26030 - Woman And Social Sciences

Learning outcomes

The student possesses specific knowledge of social sciences within a feminist perspective.

Course contents

The entry of feminist thought and gender studies into academic research contexts has challenged the core concepts of the way science is done. Universality, neutrality and objectivity are categories that are widely criticized by the perspective view adopted by gender studies. Social sciences are not exempt from this reconsideration, and indeed within this field it has been growing a space for the development of gendered, situated, and feminist knowledge. From the “gaze of the knower” to the so-called “methodologies from the margins”, the contribution of knowledge made by women, queer and trans people, racialized or marginalized subjectivities guarantees a fertile ground for heterodox knowledge production. Such a perspective offers partial but more informed insights into the social, political, and ethical phenomena of reality. The non-neutral approach inaugurated by gender and feminist epistemologies, as well as decolonial and intersectional studies, unveils the scope of the symbolic horizon on which social relations and phenomena, as well as knowledge, are constructed.

The course will adopt a pluralist critical-deconstructive posture that is able to recognize the epistemic injustice and semiotic-material violence that emerges from neutral knowledge. Furthermore, it will provide students with tools for a gendered social science that goes beyond the reproduction of segregated social hierarchies and the colonial and hegemonic politics of sexuality. The main objective is to go beyond the mere "women and social sciences" label and instead open up to feminist, hence intersectional contributions to social phenomena, in particular that of the marginalization of subjectivities and knowledge.

It will be seen how focusing on the processes of marginalization, as well as the demands arising from the changing democracies is a priority for feminist social sciences. This course aims to offer a reading of feminist social science as a situated and partial but nevertheless crucial contribution to cutting-edge cartography of the present. In addition to this, students will be able to recognize the benefits coming from radical feminist epistemology and the production of prismatic knowledge. Offering the main methodological and epistemic tools of a non-orthodox social science and proceeding by means of insights into the main voices of today's feminisms, the course will aim to present a social science from the margins that does not fall into processes of victimization of the feminine nor of the marginalized. By the end of the course, students will be able to recognize the situated gaze, the partial perspective, and the eschewing of hierarchical and normative gender relations as heuristic tools for social science. The course will offer four thematic seminars on topics such as: Queer and Feminist Research; Rosa Luxemburg as a pivotal figure for contemporary women politics; Transfeminist studies; Ecofeminism perspectives.

 

Syllabus

15 lessons 2h
7 sessions

Tentative Schedule

1. Introduction

26/09 Contemporary Antigones: Women taking voice.
The concept of Gender: historical contexts, perspectives, pivotal contributions. Joan Scott’s Gender as an analytical category of thought.
27/09 An actual case of women’s participation: Portugal before Aprile the 25th and overview of Feminisms in Social Science.

2. Feminisms, gender(s) and methodologies

2/10 How does prison shape gender? An introduction to social research on genders and sexualities: questions, methods, techniques, and impact on people's lives. Seminar
3/10 Feminisms: From the one subject to subjectivities: from feminism of difference to socialist feminism.

3. Feminist Epistemology and Non-human Agency

9/10 Feminist Epistemologies or women doing science: the Harding/Haraway debate.
10/10 Agency in a feminist perspective: from Physalia Physalis to CRISPR/CAS9.

4. Social Reproduction Theory

11/10 Rosa Luxemburg and contemporary feminisms. Seminar
16/10 What is SRT? 3 turns in feminist social reproduction theory, from wages for housework to more-than-human work

5. Posthumanism, Cyberfeminism, Reproductive Rights

17/10 From Cyborg Theory to post-dualism feminism: feminist critical posthumanities
18/10 Abortion and (non)Reproductive Justice, Seminar

6. Thinking from the Margins, NM and Transfeminism

23/10 Intersectionality, Black Feminism, Decolonial feminism: laboratories and readings from Segato to bell hooks
24/10 Ecofeminism scenarios. Seminar
25/10 New Materialism/Transfeminism

7. Final Presentation/Flipped Classroom (with Q&A and open discussion)

6/11 presentations held by participants
7/11 presentations held by participants

 

Readings/Bibliography

Compulsory readings:

Bhandari M. P., Feminisms in Social Science, in Women and Society, Bhandari M. P. (eds), IntechOpen, 2024.

Haraway D. J., Situated Knowledges. The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial

Perspective, «Feminist Studies» Vol. 14, n.3, 1988; 575-599.

hooks b., Feminist Theory: From Margins to Center, Routledge, 2014 (3^rd edition).

MacDonald L., Women Founders of the Social Sciences, McGill’s University Press, 2004, (Chapter I, Iv and V).

Scott, W. J. (1986), Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis, in American Historical Review, vol. 91, n. 5, pp. 1053-1075, trad. it. Scott, W. J. (1996).

Selected readings and short bibliography:

Alaimo S., Hekman S., Material Feminisms, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2010.

Austin H. Johnson, Beyond Inclusion: Thinking Towards a Transfeminist Methodology, in At the Center: Feminism, Social Science and Knowledge, Demos V., Texel Seagal M., «Advance in Gender Research» Volume 20, 2015, pp. 21-41.

Balzano A., Per farla finita con la famiglia. Dall’aborto alle parentele postumane, Meltemi, 2021.

Barad K., Nature’s Queer Performativity, in Rømer Christensen H., Huage B., Feminist Materialisms, «Women and Gender Research» no.1-2, 2012; 121-158.

Braidotti R.., Four Thesis for Posthuman Feminism, in Grusin R. (ed.), Anthropocene Feminism, Minneapolis: Minnesota Univ. Press, 2017; 21-48.

Braidotti R., The Posthuman. Polity Press, 2013.

Crenshaw K., Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics, «University of Chicago Legal Forum»: Vol. 1989: Issue. 1, Article 8; 139-167.

Crenshaw K., Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color, «Stanford Law Review», vol. 43, no. 6, 1991; 1241–99.

Dalla Costa M., James S., Potere femminile e sovversione sociale, Venice: Marsilio, 1972.

Davis A., Women, Race & Class, Penguin Books (new. ed.) 2019.

Ekowati D., et al., Untold Climate Stories: Feminist Political Ecology Perspectives on Extractivism, Climate Colonialism and Community Alternatives, in Hartcourt W. et al., Contours of Feminist Political Ecology, creative Commons, 2023; pp. 19-50.

Federici S., Caliban and the Witch. Women, The Body and Primitive Accumulation, New York: Autonomedia, 2004.

Haraway D.J., A Cyborg Manifesto, in Simians, Cyborg and Women. The reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge,

1991

Haraway D. J., Staying with the trouble. Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Durham: Duke University Press,2016.

Haraway D. J., Making Kin in the Chthulucene: Reproducing Multispecies Justice in Clarke A., Haraway D. (eds.), Making kin not population Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Harcourt W. et al. (eds.), Feminist Methodologies, Experiments, Collaborations and Reflections, Springer Nature, Open Access, 2022.

Harding S., The Science Question in Feminism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.

Irigaray L., Speculum of the Other Woman, Ithaca; Cornell University Press, 1985.

Loretoni A., Ampliare lo sguardo. Genere e teoria politica, Donzelli editore, 2015.

Okin S.M., Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? ed. by J. Cohen, M. Howard, M.C. Nussbaum. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Santoemma I., Thinking-with Physalias. Toward a relational account of agency, Philosophy Kitchen, Rivista Di Filosofia Contemporanea, (19), 149-165.

Tate S. A., Black Women’s Bodies and The Nation, Palgrave MacMillan, 2015.

Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.

Yuval- Davis N., Intersectionality and Feminist Politics, «European Journal of Women’s Studies vol. 13, n. 3, 2006; pp. 193–209.

Teaching methods

The course will be held in English.

60% lectures

20% seminar with external experts

20% active involvement of the class (flipped classroom, discussion, laboratories/excerpt readings)

Assessment methods

Students attending the course will be evaluated considering activities/participation in discussions and laboratories carried during class (20%) too. The final exam will consist in 3 different options (choice is up to the student)

1) a ppt/small research presentation revolving around one of the topics treated during the seven sessions (80%). The argument will be previously discussed with the professor and presented in class. Details will be further given to the students picking this option.

2) a short paper (from 5 to 7 pages) revolving around topics, themes and bibliographies presented during the course; a short abstract should be submitted to the professor prior to the final paper submission in order to discuss and adjust the theme.

3) Oral exam: oral examination revolving around the study of at least 2 compulsory readings and one selected paper from the optional bibliography.

For students non attending the course: oral exam consisting in a) two of the compulsory readings; b) two of the readings chosen among the entire bibliography (to be previously discussed with the professor).

Office hours

See the website of Ilaria Santoemma