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May 17, 2024
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Hist 740 - Gender in American History3 credits
It’s been nearly 30 years since Joan Scott’s call for historians to use gender as “A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” Since then, gender analysis has become one of the staples in historians’ tool kit. In this class, we will explore gender as a category, a historically and culturally contingent construct, which while seeming “fixed” and “natural,” is actually highly unstable and subjective. We will explore the ways gender is used to signify relationships of power, especially through symbols and representations that become “naturalized” in the public consciousness. That is, what does it mean to “be a man” or “be a woman” at different places and times in American history? How are those meanings used to exert power and control? How do people challenge that power structure? What happens when those meanings are no longer useful in society? How does society change those meanings? What do those categories mean for political and social organizations and institutions? For people’s subjective identities? This seminar-style class will explore these questions through the use of gender as an analytical tool, within the context of American history. Emphasis will include the interaction of gender with other analytical categories, and uses of gender analysis in differing sub-disciplines in history.
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