AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION

    American Women's History
    19th Century U.S. History
    Comparative Women's History
    Comparative Feminisms
    Sex, Race, and Class

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT

    Development of U.S. I
    Comparative Feminisms
    History of American Women I
    Women's Rights in America

GRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT

    Research Seminar in Women's and Gender History
    Colloquium in Women's and Gender History
 
 

FALL 2001   988:302 COMPARATIVE FEMINISMS
WAL 203 MW4: 1:10-2:30

Professor Nancy A. Hewitt,  Email: nhewitt@rci.rutgers.edu
Office: Douglass College, Ruth Crocker Dill Johnson Bldg. 005
Phone: 732-932-1151 x624
Office Hours: RCDJ 005, Mon. 3:00-4:30 and by appointment; also, at College Ave. Campus, Van Dyck Hall 222, Tues. 12:30-1:30

COURSE PURPOSE
This course explores the emergence and development of feminisms in a variety of sites around the globe during the 19th and 20th centuries. We will focus both on the particular forms of feminism (and other women?s movements) that appear in specific times and places as well as the relations among feminist and other forms of women’s activism across time and place. At the same time, we will examine the differences among feminists and among activists in each specific case. That is, we want to understand both differences between and tensions within women?s movements at various historical and geographical moments.

In order to pursue comparisons in depth, we will concentrate this semester on three case studies. The first focuses on contemporary South Africa and the U.S. and on women?s participation in movements for liberation, racial justice, and environmental rights. The second focuses on late 19th/early 20th century India and England and on women?s participation in nationalist, imperialist, and feminist movements. The third focuses on the mid-to-late 19th century U.S. and Western Europe and the emergence of women?s rights during the struggle against slavery and in the context of political and economic globalization.  Each set of comparisons requires us to think critically about competing definitions of feminism, about the relation of feminisms to other women?s movements and other movements for social change, and about the ways that race, nationality and material conditions shape the meanings of women?s emancipation and rights.

COURSE ASSIGNMENTS
To engage this breadth of concerns will require close attention to the readings, regular participation in class discussions, and a commitment to maintain a semester-long journal that relates the readings and discussions to contemporary women?s issues. The books required for this course are listed below, along with the assignments due each class period. The written assignments for this course include 3 short (2-page) reaction papers and 3 ?exams,?one at the end of Sections 2, 3, and 4 of the course.  The exams will vary in type, and at least one will be a take-home exam. A few readings will only be available on reserve at Douglass Library.

You will hand in your journal along with each exam. Journals are intended to help you critically assess contemporary concerns about women in the U.S. and other parts of the world in the context of course readings and discussions.  The journal should be based on information in daily papers, news magazines like Time, Newsweek, or The Nation, or material collected from websites, campus speakers, and other sources on women?s situation in the world today. You may paste stories, headlines, etc into the journal, but whether these are included in this way or in your own words, the journal most importantly should provide your evaluation of the ways that these contemporary events are connected to or illuminated by the course readings and discussions.
Grades for the course will be assigned based on the following criteria: 3 reaction papers (15% in total), 3 exams (15% each), journal (20% total), class participation (20% total). I will take attendance sporadically and unexcused absences or persistent tardiness will be taken into account in assigning your final grade. Permission must be received IN ADVANCE for any paper or exam that is handed in late or you will be penalized one grade on that assignment.

 REQUIRED READINGS: (Available at Douglass Co-op Bookstore)
Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism
Temma Kaplan, Crazy for Democracy: Women in Grassroots Movements
Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915
Bonnie Anderson, Joyous Greetings: The First International Women?s Movement, 1830-1860
Nell Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol
In addition, there will be an article or two on reserve at the Douglass Library Reserve Reading Room.

CLASS SCHEDULE

Part I:  Issues and Concepts
Wed. Sept. 5 Introduction: What is Feminism? What is Comparative Feminism?

