Northern Arizona University Spring 2001
 

Sanjam Ahluwalia

Office: LA 232 

Phone # : 3-8709

Office Hours: MWF 10.10 -11.00

E-mail: Sanjam.Ahluwalia@nau.edu

Class Meetings: LA, 200; MWF 9.10-10.00

IMPORTANT: Please look at the "Northern Arizona University Policy Statements" and the "Classroom Management Statement" at the back of this documentbefore reading the syllabus.
 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course is designed to introduce themes in women's history in Asia. Covering a wide chronological time frame and large geographical areas, we will use gender as a lens to examine the past. While privileging gender as an analytical category, we will simultaneously explore how gender identities were intersected by variables of race, class, caste, community, religion, and nation, in India and China. This course will also reflect upon current debates within women's history to familiarize us with some of the issues and problems that arise in re-writing the past from a gendered perspective. To facilitate our understanding of the varied historical experiences of Indian and Chinese women, this course will use materials drawn from primary documents, academic writings, fiction, and films. 
 

COURSE OBJECTIVES

To examine the past from a gendered perspective.
 

To identify the tools employed by women's historians to reconstruct the past.

To locate women as valid subjects of historical analysis, with due recognition of the complexities that determine and shape their subjectivities.
 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

You are expected to engage with weekly readings carefully and critically and participate actively in class discussions. 15% of your course grade will depend upon class discussion of various films and readings. This class will also require use of internet resources. 

Informal Writing: You will be expected to write short critical responses to works of fiction, primary documents, and films. 

Mid-Term Exam: There will be an in-class mid-term exam. The format of which will be discussed in class.

Final Exam: In-class final exam will consist of essay questions drawn from a list handed out in class two weeks prior to the exam. 
 

COURSE GRADES

Grades for the course will be calculated in the following way:

Class Discussion 15%; Informal writing 40%; Mid-term Exam 20%, and Final Exam 25%.
 

TOTAL FOR COURSE 100%

The grading scale for the course will be as follows: 

90%+ = A; 80 - 89%= B; 70-79%= C; 60-69%= D; below 60%= F.
 

ASSIGNED READINGS

Barbara N. Ramusack and Sharon Sievers, Restoring Women to History: Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. REQUIRED. 
 

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Sultana's Dream and Selections from the Secluded Ones. New York: Feminist Press, 1988. REQUIRED
 

Jonathan Spence, Death of Woman Wang. New York: Penguin, 1978. REQUIRED
 

A set of REQUIRED and RECOMMENDED readings available on the World Wide Web (WWW). 
 

If necessary I may put REQUIRED or other RECOMMENDED readings on reserve at the Cline library. 
 

COURSE POLICIES

ALL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE IN CLASS.
 

PLEASE NOTE: I do not give extensions, incompletes, or make-up exams, except in cases allowed for by University Policy. 
 

Plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in any of the assignments, and will result in failing the course. Please consult the section on "Academic Integrity" in the NAU Policy Statements appended to this syllabus for further details. IT IS THE STUDENTS' RESPONSIBILITY TO FAMILIARIZE HERSELF/HIMSELF WITH THESE MATTERS AS DEFINED BY THE UNIVERSITY. 
 

ATTENDANCE AND PUNCTUALITY

While I will not take regular roll, frequent and repeated absence and/or lack of punctuality could effect your grade. As pointed out above, 15% of your class grade will depend on participation in the various class discussions assigned in the syllabus. Whatever your reasons for arriving late or missing a class, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to arrange to meet or call a classmate and find out what happened in that class. 
 

COURSE SCHEDULE: SUBJECT TO MODIFICATION 

January 17: Course Introduction
 

January 19 & 22: Introduction to Women's Historyin Asia andIssues within Women's History: We will discuss some of the significant debates within the field of women's history and trace how the field has evolved during the last two-three decades. We will examine some of the difficulties historians encounter in retrieving women's voices from the past. In seeking to understand the theoretical concerns underlying women's history, we will be able to identify ways in which historians have undertaken to address some of these in their specific works, especially within Asian women's history.
 

Readings: Restoring Women, "Introduction," xvii-li; "Introduction," Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, eds., Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid. This essay will be available on reserve in the Cline library.
 

January 24: Class discussion of Sangari and Vaid article.
 

January 26: Introductory lecture on India. 

Chronological handout.
 

January 29 & 31: Prescriptive Literature and Gendered Representations: We will critically examine selections from prescriptive literature to identify gendered roles assigned within Indian society. We will also watch parts of a dramatized version of the Indian epic, Mahabharata, directed by Peter Brook. The reading material will be selected from the web and students are expected to get a print out from the web site that will be indicated in class. 
 

Readings: Restoring Women, 15-35; Selections from Laws of Manu; Selections from theQur'an; Selections from Arthashastra; and Kamasutra. Web Readings. 
 

February 2: An informal paper review of articles. 
 

February 2 : Expressions of Women's Agency: Within the devotional traditions of Bhakti andSufism in Medieval India, women found a platform for expressing their agency through poetry and sainthood. We will read some of the poetry written by women during this period to identify subversive expressions by women articulated within patriarchal structures. 
 

Readings: Restoring Women, 35-40; Selections from Women Writing in India. Readings will be handed out a week in advance in the class.
 

February 5, 7, & 9: Reform and Recasting: This week we will examine how the various reform movements in colonial India sought to recast Indian women as symbols and repositories of Indian tradition. We will also watch the film Home and the World. 
 

Reading: Restoring Women, 41-53. 
 

February 12: Class discussion of Home and the World.Mid-Term Exam question hand-outs in class.
 

February 14:Mid Term Review. 
 

February 16: Mid-Term Exam!! PLEASE REMEMBER TO BRING BLUE BOOKS!! 
 

