3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course introduces students to major debates and controversies within the feminist movement in the United Kingdom and the United States from 1850 to the present. From colonial and eugenic women’s movements to anti-trans and carceral feminism, the contents and assessments of this course ask you to consider a pressing question in contemporary feminism: how do we reckon with the reality that many feminists have excluded and continue to exclude people from the liberatory futures they imagine? Together we will analyze the value and limits of historical context and evaluate the relationship between past and present controversies within the feminist movement. Employing critical feminist concepts such as intersectionality and positionality, we will consider what it means for people (including ourselves) to be “products of their time.” By doing historical research in newspaper databases, we will evaluate how feminist claims about “sisterhood” have changed over time.