Critical Approaches in Social and Cultural Theory WMST BC2140 409 Barnard Hall

Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:10a-10:25a Fall 2011

Instructor: Kerwin Kaye Email: kkaye@barnard.edu Office: Barnard Hall 227 Office Hours: Tuesdays 10:30am-12pm and by appointment

Class Description

The purpose of this class is to acquaint you with social theories and social theorists that form the basis for much

thinking within feminist studies, queer theory, critical race theory, critical race feminism, and postcolonial theory. It

introduces, in other words, what may be loosely described as a “canon” of theorists who you are likely to encounter

later in your studies. Like all canons, this one is constantly changing — new authors come into style while old ones

become increasingly marginalized — but the ideas of these authors are significant in shaping contemporary critical

theory, even if only as reference points with which contemporary theorists disagree. In many ways, however, the

relationship between earlier social theorists and contemporary ones is that of appropriation and creative application

more than outright negation, and in this way the ideas of critical theorists who worked in the 19th century remain

relevant to us today in the 21st. Critical engagement is encouraged throughout, as is an eye toward ways in which a

given author’s analysis helps us to understand and perhaps change (as Marx suggests) the world both around us and

within our heads.

Course Requirements

There are four requirements for the class:

—Attend all classes and be prepared to discuss the assigned readings

—Six reviews of the weekly readings

—A mid-term exam (take home)

—A final paper

Grading Class attendance/participation: 20% Six reviews of weekly readings: 7.5% each (45% total) Midterm exam 15% Final paper (8-10 pages): 20% Assigned Books: Duggan, Lisa. 2003. The Twilight of Equality? Fanon, Frantz. 1967 [1952]. Black Skin, White Masks Foucault, Michel. 1978 [1976]. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (Volume 1) Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble All books available at: Book Culture; 536 West 112th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam); 212-865-1588

Course Schedule: Week 1: Course Overview, Marx and Engels (58 pgs) Week 2: Marxism —Theorizing Gender and Race (117 pgs) Need Bonacich, more from Black Marxism Only Intro (conclusion?) from Roedigger, not ch. 1 Week 3: Ideology, Hegemony, and the Move to Post-Marxism (116 pgs) Put Stuart Hall before Raymond Williams (perhaps cut Williams); move Laclau and Mouffe to post-Marxism; Get Gramsci writings that put him in line with S. Hall Week 4: Neoliberalism / Post-Marxism (128 pgs) Week 5: Freud, Fetishism, and Commodity Fetishism (101 pgs) Week 6: Colonization / Decolonization (122 pgs) — MIDTERM HANDED OUT Oct. 11th Week 7: Liberalism and Subjugation (73 pgs) / MIDTERM DUE on Oct. 20th Week 8: Michel Foucault — Biopower and Governmentality (136 pgs) Week 9: Judith Butler — Performativity (155 pgs) Week 10 (partial week): Queer Theory (79 pgs) Week 11: Critical Race Theory / Intersectionality (128 pgs) Week 12 (partial week): Postcolonial Feminism I (64 pgs) Week 13: Orientalism and Postcolonial Feminism II (129 pgs) Week 14: OPEN TOPIC Final Paper Due – on Dec. 22, noon Week 1: Marx and Engels (58 pgs)

Karl Marx (1818-1883) Friederich Engels (1820-1895)

Tuesday, September 6: No reading Thursday, September 8: Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 2005 [1848]. “The Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Gasper, pp.

37-71 (35 pgs)

Marx, Karl. 1867. Selection from Capital, v. 1 (not necessary to read footnotes). “Commodities,” pp. 125-31 (7 pgs)

Bottomore, Tom. A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, “Commodity” (2 pgs) Marx, Karl. 1844. “Estranged Labor” from the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (in Karl

Marx: A Reader, pp. 35-47 (13 pgs) Marx, Karl. 1852. “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in Karl Marx: A Reader, pp. 277 (1 pg)

Week 2: Marxism —Theorizing Gender and Race (117 pgs)

Friederich Engels (1820-1895) Heidi Hartmann

Catherine MacKinnon David Roediger Cedric Robinson

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963)

Week 2: Marxism —Theorizing Gender and Race (117 pgs) Tuesday, September 13: Engels, Friederich. 1978 [1884]. “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State,” in The Marx-

Engels Reader, pp. 734-59 (26 pgs) Hartmann, Heidi. 2010 [1981]. “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More

Progressive Union,” in Feminist Theory Reader, 2nd edition, pp. 169-83 (12 pgs) MacKinnon, Catherine. 1982. “Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory,”

Signs, 7(3): 515-44 (22 pgs)

Thursday, September 15: Miles, Robert. 1993. “A Marxist Theory of ‘Race Relations’?” (originally from Racism After ‘Race

Relations’), in Theories of Race and Racism, pp. 126-30 (4 pgs) Du Bois, W.E.B. 1962 [1935]. Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, pp. 3-16, 700-1 (16 pgs) Robinson, Cedric. 2000 [1983]. Black Marxism, pp. xxvii-xxxiii (6 pgs) Roediger, David. 1991. The Wages of Whiteness, Revised Edition, pp. 3-40 (31 pgs)

Week 3: Ideology, Hegemony, and the Move to Post-Marxism (116 pgs)

Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) Raymond Williams (1921-1988)

Stuart Hall Ernesto Laucau Chantal Mouffe

Tuesday, September 20: Marx, Karl. 1978 [1844]. Selection from “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” in

The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 53-4, 16-9 (4 pgs) Marx, Karl. 1994 [1845]. Selections from “The German Ideology,” in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, pp.

