BTPBR_T_6

The Theoretical Junctures of Feminism

Optional PhD course

Fri 14-18 (Block taught)

Rm 119

Séllei Nóra

Office: 112/inner

Office hours:

Wed 9-10

Thu 10-11

email:

For exceptional cases and

specific contact details see both:

http://ieas.unideb.hu/sellei AND

http://ieas.unideb.hu/index.php?p=487&l=en

The course will revolve around the question: what happens to feminism, and to female identity so often posited by feminist thinkers, if they “meet” the postmodern and postmodern theories of subjectivity. The course will explore the relationship between feminism and postmodernism, and the junctures between feminism and certain theories of Bourdieau, Bakhtin, Barthes, Foucault, Lacan and Derrida. The classes will be devoted to the discussion of the assigned theoretical texts, but, in terms of presentations, they will also rely on related texts chosen by the students (and, in an ideal case, relevant to their research). The course is not designed to be an introduction to gender studies, so it presupposes a thorough preliminary knowledge of theories of gender.

N.B. The classes will be held rather irregularly, in double, block-taught sessions (200 mins), so please pay attention to this erratic timetable.

REQUIREMENTS:

Reader’s journal: the student is expected to keep a reader’s journal in a separate notebook, recording opinions, impressions, raising questions. The journals are to be in class, and to be used for facilitating discussions.

Participation in classroom discussion: the student is expected to take an active part in classroom discussions. This activity contributes to the seminar grade. (The reader’s journal can be of great help in this respect.)

Presentation/discussion: Each student is expected to conduct a presentation/ discussion of about 20 to 30 minutes. Ideally, the presentation will introduce a topic that goes back to the theoretical roots of the readings assigned for the class (and is also related to the research area of the student), and will consist in highlighting the implications of the theoreatical junctures. The presentation will be followed by (or will smoothly transform into) a discussion conducted by the student and pertaining to the assigned readings. The texts/topics for presentation/discussion will be chosen by the students, but if necessary, tutorial consultation and support are available. Students are required to inform the tutor of their intention to make a presentation (and of what the presentation will be on) at least a week before the presentation takes place (it can be done also via e-mail). The presentation/discussion is an integral part of the course assignment, and will be duly assessed.

Research paper: for extra credits, students can choose to write a take-home research paper, related to the course. Length: 2200 to 2500 words. Although the course is entirely theoretical, the research papers will preferably be not exclusively engaged with theory, but will rather be the application of a/some theoretical approach(es) to the interpretation of literary, visual, or film texts. Students are welcome to write their papers on topics that will facilitate their specific research topics (proposed PhD thesis or current area of research.).

The research paper is to be submitted by the defined deadline, otherwise there will be a late submission penalty (see below). The essays must be written in the form of a research paper. Secondary reading and scholarly documentation, conforming to the requirements of the MLA Style Sheet, are required. Plagiarism and academic dishonesty will be penalised as described in the Academic Handbook of the Institute (see also below). The research paper will only be accepted in a worprocessed (typed) format.

Essay style-sheet:

for simple page references use brackets in the body of the text;

use notes only if you mean to add information that would seem a deviation in the text;

sample references in brackets:

(Smith 65); if there are several works by the same author choose a key word of the title of the book: (Smith, Good 65), or if it is an article: (Smith, “Further” 65).

sample bibliography entry:

referring to books: Smith, John. Good Ideas. Place: Publisher, Year.

referring to articles, poems, etc.:

in volumes: Smith, John. “Further Good Ideas”. Editor of volume (if relevant). Volume Title. Place: Publisher, Year.

in journals: Smith, John. “Further Good Ideas”. Title of Journal 2.4 (1996): pages.

Plagiarism and its consequences

Students must be aware that plagiarism is a crime which has its due consequences.

The possible forms of plagiarism:

1.   word by word quotes from a source used as if they were one’s own ideas, without quotation marks and without identifying the sources;

2.   ideas taken from a source, paraphrased in the research paper writer’s own words and used as if they were his/her own ideas, without identifying and properly documenting the source.

Plagiarism, depending on its seriousness and frequency, will be penalised in the following ways:

1.   The percentage of the submitted paper will be reduced.

2.   The research paper will have to be rewritten and resubmitted.

3.   In a serious case, this kind of academic dishonesty will result in a failure.

4.   In a recurring, and serious case, the student will be expelled from the English major programme.

Late submission policy

  1. Deadlines must be observed and taken seriously;
  1. The research paper submitted more than thirty days later than the deadline cannot be considered for course work;
  1. The research paper submitted in thirty one days after the deadline will be penalised by a reduction in the percentage (the extent of the reduction is defined below: see “Grading Policy”);
  1. In exceptional and well-documented cases, the extension of deadlines can be requested of (negotiated with) the course tutor well in advance (definitely not after, or on the day of, the deadline).
  2. If you submit your essay after the first (and before the final) deadline, proceed in the following way:

a.  either submit it in person to your course tutor

b.  or give it to any member of staff of IEAS, asking him/her to write the precise time of submission on the cover page; to sign the submission time; and to put the essay either in my postbox in Rm 111/1 or on my desk in 116/4. NEVER put essays in the box in the corridor, and certainly not without a colleague’s signature and indication of submission time!

c.  if you finish your paper at the weekend, end Monday submission would matter from the point of view of how many points you would lose due to late submission, you are allowed to submit your research paper electronically, but even in that case, you have to submit your hard copy on the first working day; in this case, the cover of your paper must contain yet another declaration: “Hereby I declare that the electronically submitted version and the hard copy fully match each other.”

