Course Details

Course offered Winter 2017

HONORS 394 F: Feminism on the Borderlands (Chicana/Latina Feminist Theory) (A&H / SSc, DIV)

HONORS 394 F: Feminism on the Borderlands (Chicana/Latina Feminist Theory) (A&H / SSc, DIV)

SLN 22248 (View UW registration info »)

Michelle Habell-Pallán (Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)
Office: PDL B110 T, Box 354380
Phone: (206) 543-6981
Email: mhabellp@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 25 students

Honors Credit Type

This seminar will examine the ways Chicana feminist theories have critiqued neoliberal conceptions of identity and diversity and, as theorist Chela Sandoval writes, theorized difference not as an objective in itself but instead as a point of departure and a method. Readings will examine the debates about gender, nation, and social justice Chicana feminist publications engendered, and the way these debates have troubled nativism by invoking and documenting life in the borderlands.

In addition, the seminar will examine the particular forms in which Chicana feminist theoretical practices are embodied, including theoretical texts, poetry, and music. We will consider the ways Chicana feminist theory has transformed and been transformed by intellectual, poetic, and aesthetic traditions. We will look at the ways Chicana feminist theory both troubles and works within, across, and between disciplinary frameworks. We will also explore the national and transnational roots and routes of Chicana Feminist Theory. Finally, the seminar will examine the relationship of Chicana feminist theory to the discourse of “planetary civil society.”

Structure of class time:
This course is structured as a dynamic discussion seminar. In the first part of the seminar, the instructor will provide an overview lecture. Afterwards, the seminar will move into discussion break out groups. This will be followed by a mid-way break. The seminar will resume to collectively view or to listen to relevent film, media or audio texts, and end with a collective discussion.