Critical Theory and Social Justice

Professor Maeda, Chair
Professors Chin, Griffin; Associate Professor Tobin

Critical Theory and Social Justice (CTSJ) is fundamentally interdisciplinary, drawing on ideas from across traditional academic disciplines. “Critical” refers to various bodies of theory and method—Marxism, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, deconstruction, critical race studies, queer theory, feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and intersectionality—that interrogate the essentialist assumptions that underlie social identities. “Social justice” refers to an extrajuridical concept of fairness that is focused on exposing and ending social inequalities. The aim of the Critical Theory and Social Justice department is to promote understanding of how categories such as “race”, “sexual orientation,” and “nationality” help people recognize and combat some injustices and hinder them from recognizing and combating others.

The department’s course offerings are divided into three levels:

100-level classes teach students how to think critically about a wide range of topics, including race, gender, sexuality, and nationality.
200-level classes teach students how to participate in a seminar, including how to contribute to class discussion and how to research and write a scholarly paper.
300-level classes teach students a major body of critical theory or a research methodology.

MAJOR: The major in Critical Theory and Social Justice requires ten classes (40 units) selected in consultation with the student’s departmental advisor and including at least one at the 100 level, one at the 200 level, two at the 300 level, and the Senior Seminar (CTSJ 490). At least four of the units must be in experiential learning.

ACCEPTABLE COURSES FROM OTHER DEPARTMENTS: The department occasionally accepts for CTSJ credit courses from such other departments as American Studies, Art History and the Visual Arts, Diplomacy and World Affaris, Education, English and Comparative Literary Studies, French, History, Mathematics, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Religious Studies, and Sociology. These decisions are made on an individual basis in consultation with the student’s advisor, and/or the department chair.

MAJOR WITH TOPICAL EMPHASIS: A student may choose to major in Critical Theory and Social Justice with an emphasis in one of three areas—Critical Race Studies, Postcolonial Theory, and Feminist and Queer Studies. Choosing an emphasis is not required.

To graduate with an emphasis, a student must fulfill the requirements of the major (see above) and at least five of the student’s ten major classes must be recognized by the Department as counting toward one particular emphasis. These five classes are chosen in consultation with the student’s advisor, and/or the department chair. Courses from other departments, such as those listed above, may be included in the student’s educational plan.

MINOR: The minor in Critical Theory and Social Justice requires five classes (20 units), including at least one at the 100 level, one at the 200 level, and one at the 300 level.

WRITING REQUIREMENT: Students majoring in Critical Theory and Social Justice satisfy the final component of Occidental College’s college-wide writing requirement by submitting a portfolio by the eighth week of spring semester of the junior year. A portfolio consists of two essays, one a research paper (typically written for a 200-level CTSJ class) and one an analytical essay (typically written for a 300-level CTSJ class). See page 40 and the department chair for additional information.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING REQUIREMENT (4 units): Credit for this component may be earned through participation in departmentally (or advisor-) approved internships or community-based learning courses and projects. Students will work with their advisor to determine how to fulfill this requirement in the context of their own course of study.

SENIOR COMPREHENSIVE REQUIREMENT: In their senior year, students majoring in CTSJ are required to complete a comprehensive research/writing project concerning a topic of the student’s own particular interest. Each student works with an advisor from CTSJ; a student may also work with affiliates or other faculty as arranged with his or her advisor. Students are guided individually by these faculty in both the formulation and completion of the project. Typically, a project culminates in a 15-20 page paper, due in the 8th week of the student’s final semester. An especially successful comprehensive paper will qualify a student to graduate with distinction.

HONORS: Students who have met College requirements for honors may undertake a more ambitious comprehensive project. Interested students should see page 11 and consult with the department chair for details. If a student meets the College and Department requirements, he or she may submit a proposal to conduct an honors research/writing project. If the department approves the proposal, the student will be allowed to register for CTSJ 499: Honors Thesis during the student’s penultimate semester. The student uses CTSJ 499 to write a complete draft of an honors thesis. The final version, typically a 40-50 page paper, is due in the 8th week of the student’s final semester. An especially successful honors thesis will earn a student the grade of distinction, as well as to graduate with honors.

140. CRITICAL THEORIES OF SEXUALITY.

This course introduces students to critical theories concerning human sexuality. We read feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, structuralist, and poststructuralist theories of sexuality and discuss what makes each of these theories “critical.” Topics include the political economy of marriage, the relation between sexuality and procreation, uses of the erotic, homosociality, and the incitement to discourse. The authors we read include Engels, Freud, de Beauvoir, Lorde, Lévi-Strauss, Gayle Rubin, Sedgwick, Rich and Foucault. Emphasis Topic: Queer Studies.

