Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

A special topic in women's or gender studies, to be offered by the Woodward Chair.

COURSE DETAILS:

    Intersectionality, a term coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, though explored by feminists of colour for decades prior, involves a commitment to investigating multiple points of identity, resisting “single issue” or “single axis” frameworks, while remaining centrally interested in the experiences, communities, and identities of marginalized groups and most especially women and trans people of color. “Praxis,” in turn, has functioned as a feminist term that thinks about “practice” and “theory” in tandem. It stresses the process of creating knowledge, and the reflexivity involved in making feminist theory in particular. This course strives to think about intersectional theory and praxis by way of feminist publishing. 

   Intersectional Feminist Journal Praxis is a project-based course that bridges academic and popular feminism, art and text, feminist practice and theory, scholarship and activism. In this advanced seminar, students will be asked to collectively develop—from start to finish—an inaugural issue of an undergraduate journal that myself, Research Assistant Shahar Shapira, and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies department will help them launch via Open Journal Systems Software. Support will also be offered by Kevin Stranack, Associate Director with the Public Knowledge Project, and funding has been provided by the Teaching and Learning Development Grant.                
  
   The goal of the course is to mobilize students to partake actively, at all levels, in feminist publishing and feminist making while learning how to work collaboratively. The course will ask students to come up with a theme for the special issue, write a Call for Papers (CFP), solicit contributions from local activists and artists, work as writers and artists themselves on the issue, coordinate the peer-review and copy-editing of the pieces, author an introduction, undertake the design of the issue in online form, and organize a launch of the journal. Through this collaborative and hands-on course, students will have opportunities to think about the praxis of intersectional feminist action, the meanings of multiple voices and inter-media collaboration, and the dynamics of power flows and injustice. An intersectional, transnational, decolonial, and non-monolingual approach to journal-making will be encouraged. Students will be asked to dream big while having to negotiate the realities of online publishing. Readings will be assigned on feminist, intersectional, Indigenous, and transnational feminist art practice and cultural production, collaboration, publishing, and praxis. A Feminist Media Lab will be facilitated as part of the course, which will offer students in-class time to work on the creation of the journal.

Please Note: There will be a brief application process for the class, which asks that students submit a short summary (250 words) of why they would like to be in the class.

No previous publishing experience is necessary.  
Students and instructor will: -Explore intersectional theories, including in relation to racialization, gender, Indigeneity, ability, class, and sexuality. -Develop practical applications of intersectional praxis in relation to publishing, writing, art-making, and organizing. -Learn about the steps and elements of feminist publishing including the peer-review process, copy-editing, writing, copyright issues, inclusion of art, graphic design, collaboration, invisible labour, conflict, and celebration. -Acquire the skills to use Open Journal Systems Software through the Public Knowledge Project. -Trouble concepts of sole authorship and individualism through navigating collaboration.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

For more detailed information please see the GSWS website: http://www.sfu.ca/gsws/courses/Educational_Goals.html

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: