- Winter 2022
Syllabus Description:
Pol S 401: Feminist Critics of the West
Winter 2022
M, W 10:30-12:20
Professor: Noga Rotem
ZOOM LINK FOR CLASS: https://washington.zoom.us/j/92509834393
Office Hours (on zoom): Wed 12:30-2:30 pm, or by appointment:
https://washington.zoom.us/j/2307576389
Political theory has historically excluded women as political subjects; it ignored their specific needs, situations and desires; and it demonized non-compliant women. This seminar will explore feminist criticism of the western tradition of political thought, and of the West. We will be interested in how feminist political theorists read, interpret, criticize, reclaim or reject the core concepts of political theory (such as freedom, justice, equality, power), and in how feminists reimagine political theory, and the world, insisting on altering the framework of political theory (and of politics) rather than only demanding inclusion.
The seminar is divided to three main units: “Call and Response,” “Encounter,” and “Reimagining the world.” The units correspond to a repertoire of three modes of feminist engagement with the world (there are others, of course): feminists (1) respond to injustices, naming that which they are against and exposing the (sometimes) hidden working of power in the texts that they read and in the world. (2) They initiate encounters with a plurality of others, enemies but also friends and allies, in the company of which they think and act and with which they collaborate or struggle or both. And, (3) they engage in creative imagining and collective action the purpose of which is building a better world.
Course requirements include active participation, participation in discussion groups, one 2 pp think-piece, and two short papers.