Tobin
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

150. RACE, GENDER, CULTURE: RE-IMAGINING “JUSTICE” IN THE UNITED STATES.

This course will examine ways that race, gender, and culture shape perspectives on justice in the U.S. Rather than considering these concepts as unchanging aspects of personal identities, we will consider the complexity of intersecting social categories (race, culture, gender, sexuality, and class) that challenge assumptions about both individualism and sameness within any group. By reading works in literature, law, and theory, we will explore multiple strategies of resistance and social change that develop from analyses of these factors of social experience. While race, gender, sexuality, class and culture will be critically analyzed as categories of experience for all people, the course will pay particular attention to voices often marginalized as “other” in the context of U.S. discourses on justice. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies or Queer Studies.

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

170. RACE AND ITS DISCONTENTS.

Engages with history, theory and cultural construction of race in the US and globally. Biological theories of race, eugenics, and institutionalized racism are interrogated, with an emphasis on varying constructions of blackness, whiteness and Latinidad in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Case studies from the US are augmented with attention to Australia, South Africa, South America, Asia and the Caribbean. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies.

Chin
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

180. STUPIDITY.

Stupidity is neither ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a corollary of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is an artifact of our nature as finite beings and one of the most powerful determinants of human destiny. Stupidity is always the name of the Other, and it is the sign of the feminine. This course in Critical Psychology follows the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and most recently, Avital Ronell, in a philosophical examination of those operations and technologies that we conduct in order to render ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beevis and Butthead. This course examines stupidity.

Griffin
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

186. INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THEORY.

This course introduces critical theory in the context of the problem of social justice. Introductions will be made to psychoanalytic, Marxist, Feminist, Structuralist, Deconstructive, and Postcolonial criticism. Reader-responses, New criticism, lesbian, gay, and queer criticism will also be surveyed. There will be close readings of the work of Louis Althusser, Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida as well as in depth readings of essays by Guy Hocquenghem, Julia Kristeva, and Trinh T. Minh-ha.

Griffin

222. BODY POLITICS.

The course offers an interdisciplinary analysis of gender, power, and the body. The theoretical center of the course will be Foucault’s work on biopower, including Discipline and Punish and Foucault 2.0. Topics include: class and the body (Atwood, Bodily Harm, and Larsen, Passing); law and the female body (Wendy Williams, Mary Poovey); science and gender (Emily Martin, Thomas Laqueur); pornography (Catherine McKinnon, Laura Kipnis); race, body, and gender (Morrison, Beloved; Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler); multiculturalism and cross-race identifications (John Stahl, Imitation of Life, Wyatt, “The Hazards of ldealization”); and, Latin American perspectives on gender, torture, and memory. Prerequisite: at least sophomore standing.

Jaquette and Wyatt
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

247. MACHOS: FORMS OF LATIN AMERICAN MANLINESS.

This course encourages students to think critically about the concept of machismo by reviewing a variety of ways of being manly throughout Latin America. Case studies include Octavio Paz’ classic essay on Mexican machismo and recent responses to Paz, sexual joking among working-class Mexican-American men in South Texas, same-sex sexual behavior in Nicaragua, transvestite prostitutes in Brazil, and sexual accusations traded among Argentine soccer fans. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies, Postcolonial Theory, or Queer Studies.

Tobin
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: LATIN AMERICA

248. JEWISHNESS, GENDERS, AND SEXUALITIES.

This course is focused on the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality in Jewish Cultural Studies. Topics include Biblical, Talmudic, and Diasporic models of masculinity and femininity; Freud’s Jewishness and its effect on psychoanalytic theories of gender and sexuality; and representations of Jewish men and women in U.S., European, and Latin American societies. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies, Postcolonial Theory, or Queer Studies.

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

255. WOMEN OF COLOR.

This course will examine intersecting and overlapping categories of “difference” by focusing on the lives of women of color. By looking at conditions that shape race, sexuality, gender, class, and cultural differences, this class will critically examine multiple discourses surrounding feminism, anti-racism, heteronormativity, and critiques of imperialism. We will consider contexts of individual and collective work for social change. Using personal essays, stories, scholarly writings, artistic works, music, film, and other media, the course will look at sources that women of color draw from to ground themselves and their activist work. Students will use these materials to reflect on what grounds their own work and their ways of being in the world. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies or Queer Studies.

