Women & Protest Speech, A Syllabus
Dr. Tanya Rawal-Jindia, University of California, Riverside (Winter 2017) Office Hours: MWF 1–3 CHASS INTN 2050
Course Description
In this course we will investigate how women shape the culture of protest, dissidence, and revolution, because a British man once said, “Women are more disposed to be mutinous … [and] in all public tumults they are foremost in violence and ferocity.”
Protest, from the Latin protestari, means to publicly assert. However, women are often excluded from public spaces and associated with the domestic or private spheres. In this class we will examine the ways women challenge hegemonic and patriarchal narratives with acts of protest and other public assertions in ways that are inaccessible and unfathomable to people who identify with the hegemonic and patriarchal narratives.
Assignments
- 10% Midterm Exam
- 10% Final Exam
- 20% Group Projects: Protest Development (groups of 5. create a movement using any digital platform. get creative. explain why a digital infrastructure benefits your protest.)
- 60% Medium Articles (15% each; due dates: January 23, February 10, March 3, Final Exam Date)
Week 1: Women and Protest Speech
January 11, 2017 : What incites protest?
“the keeping of wages at the lowest level of subsistence threatens periodically to wreck the entire capitalist system, because the working people are the principal consumers, and they cannot begin to absorb the immense quantity of goods made by them.” — Rosa Luxemburg
“Do you believe that masses of people could be incited to use physical force against the ruling class merely by a few words on the Revolution, when you consider that these same masses kept their temper admirably all the time the capitalist class enforced their anti-Socialist law, their penal servitude enactment directed against free speech and press, their measures for increasing working-class starvation and, last but not least, their Bill for smashing up the workers’ economic organization? I am surprised that the Public Prosecutor has not, instead of prosecuting me, brought to book the originators of those laws and Bills, for these deeds are apt to stir up immensely the propertyless masses.” — Rosa Luxemburg
- “Riot and Revolution,” A Speech by Rosa Luxemburg on Trial for Inciting to Riot (1906)
January 13, 2017: Do I have the right to free speech?
- First Amendment
- Wendy Brown’s “Free Speech is not for Feeling Safe” (2014)
- Read: David Harvey’s “Freedom is Just Another Word,” from A Brief History of Neoliberalism.
Week 2: Sex Strikes and Revolutionary Suicide
January 18, 2017: Anti-War Sex Strike
- Read: Lysistrata
January 20, 2017: War, Women, and Rape
- Read: Lysistrata
Week 3: Pink Saris & Purple Spring
January 23, 2017
- Read: Luisa Muraro’s “The Passion of Feminine Difference Beyond Equality”
January 25, 2017
- Marilyn Frye’s “Oppression,” The Feminist Philosophy Reader (FPR), pgs. 41–48.
January 27, 2017
- Sandra Lee Bartky’s “On Psychological Oppression,” FPR, pgs. 51–60
Week 4: Pussy Riot and Parrhesia
Jessica Zychowicz’s “The Global Controversy over Pussy Riot: An Anti-Putin Women’s Protest Group in Moscow”
January 30, 2017
Foucault “The Meaning and Evolution of the Word Parrhesia” from Discourse and Truth
February 1, 2017
Foucault’s Fearless Speech, pgs. 9–19
February 3, 2017
Foucault’s Fearless Speech, pgs. 20–24
Week 5: Parrhesia, the ‘personal is political,’ Pots & Pans (Cacerolazo)
February 6, 2017
- Foucault’s Fearless Speech, pgs. 75–88
February 8, 2017
- Foucault’s Fearless Speech, pgs. 89–107
- The Socratic Method (The Paper Chase Clip)
February 10, 2017
- Foucault’s Fearless Speech, pgs. 108–115
Week 6: ‘Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorn’d’… By Laws & Taxes
February 13, 2017
- Audre Lorde’s “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” FPR, pgs. 49–50
- Persimmon Blackbridge, Lizard Jones, and Susan Stewart’s “Kiss and Tell: Questioning Censorship,” FPR, pgs. 227–240
February 15, 2017: Midterm Review
February 17, 2017: Midterm
Week 7: Solidarity
February 20, 2017: Holiday
February 22, 2017
- bell hooks, “Sisterhood: Political Solidarity Between Women,” from Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (pgs 43–65)
- bell hooks, “Men: Comrades in Struggle,” from Feminist Theory (67–81)
February 24, 2017
- Andrea Canaan’s “Brownness”” from This Bridge Called My Back pgs. 232–236
- Chrystos’ “I Walk in the History of My People” from This Bridge Called My Back pgs. 57–62
Week 8: Arab Spring (focus on Egypt)
February 27, 2017
- Pat Parker’s “Revolution: It’s Not Neat or Pretty or Quick,” from This Bridge Called My Back pgs. 238–242
March 1, 2017
- Gloria Anzaldúa’s “La Conciencia de la Mestiza/ Towards a New Consciousness,” FPR, pgs. 870–877.
March 3, 2017
- Claudia Card’s “The Moral Powers of Victims,” FPR, pgs. 548–564.
Week 9: Protest Culture
March 6, 2017
March 8, 2017
- Imogen Tyler and K. Marciniak’s “Immigrant Protest” (2014).
March 10, 2017: Discussion
- Marguerite Waller’s “Immigrant Protest and the Courts of Women” (2014)
Week 10: The Voice of Women’s Bodies
March 13, 2017
- Gayatri Spivak’s “Can the subaltern Speak?” pgs. 64–80
March 15, 2017
- Gayatri Spivak’s “Can the subaltern Speak?” pgs. 81–104
March 17, 2017: Conclusion
Protest slogans
“Don’t iron while the strike is hot”
“you strike a woman, you strike a rock”
“We are the 51% minority”
