YALE UNIVERSITY
WmnsSt 485a (69485) Lynne Huffer
Feminist Theory
T 1.30-3.20 WLH 204
Limited enrollment.

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Syllabus/Course Description:

Women's Studies 485a                    Lynne Huffer
Feminist Theory                         82-90 Wall Street, #419
                                        2-4919
WLH 204 Office hours:
Tues.12:30-1:30, Wed.3:30-5:00

The following texts are available at Golden Threads Bookstore, 915
State Street (777-7807):

Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified
Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Familv Private Property, and the
State
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind
Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought
bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
Linda Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism

We will also read essays from a coursepack available at Minitprint,
13 Broadway (marked CP in your syllabus). All required texts are on
reserve at Cross Campus Library.

Requirements
*Short paper (6-8 pages)                        DUE OCTOBER 19
*Final paper (15-20 pages)                      DUE DECEMBER 17
*Discussion leader: Each person will prepare questions for class
discussion, beginning September 21.
*Class participation.

September 7             Introduction. What is theory?
--Adrienne Rich, "Power" (hand-out)
--Audre Lorde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the
Master's House" (hand-out)

September 14            Beginnings: Seeing. Knowing and the
Construction of Difference
--Angela Carter, "Wolf-Alice" (CP)
--Luce Irigaray, "The Looking Glass, from the Other Side"(CP)
--Plato, The Republic, Books VI and VII (CP)
--Sigmund Freud, "Female Sexuality" (CP)
--Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman (CP)
Also recommended for this week:
--Rosalind Delmar, "What Is Feminism?" (CP)
--Karen Lehrman, "Off Course" (a recent article in
Mother Jones on Women's Studies) (CP)

September 21            Civil Society and the Construction of
Difference
--Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman
--Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (CP)

September 28            Justice. Power and Individual Freedom
--Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified
--Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity (CP)

October 5               Capitalist Production and the Construction of
Difference (I)
--Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and
the State
--Emma Goldman, "The Traffic in Women" (CP)
--Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Woman: Notes on the 'Political
Economy' of Sex"

October 12              Capitalist Production and the Construction of
Difference (II)
--Angela Davis, Women. Race and Class (CP)
--Christine Delphy, Close to Home (CP)
--Heidi Hartmann, "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism:
Towards a More Progressive Union"
--Iris Young, "Beyond the Unhappy Marriage: A Critique of the Dual
Systems Theory"
--Michele Barrett, Women's Oppression Todav (CP)

October 19              Essence, Existence and the Construction of
Being
--Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

October 26              Ontology and the Politics of Difference
--Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind
--Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology (CP)
--Alice Echols, "The Yin and Yang of Cultural Feminism"
--Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Subaltern Studies:
Deconstructing Historiography"

November 2              Feminist Epistemology (I)
--Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought
--Sandra Harding, "Feminism, Science and the Anti
Enlightenment Critiques," Feminism/Postmodernism
--Anne Seller, "Realism versus Relativism: Towards a Politically
Adequate Epistemology" (CP)

November 9              Feminist Epistemology (II)
--Lorraine Code, "Experience, Knowledge and Responsibility" (CP)
--bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
--Susan Bordo, "Feminism, Postmodernism and Gender
Scepticism," Feminism/Postmodernism

November 16     Seeing. Knowing and the Construction of Difference:
Take Two
--Judith Butler, "Gender Trouble, Feminist Theory, and
Psychoanalytic Discourse," Feminism/Postmodernism
--Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality (CP)
--Teresa De Lauretis, "Sexual Indifference and Lesbian
Representation" (CP)
--Eve Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (CP)
--Luce Irigaray, "When Our Lips Speak Together" (CP)

FALL RECESS

November 30     Reflections and Re-Visions
--Audre Lorde, "Poetry Is Not a Luxury" and "Uses of the Erotic: The
Erotic as Power" (CP)
--Adrienne Rich, "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision" (CP)