Finally Finals
Dec. 11th, 2006 02:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muscadineI turned in my final paper for Feminist Theory. Eight pages on "trans-gendering women," about half of which is a (hopefully) theoretical reading of the independent film Female to Femme. Monika says the idea of trans-gendering women makes her brain hurt, but I think she might like the video. It's a rough start but if my professor likes it I think I want to develop it into a full-fledged theory paper.
I'm giving an early final tomorrow so I need to start putting questions together. The real final is Friday.
Also, need to revise my CV for my Annual Evaluation *DUN DUN*.
Also, it might be good to write a syllabus for the class I'm teaching during Winter Session.
There is a marked history of feminist theoretical work that seeks to problematize the concept/category of “woman/women.” Much of this work focuses on issues of intersectionality and multi-vocal identity, in which “woman” is revealed to vary across sociopolitical divisions such as class, race, and sexuality and furthermore how women’s identities are constructed in part through opposition to other women (Alarcon 1990: 360). While that line of theoretical development hopefully informs this project, it is not the focus. Instead, here I hope to problematize the notion of woman as a normative category and to suggest how it may operate as a transgression. Insofar as this is an attempt to question normative notions of gender “as such,” this might be seen as closer to the work of Irigaray, Rubin, and Butler and indeed this project finds its bases in their work, as will soon be explicated.
To be clear, my project here is not to posit the ontological or discursive status of women and that of transgender as identical. Inevitably, perhaps, the project does lead towards examination of the continuities between transgender and women. The core of the project, however, is to examine the notion of women’s gender transgression within the context of “female bodies” and “femininity.” Keeping this in mind as the overall focus and destination, I want to begin by setting up a few theoretical starting points...
I'm giving an early final tomorrow so I need to start putting questions together. The real final is Friday.
Also, need to revise my CV for my Annual Evaluation *DUN DUN*.
Also, it might be good to write a syllabus for the class I'm teaching during Winter Session.
There is a marked history of feminist theoretical work that seeks to problematize the concept/category of “woman/women.” Much of this work focuses on issues of intersectionality and multi-vocal identity, in which “woman” is revealed to vary across sociopolitical divisions such as class, race, and sexuality and furthermore how women’s identities are constructed in part through opposition to other women (Alarcon 1990: 360). While that line of theoretical development hopefully informs this project, it is not the focus. Instead, here I hope to problematize the notion of woman as a normative category and to suggest how it may operate as a transgression. Insofar as this is an attempt to question normative notions of gender “as such,” this might be seen as closer to the work of Irigaray, Rubin, and Butler and indeed this project finds its bases in their work, as will soon be explicated.
To be clear, my project here is not to posit the ontological or discursive status of women and that of transgender as identical. Inevitably, perhaps, the project does lead towards examination of the continuities between transgender and women. The core of the project, however, is to examine the notion of women’s gender transgression within the context of “female bodies” and “femininity.” Keeping this in mind as the overall focus and destination, I want to begin by setting up a few theoretical starting points...
