Gender Theory for Historians (Hist 72000) Fall 2012, Prof

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Gender Theory for Historians (Hist 72000) Fall 2012, Prof. D. Herzog, [email protected] Class: Tuesdays 2-4, Room 4433 Office Hours: Fridays 10-11:30 and by appointment; tel. 212-817-8468

This graduate seminar is designed to introduce students to both classic and more recent texts in the overlapping areas of women’s and gender history, queer studies, and feminist, psychoanalytic, deconstructionist and poststructuralist theory, with forays into a wide range of historiographical styles and occasional excursions into anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, and political philosophy. There will be special emphasis on: the historical intersections of gender, race, economics, empire, religion; the histories of subjectivities and epistemologies; and the histories of psychiatry, sexuality, disability, reproduction. Most of the texts will focus on the U.S. and Europe since the 18th c., with many focused on the recent past and near-present. Throughout, the goal will be to understand the practical usefulness of varieties of gender theory for the diverse historical research projects you all are engaged in. Requirements include thorough reading of the assigned materials, two critical questions about each assigned text sent to instructor and classmates in advance of class every time, thoughtful and active participation in class discussions, two short summary analyses of weekly readings also sent to instructor and classmates in advance of class (we will divide up the reading list amongst ourselves on the first day), and one longer final paper exploring the relevance of and putting to use some aspect(s) of gender theory for your own work. Questions and summaries must be emailed by 7 a.m. on Tues.

Required materials: Carolyn Steedman, Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives ISBN: 0813512581 /9780813512587 $ 19.95 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. I: An Introduction 0679724699 /9780679724698 $ 14.00 All readings marked with a * are on e-reserve at the Mina Rees Library.

Learning Goals: Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to: *Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the evolution of theoretically-informed work in gender history and related disciplines from the 1970s to the present, including various applications of psychoanalytic, deconstructionist, and poststructuralist approaches *Recognize both the historically and culturally variable nature of ideas about gender and sexuality and the consequential impact of those ideas despite their variability *Identify key innovations in conceptualizing the historically variable intersections of gender and sexuality with issues of class, race, and disability *Explain effectively the adaptability and applicability of critical concepts developed by feminist and queer theorists working in history and other social sciences and humanities to the study of such issues as violence, religion, and empire

Aug. 28 Introduction to the course

Sep. 4 Class and Capitalism *Judith Walkowitz, “The Making of an Outcast Group,” in Martha Vicinus, ed., A Widening Sphere (1977) *Ellen Ross, “Fierce Questions and Taunts,” Feminist Studies (Fall 1982) *Sonya Rose, “Gender at Work,” History Workshop (Spring 1986) *Kristin Ross, “Cars, Couples, and Careers,” Fast Cars, Clean Bodies (1995), pp. 54-70 *Ellen Willis, “How Now, Iron Johns?” The Nation, Dec. 13, 1999, pp. 18-22 *Barbara Ehrenreich, “Welcome to Cancerland,” Harper’s (Nov. 2001), pp. 43-53 *Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild, “Introduction,” Global Woman (2002), pp. 1-13

Sep. 11 The Trouble with Feminism *Joan Scott, “American Women Historians, 1884-1984,” Gender and the Politics of History (1988) *Denise Riley, “Does a Sex Have a History?” (1988), in Joan Scott, ed., Feminism and History *Judith Butler, “Gender Trouble” (1989), in Linda Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism *Joan Scott, “Rereading the History of Feminism,” Only Paradoxes to Offer (1996) *Saba Mahmood, “Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival,” Cultural Anthropology 16, no. 2 (May 2001), pp. 202-236 *Joan Scott, “Feminism’s History,” Journal of Women’s History 16/2 (2004) *Judith Surkis, “Hymenal Politics: Marriage, Secularism, and French Sovereignty,” Public Culture (2011)

Sep. 18 and Sep. 25 No classes scheduled on GC calendar.

Oct. 2 The Politics of Envy Carolyn Steedman, Landscape for a Good Woman (1987)

Oct. 9 The Intimacy of Violence *Peggy Sanday, “The XYZ Express,” Fraternity Gang Rape (1990), pp. 38-59 *Lynne Segal, “Changing Masculinities: Rape, Pornography,” Continuum 1, no. 1 (1990) *Judith Butler, “Endangered/Endangering,” in Robert Gooding-Williams, ed., Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising (1993) *Joanna Bourke, “The Pleasures of War,” An Intimate History of Killing (1999), pp. 13-43 *Patricia Williams, “Without Sanctuary,” The Nation (Feb. 14, 2000), p. 9 *Matthias Bjornlund, “‘A Fate Worse than Dying’: Sexual Violence during the Armenian Genocide,” in Dagmar Herzog, ed., Brutality and Desire: War and Sexuality in Europe’s Twentieth Century (2009) *Regina Mühlhäuser, “Between ‘Racial Awareness’ and Fantasies of Potency: Nazi Sexual Politics in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union, 1942-1945,” in Herzog, Brutality and Desire (2009)

Oct. 16 No class. Instructor out of town.