Assessment of the Research Papers

The research papers must have a clear statement of theme, preferably in the form of a thesis paragraph, and all the further statements must be related to this central topic or question. The text (arguments, agreements and disagreements) must be organised coherently so that the point you make and your flow of thoughts must be clear for the reader. The research papers must, naturally, be finished with a well articulated conclusion which is supposed to be the culmination of your proposed arguments.

The research papers will be assessed on the basis of the following criteria:

·  the articulateness of the thesis of the paper;

·  the clarity of the position you take;

·  the quality of the arguments;

·  the use and integration of your secondary sources into the research paper;

·  the coherence of the structure;

·  scholarly documentation;

·  the level of your language.

The research papers will not be evaluated on the basis of what your tutor’s position is in a certain (and often controversial) issue, so feel free to elaborate your own ideas—but do it in a sophisticated way.


Grading Policy

Classroom work / 60%
Presentation / 40%
total / 100%

Course grades

(depending on the system pertaining to the student)

Percentage / Grade
87-100 / With distinction
61-86 / Pass
0-60 / Non-pass
Percentage / Grade
91-100 / 5
81-90 / 4
71-80 / 3
61-70 / 2
0-60 / 1
Research paper evaluation
Statement of thesis / 5
Quality of argument / 12
Coherence of structure / 12
Scholarly documentation / 5
Level of language / 6
Total / 40

Essay late submission reduction

Delay (days) / Reduction
1–2 / 2
3–5 / 5
6-9 / 10
10-14 / 14

Essay grades

(depending on the system pertaining to the student)

Percentage / Grade
31-40 / With distinction
21-30 / Pass
0-20 / Non-pass
Percentage / Grade
36-40 / 5
31-35 / 4
25-30 / 3
21-25 / 2
0-20 / 1

AVAILABILITY OF TEXTS:

The Theoretical Junctures of Feminism: Course Reader – it is available in a scanned format in Library Rm 101; you can download and/or print it from there

Schedule

Week / Date / Class / Topic
1 / 24.02. / 1-2 /

Session 1: Modernity, Postmodernity and Gender

Rita Felski. “Modernity and Feminism.” The Gender of Modernity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1995. 11–34.
Patricia Waugh. “Postmodernism and Feminism: Where have all the women gone?” Feminine Fictions: Revisiting the Postmodern. London: Routledge, 1989. 1–33.
Susan Bordo. “Feminism, Postmodernism and Gender Skepticism.” Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993. 215–40.
4 / 17.03. / 3-4 /

Session 2: Bourdieu and Genette

Toril Moi. “Appropriating Bourdieu: Feminist Theory and Pierre Bourdieu’s Sociology of Culture.” What is a Woman? – And Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. 264–99.
Toril Moi. “The Challenge of the Particular Case: Bourdieau’s Sociology of Culture and Literary Criticism.” What is a Woman? – And Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999. 300–11.
Susan S. Lanser. “Toward a Feminist Narratology.” Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993. 609–29.
6 / 31.03. / 5-6 /

Session 3: Bakhtin and Barthes

Dale Bauer. “Gender in Bakhtin’s Carnival.” Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993. 671–84.
White, Allon. “Hysteria and the End of Carnival: Festivity and Bourgeois Neurosis”. Ed. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse. The Violence of Representation – Literature and the History of Violence. London: Routledge, 1989. 157–170.
Elizabeth Grosz. “Sexual Signatures: Feminism After the Death of the Author.” Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies. New York: Routledge, 1995. 9–24.
10 / 28.04. / 7-8 /

Session 4: Foucault

Biddy Martin. “Feminism, Criticism and Foucault.” Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance. Ed. Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby. Boston: Northeastern UP, 3–19.
Sandra Lee Bartky. “Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power.” Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance. Ed. Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby. Boston: Northeastern UP, 61–86.
Jana Sawicki. “Identity Politics and Sexual Freedom: Foucault and Feminism.” Feminism and Foucault: Reflections on Resistance. Ed. Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby. Boston: Northeastern UP, 177–91.
13 / 19.05. / 9-10 /

Session 5: Psychoanalysis

Jacqueline Rose. “Introduction II.” Jacques Lacan and the Ecole Freudienne. Ed. Juliet Mitchell és Jacqueline Rose. New York: Norton, 1982. 27–57.
Nancy Chodorow. Chapter “Gender, Self, and Social Theory.” 97–162.
14 / 26.05. / 11-12 /

Session 6: Derrida

Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak. “Displacement and the Discourse of Woman.” Feminist Interpretations of Jacques Derrida. Ed. Nancy J. Holland. University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1997. 43–71.
Elizabeth Grosz. “Ontology and Equivocation: Derrida’s Politics of Sexual Difference.” Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies. New York: Routledge, 1995. 59–80.
Peggy Kamuf. “Deconstruction and Feminism: A Repetition.” Feminist Interpretations of Jacques Derrida. Ed. Nancy J. Holland. University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1997. 103–26.
Peg Birmingham. “Toward an Ethic of Desire: Derrida, Fiction, and the Law of the Feminine.” Feminist Interpretations of Jacques Derrida. Ed. Nancy J. Holland. University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1997. 127–46.

Essay submission deadline for those concerned: TBA