POLITICS OF SEX AND THE BODY: RACE
Revolutionary feminism does not focus on the failures of men, but rather on the violence of patriarchy and the pain of sexist exploitation and oppression. It calls out sexual abuse to transform the space of the erotic so that sexual pleasure can be sustained and ongoing, so that female agency can exist as an inalienable right. Revolutionary feminism embraces men who are able to change, who are capable of responding mutually in a subject-to-subject encounter where desire and fulfillment are in no way linked to coercive subjugation.
—bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (81)
Required Readings and Viewings
hooks “Cultural Criticism and Transformation” Part 1: “Why Study Popular Culture?” [YouTube “Pts. 1 &2”] at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMVqnyTo_0&mode=related&search 9:23 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ-XVTzBMvQ&feature=related 8:41
End, Part 1: “Enlightened Witness,” Beginning, Part 2: “Doing Cultural Criticism: Constructed Narrative” [YouTube “Pt. 3”] at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0whHz7PLGY&feature=related 6:36
Part 2: “Doing Cultural Criticism: Spike Lee, Hollywood’s Fall-Guy” [YouTube “Pt. 6”] at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0whHz7PLGY&feature=related 6:07
hooks Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations, Ch. 4 ”Seduction and Betrayal: The Crying Game Meets The Bodyguard” (53-62), Ch. 6 “Talking Sex: Beyond the Patriarchal Phallic Imaginary” (73-81), Ch. 10 “Seduced By Violence No More” (109-113)(Moodle)
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic Critical race theory: an introduction, Introduction (1-14) at: http://books.google.com/books?id=rh12xOYncbQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=critical+race+theory&hl=en&ei=QmCWTrzgOISUtwevvvDpAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Critical Race Theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB27vqknETk
Collins Black Sexual Politics, Introduction “No Turning Back” (1-21), Ch. 1 “Why Black Sexual Politics?” (25-52) (Moodle)
Seidman et al. New Sexuality Studies Part 7: Sexual regulation and inequality, Ch. 41 “Secret sex and the down low brotherhood” (299- 302), Ch. 55 “Sexual and racial violence and American masculinity” (396-402); Part 5: Sexual institutions and sexual commerce, Chs. 27-28 (195-207)
Sullivan A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory, Ch. 4 “Queer Race” (57-80) (Moodle)
Additional Resources
Film: M. Butterfly (David Cronenberg 1993)
Sample journal entry 1 Note: File Note Found
Sample journal entry 2 Note: File Note Found
Due This Week
Weekly journal entry including main points from readings, to be submitted electronically, and observations about your own sexuality and understanding of sexuality, to be kept in a private journal.
Homework Questions
Abstract, outline, and annotated bibliography of paper due (1st deadline; final deadline Oct. 26)