9:30a-10:45a TR (30) 3 cr.
OPEN TO MAJORS ONLY. DECLARED MINORS OBTAIN AUTHORIZATION FROM BH
442.
The relative merits and demerits of "globalization" dominate much of
the contemporary
discourse of politics in the US. As media pundits and scholars ponder
the consequences of
the consolidation of capital in transnational corporations and the
dissolution of the
importance of the nation-state, little attention has been paid to the
relationship between
transnationalism and gender. Yet as Annette Fuentes and Barbara
Ehrenreich emphasize,
transnationalism is a feminist issue insofar as processes of
globalization are underwritten
by an "international traffic in women." "Crudely put," Fuentes and
Ehrenreich note, "the
relationship between many governments and multinational corporations
is like that of a pimp
and his customers. The governments advertise their women, sell them
and keep them in line
for the multinational 'johns'." The global economy positions women in
contradictory ways:
while they comprise the most impoverished workforce, they are also
interpellated as
consumers of goods produced under exploitative conditions. In
addition, women, and their
images, often function as commodities in the global economy. This
course will focus on the
ways in which gender and the processes of globalization are
represented in poetry, fiction,
and the mass media. We will organize our study around four
categories: women as workers,
women as consumers, women as commodities, and women as
activists.
A tentative list of readings include: Jessica Hagedorn's
Dogeaters; Evan Dara's
The Lost Scrapbook; Denise Giardina's Saints & Villains;
Peter Hoag's
Simla's Sense of Snow; Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot
49; and Ana
Castillo's So Far From God. We will also read poetry by Rachel
Jennings, Ana
Sisnett, and Chea Villanueva. A tentative list of films includes:
A.R.M. Around
Moscow; Fast Food Women; Avon Goes to the Amazon;
and Fresh
Kill.
Course requirements include: active participation in class discussion,
a midterm and final
exam, regular response papers to the readings and lectures, and an
oral presentation.