Chelsea’s Syllabi

Intersectional Thought | Black Bodies | Black Women’s Activism

Seminar on Intersectional Thought

This course provides an overview of intersectionality. We begin by historically grounding intersectional frameworks in Black women’s activism and writing, which has long drawn attention to how race, class and gender mutually determine social location. We will then follow the academic evolution intersectional thought, survey suggested methodological approaches to intersectional research, and read empirical studies that employ intersectional frameworks to analyze data. The assigned readings seek to develop your sociological imagination and methodological toolkit, such that you are prepared to conduct independent research that attends to the ways in which intersecting social hierarchies yield different experiences of identity and inequality.

Emerging from critical race theory, “intersectionality” as conceived by Kimberlé Crenshaw theorizes how interrelated systems of power, particularly racism, capitalism and patriarchy, produce dilemmas for Black women that are distinct from white women and Black men. A central claim of intersectionality is that race, class and gender mutually constitute everyone’s experiences—including those with axes of relative power. Thus, research about groups who are already visible in the sociological literature and/or privileged in society is enhanced when analyzed through an intersectional lens that is attentive to history, inequality, and culture. This insight has expanded intersectionality from a content specialization on Black women’s experiences into an analytical tool for conducting empirical research on a wide range of social phenomena and communities. As such, we will also read scholarship that has elaborated upon race/class/gender intersectional frameworks to consider nation, sexuality, ability, age, and more. As you examine these theories, consider how they have developed in relation to one another, that is, as critiques to address the perceived weaknesses of previous perspectives.

Seminar on Black Bodies

This course overviews sociological, historical and cultural studies on the body, with a focus Blackness form a critical and intersectional perspective. How is race embodied, and how are bodies racialized? How do gender, sexuality, size, and class mutually influence embodiment? The body is a “medium of culture,” the physical and symbolic form through which social hierarchies, control, and etiquette are played out (Bordo 1993). Dominant Western philosophies have constructed Black bodies as dangerously animalistic, less developed and morally inept. These have been used to justify Black people’s enslavement, sterilization, and societal marginalization over time. However, we will not just discuss what is frequently and has historically been done to Black bodies, but also the subjective experience of embodying our identities and the body as a site of resistance. We will attend to the latter through a series of reflective essays, wherein you will turn a critical eye to your own embodiment.

White supremacist patriarchy shapes the ways in which Black people experience the medical field, encounter gender-based violence, and engage in beauty work. For example, adherence to Eurocentric beauty ideals has often meant the chance of upward mobility via access to employment, social networks, and romantic relationships in a global society where Black women fit at the bottom of race, gender and often class hierarchies. Thus, we will not consider race as our sole axis of analysis, but as it interacts and intersects with other systems of social stratification.

Seminar on Black Women’s Activism

The course provides an overview of Black women’s grassroots political activism, focusing primarily on women in the United States with comparisons to Black women’s activism in South Africa and the UK. We will also discuss and analyze how Black women engage the political with the personal, demonstrating political activism in their everyday lives. You will examine the mutual influence of sex, gender, race, sexuality, and class on Black women’s politicization and social movement strategies. How do intersecting identities shape Black women’s claims for citizenship, autonomy, respect, and security? What constraints and opportunities do they face?

This course is also an opportunity to practice scholar-activism, and to move theorizing beyond the Ivory Tower. A central tenant of Black feminist thought is that theorizing should not be divorced from social life and social change. We are talking about real-life, ongoing issues with quality of life, human rights, civil rights, and life or death consequences. You will be required to participate in a social movement or community-based organization doing work around an issue that interests you. You will then analyze your experiences and your group’s social movement strategies in reflective essays and in a class presentation.