February 19, 21, & 23: Nation and Its Women: We will discuss the role of Indian nationalism in both allowing and limiting women's participation in public sphere politics. We will examine the writings of male reformers and national leaders such as Gandhi to recognize how nationalism sought to recast gender roles, which in the ultimate analysis did not allow women the freedom of expression ostensibly promised with--swaraj--national independence. 
 

Readings: Restoring Women, 56-65; Selections from Mahatma Gandhi's writings, readings will be handed out in class.
 

February 26: Class discussion of Gandhi's Writings. 
 

February 28 & March 2: Dangerous Alliances: Women and Religious Fundamentalism: We will examine how Hindu and Muslim fundamentalism have sought to represent women's issue, and why some women have embraced the sectarian ideology espoused by these groups? 
 

Readings: Tanika Sarkar, "Heroic Women, Mother Goddesses: Family and Organisation in Hindutva Politics," in Women and the Hindu Right: A Collection of Essays, eds, Tanika Sarkar and Urvashi Butalia, 181-215; Zoya Hasan, "Minority Identity, State Policy and Political Process," in Forging Identities: Gender, Communities and the State, ed., Zoya Hasan, 59-73. Articles will be available on reserve in the Cline Library.
 

March 5-9: SPRING BREAK
 

March 12: Introductory lecture on Chinese history

Chronological handouts. 
 

March 12: An Informal paper on Sultana's Dream.
 

March 14 & 16: Prescriptive Literature and Gender Roles: We will examine traditions of Confucianism and Buddhism to determine the traditional roles assigned to women in China.
 

Readings: Restoring Women, 166-184.
 

March 21 & 23: Women as Repositories of Tradition: We will review Pan Chao's essay "Lesson's For Women," to assess the representations of women as repositories of culture and tradition within Chinese society. 
 

Readings: Restoring Women, 188- 193; Pan Chao, "Lesson's For Women." Copies of the article will be given out in class.

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March 26 & 28: Patriarchal Mutilations: Practice of Foot-binding in Seventeenth Century China: We will critically examine the socio-cultural practice of foot-binding that sought to control female mobility and sexuality in parts of China. In seeking to evaluate this practice, emphasis will be laid on its historical specificity and the ways in which Chinese women perpetuated, subverted, and rejected the practice. In trying to understand cultural practices in parts of Asia, this course strongly discourages orientalist tendencies of exoticing or essentializing these cultures, instead it stresses the importance of a nuanced analysis which is sensitive to issues of differences and complexities within Asian histories. 
 

Readings: Dorothy Ko, "Talent, Virtue, and Beauty: Rewriting Womanhood," in her book,Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in Seventeenth Century China (California: Stanford University Press, 1994), 143-176. Article on reserve in Cline Library.
 

March 30 & April 4:Women's Agency: This course emphasizes the need to historicize women's modalities of resistance, acceptance, accommodations and also sometimes their complicity with male-stream political agendas. To evaluate how women in China have managed to subvert patriarchal control to establish networks of support for themselves, we will watch the film Nu Shu. This film discusses how Chinese women in Hunan province developed and maintained a hidden script passed on from mothers to daughters. 
 

Readings: Jonathan Spence, The Death of Woman Wang. 
 

April 4: Class Discussion of Death of Woman Wang. 
 

April 6, 9, & 11: Lost Promises or Dreams Fulfilled: Women and the Chinese Revolution: We will evaluate the effects of the Chinese Revolution on women's lives, to see if gender inequalities were addressed by the revolution. We will also examine the involvement of women revolutionaries such as Ch'iu Chin and Ding Ling at different moments in the history of the revolutionary period in China. 
 

Readings: Restoring Women, 206-218; Primary Source: Selections from Mao Tse-tung, "Little Red Book;" Ch'iu Chin, "An Address to Two Hundred Million Fellow Country Women;" Ding Ling, "Thoughts on March 8." These readings will be handed out in class. 

April 13: Feminism and Marxism: Some theoretical questions. 
 

April 13: Informal paper on Death of Woman Wang.
 

April 16 & 18 : Women's Organizations: We will watch a film Made in India, and discuss the role of SEWA (Self Employed Women's Association) to understand how some of the Non-Governmental Organizations in contemporary India address women's needs and issues.
 

Readings: Restoring Women, 68-76; Radha Kumar, "From Chipko to Sati: The Contemporary Indian Women's Movement," in The Challenges of Local Feminisms: Women's Movements in Global Perspectives, ed., Amrita Basu. Article will be available on reserve in the Cline Library.
 

April 20 & 23: Feminism in Contemporary China: What are some of the issues that the women's movement in China faces today? We will analyze the nature of feminist politics in contemporary China as discussed in Lin Chun's article.
 

Readings: Restoring Women, 238-241; Lin Chun, " Finding a Language: Feminism and Women's Movements in Contemporary China," in Transitions, Environments, Translations: Feminisms in International Politics, eds., Joan Scott, Cora Kaplan, and Debra Keates. This article will be on reserve in the Cline Library.
 

April 25 & 27: Feminism in National and International Contexts: We will conclude our class by examining women's politics in India and China, drawing upon readings done through the semester and some additional articles. The readings for this week will allow us to note some of the tensions between local, national, and global politics of feminisms.
 

Readings: Ping-Chun Hsiung and Yuk-Lin Renita Wong, " Jie-Gui- Connecting the Tracks: Chinese Women's Activism Surrounding the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing," inFeminims and Internationalisms, eds., Mrinalini Sinha, Donna Guy, and Angela Wollacott. This will be on reserve in the Cline Library. 
 

April 30: Concluding Remarks.
 

May 2: Review Session for Final Exams.
 

May 9: Final Exam 7.30- 9.30!!