler, “Critically Queer,” GLQ Vol. 1, No. 1 (1993): 17-32.
Part II. Intersectionality and Postcolonialism Week 6
Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera (San Francisco: Aunt Lunt Books, 1987), excerpts.
Week 7
Gayatri Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg eds.
Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Basingstronke: MacMillan Education, 1988), excerpts.
Week 8
Saba Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival,” Cultural Anthropology Vol. 16, No. 2 (2001): 202-36.
III. Rethinking Matter, Embodiment, and Affect Week 9
Jane Bennet, “The Force of Things: Step Toward an Ecology of Matter,” Political Theory Vol. 32, no. 3 (2004): 347-72.
Week 10
Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, “Suspended Munition: Mereology, Morphology, and the Mammary Biopolitics of Transmission in Simone Leigh’s Trophallaxis,” e-Flux # 105 (2019).
Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, “Outer Worlds: The Persistence of Race in Movement “Beyond the Human,” Dossier: Theorizing Queer Inhumanisms, GLQ Vol. 21, No. 2-3 (2015): 215- 218.
If you choose to write an analytic response paper on Z. I. Jackson, please focus on
“Suspended Munition” (you may refer to “Outer Worlds” when needed), and discuss it in conversation with another text.
Week 11
Interview Questions Presentation and Discussion Group 1 Week 12
Interview Questions Presentation and Discussion Group 2
Guidelines for Analytic Response Papers
Deconstruction, whatever it may be, is not most valuably an exposure of error, certainly not other people’s error…. The most serious critique in deconstruction is the critique of things that are extremely useful, things without which we cannot live on, take chances…. ~ Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
During the semester, you are required to write three analytic response papers on the weekly readings. The first ARP (700-800 words) should focus only on the weekly reading and be submitted during Week 1-Week 5. The second ARP (1100-1300 words) should focus on the weekly reading in conversation with another reading discussed in class (except the one you’ve chosen for your first ARP) during Week 6-Week 10. In your second paper, please avoid making a mechanical comparison between two readings; instead use one concept or idea from a previous material to deepen the analysis of the weekly reading. An AR paper should be posted on the course e-learning site by 23:59 on the day before the relevant class.
The purpose of the assignment is to create a space for you to think about the texts, and to articulate your questions, interpretations, and critiques. These papers will also help you to prepare for class discussion and may be shared with the class. You’re encouraged to read your classmates’ posts as well.
An ARP is expected to demonstrate your analytic engagement with the texts on one theme.
Thus is more than simple summaries or a list of ideas or criticisms based on an already- assumed position of truth and/or justice. There are several ways you can engage with this assignment. However, a strong ARP often
(1) offers a close reading of a sentence, a phrase, or even a concept that intrigues you the most, and discuss how and why it intrigues you: how do you interpret the chosen part – what are the argument, the contingency, and the tension in this part, and how does this part relate to the main argument of the author, and what are its theoretical and political implications;
(2) engages with what is most confusing or difficult to grasp in the materials. Try to develop it into a discussion question; we might actually discuss it in class. Can you find any clue in the text? What would be your hypothetical response to your own question, based on that textual clue?;
(3) develops a point (analytic argument/thesis) based on analyses interrogating the implicit argument, the contingency, the tension, and the potential of the identified element(s) in the text, discussing their theoretical and political implications.
In this light, I’d like to ask you to dwell upon the given materials for close and attentive engagement – and for that reason, please avoid drawing upon outside material.
While an analytic response paper is less formal than a typical research paper, it should nonetheless be taken more seriously than a usual reaction paper.
An analytic response paper will be graded based on the following criteria: relevance to the text(s), attentive and creative analyses, thoughtful and critical reflections, and stylistic
