Domestic Disturbances: The Culture and Politics of Home

CS 301-02, Spring 2013, Fridays 9:00-11:45am Main Campus Room (MCR) Instructor: Thea Quiray Tagle, ttagle@sfai.edu Office Hours: F 12:00-1:00PM, or by appointment

How has the concept of the domestic been deployed in colonial and modern nation-state building projects? How has the protection of the home justified acts of violence upon individual and collective bodies in both the First World and in the Global South? Finally, how have those injured bodies resisted through various means including, but not limited to, their participation in social movements and the creation of cultural productions? Over the course of the semester, we will examine these questions through the lens of critical race, postcolonial, queer, and feminist of color theories. Exploring thematics ranging from immigrant womens labor to the legality of sex work will help us to trouble the divide between the public and private spheres, and to expand our imaginaries of home to include queered forms of kinship, culture, and alternative modes of life. Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes 1. Students will understand the development and transformation of the concepts of home and the domestic in the 20th and 21st century United States, and the ways these discourses developed alongside US projects of war, conquest, and economic domination. 2. Students will become conversant in key debates over domesticity in the fields of Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cultural Studies, Urban Studies and Ethnic Studies. 3. Students will gain both specific and broad knowledge about state-sponsored enactments of individual and collective violence against women and people of color, to expand their understanding of domestic violence in both the public and private sphere. 4. Students will consider a variety of historical, cultural and ideological perspectives on how to address domestic violence, and will develop a final seminar paper in relation to this. 5. Students will learn how to conduct primary and secondary research, using a variety of sources. 6. Students will apply a variety of critical methods to the interpretation of popular cultural productions in course assignments. Course Materials Almost all of the assigned articles will be made available on the course website at http://moodle.sfai.edu. It is highly recommended that you print out all course readings, as we will be referring to them frequently in seminar. In addition, digital copies of the syllabus,

additional handouts, and other miscellaneous information will be posted on this site, so check it often! Films for in-class and at-home viewing are available on streaming websites such as Netflix and Amazon. In addition, copies of films will be available at the SFAI Library in the film reserves. Two books are required for purchase, and can be easily obtained through online and brick-and- mortar bookstores. PDFs of the suggested books are available on Moodle, but are highly recommended for purchase if you would like a deeper engagement with the topics covered in the course. Required Books: Nayan Shah, Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality and the Law in the North American West. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012. Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth,1820-2000. New York: Vintage, 2004. Suggested Books: Beatriz Colomina, Domesticity at War. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007. Gloria Anzalda, Borderlands/la frontera. Third Edition. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2007. Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology. Eds. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006 Robyn Rodriguez, Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Course Assignments & Requirements Attendance and Participation (15%) Students are expected to do all required reading in advance of the seminars; in addition, participation in discussions and consistent and punctual attendance are crucial to ones success in this course. If you must miss class for an extenuating circumstance, it will be excused with proper notice and documentation; however more than two unexcused absences will negatively affect your final evaluation. Critical Blog Responses (20%) Over the course of the semester, you are expected to submit five critical responses to posts made by the instructor in the course blog, on the weeks assigned readings, films, and/or cultural productions (http://disturbingdomesticity.wordpress.com). Responses must be at least

two paragraphs long, and must substantively engage with the questions or ideas posed in the blog post. Students may choose to write responses to any of the blog posts, but must submit two responses before the midterm date, and three after the midterm. These should be submitted before the weekly seminar meeting that the student is responding to. In-Class Midterm Exam (30%) A midterm exam will be administered in class on Week 7 (March 8). More information will be given in seminar. Take-Home Final Paper (35%) Students are required to complete a 12-15 page research paper (double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman font, 1 margins, MLA or Chicago-style citations and works cited), due by email in .doc form by 5PM on Thursday, May 9. Students will briefly summarize and discuss their final papers at the last seminar meeting on May 10. Prior to submitting the final paper, students must submit a 1.5-page (single-spaced) paper proposal in .doc form on Moodle during Week 10 (by 5PM Thursday, April 9). The proposal will include a research prompt or question that the student is interested in addressing, and a short list of scholarly sources that the student plans on consulting. It is required that students meet with the instructor about the final paper in advance of these deadlines. Additional Information I wish to make my class as accessible as possible to all students. If you require accommodations (for mobility, hearing, or vision challenges; ESL; etc.), please let me know immediately so that arrangements can be made. MLA and Chicago-style citation and formatting guides can be found online at the following sources: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/ Please familiarize yourself with SFAIs policy on academic integrity. If any academic dishonesty is discovered during the course of the seminar, an F grade with 0 points will automatically be assigned. If you have concerns or questions about properly attributing sources, please make an appointment to discuss with me! All course assignments must be completed satisfactorily in order to pass this seminar. Incompletes for the course are strongly discouraged and will only be given under extenuating, unavoidable circumstances.

