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Prof. Chris Gilmartin
History Department, Northeastern University
cgilmart@lynx.neu.edu
(617) 373-4449

Prof. Sharlene Hesse-Biber
Sociology Department, Boston College
(617) 552-4139
sharlene.hesse-biber@bc.edu

Prof. Robin Lydenberg
English Department, Boston College
(617) 552-3731
robin.lydenberg@bc.edu

Course Overview

This course focuses on the visions and methods that feminist scholars use to study women and gender from the perspectives of history, literary theory, and sociology, and their interaction. As feminist scholarship has developed, it has become increasingly clear that the practice of feminist research is interdisciplinary. For example, feminist scholars who study gender in the contemporary economy find that they must pay attention to gender roles in social reproduction or to the legal history of women and men in society. Similarly, feminist literary theorists who study literary texts do so with reference to changing historical, social, and political contexts.

In this seminar, participants will learn how feminist scholars rethink analytic paradigms and create new theoretical models to guide their work. We will examine how knowledge is constructed and deployed; how interdisciplinary feminist perspectives inform research methods; what the practical implications are of those methods; and how feminist analysis redefines traditional categories and disciplinary concepts through its attention to gender as it is inflected by social categories such as race, class, culture, sexual orientation, and age. In the first part of the seminar, we examine feminist methodology in the disciplines and in interdisciplinary work. We look at how feminists approach the analysis of literary texts as well as feminist approaches to sociology and history. We then take up the question of whether there is a feminist methodology, and look at feminist epistemologies - empirical and standpoint theory. In the second half of the course we specifically address feminist perspectives on race, ethnicity, and class differences. We then examine how interdisciplinary feminist methodology has been brought to bear on specific issues relating to state and community control of reproduction and sexuality; and finally, we look into practical guidelines for feminist interventions for social change and policy revision.

Required Reading

Golden, Catherine, ed. The Captive Imagination: A Casebook on "The Yellow Wallpaper." New York: Feminist Press, 1992.
Harding, Sandra, ed. Feminism & Methodology. Indiana Univ. Press, 1987.
Minh-ha, Trinh T. Woman, Native, Other. Indiana Univ. Press, 1989.
Rollins, Judith. Between Women. Temple Univ. Press, 1985.
Seminar Reader: anthology of readings. available for purchase at the Coop in Harvard Square.

Course Requirements

Regular participation in the seminar is required. If you must be absent, please call the professors or the Consortium office.
Participants will each deliver one short (15 minute) oral presentation, write three short informal reaction papers, and write two interpretive essays (10-12 pages) based on analyses of theoretical position papers, primary historical sources, literary texts, and sociological data.