Time Schedule:
Michelle Habell-Pallan
WOMEN 590
Seattle Campus
Offered by visitors or resident faculty as a one-time in-depth study of special interest.
Class description
Autumn 2008 Special Topic: Chicana Feminist Theory
This seminar examines the body of knowledge and scholarship that has been produced for the past 30 years under the methodological rubric "Chicana feminist theory." The seminar will examine the ways Chicana feminist theory early on critiqued neoliberal conceptions of diversity and, as theorist Chela Sandoval writes, theorized difference not as an objective it itself but instead as a point of departure and a method for "transforming repressive and antidemocratic social circumstances." Readings will examine the debates Chicana feminist publications encountered as Chicana feminist theory critiqued mainstream feminist publications as liberal, essentialist, hetero-normative, and U.S. centered. Finally, the seminar will meditate upon the usefulness of the rubric "Chicana feminist theory" as well as examine the relationship of Chicana feminist theory to the discourse of "planetary civil society." Theorists include: Norma Alarcon, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, Emma Perez, Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano and others.
Spring 2008 Special Topic: Cultural Studies and Public Scholarship
"Cultural Studies and Public Scholarship" explores the tensions and possibilities in projects that seek to merge these two paths of intellectual work. "American Sabor: U.S. Latinos in Popular Music" (currently on display at the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum) will be used as a case study in collaborative cross-sector public scholarship. Discussions of the collaborative work of the exhibit will serve as an entry point for examining how questions around equity and the categories of gender, race/ethnicity, class, sexuality and cultural citizenship problematize struggles for the power to represent when theory meets practice. The seminar will also provide space for students to explore their own collaborative projects.
Student learning goals
General method of instruction
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Class assignments and grading
