Race-ing the Center: Thinking & Practicing Intersectionality

This course engages feminist theory and practice as a series of questions, which are both personal and political. What is gender? What is sex? What is a woman (or man)? What is theory? Who gets to theorize … and who gets to decide? What is the relationship between theory and political struggle? The range of answers, debates and transformations generated by the questions have given birth to and enriched multiple fields of political action, activism, and scholarship. The course takes as its basic and most essential premise that none of these questions can be answered without critical consideration of race and class - the study of gender in the US is incomplete without them. So, this course brings intersectionality and black feminist thought from the margins to the center of the study of gender. The course will equip students to understand and articulate how gender, race and class in the U.S. are entangled and to illustrate this claim with examples that demonstrate show how experiences, opportunities, and social power within social institutions including the economy, state, family, and media vary according to one’s class, gender or racial position. You will also learn how to draw upon varied social and cultural theories and research to pose critical questions and engage with current debates on how the social environment shapes the behavior and experiences of women, men and others.

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