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Engaging Justice: Women's and LGBTQ Social Movements (WGSS 2213)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course examines the role women’s and LGBTQ social movements play in the development of social justice thought and action. You will use the speeches, public dispatches, scholarly and artistic works of important figures and organizations in feminist and LGBTQ social movements to investigate the deep and varied meanings of justice in feminist and LGBTQ activism. You will consider, as well, the relationship between historical and contemporary movements for reproductive justice, workers’ rights, immigration, HIV/AIDS, dis/ability justice, prison abolition, and cultural transformation.
Topical Outline:
1. Topical analysis of the recurring issues, debates, and preoccupations of feminist and LGBTQ social movements across time and space
2. Historical junctures in the development of feminist and LGBTQ social movements and political philosophy
3. Trans-national movements for feminist and LGBGTQ solidarity
4. Differences and tensions between and among traditions of feminist and LGBTQ activisms
5. The application of feminist and LGBTQ thought and activism to better understanding and addressing the political challenges we face in the current moment within our local, national, and global communities
Learning Outcomes:
1. Explore the diverse meanings and mechanisms of justice in feminist and LGBTQ social movements and mobilizations of the mid-20th-21st centuries
2. Examine the major historical and political contexts out of which many modern and contemporary feminist and LGBTQ social justice projects emerge
3. Analyze the critical tensions between and among different feminist and LGBTQ social movement theories and activisms
4. Describe how women and other gender outsiders find activism within everyday struggle and demonstrate how one's own animating conditions can inspire transformation
5. Analyze and reflect on the value of political organizing and writing as a tool of self-actualization and social education
Prerequisites:
Placement into
ENGL 1110 or completion of
ENGL 0900 or
ENGA 0900 or
ESOL 0051
MnTC: