Gender And Revolution

Timetable

Tuesday, 13.30-15.00, room 46, Collegium Heliodori Święcicki, street Grunwaldzka 6

Classes start on 8th March, 2022

Module aim (aims)

The goal of the course will be to examine a role of gender both in historical instances of social/political transformations labelled as revolutions and in ideological discourses, usually formulated on the basis of specified philosophical projects, that inspired and legitimised them. The idea of the course stems from three observations: first, that gender as an integral element of the social structure is always implicated, although in different ways, in the course and outcome of revolution, second, that it is often explicitly problematised in the above mentioned discourses. The third observation, borrowed from Valentine M. Moghadam, states that revolutions analysed from the perspective of their outcomes can be classified as realising one of the following models: modernizing and egalitarian model, with women's emancipation as an explicit goal, and patriarchal model, tying women to the family and stressing gender differences rather than equality. During the course we will examine selected examples of revolutions (both progressive and conservative), elucidate their gender dimension and pose more general questions regarding the relationship between, on the one hand, women's and men's subjectivities and, on the other, ideas as well as practices aiming at establishing alternative social orders. The course will make use of historical, sociological and philosophical works as well as visual materials.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Command of English sufficient to read the literature on the subject in this language

Syllabus

Reading list

1. Scott, J. W. (2018). Gender and the politics of history. Gender and culture. New York: Columbia University Press.

2. Kelly, J. (1986). Women, History, and Theory. University of Chicago Press.

3. Kafker, F., Laux, J. (1990). The French Revolution. Conflicting Interpretations. Malabar Fl: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company.

4. Moghadam, V. M. (1995). Gender and revolutionary transformation: Iran 1979 and East Central Europe 1989. Gender & Society, 9(3), 328–358.

5. Women in the Revolution: Gender and Social Justice After the Arab Spring. Journal of Gender, Race, & Justice Volume: 18 Issue 2 (2015) ISSN: 1550-7815.

6. Afary, J., & Anderson, K. B. (2005). Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (Annotated edition). University of Chicago Press.

7. Goldman, W. Z. (1993). Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936. Cambridge University Press.

8. Mcdermid, J., & Hillyar, A. (1999). Midwives Of Revolution: Female Bolsheviks & Women Workers In 1917. Ohio University Press.

9. Rosenberg, D. (1991). Shock therapy: GDR women in transition from a socialist welfare state to a social market economy. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 17: 129-51.

10. Tetreault, M. A., ed. (1994). Women and revolution in Africa, Asia, and the new world. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

11. Wolchik, S. (1993). Women and the politics of transition in Central and Eastern Europe. In Democratic reform and the position of women in transitional economies. V. M. Moghadam (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon.