AP/HUMA 3302 3.00

Hood Feminisms: Black Women's Fugitivity

This course centres "the nowhere of the ghetto and the nowhere of utopia" (Hartman, xiii) to understand the social, historical and political contexts of the wayward practices of Black Women. It uses key issues and debates in contemporary Black Feminist Thought to grapple with the conundrum of social dispossession that around the way Black women experience while simultaneously being the "radical thinkers [who] tirelessly imagined other ways to live" (Hartman xv) that often set in motion larger movements on whose margins they are later left.

The course seeks to locate the overlooked histories of Black Girls, Women, Femmes and Non-Binary folk particularly with regards to their creative and life-affirming engagements that have profound impact on Black Life. Our aim is to gain an understanding of "hood/ ghetto" feminisms as a conceptual framework or field of study and to employ its tools of analysis from Black feminism/womanism theory to a range of Black Cultural production ranging from poetry, fiction, activism, television, graphic novels, music and other forms of popular culture. We pay particular attention to how these "hood" "ghetto" "wayward" "fugitive" Black women engage/critique standpoint theory, black nationalism, black liberalism, and black Marxism to think critically about feminism, race, gender, sexuality, and oppression. Guest speakers will be invited into the classroom as experts to speak on key issues and frameworks to engage students in the subject matter.