Fall 2004
Professor Ellen DuBois, edubois@ucla.edu
Tues/Thurs 11 – 12:15
Haines A 18
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBALIZING FEMINISM: 1848-2004
The goal of
this course is to provide an introduction to movements for women’s rights
(educational, political, economic, sexual and reproductive) around the world and over a century and a
half. This is a subject far too
extensive for a single ten week course, but the lectures and reading should
provide a framework, basic information, and resources for going deeper to
enrich your knowledge and satisfy your curiosity about this long, complex set
of political traditions. The lectures
will approach the subject from two perspectives. The first and last group of lectures will
follow a chronological approach, starting with the European and American
movements for human and women’s emancipation in the mid nineteenth century; and
ending with the much broader scope of global feminism as it has developed over
the last decade. A middle set of
lectures will approach the subject of women’s rights movements in major regions
of the world: Asia, the Middle East,
Latin America and
You will be required to attend lectures and do assigned readings. Each lecture class will include a discussion period at the end, to which you may bring questions either from the readings or the lectures. The course requirements also include
n a take home midterm exam: one analytic essay and a few short identifications, distributed on October 19 and due back on October 26
n instead of a final examination, students will form themselves into research groups of five to seven people. Each group will take on a large research topic – either a period, an aspect of women’s rights or a country or region. I will provide a list of possible topics. Together the members of the group will divide up their topic and prepare individual written reports. Guidelines for research will be distributed during the course. In addition to written reports, each group will together prepare a short verbal report, to be presented to the entire class in one of the last two classes. These reports will be very brief, about ten minutes, and will focus on the major highlights of the research. Resources will also be made available for posting more detailed results of the group’s research on the class website, and students will be encouraged to make use of this option.
All assigned readings will be found in a specially prepared course reader, location to be announced later.
COURSE SCHEDULE
1) Thursday, September 30: introduction: Why transnationalism? Defining women’s rights and feminism
2) Tuesday, October 5: mid nineteenth century liberalism and women’s emancipation
3) Thursday, October 7: late nineteenth century socialism, women wage-earners, and women’s economic rights
4) Tuesday, October 12: early twentieth century woman suffrage movements; three wings of the movement for votes for women
5) Thursday, October 14: sexual and reproductive rights in the early twentieth century
6) Tuesday, October 19: women’s rights from World War I to World War II: peace, war and fascism. TAKE HOME MIDTERM QUESTIONS DISTRIBUTED IN CLASS
7) Thursday, October 21: no lecture; work on your take home midterm
8) Tuesday,
October 26: women’s rights traditions in
the
9) Thursday,
October 28: women’s rights traditions in
Asia: learning from the west;
10) Tuesday,
November 2: women’s rights in Latin
America:
11) Thursday, November 4: women’s rights after WWII, the establishment of the United Nations and the invention of NGO’s, during the Cold War
12) Tuesday, November 9: liberation movements of the 1960s and the rediscovery of feminism
13) Thursday November 11: women’s rights in the United Nations gets new life; from the Declaration to End Discrimination against Women to the International Decade of Women, 1975 – 1985
14) Tuesday,
November 16: guest lecture, women’s
rights in
15) Thursday, November 18: guest lecture, women’s studies as an international movement, Professor Sondra Hale
16) Tuesday, November 23: TO BE ANNOUNCED
17) Tuesday, November 30: the United Nations and international
feminism, from
18) Thursday, December 2: violence against women on an international scale, women’s rights as human rights
19) Tuesday, December 7: RESEARCH GROUPS SUMMARY REPORTS
20) Thursday, December 9: RESEARCH GROUPS SUMMARY REPORTS