Weekday class only: short exam review

Please bring a #2 pencil(s) to class, already sharpened!

Review the following:
"Tough Guise"
Gloria Steinem's "Supremacy Crimes"
Power/Control Wheel / Healthy Relationships
Issues with satire (Leslie Jones, Richard Pryor, etc)

My response to all of this tummy-tuck nonsense

NYT "The Baremidriff" article

Muffin Top
My muffin top is all that
Whole grain, low fat
I know you wanna piece of that
But I just wanna dance

Ch-checking out my sweet hips
My sugar coated berry lips
I know you wanna get with this
But I'm just here to dance

So back up off of me
You're weirding me out

Everyone knows the most delicious
Part of the muffin is the top

My muffin top is all that
Whole grain, low fat
I know you wanna piece of that
But I just wanna dance

Ch-checking out my sweet hips
My sugar coated berry lips
I know you wanna get with this
But I'm just here to dance

So back up off of me
You're weirding me out

I'm an independent lady
So do not try to play me
I run a tidy bakery
The boys all want my cake for free
But if you can't shake your fakery
Then kiss my muffin top

Checking out my sweet hips
My sugar coated berry lips
I know you wanna get with this
But I'm just here to dance
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/30-rock/muffintop-lyrics/#iTxyz4lxfWxaW3Rp.99

Final exam schedule

Weekday class: Monday 6/9; 1:30pm-3:30pm
Room: TBA

Friday class: Friday 6/6; 6:30pm-8:30pm
Regular classroom

Wish your moms, grandmamas, mothers of your children a Happy Mother's Day!

Professor Valle and her mamma.

HW #9-Reading and Discussion only, you will not need to turn this in

Weekday class: Due Monday, 5/12
Friday class: Due 5/16

Transnational Feminism

Read the following website on Transnational Feminism. Please be sure to watch the videos as well, because it will help put the website into context.

Now read about the controversial Russian activist group, Pussy Riot here and here and why their protest is so important.

Be prepared do discuss the following questions in class:

1. Define "transnational feminism"? Why is it so important?

2. How can we apply Transnational Feminism to Pussy Riot's struggles? What do you think of how the Russian government has dealt with Pussy Riot's activism? Would an organization like Pussy Riot be incarcerated for their actions here in the United States? Why or why not?

3. What other global issues should we examine through a Transnational lens?

We will read the following essay, "Critical Transnational Feminist Praxis" by M. Jaqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, in class, but take a look at it beforehand and become acquainted with it.

HW #8

Weekday class due 5/8
Friday: TBA

Read the following excerpt about feminist standpoint theory (below). And watch this video on Sarah Baartman

Set a timer and write for 10 minutes without stopping. Explain how any or all of these pieces affected you (Sarah Baartman piece, the Leslie Jones piece, the Russian woman piece, the Richard Pryor and the Archie Bunker piece).


Feminist Standpoint theory
Feminist standpoint theorists make three principal claims: (1) Knowledge is socially situated. (2) Marginalized groups are socially situated in ways that make it more possible for them to be aware of things and ask questions than it is for the non-marginalized. (3) Research, particularly that focused on power relations, should begin with the lives of the marginalized. Feminist standpoint theory, then, makes a contribution to epistemology, to methodological debates in the social and natural sciences, to philosophy of science, and to political activism. It has been one of the most influential and debated theories to emerge from second-wave feminist thinking. Feminist standpoint theories place relations between political and social power and knowledge center-stage. These theories are both descriptive and normative, describing and analyzing the causal effects of power structures on knowledge while also advocating a specific route for enquiry, a route that begins from standpoints emerging from shared political struggle within marginalized lives. Feminist standpoint theories emerged in the 1970s, in the first instance from Marxist feminist and feminist critical theoretical approaches within a range of social scientific disciplines. They thereby offer epistemological and methodological approaches that are specific to a variety of disciplinary frameworks, but share a commitment to acknowledging, analyzing and drawing on power/knowledge relationships, and on bringing about change which results in more just societies. Feminist scholars working within a number of disciplines—such as Dorothy Smith, Nancy Hartsock, Hilary Rose, Sandra Harding, Patricia Hill Collins, Alison Jaggar and Donna Haraway—have advocated taking women’s lived experiences, particularly experiences of (caring) work, as the beginning of scientific enquiry. Central to all these standpoint theories are feminist analyses and critiques of relations between material experience, power, and epistemology, and of the effects of power relations on the production of knowledge.

Oooooohhh boy! Let's talk about this in class.

Weekday class: for Tuesday 5/6
Friday class: for 5/9

Read this article on SNL's subversive act in the 1970s, and read the text of the Richard Pryor/Chevy Chase sketch. Here is a link to the actual sketch.

Also, if you didn't read/watch this already, be sure to look at Leslie Jones' Weekend Update appearance on SNL. Also think about the Russian character. There is a lot happening in the first 8 minutes of this sketch.