EN 932.01 Ph.D Seminar:Gender, Politics and Nationalism (Spring 2009-2010: 3)
This course investigates the myriad ways class, race/color, and the "idea"
of woman shape women's lives within national and transnational contexts.
Specifically, "Gender, Politics, and Nationalism" explores the contested
relationship between women and the nation-state as the latter is informed
by class and racial/color politics in the Caribbean. Emphasis on this geographic
region allows for analyses of questions regarding post-colonial identity,
citizenship, and nationhood. Within feminist and post-colonial theory,
"nation" has been highly contested, particularly in its changing relations
to feminism and women's movements globally. We seek to engage these shifting
and multiple theoretical perspectives as we grapple with the relationship
between gender, nation, and politics. Specifically, this course explores
how class - and racially-informed gender identities intersect with national
ones in theories about the nation-state and citizenship formation in the
Caribbean. To achieve these ends, we attend the uses to which nations put
gender as they define and practice citizenship and political perspectives;
at the same time, our course highlights the complex ways that nationalist
politics has created opportunities for women's activism while simultaneously
undermining their autonomy. We aim to understand the many negotiations,
compromises, resistances, and concessions women enter into with dominant
nationalisms to shape their political agendas and negotiate "woman's symbolic
uses and women's "non-symbolic" realities.
Rhonda Frederick
Last Updated: 20-FEB-09