COURSE SCHEDULE
Week 1/ January 25 / Setting the Terms Keywords: Domestic by Rosemary Marangoly George; Family by Carla L. Peterson; Marriage by Elizabeth Freeman; Public by Bruce Robbins in Keywords for American Cultural Studies, 88-92, 112-116, 152-156, 183-186. Eds.Bruce Burgett and Glenn Handler. New York: New York University Press, 2007. (15 pages) Unit 1: Historical transformations in the meanings of home and the domestic Week 2/ February 1 / Imperial domesticities--race, gender, home, and nation Chandra Mohanty with Biddy Martin, Whats Home Got to Do With It? in Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, pp.85-105. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. (20 pages) Amy Kaplan, Manifest Domesticity in The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture, pp. 23-50. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. (27 pages) Week 3/ February 8 / The ethnic ghetto and the protection of Whiteness Nayan Shah, Chapters 1, 2, and 5 of Stranger Intimacy: Contesting Race, Sexuality and the Law in the North American West, 19-89, 153-188. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012. (105 pages) Suggested reading: Introduction to Stranger Intimacy Week 4/ February 15/ Planned housing between the wars George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy and the White Problem in American Studies, American Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 3 (September 1995), pp. 369-287. (18 pages) Part One (Chapters One and Two); Chapter Five Streetcar Buildouts; Chapter Six, Mail-Order and Self-Built Suburbs, in Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, 3-18, 71-127. New York: Vintage, 2004. (71 pages)
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Week 5/ February 22 / Exteriors I: Levittown and the Case Study Homes Chapter Seven: Sitcom Suburbs, in Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, 129-153. New York: Vintage, 2004. (22 pages) Introduction; Chapter 1: 1949; Chapter 3: The Eames House, in Beatriz Colomina, Domesticity at War 5-59; 83-109. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007. (81 pages) Week 6/ March 1/ Exteriors II: Southern California sprawl Chapter Eight: Edge Nodes in Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, 154-180. New York: Vintage, 2004. (26 pages) Karen Tongson, Empire of My Familiar, Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries, 112-158. New York: New York University Press, 2011. (32 pages) Week 7/ March 8 In-class midterm Week 8/ March 15 / The home and the city: urban redevelopment and gentrification Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan, The Fine Art of Gentrification, October Vol. 31 (Winter 1984), pp. 91-111. (20 pages) Le Paperson/K. Wayne Yang, The Postcolonial Ghetto: Seeing Her Shape and His Hand, Berkeley Review of Education 1(1): 2010, pp. 5-34. (29 pages) *Spring Break- No class March 22* Unit 2: Contemporary questions and issues around domesticity Week 9/ March 29/ Racial and gendered fictions of Sluts and Bad Mothers Watch on your own: Precious, dir. Lee Daniels (2009) Dorothy E. Roberts, Racism and Patriarchy in the Meaning of Motherhood, Journal Of Gender & The Law, Vol. 1. No. 1 (1993), pp. 1-38. (38 pages) M. Jacqui Alexander, Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen: The Politics of Law, Sexuality, and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas,Feminist Review, No. 48 (Autumn 1994), pp.5-23. (19 pages) Audre Lorde, A Litany for Survival (online link)
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Week 10/ April 5/ Women and nationalism Final Paper Proposal due on Moodle by 5PM, Thursday, April 9 Anne McClintock, No Longer in a Future Heaven: Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nationa, and Postcolonial Perspectives, 89-112. Eds. Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Shohat. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1997. (23 pages) Gloria Anzalda, Chapter 1: The Homeland, Aztln and Chapter 2: Movimientos de rebelda y las culturas que traicionan,Borderlands/la frontera, 23-45. Third Edition. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2007. (22 pages) Suggested reading: Sonia Saldvar-Hull, Introduction to the Second Edition of Borderlands/la frontera (15 pages) Week 11/ April 12/ Protecting the Home domestic violence and community accountability Gloria Anzalda, Chapter 7: La consciencia de la mestiza,Borderlands/la frontera, 99-113. Third Edition. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2007. (14 pages) Andrea J. Ritchie, Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color, in Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology, 138-156. Eds. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006. (18 pages) Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), Taking Risks: Implementing Grassroots Community Accountability Strategies, in Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology, 250-266. Eds. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2006. (16 pages) Vanessa Huang, manifesto in The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities, 152-153. Eds. Ching-In Chen, Jai Dulani, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. Brooklyn: South End Press, 2011. (1 page) Week 12/ April 19 / Domestic(ating) Work, pt. 1 In-class film screening: The Maid, dir. Kelvin Tong (2005) Robyn Rodriguez, Introduction: Neoliberalism and the Philippine Labor Brokerage State and Chapter 1: The Emergence of Labor Brokerage: U.S. Colonial Legacies in the Philippines, Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World, ix-xxviii, 1-18. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. (38 pages) Catherine Gomes, Maid-in-Singapore: representing and consuming foreign domestic workers in Singapore cinema, Asian Ethnicity 12:2 (2011), pp. 141-154. (14 pages)
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Week 13/ April 26/ Domestic(ating) Work, pt. 2 Robyn Rodriguez, Chapter 5: The Philippine Domestic: Gendered Labor, Family, and the Nation-State and Conclusion: The Globalization of the Labor Brokerage State, Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World, 93-115, 141- 158. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. (39 pages) Geraldine Pratt, Inscribing Domestic Work on Filipina Bodies, in Places Through the Body, 283-304. Eds. Heidi J. Nast and Steve Pile. New York: Routledge, 1998. (19 pages) Week 14/ May 3/ Queering domesticity alternative formations of kinship and home Watch on your own: Paris is Burning, dir. Jennie Livingston (1990) Chandan Reddy, Home, Houses, Nonidentity: Paris is Burning, in Burning Down the House: Recycling Domesticity, 355-379. Ed. Rosemary Marangoly George. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. (26 pages) Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, Sex in Public, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 24, No. 2, Intimacy (Winter 1998), pp. 547-566. (20 pages) Week 15/ May 10/ Wrapping Up Final Paper Due by 5PM, Thursday May 9