Fall 2000
Mr. Volk
M:  7:00-9:00 PM
Rice 309/x8522
email:  steven.volk@oberlin.edu 
Internet: http://www.oberlin.edu/~svolk

Frida Kahlo, Self Portrait on the Borderline

This year, the seminar on gender in Latin American history will focus on gender relations and the ways they affect and are affected by national projects and processes. We will examine the ways in which nations, as public spaces, are configured as masculine and the consequent problematic that creates for women who seek "incorporation" into the newly emergent or already existing nation. At the same time, must also recognize that women have always been central to the construction and reproduction of the nation - they are not "newcomers" to the national arena.

If this course is primarily developed around the nature of the woman-nation relationship, it is not solely about women, for one must understand "woman" and "man" as relational categories. Thus, we will explore the ways in which the construction of nation and nationalism usually involve very specific notions of "manhood" as well as "womanhood."

Our investigations of gender and nation will span the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the period during which independent states first took their shape and then developed. We will use as texts a wide range of materials, from historical monographs, novels, testimonial literature, film, etc.

The seminar will be a student-led, discussion-format class. All students are expected to take part in the discussions. To do this, you will need to have finished the readings prior to the Monday evening class meetings. There is a significant amount of reading, so you need to plan to make sure that it gets done in a timely fashion.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

As mentioned above, students are expected to keep up with the reading and to come to class prepared. All students will serve as discussion leaders for at least two classes (the total depending on the number of students in the course).

In addition, you are required to complete three projects over the course of the semester. In the normal course of events, these will be 5-7 page papers on topics that will either be assigned or decided upon collectively. But you are also encouraged to think of other ways to approach your assignments. I am quite willing to entertain proposals for projects that are prepared as art works, music, drama, video, or in any other medium. These will need to be cleared by me when the project is first assigned. You are also permitted (and encouraged) to do up to two of the three projects as joint work with a maximum of three people. One project will need to be an individual project. In the case of joint projects, you will need to clear this with me prior to beginning your project. If you do more than one joint project, the second project must be with different collaborators than your first project.

These projects are due on the day assigned in the syllabus. Assignments turned in late without prior authorization will be marked down one grade-step (e.g., from a B+ to a B) for each day that it is late.

Please note that you must use computers responsibly. Computers, particularly those on a network, are always crashing. You must be responsible for saving to disk frequently so that when the computer crashes, you have only lost the last paragraph. You must also save copies of your papers (or your computer files) until the end of the course in case there is any problem verifying that you did turn in your work. Finally, note that I will not accept your last project beyond the last day of the reading period unless you have an official incomplete. There are no exceptions to this.

GRADING POLICY

Your final grade will be determined by the three projects, each of which will make up 25% of the grade. The final quarter of your grade will be determined by your participation in class, including your role as discussion leader as well as your attendance. Again, I expect all students to participate in the discussion. I am interested in seeing that each of you plays an active role in the class and that you engage intelligently in the discussions.

I am available to discuss any aspect of your grades throughout the semester. If for any reason you feel that you are inhibited from participating in the class discussions due to any particular dynamic that has been created, the actions of particular students, or my own participation, please raise the issue in class, with other students, or directly with me. You can do that in person or via my email, if you find it easier to converse through cyberspace.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR PURCHASE

• Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London and New York: Verso), 1991.
• Silvia Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, 1790-1857 (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 1985.
• Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 1993.
• Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga, Sab and Autobiography, trans. and ed. Nina M. Scott (Austin: University of Texas Press), 1993 [1841]. [NOTE: This book should be purchased through an on-line service as it is not available in the bookstore. Try: alldirect.com; booksamillion.com; or bigwords.com.]
• Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), 1991.
• Clorinda Matto de Turner, Birds Without a Nest (Austin: University of Texas Press), 1996 [1889].
• Sueann Caulfield, In Defense of Honor. Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Nation in Early-Twentieth-Century- Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press), 2000.
• Isabel Allende, House of the Spirits, Reissue edition (New York: Bantam), 1986.

