FACS 4920: Feminist Cultural Theory

NOTE NEW LOCATION: 318 Calumet

Lesley Dill (b. 1950)
White Poem Dress, 1993
["This World is not Conclusion," Poem No. 501]
Painted metal and plaster
55 x 36 x 30 in.
Private Collection

This art work was shown in 1997 at the Mead Art Museum in Amherst, at an exhibition entitled Language as Object: Emily Dickinson and Contemporary Art.

I found this image in Christopher Rovee's
visual writing syllabus
http://www.princeton.edu/~ckrovee/wct_visual/courseinfo.html

 

NOTE NEW LOCATION: 318 Calumet

www.yorku.ca/caitlin/4920

Dr. Caitlin Fisher
208 Winters, 736-2100 x 20744
caitlin@yorku.ca
Office Hours: TBA

Course meets:
Winter term
Mondays 2:30-5:30 318 Calumet
"The actual creative project of woman as subject involves betraying the oppressive mechanisms of culture in order to express herself through the break ... Not the project of fixing meanings but of breaking them up and multiplying them". Anne-Marie Sauzea-Boetti

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course is designed to give students an awareness of the relationships between practice, representation and theory in feminist approaches in the study of culture. The course considers themes that have become central to feminist theory such as the body, identity, nature and difference in terms of the contributions that have been made by feminist cultural theorists both to feminist theory and to cultural theory more generally. The concept of culture itself will be examined according to a range of definitions and redefinitions employed by feminists in addressing cultural identities; cultural practices and everyday life; cultural production (especially visual culture, new media); questions of cultural reproduction, translation and appropriation; postcoloniality and the study of technology. We will consider a wide range of representations and practices.

GOALS: This course will

- expose you to a wide range of feminist theories about culture and a range of cultural practices
- encourage you to develop your own ideas around the intersection of feminist thought and culture and explore ways to communicate these in your own voice
- encourage your capacity to critically engage feminist work in a variety of media

This site is under construction.

 

Parts of this syllabus are indebted to or from the work of Laura Sullivan and Gregory Ulmer, University of Florida,
and Janice Williamson and Heather Zwicker, University of Alberta.