Virginia Burrus
(Seminary Hall 112, Ext. 3099)

Wendy Kolmar and Frances Bartkowski, eds. Feminist Theory: A Reader (1999)
Elizabeth Minnich, Transforming Knowledge (1991)
Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body (1994)
Additional articles.

For the next four weeks (dates are tentative!), guests have been invited from a variety of disciplines and have been asked to respond to two questions:
1) What has been the impact of feminist scholarship in your field?
2) How do you see your current work as feminist or as working at an intersection of interdisciplinary feminist scholarship and your disciplinary field?

Abstracts:
For each article assigned, write a one-paragraph (4-5 sentence) abstract. The abstract should include: the main point of the article's argument; several essential subordinate points or examples; a final sentence which locates the article in some way in relation to the topic of the day or the other articles assigned. When the week's reading is a book, select two chapters from the book to abstract. No abstract is required for Written on the Body. Abstracts are due when the readings are discussed in class. Abstracts are an essential part of the work of the course; they will be counted not graded as follows:
Abstracts complete and on time for:

11 classes = A
10 classes = B
9 classes = C

Part One: Project Proposal and Short Paper (Due October 18)
A 250-word proposal for your project and five annotations of key sources. In addition to the project proposal, you will write a short paper (5-7 pages) which looks at three of the five articles you have annotated, examining the ways in which they are doing feminist scholarship, the debates that arise between/among them, and the ways that they are defining the field of scholarship you are examining. The purpose of this paper is to practice, on a small scale, the approach that you will use in your longer essay.

Also due on October 18, is the form on which you sign up an outside reader who will read and comment on your final paper. This reader can be any member of the graduate faculty, most likely a member of the women's studies graduate area. When they agree to read the paper they are agreeing to meet with you to discuss the paper and then to read the final draft and provide a grade to us. Consult with the instructors about who would be a possible reader for the paper.

Part Two: Annotated Bibliography (Due Nov. 3)
Develop an annotated bibliography of books and articles in the area (15-20 sources). Each bibliographic entry (use the style preferred in your area), should be accompanied by an annotation that identifies the major issues addressed by the article and the ways in which the approach to those issues is informed by gender/feminist analysis.

Part Three: Essay (Due Nov 15 in draft; Dec. 11 final)
Write and essay of 10-15 pages, in which you examine the materials you have gathered as a body of feminist scholarship. What are the commonalities in methodology or theory among these scholars? What are the debates within this field of scholarship? How does it bring feminist theory and method into dialogue with disciplinary approaches? This essay should not simply be a review of the literature, though it should be well-grounded in your sources. It should be analytical, critical and even speculative in nature (i.e. you might suggest areas to be explored, work yet to be done, approaches to be taken, linkages that the work you're examining doesn't itself foreground.).
A draft version of your essay is due Nov. 15 (bring 3 copies). In class, you will exchange essays with another member of the class. You will comment on each others work, making suggestions for revision. You will also serve as respondents to each others' work when it is presented in class.
After you have received your readers comments, revise your essay on the basis of those comments and also on the basis of comments and responses you've received during your seminar presentation. In you final draft, include an acknowledgment paragraph in which you identify the contributions of others to the development of your essay. Final, revised essays are due, with the annotated bibliography attached, December 11. Deliver a copy to your outside reader and one each to Profs. Kolmar and Burrus.