Postcolonialism, Feminism, and Sexuality

Postcolonial and poststructuralist theory has been crucial to the development of feminist debates in the last century.  In this course we will focus on some of the key concepts that have been central to the reformulation of feminism including power, subject, agency, embodiment, performativity, and cultural translation. We will draw upon materials that cut across a range of historical and cultural locations with an eye toward what sorts of theoretical interventions these texts stage against dominant paradigms in feminist theory. Please bear in mind that this course assumes a certain familiarity with debates in both critical theory and poststructuralism. While we will devote some time to discussing key tropes within this philosophical tradition, most of the class time will be taken up with the transformations these tropes have enacted in the field of feminist theory and politics.  

This course meets the elective requirement.