Sept. 11: Imagining the Nation

Reading:

Benedict Anderson, The Imagined Community, rev. ed. (London and New York: Verso), 1991. Preface, Chapters 1-6 (to pg. 111).

Article set from Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, Becoming National (NY: Oxford), 1996: Ernest Renan, "What is a Nation?"; Etienne Balibar, "The Nation Form: History and Ideology;" Prasenjit Duara, "Historicising National Identity or Who Imagines What and When," pp. 42-55; 132-149; 151-177 (Regular reserve and Electronic Reserve - ERes).

Sept. 18: Gender and National Identities

Reading:

Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 1993.

Sarah Radcliffe and Sallie Westwood, "Gender and National Identities: Masculinities, Feminities and Power," in Remaking the Nation. Place, Identity and Politics in Latin America (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 134-159 (Regular Reserve and ERes).

Sept. 25: Land, Desire, Honor, Women and Nation: A View from the Middle East

Reading:

Mary N. Layoun, "A Guest at the Wedding: Honor, Memory and (National) Desire in Michel Khleife's Wedding in Galilee," in Caren Kaplan, Norma Alarcón, and Minoo Moallem, eds., Between Woman and Nation. Nationalisms, Transnational Feminisms, and the State (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 92-107 (Regular reserve and ERes).

Film:

Michel Khleife, Wedding in Galilee

Reading:

Silvia Marina Arrom, The Women of Mexico City, 1790-1857 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985), Chapters 1-4 (skimming Chapter 3), pp. 1-205.

Elizabeth Dore, "One Step Forward and Two Steps Back. Gender and the State in the Long Nineteenth Century," in Elizabeth Dore and Maxine Molyneux, eds., Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), pp. 3-32 (Regular reserve and ERes).

Week of Oct. 9 (Day to be rescheduled) Rethinking "Civilization and Barbarism" from a Feminist Perspective: Reconsidering Sarmiento

Reading:

Elizabeth Garrels, "Sarmiento and the Question of Woman: From 1839 to Facundo," in Tulio Halperín Donghi, Iván Jaksi, Gwen Kirkpatrick, and Francine Masiello, eds., Sarmiento: Author of a Nation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 272-293 (Regular reserve and ERes).

Francine Masiello, "Introduction," and "Between Civilization and Barbarism: Gendered Struggles in the Nineteenth Century," in Between Civilization & Barbarism: Women, Nation, and Literary Culture in Modern Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992), pp. 1-51 (Regular reserve and ERes).

Oct. 16: Fall Break

Oct. 23: Gender, Race, and Nation: A 19th Century Novelist (1)

Reading:

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga, Sab and Autobiography (Austin: University of Texas Press), 1993. Read the "Introduction" and "Sab" (Regular reserve only).

Oct. 30: Gender, Race, and Nation: A 19th Century Novelist (2)

Clorinda Matto de Turner, Birds without a Nest (Austin: University of Texas Press), 1996.

Nov. 6: Mapping the New Revolutionary Community: Mexico and Frida Kahlo

Reading:

Florencia E. Mallon, "The Conflictual Construction of Community: Gender, Ethnicity, and Hegemony," in Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 63-88 (Regular reserve and ERes).

Steven S. Volk, "Frida Kahlo Remaps the Nation," Social Identities 6:2 (2000): 165-188 (Regular reserve and ERes).

Frida Kahlo, Love Embrace of the Universe

 Nov. 13: Sexuality and Nation: Argentina

Reading:

Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), 1991.

Nov. 20: Sexual Morality and Nation: Brazil

Reading:

Sueann Caulfield, In Defense of Honor. Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Nation in Early-Twentieth-Century Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press), 2000.

Nov. 27: Gender and Dictatorship (1)

Reading:

Diana Taylor, Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War" (Durham: Duke University Press), 1997.

Dec. 4: Gender and Dictatorship (2)

Reading:

Taylor, Disappearing Acts (continued).

Dec. 11: Towards the Feminist Narration of Nation

Reading:

Isabel Allende, House of the Spirits

Isabel Allende