French Feminism Before and After the DSK Affair

Professor: Emily Apter, French and Comparative Literature Fall 2012 NYU-in Paris

The DSK affair, which erupted in New York City in May 2011, revolved around accusations of sexual assault by a Guinean employee of the Sofitel Hotel. The alleged predator was Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund and a favored presidential candidate of the French Socialist party for the 2012 election. DSK was staunchly defended by many of his colleagues in the political establishment, especially men. Though the prosecution’s case against him was eventually dropped and conspiracy theories mushroomed that he was set-up, the show of support for DSK– “a seducer, possibly a rapist, never”- breathed new life into French feminisms. Debates raged around sexism, sexual consensus, the ritual codes of loving consent “between equals” as a model of relation between citizen- subjects, and the strategic compact that emerged between feminism and conservative anti-Islamists where secular mores were concerned. This course will examine these debates in a context of “before and after” DSK. Key works by Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous,, Catherine, Catherine Malabou, Marie N’Diaye, Elsa Dorlin and Nacira Guénif will be analyzed alongside those of select Anglophone counterparts, among them Toril Moi, Judith Butler and Joan Scott. We will focus on how long-standing and important feminist problematics - sexual difference, the problem of violence against women, the problem of “being” woman, sexual consent, courtship and seduction, sexual citizenship, sex, race and immigration, and the situation of women in politics and the media - have been redefined in the wake of the DSK scandal.

Students will have the option of a reading journal or two 6-page papers. Course conducted in English with some readings in French (Intermediate-level knowledge of French required).

Texts:

Edward Epstein, Three Days in May: Sex, Surveillance and DSK (Amazon.com).

Irène Théry, “Un féminisme à la française,” Le Monde, May 28, 2011. www.scoop.it/t/feminisme/p/164519531/un-feminisme-a-la-francaise-irene-thery- lemonde-fr

Claude Habib, Mona Ozouf, Philippe Raynaud, Irène Théry, “Féminisme à la française: la parole est à la défense,” Libération July 28, 2011. Joan W. Scott, “La réponse de Joan Scott,” Libération June 9, 2011.

Joan Scott, “Féminisme à la française,” Libération June 9, 2011 www.liberation.fr/politiques/01012342214-feminisme-a-la-francaise.

Eric Fassin, “L’après-DSK: pour une séduction féministe,” Le Monde June 29, 2011. www.scoop.it/t/feminisme/p/601407331/les-inrocks-clementine-autain-et-elsa- dorlin-ou-en-est-le-feminisme-aujourd-hui. Fassin, “The symbolic politics of DSKgate” rdian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/may/23/dominique-strauss-kahn-race

Kathy Davis, “’Stand by Your Man’: or: How feminism was framed in the DSK affair” The European Journal of Women’s Studies Feb. 2012 19

Mona Ozouf, Women’s Words: Essay on French Singularity

Nacira Guénif-Souilamas, “On French Religions and their Renewed Embodiments,” unpublished essay.

Nacira Guénif-Souilamas, “Une étrange défaite, une leçon de civilisation,” blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/nacira-guenif/240911/une-etrange-defaite-une-lecon-de- civilisation (Translation my own).

Marie Ndiaye, Rosie Carpe Simone de Beauvoir, selections from The Second Sex Jacques Derrida, “Geschlect: sexual difference, ontological difference,” Research in Phenomenology 13 (1), 1983. Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa Judith Butler, selections from Gender Trouble, (and translation into French), Undoing Gender Camille Robcis, “How the Symbolic Became French: Kinship and Republicanism in the PACS Debates,” Discourse 26.3 (Fall 2004) Catherine Malabou, Changing Difference Joan Wallach Scott, The Fantasy of Feminist History Entries on Sex and Gender from Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon Danièle Kergoat, Se battre, disent-elles (Paris: La Dispute, 2012).

General Reference/Extra Reading: Linda Fairstein, Nightwatch Michel Taubman, Affaires DSK: La Contre-enquête Françoise Héritier, Masculin-Féminin. La Pensée de la différence (1996, 2002) Geneviève Fraisse, La Différence des sexes, Du consentement (2007) and A côté du genre. Sexe et philosophie de l'égalité, Le Bord de l'eau, 2010 Elsa Dorlin ed. Sexe, Race, Classe: Pour une épistémologie de la domination Penelope Deutscher, A Politics of Impossible Difference (2002) and Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction and the History of Philosophy (1997) Elsa Dorlin, L’évidence de l’égalité des sexes. Une philosophie oubliée du XVIIe siècle (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000). Sofi Oksanen, Purge (influential in France, receives the Prix Fémina in 2010). Nacira Guénif- Souilamas, Les féministes et le garçon arabe (Paris: Editions de l’Aube, 2004). Stella Sandford, Plato and Sex