Kursinformation

Few other social and political movements have transformed U.S. society as deeply and lastingly as the women’s movement has. Women have made gains toward equality and participation in every sphere of society. However, we still are far away from achieving total equality or living in a society devoid of sexism or patriarchal structures. Given this situation, women’s activism and feminism – including demands from gay and trans communities – is here to stay. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a basic historical understanding of the women’s movement and its developments in the US across the four waves of feminism, ranging roughly from the 1840s until today. The class will discuss primary sources of feminists stating their demands that reverberated within U.S. society. Additional literature on the women’s movement in the different epochs will be read in order to gain a broader understanding of the development of feminist history and theory.

Course Outline and Requirements

This course follows three aims. The first is to gain an understanding of feminism and the women’s movement in the US (and beyond). The second aim is to collectively think and discuss about feminist history, theory, and ideas while writing short formats on these topics. The third is to present these short texts in a blog in an effort to gain an understanding of contemporary publishing practices.

After three introductory meetings, for the block session the participants will turn into editors of the blog; conversely the seminar will turn into an editorial team to discuss the texts that are deemed to be published in the blog by the respective editors. The discussion in the seminar is the foundation for reworking the texts in order to publish them in the blog.

All students are required to hand in two short texts (6.000 characters each) and have to comment on two texts of their peers (1.000 characters each). The texts have to be handed in on July 7, the comments have to be handed in on July 12.