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

259. TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS.

This course will examine the contexts that shape conditions of work and labor in globalized economies. We will look at the commodification of work and the conditions created by globalization that structure work according to factors of social position, including gender, race, wealth/class status, immigration status, and transnational connections of families and communities. The course will look at trafficking in persons and contemporary forms of slavery, not simply to focus on the extremities of exploitative work, but to examine the conditions that structure the relations between those who can choose meaningful work and the labor forces that make such choices possible. The problem of trafficking in persons will be situated within global economic structures that privilege flows of capital and commodify vulnerable workers. The course will look at the relationship of this vulnerability to histories of colonialism and other forms of economic exploitation. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies or Postcolonial Theory.

Maeda
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

270. CHILDREN AND CHILDHOOD.

This course looks cross-culturally at children and childhood and uses ethnographic case studies as a basis for examining the ways in which the very young participate in the social lives of their communities. The focus is on those between the ages of 5-12 and the primary topics include children’s play, socialization, learning, political action, and productive work. We will explore the lives of children in horticultural, pastoral, rural, and urban societies in Africa, Asia, Polynesia, and the contemporary United States. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies, Postcolonial Theory, or Queer Studies.

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

273. SCHOOLING FOR CONFORMITY/LEARNING AS CULTURAL CRITIQUE.

What purposes have been served by schooling and learning in past and contemporary societies? In the United States, state models of schooling have long been connected overtly and covertly to economic imperatives. This course examines the complex relationships between schooling, economy and cultural politics through ethnographic documentations of American Schools. Schooling has been used both to support and supplant fundamental American values in the U.S. Critical examination will include attention to early 19th century activism on behalf of working class children, Native American Schools, schooling in prison, and the No Child Left Behind Act. This course requires enrollment in a CBL lab and satisfies experiential learning requirement. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies.

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

279. EMBODIED HISTORIES OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA.

Examination of complex histories and politics of the African Diaspora via dance practices and traditions. Emphasis is upon the way race and gender have been variously expressed, exploited, hidden and revealed in these settings. Case studies include Haitian Vodou, Brazilian Capoeira, Jook and Hip Hop in the United States. The class includes a significant practical component: students need not be dancers but should be prepared to try dancing during class time. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Studies, Postcolonial Theory, or Queer Studies. Satisfies experiential learning requirement.

Chin
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL • FINE ARTS

280. RASTAFARI, REGGAE, AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA.

This course will examine Rastafari as a religio–political protest movement. We will analyze its evolution in the context of the dispersal of Africans to the Caribbean, Great Britain, and the United States. Particular attention will be paid to the West Indian intellectual tradition of C.L.R. James, Walter Rodney and Franz Fanon which contextualizes Rastafari as a resistance movement. We will chart the musicological development of Reggae, Dub Poetry, and Rap as distinctive expressions of Rasta. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Postcolonial Theory.

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

286. WHITENESS.

This course seeks to engage the emergent body of scholarship designated to deconstruct whiteness. It will examine the construction of whiteness in the historic, legal, and economic contexts which have allowed it to function as an enabling condition for privilege and race-based prejudice. Particular attention will be paid to the role of religion and psychology in the construction of whiteness. Texts will include Race Traitor, Critical White Studies, The Invention of the White Race, The Abolition of Whiteness, White Trash, and Even the Rat was White. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Theory.

Not given in 2008-2009

289. THE SELF.

The self, or subject, has become a central problem in contemporary intellectual deliberations. The notion of the human subject as a fully self-conscious, self-contained entity is now said to be “under erasure.” Radical re-conceptualization of the self is afoot, it casts aside the notion of a “true” self and opens new intellectual and psychological possibilities. The object of this course is to explore the critiques and to examine the possibilities for a new self. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class.

Not given in 2008-2009

295. TOPICS IN CRITICAL THEORY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

A detailed examination of a critical theorist or a topic central to critical theory and social justice. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ course or permission of instructor.

Staff

320. CULTURE AND COMMUNITY.

Building on the themes and work students encounter in Professor Foreman’s “Black Activism and the Archive” course, this class provides an opportunity for students who wish to continue and deepen their intellectual and community work to interact with a highly motivated small group of students and community activists and organizations. Topics we will examine include the Prison Industrial Complex and housing and homeless, among others. Students will work together on a significant final project that links academic learning and community praxis and engagement. Prerequisite: ECLS 341 or internship/community organizing experience in related topics, to be confirmed by instructor. Enrollment is limited. Satisfies experiential learning requirement.

