“Feminisms in Focus: Gender Theory, Social Movements, and Subjectivity“

Feminisms, as social movements and theoretical project, have always been struggling with self-positioning. Feminist thinkers are self-conscious about the main challenges of today’s movements: grappling with issues of class and commercialization, from pink capitalism to ‘faux feminisms’ and the ideological threat of racist, classist, and trans-exclusionary movements appropriating feminisms. This seminar will explore the plurality of feminism(s), as social movements, philosophical theories, and subject position. This translates into three foci in the seminar structure: applied gender theory in social movements, feminist subjectivity, and feminist aesthetics, where we will focus on recurring topoi in feminist cultural productions such as humor, autobiography, and ‘witchiness.’ We will explore these topics mostly through feminist manifestos, for example Feminism for the 99% by Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser (2019), Sara Ahmed’s “Killjoy Manifesto” (2016) or the “W.I.T.C.H. Manifesto” (1968), in addition to relevant theoretical texts by Lauren Berlant, Teresa Ebert, and bell hooks, among others.