Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: English

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: AMERICAN ECOFEMINISM ***** Environmental degradation disproportionately affects women, children, the nonwhite and the poor. This fact is basic to feminist environmentalism. But beyond this, how might we make sense of an extremely varied, theoretically embattled, and internally contentious contemporary political and cultural movement-one which at the same time underwrites midnight pagan rituals, organized civil disobedience actions, and postcolonial assaults on hegemonic western feminism itself? We begin investigating the evolution of contemporary environmentalism and the problems of dominant environmental thought. We consider those alongside American women's history, especially women's work for peace. We then focus on the post-World War II struggles by women activists, including writers, to end nuclear proliferation-ecofeminism as we understand it today emerges from this immediate social context. ***** Also offered as WGST 367.