Philosophy Department, University of Oregon, Spring 2008.

N. Zack, FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY

PHIL 643 CRN. 35127. 2-3:50, TR, 314 PLC, Phone:   (541) 346-1547, cell phone-541-337-5347, office hours>wed.2-4 358 PLC nzack@uoregon.edu

The course will be based on examination of and answers to the following framing questions---by students, for themselves. The progression of the course will not line up with the questions below, but the questions are offered for the independent development of themes in the course.

*Does the group/gender/identity “women” exist? If Yes, how can we define it? If No, how have so many been confused into believing it does exist? Does the group “women,” whether it exists or not correspond to “the main subject of feminism”?

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*Are there common social and political goals for all women/other subjects of feminism [x’s], at this time in history? If there are, what problems do they seek to solve? If there are not, then what is the practical task of feminism?

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*What is feminism? What is the intellectual task of feminism? Can we meaningfully divide feminism into waves? If No, why not, and how else should feminists understand their history? If Yes, then what are these waves and how are they distinctive? Or, is the history of women from different socioeconomic classes, races, ethnicities, nationalities, and religions, too diverse for us to speak of one “feminism?”

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*As both an introductory and concluding specific case study/example, what is beauty as it relates to women/x’s? What feminist issues can be located in ideals and uses of beauty?

*Required “core” readings will be assigned to shape the foregoing questions and suggest answers to them. To some extent, their selection is arbitrary and students will be encouraged to supplement or overcome them with their own textual choices, but in a conversation with the required readings.

*The course will have the format of a seminar and participatory, self-constructed methods of feminist pedagogy will be used, throughout. Each class one student will lead the discussion of the assigned text and whatever supplements the student wishes to provide.

Work will consist of two five page and one 10+page paper. The papers should be mindful of the background questions posed above, or to other questions proposed by students. They should directly answer the set questions and have as their primary texts, the assigned readings, or the alternatives to them agreed upon beforehand. Methods from diverse traditions based on student interests will be encouraged, including, but not limited to: analytic, continental, process philosophy, and please fill in this blank.

Participation and attendance at all meetings are required. The grades will mainly be based on the quality of the papers, with more weight on the 10+ page paper. (This paper will be due and returned before the last 5-page paper, allowing for adjustments in that paper, if necessary, even though its topic will not be revisited in the last paper.)

*A copy of this syllabus is available on Blackboard and under “ Course Links” for Naomi Zack, on the Philosophy Department website. (http://philosophy.uoregon.edu/faculty/nzack/nzack.html)

Note: If you are registered for the course, you have access to the course on Blackboard. All students will be enabled to add material to Blackboard, instead of providing paper copies of their supplementary selections, or to share other interests.

Readings. The following are available on reserve, or on-line, at the UO bookstore or used at Smith Family Bookstore.

Peg Brandt, ed. Beauty Matters, R

Judith Butler, Antigone’s Claim R

Julia Kristeva, About Chinese Women R

John Stuart Mill, On the Subjection of Women, available on line at:

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645s/

Toril Moi, Sexual/Texual Politics R

Mary Lyndon Shanley and Carole Pateman, eds. Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory R

Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Women available on line at:

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/mwollstone/bl-mwoll-vin-7.htm

Naomi Zack, Inclusive Feminism: A Third Wave Theory of Women’s Commonality R

(I use my book extensively, to frame issues, but please be assured that I expect and welcome disagreement.)

Schedule of Seminar Topics, Readings, and Papers

Weeks 1 and 2. What do discussions of beauty reveal about feminist issues?

Film : PBS, “Miss America”

Readings: All readings for Week 1 and 2 are in Peg Brandt, ed. Beauty Matters

Introduction: “ How Beauty Matters,” Peg Brand

“Kantian and Contextual Beauty,” Marcia M. Eaton

“Malcolm’s Conk,” Paul Taylor

“Ethnicity, Race, and Monstrosity,” Noel Carroll

“Beauty and Beautification,” Arthur Danto

“Beauty and its Kitsch Competitors,” Kathleen Higgins

“Miss America: Whose Ideal?” Dawn Permutter

“From the Crooked Timbre of Humanity,” Anita Silvers

“Whose Beauty”? Hilary Robinson

“A Man Pretending to be a Woman,” Kaori Chino

“Bound to Beauty,” Peg Brand

Week 3 and 4. Early Western Feminist Concerns

First Meeting. Week 3. 5 page paper due. Please answer this question:

With reference to the readings, speaking from your own views of beauty and feminism,

What is the relation of beauty, as experienced by contemporary women/x’s, to feminism?

Readings:

Selections from Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. (Are their concerns behind us? Who are “us”?) Gatens on Wollstonecraft and Shanley on Mill in Feminist Interpretations

Zack: Inclusive Feminism, chapt. 8, “World Paths Towards Women’s Equality;”

Week 5. Intersectionality and its problems

Readings: “The Intersection of Gender and Race in the Labor Market,” Irene Browne and

Joya Misra, Annual Review of Sociology, August, 2003. http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100016

Naomi Zack, Inclusive Feminism, Chapter 1, “Beyond Intersectionality,” and ““Can Third Wave Feminism be Inclusive?: Intersectionality, Its Problems and New Directions,” in Blackwell Guide to Feminist Philosophy, eds. Eva Kittay and Linda M. Alcoff, Blackwell, 2007, chapter 11. (on Blackboard).

Week 6. Defining Women,

Readings: Marilyn Frye, “The Necessity of Differences: Constructing a Positive Category of Women. Signs, Vol. 21, No. 4, Feminist Theory and Practice.
www.queensu.ca/wmns/WMNS370/The%20Necessity%20of%20Differences%20

Naomi Zack, Inclusive Feminism, chapters 2,3,4.

Week 7. Feminist Social Theory,

Readings: Christine Delphy, “The Invention of French Feminism: An Essential Move” Yale French Studies, No. 87, Another Look, Another Woman: Retranslations of French Feminism (1995), pp. 190-221 (available on J-Stor, and on reserve)

Zack, Inclusive Feminism,chapters 5 and 6.

Toril Moi, Sexual/Texual Politics

Week 8. Feminist Psychological Theory and Phenomenology

Readings: Julia Kristeva, About Chinese Women, “From This Side” pp. 11-42

Naomi Zack, Inclusive Feminism chapter 7.

Toril Moi, Sexual/Texual Politics

First day of week 9. 10+paper paper due.

Drawing on the work of the course from weeks 5-8, write an essay with this title.

“About the text/reality and signifier/signified divide in feminism”

Note: it is a viable option to explain why these may be false dichotomies.

Week 9. Feminist Political Theory

Naomi Zack, Inclusive Feminism, Summary and Conclusion.

Judith Butler, Antigone’s Claim

Week 10. Conclusion

First day of week 10. Retrospective discussion of answers to framing questions. Discussion of last paper.

Last Day of Class

5 page paper due. Reading: N. Zack, “No More Mothers?” (on Blackboard.) In light of what you have studied, talked about and reflected upon since the first 5-page paper, please write an answer to this question

What is the relation of feminism, as experienced by contemporary women/x’s, to beauty and/or sex appeal and/or power (including political or social power, if you like)?

Feedback, Evaluations.