89999 - History of Women's Political Thought

Academic Year 2019/2020

  • Docente: Paola Rudan
  • Credits: 12
  • SSD: SPS/02
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in History (cod. 0962)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the students should have acquired the general knowledge that enables them to frame women’s political thought within the historical contexts in which it is rooted, and in relation to the main theoretical and conceptual issues discussed by modern and contemporary political doctrines. The course allows the students both to point out and analyze the political problems with which women’s political thought has been confronted, the way in which it has been affected by the most important social and institutional changes from the early modern to the global age, and its main theoretical developments. The knowledge acquired during the course enables the students to apply the instruments necessary for the analysis of classical texts and to articulate a critical-methodological approach useful for the analysis of theoretical issues and for the understanding of the political and social implications of their judgements.

Course contents

The course introduces students to the knowledge of the work of some of the women protagonists of the history of political thought in a time span ranging from the Middle Ages to the Global age, on the possible reasons and methods of their exclusion from the "canon" of that history and on the way in which they redefine its contents and meanings. In particular, the course will focus on the way in which women have articulated, criticized and put in tension the main modern political concepts (virtue, nature, domination, individual, woman, man, state, sovereignty, rights, democracy, society, work, freedom, equality and difference, citizenship, order, revolution) and on the relationship of their reflection with the development of feminist political theory and with the main modern and contemporary political doctrines (republicanism, liberalism, Marxism, neoliberalism).

Readings/Bibliography

ATTENDING STUDENTS

In addition to the texts listed in section A (all), students must choose one of the texts or groups of texts listed in section B of the bibliography.

SECTION A

— Paola Rudan, Donna. Storia e critica di un concetto polemico, Bologna, Il Mulino, in corso di pubblicazione (dicembre 2019).

— Johan W. Scott, Il 'genere': un'utile categoria di analisi storica, in J.W. Scott, Genere, politica, storia, Roma, Viella, 2013, pp. 31-63.

— Roberta Ferrari ‒ Eleonora Cappuccilli, Il discorso femminista. Storia e critica del canone politico moderno, in «Scienza &Politica» 2016, vol. XXVIII, n. 54, pp. 5-20.

SECTION B

1)

— Christine de Pizan, La città delle Dame, a cura di Patrizia Caraffi, Edizione di Earl Jeffrey Richards, Roma, Carocci, 2014.

2)

— Margaret Cavendish, Il mondo sfavillante, introduzione, traduzione e note a cura di Maria Grazia Nicolosi, Catania, CUECM, 2008.

3)

— Mary Astell, Reflections upon Marriage (1700), in M. Astell, Political Writings, ed. by P. Springborg, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 1-80.

4)

— Olympe de Gouges, Dichiarazione dei diritti della donna e della cittadina, Genova, Il Melangolo, 2007

— Mary Wollstonecraft, I diritti delle donne, Roma, Edizioni Q, 2008 (o altre edizioni).

6) Germaine de Staël-Holstein (Madame de Staël), Considerazioni sui principali avvenimenti della Rivoluzione francese, traduzione di E. Omodeo-Zona, introduzione di Adolfo Omodeo, Milano, ISPI, 1943, chapters I, III, VII, IX, XV, XVIII, XIX, XXII.

7)

— Harriet Taylor, La liberazione delle donne, traduzione e cura di Alberto Giordano, Genova, Il melangolo, 2012.

— Sarah M. Grimké, Poco meno degli angeli: lettere sull'uguaglianza dei sessi, a cura di Thomas Casadei, Roma, Castelvecchi, 2016.

8)

Il sentimento delle libertà: la dichiarazione di Seneca Falls e il dibattito sui diritti delle donne negli Stati Uniti di metà Ottocento, a cura di Raffaella Baritono, Torino, La Rosa, 2001.

9)

— Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South, in The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper, ed. by Charles Lemert ‒ Esme Bhan, Lanham – Boulder – New York – Toronto – Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, pp. 45-196.

10)

— Emma Goldman, Femminismo e anarchia, prefazione di Bruna Bianchi, Pisa, BFS, 2009.

— Sylvia Pankhurst, A Sylvia Pankhurst Reader, ed. by Kathryn Dodd, Manchester, Manchester University press, 1993, parti I, II.

11)

— Rosa Luxemburg, Riforma sociale o rivoluzione?, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 1973.

12)

— Hannah Arendt, Vita Activa. La condizione umana, Milano, Bompiani, 2006.

13)

— Simone de Beauvoir, Il secondo sesso (1949), Milano, Il Saggiatore, 1999 (studenti e studentesse devono concordare con la docente le parti da studiare).

14)

— Carla Lonzi, Sputiamo su Hegel; La donna clitoridea e la donna vaginale e altri scritti, Milano, Edizioni Rivolta femminile, 1970.

— Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Potere femminile e sovversione sociale (1972), Venezia, Marsilio, 1974.

15)

— Shulamith Firestone, La dialettica dei sessi: autoritarismo maschile e società tardo-capitalistica, Firenze-Rimini, Guaraldi, 1976.

16)

— bell hooks, Elogio del margine: razza, sesso e mercato culturale, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1998.

17)

— Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Femminismo senza frontiere. Teoria, differenze, conflitti, introduzione e cura di Raffaella Baritono, Verona, ombre corte, 2012, (part.: Sotto gli occhi dell’Occidente. Ricerca femminista e discorsi coloniali; cartografie della lotta. Donne del Terzo Mondo e la politica del femminismo; Sorellanza, coalizione e la politica dell’esperienza; Lavoratrici e politica della solidarietà).

— Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Critica della ragione postcoloniale, Roma, Meltemi, 2004, pp. 293-321.

18)

— Judith Butler, La disfatta del genere, Roma, Meltemi, 2006.

19)

— Wendy Brown, La politica fuori dalla storia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2001.

20)

— Nancy Fraser, Fortune del femminismo. Dal capitalismo regolato dallo Stato alla crisi neoliberista, Verona, ombre corte, 2014.

NON ATTENDING STUDENTS

In addition to the texts listed in section A (all), students must choose two of the texts or groups of texts listed in section B of the bibliography.

Teaching methods

Lectures and close readings of texts

Assessment methods

The final exam will be an oral one, with questions aimed at verifying student's mastership of the themes discussed in class (only for attending students) as well as those treated in textbooks.

Non-attending students will have to take an oral final exam about the themes treated in textbooks.

The evaluation will focus particularly on the student's capacity of handling the sources and readings indicated in the bibliography and his ability to correlate the various themes and problems addressed in the course.

The assessment will thus examine the student's:

- factual knowledge of the subject;
- ability to summarise and analyse themes and concepts;
- familiarity with the terminology associated with the course and his ability to use it effectively.

Top marks will be awarded to a student displaying an overall understanding of the topics discussed during lectures, combined with a critical approach to the material and a confident and effective use of the appropriate terminology.
Average marks will be awarded to a student who has memorized the main points of the material and is able to summarise them satisfactorily and provide an effective critical commentary, while failing to display a complete mastership of the appropriate terminology.
A student will be deemed to have failed the exam if he displays significant errors in his understanding and failure to grasp the overall outlines of the course, together with a poor mastership of the appropriate terminology.

Office hours

See the website of Paola Rudan

SDGs

Gender equality Reduced inequalities

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.