Oct. 23 Civilization Clashes *Ann Laura Stoler, “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power” (1991), in Scott, Feminism and History *Joan Scott, “Symptomatic Politics: The Banning of Islamic Head Scarves in French Public Schools,” French Politics, Culture, and Society (Winter 2005) *Richard Fogarty, “Race and Sex, Fear and Loathing in France During the Great War,” in Herzog, Brutality and Desire (2009) *Katrin Sieg, “Black Virgins: Sexuality and the Democratic Body in Europe,” New German Critique, no. 109 (Winter 2010) *Todd Shepard, “’Something Notably Erotic’: Politics, ‘Arab Men,’ and Sexual Revolution in Post-Decolonization France, 1962–1974,” Journal of Modern History 84, no. 1 (March 2012)

Oct. 30 Racial (In)Justice/Gender (In)Justice *Joan Ringelheim, “Women and the Holocaust: A Reconsideration of Research” (1985/1992), in Carol Rittner and John Roth, eds., Different Voices *Susan Pedersen, “National Bodies, Unspeakable Acts: The Sexual Politics of Colonial Policy- Making,” Journal of Modern History (Dec. 1991) *Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, “African American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race,” Signs 17, no. 2 (Winter 1992) *Ann duCille, “The Unbearable Darkness of Being: ‘Fresh’ Thoughts on Race, Sex, and the Simpsons,” in Toni Morrison, ed., Birth of a Nation’hood (1997) *Laura Briggs, “Discourses of ‘Forced Sterilization’ in Puerto Rico,” differences 10, no. 2 (1998) *Matthew Connelly, “Population Control in India: Prologue to the Emergency Period,” Population and Development Review 32/4 (Dec. 2006)

Nov. 6 Reworking Freud. Start collecting primary sources and/or secondary scholarship for final paper. *Sigmund Freud, “Screen Memories” (1899), in The Complete Psychological Works *Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents (1931), Part II (= pp. 22-36) and Part V (pp. 68-74 only) *Ernst Simmel, “Anti-Semitism and Mass Psychopathology,” in Simmel, ed., Anti-Semitism: A Social Disease (1946) *Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual Taboos and Law Today” (1963), in Critical Models *Gayle Salamon, “The Bodily Ego and the Contested Domain of the Material,” Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality (2010) *Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi, “Ahimsa, Identification and Sacrifice in the Gujarat Pogrom,” Social Anthropology 18, no. 2 (May 2010)

Nov. 13 Disability, Reproduction *Beverly Wildung Harrison, “Our Right to Choose,” in Barbara Andolsen et al., eds., Women’s Consciousness, Women’s Conscience (1985), pp. 101-20 *Kate Fisher, “‘Didn’t stop to think, I just didn’t want another one’: The Culture of Abortion in

Interwar South Wales,” in Franz X. Eder et al., eds., Sexual Cultures in Europe, Vol. 2: Themes in Sexuality (1999) *Michael Bérubé, “Biotech before Birth,” Tikkun 15, no. 3 (May-June 2000), pp. 73-79 *Harriet M. Johnson, “Unspeakable Conversations,” New York Times Magazine (16 Feb. 2003) *Carol Poore, “Disability Rights, Disability Culture, Disability Studies,” Disability in Twentieth- Century German Culture (2007) *Gil Eyal et al., “Introduction: The Autism Matrix,” The Autism Matrix (2010), pp. 1-13 only

Nov. 20 No class. Instructor out of town. Bibliographies and tentative outlines for final papers due by email.

Nov. 27 Foucault for Historians Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. I: An Introduction (1976, English trans. 1978), Part I, Part II Ch. 1, Part IV Chs. 2 & 3, Part V *Jeffrey Weeks, “Sexuality and Power,” Sex, Politics and Society (1989), pp. 6-11, 16-17 *Wendy Brown, “Jim Miller’s Passions: A Review,” differences 5, no. 2 (1993)

Dec. 4 Queer Thinking *Joan Nestle, “My Mother Liked to Fuck,” in Ann Snitow et al., Powers of Desire (1983) *Lauren Berlant, “Intimacy: A Special Issue” (1998), in Lauren Berlant, ed., Intimacy *Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, “Sex in Public” (1998), in Berlant, Intimacy *Lisa Duggan, “Holy Matrimony!” The Nation (March 15, 2004) *Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Types, Acts, or What? Regulation of Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century Iran,” in Najmabadi and Kathryn Babayan, eds., Islamicate Sexualities: Translations across Temporal Geographies of Desire (2008) *Robert Beachy, "The German Invention of Homosexuality," Journal of Modern History 82, no. 4 (Dec. 2010)

Dec. 11 Historicizing Emotions *David Halperin, “Active and Passive Sexuality” (1990), in Robert Nye, ed., Sexuality *Laura Kipnis, “(Male) Desire and (Female) Disgust: Reading Hustler,” in Lawrence Grossberg et al., eds., Cultural Studies (1992) *Omer Bartov, “Kitsch and Sadism in Ka-Tzetnik’s Other Planet: Israeli Youth Imagine the Holocaust,” Jewish Social Studies 3, no. 2 (Winter 1997) *Don Kulick, “Four Hundred Thousand Swedish Perverts,” GLQ 11, no. 2 (2005) *Carole Vance, “Thinking Trafficking, Thinking Sex,” GLQ 17, no. 1 (2010) *Gregory Mitchell, “TurboConsumers (TM) in Paradise: Tourism, Civil Rights, and Brazil’s Gay Sex Industry,” American Ethnologist 38, no. 4 (2011)

Dec. 18 Final papers due by email no later than 5 pm