POL S 405 C: Advanced Seminar in American Politics

This course examines the concept of intersectionality within the context of social movements and advocacy. Intersectionality theory, and the longstanding Black feminist literature that has shaped it over time, offer us an important framework for understanding (1) overlapping systems of oppression, (2) marginalization across identity characteristics, (3) how political institutions regulate the institutional lives of people differently by identity, (4) and the politics that are always underlying these outcomes. In this course we will think critically about social movements and grapple with the ways in which identity is politicized in these spaces through advocacy, activism, and institutional resistance. Throughout the course, we will examine how activists strategically leverage identity cleavages to advocate for issues and interests, and how these actions in turn shape politics, policy, and institutions. Class readings, discussion, and assignments are all opportunities to untangle, deconstruct and make sense of the politics of intersectionality as we try to understand why and how groups advocate for issues and selves that are outside of mainstream political spaces.

Perez Brower_Syllabus_Intersectionality, Advocacy & Social Movements-2.pdf