Feminist Knowledge and Social Change

WOMN 545-001 (Web), Fall 2007

Dr. Jane Olmsted

Phone: 270/745-5787 or 745-6477

Office Hours: in my office most of the time

Website: http://www.wku.edu/~jane.olmsted

Email: jane.olmsted@wku.edu (no “a”)

Required Texts:

Cynthia Kaufman’s Ideas for Action (South End Press 0-89608-693-3)

Jane Addams’ Twenty Years at Hull-House (*use Bedford ISBN# 0-312-15706-1)

Drucilla Cornell’s Feminism & Pornography Oxford UP 0-19-878250-0

Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs

Susan Brison’s Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self Princeton UP 0691115702

Herivel & Wright’s Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America's Poor Routledge 0415935385

Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own

               Or, available online: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91r/

A small number of articles in Course Documents

Course Description:

From the catalog: Examination of both feminist knowledge and research as political practices with the goal of improving the lives of women and challenging rigid configurations of race, class, gender, and other elements of difference.

Elaboration: Our readings are grounded in a critique of the ideas and policies that have defined Western, and particularly, U.S. culture. As such the material is often challenging, though the critiques are not new. For instance, Jane Addams’ refusal to accept what capitalism was doing to poor people led her to develop a sweeping social movement that is still relevant today, though policies have changed. Virginia Woolf argues that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. We turn then to pornography, including pro- and anti-porn feminist critiques, with Cornell’s anthology and Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs. Our final section will delve into the politics and realities of a “prison nation.” Implicit in such feminist challenges to the social order is an inherent optimism: fighting for positive change is worth it. All the writers/activists we will study believe this passionately, though they take their positions and “arm” themselves differently. Whether it’s the writers themselves or the people in the films, they inspire us to use our feminist knowledge to make our own social change. We conclude with a memoir on the effects of violence on the self, by Susan Brison.

About Women’s Studies: Undergraduates can minor in women’s studies, and graduate students can earn a graduate certificate (15 hours minimum). Every semester the program sponsors several on-campus events, including films and speakers. We offer an online version of the certificate, of which this is one of the required core courses. Check out our website, at http://www.wku.edu/womensstudies

Note: In compliance with university policy, students with disabilities who require accommodations (academic adjustments and/or auxiliary aids or services) for this course must contact the Office for Student Disability Services in DUC A-200 of the Student Success Center in Downing University Center. Please do not request accommodations directly me without a letter of accommodation from the Office for Student Disability Services.

A word about expectations . . .

If this is your first graduate course, or perhaps your first reading-intensive graduate course, or if this is your first online course, you may need to make adjustments. From my experience here and elsewhere, you should count on 5-6 hours of reading and online discussion each week. If you work full-time and are taking more than two courses, please consider carefully whether this is the right time to take WOMN 545. The material is extremely interesting, challenging, and rewarding, so your effort will “pay off.” However, I have seen a number of students unprepared for graduate-level work, so please consider what’s ahead. I understand that we’re all “green” at some point, so I welcome new-comers. I’m always delighted to get to know my WS students, and building a virtual community is essential to the success of the course and to the quality of your graduate work—community can (and usually does) happen “even” in this online format! (Note: I don’t mean to scare anyone, so I ask you to trust me regarding the reasonableness of the work load—for instance, we won’t read all the selections in the two anthologies.)

Course Requirements

Discussion Board 600 points (11 of 12 weeks) + discussion questions (50pts)

Social change project 400 points

Discussion The most important parts of this course are the weekly discussions and

Board (Db) reflections on the readings. Because the reading and writing are intensive, I’ve built in three non-reading weeks, during which you will present your social change projects. I have also built in two “free” weeks, which you may take at any point in the semester, but not consecutively. I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of regular weekly participation that reflects your understanding of the readings. You should count on 1500-2000 words a week. This may sound like a lot, but if Db works as it should, you will check in regularly and want to post your reactions to the readings and to others’ posts. (This paragraph is about 150 words, so you can see that it’s pretty easy to build up word count.) See Course Information for more about Db.

Important: at the end of each week, send me by email your collected posts with a) total word count and b) number of articles/chapters/films you discussed. This will take you about 5 or 10 minutes (but would take me an hour or two).

Twice during the semester, I’ll ask you to lead discussion by framing the readings and providing 3-4 discussion questions.

Films For the first two-thirds of the course, you will watch several films relating to the subject matter. Comments on the films will be posted in separate forums in Db. Four of the films are available through Netflix.com and three through Women’s Studies. The syllabus indicates whether the films are required or recommended. To get the Netflix films, you should subscribe to it for 1-3 months (the cheapest rate is $9.99, plus they offer a free 2-week trial). If you choose to watch all the films within a one-month period, be sure to take notes and save them on your computer so that when it comes time for discussion, you can remember the details. Of those that you’ll need to get from Netflix, two are in September (recommended), and three in October (required).

The WS films will be sent by mail except for those who can get to Bowling Green, in which case you are expected to watch the videos here (or check them out and return them the next day). Those farther away may need to share—by receiving the films, watching them, then over-nighting them to the next person indicated on a pre-determined list. All films must be returned to Women’s Studies. Note: these are DVDs and may not be viewable on older DVD players.

Weekly Q/A Each week one or two of you will pose questions that the rest of the class may answer. When it’s your week to pose questions, come up with 3-6 questions, 1-3 out of each of the following kinds of questions: local, regional, and global. Your total score for Weekly Q/A consists of 40 points possible for the week you pose questions, and 60 points for your answers (20 points each week for 3 weeks out of 12 weeks = 60). See Weekly Q/A under Course Information.

Social Change This independent project offers you an opportunity to select a feminist issue

Project important to you and to develop a series of public and private “actions” that you research and/or engage in and document. See Course Information for more. Calendar for components:

9/24 Social change: context, description*, analysis*

10/29 Social change: symbolic, expressive/artistic, resistance, protest

12/3 Social change: forms of coalition; vision* and strategies*

*These are the four steps in Bunch’s “Not by Degrees”

Each of these 3 weeks will be devoted to your sharing your social change projects, via Powerpoint, Word, blog, Live Journal, or other format suitable for online sharing, and to responding to others’ (I’ll probably assign respondents so you don’t have to respond to all the presentations). Here are some websites:

• http://weblogs.about.com/od/weblogsoftwareandhosts/a/topfreeblogs.htm
• http://www.blogger.com/
• http://www.livejournal.com/

Schedule of Readings and Assignments

Feminism and Class

8/27 Cynthia Kaufman’s Ideas for Action chapters 1-2, pp. 1-56

Course Documents: Bunch’s “Not by Degrees”

9/5 Cynthia Kaufman’s Ideas for Action chapters 3-4, pp. 57-121

Course Documents: Fitzgerald’s “A Liberal Dose of Conservatism”; Mink’s “From Welfare to Wedlock”; Duffy’s “Invisibly at Risk” (Course Docs)

Film: The Corporation (Netflix) Suggested

9/10 Addams’ Twenty Years at Hull-House

Film: Emma Goldman: An Exceedingly Dangerous Woman (Netflix) Suggested

9/17 Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own

Film: Fast Food Women (at Women’s Studies or sent by mail) Required

[Tissa Hami, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Mosque, 4:30, GH auditorium]

9/24 Social change: context, description, analysis

Feminism and Pornography

10/1 Reader: Feminism and Pornography (I: Dworkin & Mackinnon, #1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Film: Inside Deep Throat (Netflix) Suggested

10/8 Reader: Feminism and Pornography (#10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18)

Film: Live Nude Girls Unite (Netflix) Required

10/15 Reader: Feminism and Pornography (#23, 24, 25, 28, 30, 31, 33)

Film: Born into Brothels (Netflix) Required

10/22 Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs

Film: Untold Desires (at Women’s Studies or sent by mail) Required

10/29 Social change: symbolic, expressive/artistic, resistance, protest

Violence, Crime and Punishment

11/5 Herivel & Wright’s Prison Nation (Section 1: Bright, Owen, Street, Winslow; Section 2: Fraser, Parenti); Cynthia Kaufman’s Ideas for Action, ch. 5, pp. 121-150

Film: Defending Our Lives (at Women’s Studies or sent by mail) Required

11/12 Herivel & Wright’s Prison Nation (Section 3: Wright, Lafer; Section 5: Wisely, Herivel)

“Locked Up” report on prisons (Course Docs)

[11/17, Ruth Benedict, The Private War of Women Soldiers, GH auditorium 7:30pm]

11/19 Herivel & Wright’s Prison Nation (Section 6: Cusac, Wisely, Mariner; browse the closing section, read what appeals); Cynthia Kaufman’s Ideas for Action, ch. 9, pp. 227-250; ch. 11, pp. 269-304

Rape in Prison

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/video.html

Torture Inc. America’s Brutal Prisons

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

11/26 Brison’s Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self

12/3 Social change: forms of coalition; vision* and strategies*