Reformers and Radicals:Feminist Thinking through History

We bring gender and sexual debates into conversation across time and space. And we explore the method by which different histories can be brought into meaningful dialogue, specifically how the agendas of South Asia based activists and theorists might resonate with US based histories of reform and radical change. For instance, what are the challenges as well as the advances in reading Malala Yousafzai alongside the historic statement issued by the Combahee River Collective; how might we mobilize the multilayered agenda of Dalit feminisms in the context of debates over intersectionality? Can an awareness of feminist ecologies inflect the move toward decolonization and the return of stolen land on turtle island; does the "radical potential of queer politics" illuminate battles over political power in urban India? We layer these questions with debates on method, particularly the method of staging cross-cultural and temporal comparisons. As students in an advanced course in the method of comparative gender and sexuality studies, each of us will bring our theoretical apparatus to the larger case studies of India and South Asia. Collectively we seek to question and appreciate how globalization has produced reformers and radicals, and conversely, how reformers and radicals might work alongside one another in an increasingly stratified world. NOTE: This course is in the core curriculum for the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies graduate certificate. Prerequisite: Completion of at least one Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies course or permission of the instructor.

Course Attributes: EN H; AS HUM; AS SD I; FA HUM; AR HUM; AS SC

Reformers and Radicals:Feminist Thinking through History

WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY STUDIES 475

Section 01