Spring 2022, CairoThematic Course
Muddying Waters: Race, Class and Gender
Course details
- Cycle
- Spring 2022, Cairo
- Starts
- Monday, Feb 14
- Meets
- Monday, 18:00–20:00
- Length
- 12 sessions
- Format
- In person
- Taught in
- English
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About the course
This seminar examines the topical feminism on-the-ground within an intersectional framework of race, class and gender. It unpacks “women’s question” in a fluid time and space. Through tracing the complexities in representation, culture, economic subjugation and colonial power relationship, participants will explore difficult issues and debates surrounding female circumcision, microfinance, women’s empowerment, sex worker rights, caregiving, domestics work, queer politics and women’s activism in today’s neoliberal times. Classes will be structured around literature reading, film screening, story-telling, and other creative ways to unfold conversations.
Who teaches it
Shan Yang is a Post-MA Fellow for the 2019-2020 academic year at HUSSLab after obtaining an MA at the American University in Cairo. Her MA Comprehensive Examination covered three domains: political economy, time and temporality and the urban. She is currently working on a research project-Being and Living in Spaces of Global Capitalism: Time, Gender and Lifeworlds of Rural Migrant Laborers. She obtained her Bachelor's degree (2012) and first MA (2015) at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Course flow
February 2022
- The Life and Times of Sara Baartman
- Skin bleaching scandal in South Africa.
- Africa Observed: Discourses of the Imperial ImaginationComaroff, Jean and John. (1991) 1997. In Perspectives on Africa. Roy Grinker and Christopher Steiner (eds). Pp. 689-703.
- Moolaade(2004), Director Ousmane Sembène.
- A Handful of Ash(2013), Directors Shara Amin and Nabaz Ahmed
March 2022
- “Ain’t I A Woman Too?”: Challenging Myths of Sexual Dysfunction in Circumcised WomenAhmadu, F. (2007). In Transcultural Bodies (pp. 278-310). Rutgers University Press.
- Gender Crusades: The Female Circumcision Controversy in Cultural PerspectiveBoddy, J. (2007). In Transcultural bodies (pp. 46-66). Rutgers University Press.
- Female Circumcision in Africa and Beyond: The Anthropology of a Difficult IssueTalle, A. (2007). In Transcultural Bodies (pp. 91-106). Rutgers University Press.
- (Sex Workers Cry) Rights Not Rescue in Cambodia
- Demystifying micro-credit: the Grameen Bank, NGOs, and neoliberalism in BangladeshKarim, L. (2008). Cultural dynamics, 20(1), 5-29.
April 2022
- Capitalizing on bare life: sovereignty, exception, and gender politicsFluri, J. (2012). Antipode, 44(1), 31-50.
- Secret Slaves of the Middle EastFilipino domestic workers
- Revolution at point zero: Housework, reproduction, and feminist struggleFederici, S. (2020). PM press.
- Engendering powers in neoliberal times in Latin America: Reflections from the left on feminisms and feminismsCastro, M. G. (2001). Latin American Perspectives, 28(6), 17-37.
- “Pinkwashed: Are young gays selling out to capitalism?”Faye, S. (2015)
May 2022
- Radical care: Survival strategies for uncertain timesHobart, H. I. J. K., & Kneese, T. (2020). Social Text, 38(1), 1-16.
- Beyond Resilience: Trans Coalitional Activism as Radical Self-CareEdelman, E. A. (2020). Social Text, 38(1), 109-130.
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