102-3, 111-2, 123-6, 129-32 (11 pgs) Williams, Raymond. 1977. “Ideology,” in Keywords, pp. 153-6 (3 pgs) Williams, Raymond. 1977. “Base and Superstructure,” in Marxism and Literature, pp. 75-89 (14 pgs) Thursday, September 22: Gramsci, Antonio. 2000 [1929-35]. “Prison Writings,” in The Antonio Gramsci Reader, pp. 189-221 (32

pgs) Williams, Raymond. 1977. “Hegemony,” in Marxism and Literature, pp. 108-14 (7 pgs) Hall, Stuart. 1986. “Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity,” Journal of Communication

Inquiry, 10(2): 5-27 (23 pgs) Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. 2001 [1985]. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 2nd edition, pp. 1-5,

176-94 (22 pgs)

Week 4: Neoliberalism / Post-Marxism (128 pgs)

David Harvey Lisa Duggan Aihwa Ong

Katherine Gibson Julie Graham

Week 4: Neoliberalism / Post-Marxism (128 pgs) Tuesday, September 27: Harvey, David. 2007. “Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction,” Annals of the American Academy of

Political and Social Science, 610 (March): 22-44 (22 pgs) Duggan, Lisa. 2003. The Twilight of Equality?, pp. 1-42 (43 pgs) Thursday, September 29: Ong, Aihwa. 1991. “The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity,” Annual Review of Anthropology,

20: 279-309 (27 pgs) Gibson-Graham, J.K. 1996. The End of Capitalism (as we knew it), pp. 1-21, 251-65 (36 pgs)

Week 5: Freud, Fetishism, and Commodity Fetishism (101 pgs)

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Anne McClintock

Tuesday, October 4: Freud, Sigmund. 1930. Civilization and Its Discontents, pp. 37-42, 48-52, 64-89, 93-6, 104-12 (43 pgs) Thursday, October 6: Marx, Karl. 1867. Selections from Capital, v. 1 (not necessary to read footnotes). “The Fetishism of

Commodities and the Secret Thereof,” pp. 163-77 (14 pgs); Bottomore, Tom. Selections from A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. “Commodity Fetishism” (1 pg);

“Fetishism” (1 pg) Freud, Sigmund. 1928. “Fetishism,” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 9(2): 161-6 (6 pgs) McClintock, Anne.1995. Imperial Leather, pp. 149-52, 185-9, 207-31 (36 pgs) Film: The Century of the Self

Week 6: Colonization / Decolonization (122 pgs) — MIDTERM HANDED OUT Oct. 11th

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)

Tuesday, October 11 Film: “Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask” Du Bois, W.E.B. 1989 [1903]. The Souls of Black Folk, pp. xxxi-xxxii, 1-11, 141-5 (16 pgs) Fanon, Frantz. 1967 [1952]. Black Skin, White Masks, pp. 9-16, 63-108, 152-3 (55 pgs) Fanon, Frantz. 2000 [1952]. “The Fact of Blackness” (originally from Black Skin, White Masks), in

Theories of Race and Racism, pp. 257-65 (9 pgs)

Thursday, October 13: Fanon, Frantz. 1969 [1959]. “Algeria Unveiled” (chapter from A Dying Colonialism) in The New Left

Reader, pp. 161-85 (25 pgs) McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial Leather, pp. 352-68 (17 pgs)

Week 7: Liberalism and Subjugation (73 pgs) / MIDTERM DUE

Lisa Lowe Saidiya Hartman

Tuesday, October 18: Marx, Karl. 1994 [1843]. “On the Jewish Question,” in Karl Marx: Selected Writings, pp. 1-26 (27 pgs) Lowe, Lisa. 1996. Immigrant Acts, pp. 1-36 (36 pgs) Thursday, October 20: MIDTERM DUE / DISCUSSION OF FINAL WEEK

Hartman, Saidiya. 1997. Scenes of Subjection, pp. 115-24 (10 pgs) Week 8: Michel Foucault — Biopower and Governmentality (136 pgs)

Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Tuesday, October 25: Foucault, Michel. 1978 [1976]. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (Volume 1), pp. 3-49, 77-159

(122 pgs) Thursday, October 27: Bartky, Sandra Lee. 2010 [1990]. “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power,” in

Feminist Theory Reader, pp. 404-18 (14 pgs) Week 9: Judith Butler — Performativity (155 pgs)

Judith Butler

Tuesday, November 1: Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble, pp. 1-78 (79 pgs) Thursday, November 3: Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble, pp. 93-149 (56 pgs) Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that Matter, pp. ix-xii, 1-16 (20 pgs)

Week 10: Queer Theory (79 pgs)

John D’Emilio Adrienne Rich

Eve Sedgwick (1950-2009) David Valentine

Tuesday, November 8: NO CLASS — ELECTION DAY Thursday, November 10: D’Emilio, John. 1993 [1983]. “Capitalism and Gay Identity,” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, pp.

