English 744-001
Feminist Critical Theory
Instr: Jane Gallop
Office: CRT 496, 229-6402
e-mail: jg@uwm.edu
Office hours: by appointment.
Course Information: R 3:30-6:10, Curtin 286
Course Description
This course will examine contemporary feminist theory. The basic assumption is that feminist theory is, among other things, a field of discourse and that each reader (potential writer) inevitably poses the questions of how and where to enter that field. As a field of discourse, it is a social, intellectual, and political arena of difference and not a (single) point of view nor a good center with inadequate margins. We will be reading a number of single-authored texts, one collection, and one anthology. Emphasis will be placed on how to close read theory, on the positioning of authors and structuring of collections, and on the ethics of reading and responding to other feminists. Although we will inevitably look at all the major questions in feminist theory today, this course is not primarily about the acquisition of encyclopedic knowledge. Rather, it is a prolonged encounter with the ethics of each readers intervention into the field of feminist theory.
Course Texts:
Warhol et al., eds., Feminisms, 2nd Edition
Fetterley, The Resisting Reader, 1978
Hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, 1984
MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified, 1987
Butler, Gender Trouble, 1989
Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs & Women, 1991
Kavka ed., Feminist Consequences, 2000