Mon. Sept. 10 Global Issues and Comparative Perspectives
Read: Narayan, chpts. 1 and 4, “Contesting Cultures” and “Through the Looking-Glass Darkly”

Wed. Sept. 12 Documenting Cross-Cultural Movements
  Video: A Woman’s Place

Mon. Sept. 17  Contesting Cultures
Read: Hand out, Simone Weil Davis, “Loose Lips Sink Ships” AND
Narayan, chpt. 3, “Contesting Cultures”
  In-class Project: Thinking Critically, Thinking Comparatively

Wed. Sept. 19 Identifying Women Leaders/Women’s Leadership
  Video: Leading Women

Part I: Women?s Environmental Activism in South Africa and the United States
Mon. Sept. 24 Mother Earth?
  Read; Kaplan, chs. 1-2

Wed. Sept. 26 Race, Rain and Social Justice in the U.S.
Read: Kaplan, Crazy for Democracy, chs. 3-5
  DUE: 2-page reaction paper
 

Mon. Oct. 1 South Africa in Transition
                    Read on Reserve: Iris Berger, “Women in Eastern and Southern Africa”
            Video: South Africa Belongs to Us

Wed. Oct. 3  Environmental and Social Justice in South Africa
          Read: Kaplan, chs. 6-8

Mon. Oct. 8 Feminist Movements/Women’s Movements/Mothers’ Movements
  In-class Project: Rethinking Comparative Feminisms

Wed. Oct. 10   EXAM I
  HAND IN JOURNALS, DUE AT BEGINNING OF CLASS

PART II: Late-19th/early-20th C India and England: Nationalism, Imperialism and Feminism
Mon. Oct. 15 Women in Colonial India: Historical Perspectives
Read on Reserve: Barbara Ramasuck, “Women in South Asia” in Ramasuck and Sharon Sievers, Women in Asia: Restoring Women to History

Wed. Oct. 17 Women in Colonial India: Exploitation and Resistance
  Read on Reserve: Radha Kumar, chpt. 5, in her The History of Doing

Mon. Oct. 22 Feminist Critiques: The Case of Sati
Read on Reserve: Tanika Sarkar,  “A Prehistory of Rights,” Feminist Studies (Fall 2000) AND Narayan, chpt. 2, “Restoring History and Politics”
In-class Projects: Strategizing for Change

Wed. Oct. 24 Imperial Politics
  Read: Burton, chpt. 1

Mon. Oct. 29 Race, Nation and Feminism
  Read: Burton, chpts. 2-4
  DUE: 2-page reaction paper

Wed. Oct. 31 Whose Burden?
  Burton, chpts. 5-7

Mon. Nov.  5  Imperial Feminisms: Past and Present
In-class Project: Rethinking Comparative Feminisms

Wed. Nov.  7 EXAM 2
  HAND IN JOURNALS
 
 

PART III: The 19th-century U.S. and Western Europe: Rights, Race, and Transatlantic Feminism
Mon. Nov. 12 Webs of Women?s Activism
Website Project: Women and Social Movements in the U.S., 1830-1930
<http://www.womhist.binghamton.edu>
Go to Projects, Select Lucreta Mott?s Transatlantic Networks 1840-60

Wed. Nov. 14 Women’s Activism in Transatlantic Perspective
Read: Anderson, Intro. and chpt.1

Mon. Nov. 19 Emancipating Others
Read: Anderson, chpts. 2-4

Wed. Nov. 21  FRIDAY CLASSES/NO CLASS

Mon. Nov. 26 Emancipating Themselves
Read: Anderson, chpts. 5-8

Wed. Nov. 28 Radical Agendas
  Read on Reserve: Nancy Hewitt, “Feminist Friends”
In-class Project: Definitions of Radical Feminism in the Mid-19th C.

Mon. Dec.  3 Making of a Feminist I
Read: Painter, Sojourner Truth, Parts I and II

Wed. Dec.  5 Making of a Feminist II
Read: Painter, Sojourner Truth, Part III

Mon. Dec. 10 Inclusions and Exclusions
  No Reading

Wed. Dec. 12 Global Issues and Historical Perspectives
In-class Project: Rethinking Comparative Feminisms
 

FINAL EXAM : TAKE HOME EXAM DUE ANYTIME BEFORE FRIDAY, DEC. 21 AT
11:00 AM