CHST 183 CH - Latina Lit: Feminism & Brown Bod

Latina Literature: Feminism and the Brown Body. The purpose of this course is to consider the experience of what Chandra Talpade Mohanty called Feminism without Borders,? a feminist theory and politics defined by the simultaneous oppressions of race, class, gender and sexuality in the developing world. By considering Latina literature in particular and its engagement with multiple feminisms, we will see a landscape marked by contradictions and conflict with ?First World? feminism and determined from within by culture, colonialism, history, and geography. Our attention to literary renderings of the feminist experience will be informed by a recurrent emphasis on representations of history and issues of gender, terms that can be understood culturally, historically, economically, racially, and geographically. From Old World Lit to Chica Lit, we will ask ourselves how the models of womanhood and female liberation andautonomy presented in these texts align themselves and/or challenge U.S. American, Latin American, European and Latina feminisms to date. We will question whether the shifting constructions of sexuality, gender roles, and family/inter-generational tiescombined with the experience of immigration, transmigration, hybridity and border culture fashion a new Latina subject emerging within the realities of consumerism and globalization.

Course Credit: 1.0

Please refer to the course schedule on the Scripps Portal for current course offerings and details.