Women and the Culture of Protest — syllabus
GENDER STUDIES 10 | MON/WED 1:10–2:30 PM | WATKINS HALL 2240 DR. TANYA RAWAL-JINDIA | OFFICE HOURS: M/W 11:30–1 PM|INTN 2012
A British man once said, “Women are more disposed to be mutinous … [and] in all public tumults they are foremost in violence and ferocity.”
COURSE DESCRIPTION
In this course we will investigate how women shape the culture of protest, dissidence, and revolution. Students will complete this course with a critical understanding of how gender and sexuality shape free and public speech.
Protest, from the Latin protestari, means to publicly assert. However, women are often excluded from public spaces. A study of women’s free and public speech, therefore, can help us identify the nuances of what it means to speak truth to power.
Together, we will examine the varying methods women use to challenge hegemonic and patriarchal narratives. Womens’ acts of protest and other public assertions are often inaccessible, unfathomable, and incomprehensible to people who identify with hegemonic and patriarchal narratives. The goal of this course is to provide students with the tools and language needed to converse with such people.
REQUIREMENTS
COURSE MATERIAL All readings are available online and accessible through this interactive syllabus.
TWITTER Students are required to research protests listed on the course syllabus before each meeting. Due to the timeliness of the course material it is necessary that each student contribute information to the course. Each student will be required to tweet their findings/research with the hashtag: #myprotestclass. By the end of the quarter each student should have a minimum of 18 tweets (try to do 2/week). Print out each tweet with the time and date stamp and submit with final exam. Do not print more than 30 tweets, but please feel free to write as many as you like and share with the Internet.
PODCAST In groups, students will create a podcast relating to the class.
GRADES
20% Exam 1 — October 18
20% Exam 2 — November 8
20% Exam 3 — November 29
20% Twitter —Turn In Immediately Before Group Presentation
20% Podcast/Group Project — Week 10
Week 1
October 2, 2017 : Slut Walk & What incites protest?
Read: Rosa Luxemburg’s speech “Riot and Revolution,” (1906)
October 4, 2017: Speaking Truth to Power & Free Speech
Read: Wendy Brown’s “Free Speech is not for Feeling Safe” (2014)
Read: Michel Foucault’s “The Meaning and Evolution of the Word Parrhesia” from Discourse and Truth
Week 2
October 9, 2017: The Courage to Take A Knee & the “Free” in Free Speech
Read: First Amendment
Read: Read: David Harvey’s “Freedom is Just Another Word,” from A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005)
October 11, 2017: Nangeli, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, and the “Free” in Free Speech
Read: First Amendment
Read: Read: David Harvey’s “Freedom is Just Another Word,” from A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005)
Week 3
October 16, 2017: Sex Strikes, Revolutionary Suicide, and War
Read: Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (411 BCE)
Watch: Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq (2015)
October 18, 2017: Sex Strikes, Revolutionary Suicide, and War
* EXAM 1
Read: Kenyan women hit men with sex ban (2009)
Read: The tragic suicide note of a woman in Aleppo who chose death over rape (2016)
Week 4
October 23, 2017: “Are Women Funny!?” and Satire as Protest
Read: Michel Foucault “Irreducibility of the parrhesiastic to the performative utterance” from The Government of Self and Others (1982–1983; pgs 61–74)
October 25, 2017
Watch: Ali Wong’s “Baby Cobra”
Week 5
October 30, 2017: Democracy, Public Space, and Street Demonstrations
Read: Michel Foucault’s “Parrhesia and the Crisis of Democratic Institutions” from Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia
Read: Monsieur Lilian Mathieu’s “An unlikely mobilization : the occupation of Saint-Nizier church by the prostitutes of Lyon” (2001)
November 1, 2017: Democracy, Public Space, and Street Demonstrations
Read: Michel Foucault’s “Parrhesia and the Crisis of Democratic Institutions” from Discourse and Truth: the Problematization of Parrhesia
Read: Monsieur Lilian Mathieu’s “An unlikely mobilization : the occupation of Saint-Nizier church by the prostitutes of Lyon” (2001)
Week 6
November 6: Saree, Not Sorry, Equality is Not Enough
Read: Read: Luisa Muraro’s “The Passion of Feminine Difference Beyond Equality”
Watch: Soumik Sen’s Gulab Gang (2014) or with subtitles
November 8: Exam 2
Week 7
November 13, 2017: Intersectional Activism
Read: Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color
November 15, 2017: Intersectional Activism
Read: Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color
Read: Audre Lorde’s “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” FPR, pgs. 49–50
Week 8
November 20: Ontological Harmony
Read: Foucault’s Fearless Speech, pgs. 89–107 (key concept: ontological harmony); 107–141 (Key concept: The Practice of Parrhesia in Community Life, Public Life, and Personal Relationships)
November 22 — NO CLASS
Week 9
November 27: Comrades and Allies
Read: bell hooks, “Sisterhood: Political Solidarity Between Women,” from Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (pgs 43–65)
Read: bell hooks, “Men: Comrades in Struggle,” from Feminist Theory (67–81)
Chrystos’ “I Walk in the History of My People” from This Bridge Called My Back pgs. 57–62
“A comrade is as precious as a rice seedling…” -Mila Aguilar
November 29 — Exam 3 & Concluding Remarks
