Feminist thought and practice, 1950–today I

Feminism does not just come in waves or as a fashion. Women’s expressions of autonomy have extended and persisted beyond movements and intellectual traditions. Women’s rights have been promoted in many forms and in various social, political and cultural settings. An introduction to modern and contemporary feminist thought and practice, this course challenges the received notion that feminist politics only occurred in dramatic „waves“ of activism. It rethinks the chronology and suggests new perspectives on the history of feminism, putting canonic texts from feminism’s widely resonating „Second Wave“ in the 1960s and 1970s in touch with less well-known contemporaries as well as with earlier and later voices. Key readings include Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray and Kimberlé Crenshaw. As part of the course, we will deal extensively with Maggie Doherty’s The Equivalents (2020), and a copy of the Knopf edition is prerequisite for participating.