467-76 (10 pgs) Rich, Adrienne. 1996 [1980]. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” in Feminism &

Sexuality, pp. 130-41 (12 pgs) Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1993 [1990]. “Epistemology of the Closet,” in The Lesbian and Gay Studies

Reader, pp. 45-61 (15 pgs) Valentine, David. 2002. “We’re ‘Not About Gender’: The Uses of ‘Transgender,’” in Out in Theory: The

Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Anthropology, pp. 222-45 (19 pgs) Duggan, Lisa. 2003. The Twilight of Equality?, pp. 43-66 (23 pgs)

Week 11: Critical Race Theory / Intersectionality (128 pgs)

Paul Gilroy Kimberle Crenshaw bell hooks Vijay Prashad

Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004) Trinh Minh-ha Jennifer Nash

Cathy Cohen Dorothy Roberts Martin Manalansan IV

Week 11: Critical Race Theory / Intersectionality (128 pgs)

Tuesday, November 15: Gilroy, Paul. 2008 [1993]. “The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity” (from The Black

Atlantic), in The Transnational Studies Reader, pp. 203-11 (8 pgs) Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence

against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review, 43(6): 1241-5, 1266-82 (no need to read footnotes — 20 pgs)

hooks, bell. 2005 [1984]. “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory,” (originally from Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center), in Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology, pp. 60-8 (8 pgs)

Prashad, Vijay. 2000. “Of Antiblack Racism,” from The Karma of Brown Folk, pp. 157-83 (27 pgs) Anzaldúa, Gloria. 2010 [1987]. “La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness” (from

Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza), in Feminist Theory Reader, 2nd edition, pp. 254-62 (8 pgs)

Thursday, November 17: Minh-ha, Trinh. 1990. “Not You/Like You: Post-Colonial Women and the Interlocking Questions of

Identity and Difference,” in Making Face, Making Soul — Haciendo Caras, pp. 371-5 (4 pgs) Nash, Jennifer. 2008. “Re-Thinking Intersectionality,” Feminist Review, 8: 1-15 (14 pgs)

Cohen, Cathy. 1996. “Contested Membership: Black Gay Identities and the Politics of AIDS” in Queer Theory/Sociology, pp. 362-81, 386-94 (23 pgs)

Roberts, Dorothy. 1997. “The Value of Black Mothers’ Work,” in Critical Race Feminism: A Reader, pp. 312-6 (3 pgs)

Manalansan IV, Martin. 2005. “Race, Violence, and Neoliberal Spatial Politics in the Global City,” Social Text 84-5, 23(3-4): 141-55 (13 pgs)

Week 12: Postcolonial Feminism I (64 pgs)

Chandra Mohanty Gayatri Spivak

Tuesday, November 22: Mohanty, Chandra. 2003 [1984]. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” in

Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, pp. 17-42 (26 pgs) Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, pp. 271-

313 (38 pgs)

Thursday, November 24: NO CLASS: THANKSGIVING Week 13: Orientalism and Postcolonial Feminism II (129 pgs)

Inderpal Grewal Edward Said (1935-2003)

Lila Abu-Lughod Jasbir Puar

Tuesday, November 29: Grewal, Inderpal. 2005. “’Women’s Rights as Human Rights’: The Transnational Production of Global

Feminist Subjects,” from Transnational America, pp. 121-57 (37 pgs) Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism, pp. 1-28 (28 pgs) Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2010 [2001]. “Orientalism and Middle East Feminist Studies,” in Feminist Theory

Reader, 2nd edition, pp. 203-11 (8 pgs) Thursday, December 1: Puar, Jasbir. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times, pp. 167-222 (56 pgs)

Week 14: OPEN TOPIC: Students’ Choice!

Tuesday, December 6: Readings TBA Thursday, December 8: Readings TBA Discussion and vote on October 20th. Possible topics: Gilles Deleuze (societies of control, rhizomes, assemlages) Jaques Lacan (revisioning psychoanalysis) Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard (society of the spectacle / simulacra and simulation) Slavoj Žižek (a bit of everything!) Catherine MacKinnon and Gayle Rubin (relationship between gender and sexuality) Frankfurt School of Marxism (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse) Science and Objectivity Agency and Freedom Disability The Body Emotion and Affect Race in a “Post-Racial” World Consumers and Consumption

Neoliberalism Humanitarianism (a critical perspective) Sexuality and Globalization The University as an Institution Social Justice and Utopian Visions (and critique!) More of anything already touched upon in the course… Whatever else!

Final Paper Due – on Dec. 22, noon