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Course Description

Summary

Contemporary feminism is a multi-faceted social justice movement to end gender-based oppression. Feminist movements have deep and interesting intellectual roots. In this course, we will excavate and investigate these roots. Throughout the course we will explore various contested conceptual terrains, such as: agency, affinity, body, equality, difference, desire, freedom, power, sexuality, and work. We will use philosophical tools and methods to come to grips with some of feminism’s perennially critical questions: What is gender difference? How is agency exercised under oppression? What is feminist freedom? What change does feminism imagine in the world? We will use feminist texts from the 18th-20th c. as the basis for our inquiry, with attention to how these texts are situated in historical, social, and political contexts.