Chin
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

340. ETHNOGRAPHY, THE SELF, AND THE OTHER.

In this course students learn how to do ethnographic research and writing by conducting exercises in participant-observation and auto-ethnography. Ethnographers’ reflexive fieldwork accounts and disputes over the authorship of ethnographies provide case studies for examining ethical, political, and epistemological dilemmas that arise in the practice of ethnography. Questions that we consider include: “How native is the ‘native’ anthropologist?”, “Can there be a feminist ethnography?”, “What is an author?”, “Can the subaltern speak?”, and “Why write an exposé of Rigoberta Menchu?” Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Postcolonial Theory.

Tobin
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

342. THE PHALLUS.

A survey of theories of the phallus from Freud and Lacan through feminist and queer takings-on of the phallus. Topics include the relation between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Queer Studies.

Tobin
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

344. QUEER PERFORMATIVITY.

A critical examination of theories of performance and performativity with a focus on their contribution to gay and lesbian studies. We trace the history of performativity from speech act theory, through deconstruction, to the queer theories of Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. We also consider lesbian feminist critiques of queer performativity by Sue-Ellen Case and Teresa de Lauretis. We consider ethnographic accounts of cross-gender performances across cultures, including texts by Roger Lancaster, Don Kulick, and Susan Seizer. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Queer Studies.

Not given in 2008-2009

355. BOUNDARIES AND BORDERLANDS.

This course reviews postcolonial theory by considering transformations of religions and cultures that occur when physical, experiential, geographic, and intellectual borders are crossed and blurred. How are religions and cultures named? From what locations? We consider cultural hybridities, re-mapped borders of culture and difference, postcoloniality, transnational migrations, and other postmodern conditions as sources for reconceiving identities, relationships between religions and cultures, and social transformations. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Postcolonial theory.

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

357. LAW AND EMPIRE.

This course reviews critical legal theory by examining the use of law to justify and sustain U.S. colonial projects. We will look at connections between the control of domestic populations (especially racialized groups) to such projects. The course will also investigate relationships between contemporary forms of internationalism (such as international legal regimes) and new forms of Empire. We will consider specific topics that raise questions about ongoing operations of and resistances to Empire that may include trafficking of humans and new form of slavery, sovereignty and indigenous people’s rights, the legal status of territories and protectorates, and the selective use of the U.S. Constitution in those locations. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Theory or Queeer Studies.

Maeda
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

359. CRITICAL RACE THEORY.

This class will look at interactions between law and other social discourses in the production of “difference.” We will investigate intersections between productions of racial, gendered, cultural, and sexual differences, as these are given meanings in contexts shaped by economic structures. The course will use social, political, and legal theories, as well as case law, to examine the role of law in producing and maintaining social hierarchies. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Theory

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

369. CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY LABORATORY.

The Clinical Psychology Laboratory (CPL) provides experiential opportunities for students interested in graduate study in psychology, law, and social justice. Students are given the opportunity to participate in the data analysis of clinical psychological assessments. Students will also participate in research under a Human Studies Committee approved project, with the goal for an early exposure to the field, and with the objective to yield research data for presentation or publication. In some projects, students may have limited opportunities to observe and participate in forensic psychological assessments as prescribed in the respective protocols. Prerequisite: instuctor interview and approval. Graded on a Credit/No Credit basis only. May be repeated once for credit.

2 units
Griffin

371. WRITING AS PERFORMANCE.

Students are introduced to ethnographic methodology by examining several key texts that explore writing as a genre of self-making, performance and identity. Issues to be explored include the connection between the individual and culture at large; construction of the self through silence and absence; performing the other and the self as an ethnographic and writerly act; construction of others through disciplinary discourses. Through the semester we will read Foucault’s Herculine Barbin, Karen Brown’s Mama Lola, Marta Savigliano’s Angora Matta, John Miller Chernoff’s Bar Girl, and I, Rigoberta Menchú. This course is collaboratively structured; students must be self-motivated and willing to take intellectual chances to succeed. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Theory, Postcolonial Theory, or Queer Studies. Satisfies experiential learning requirement.

Not given in 2008-2009
CORE REQUIREMENT MET: INTERCULTURAL

372. CONSUMPTION, POWER, AND POLITICS.

A study of anthropological and sociological theories of consumption by focusing on the way the social inequalities of race and gender are embedded in consumption practices and the consumer sphere more generally. Issues to be addressed: consumer culture as a feminized sphere of cultural activity (does shopping matter?), consumption as a racially charged terrain (why they looted in South Central), the politics of consumption in the developing world (why the natives wear Adidas), consumption in contexts other than capitalism. Emphasis is on consumer culture as a complex terrain upon which deeply political struggles are created, resisted, and transformed. Case studies will be cross cultural, including shopping in West London, politics of gender and value in Melanesia, the relationship between race, gender, colonialism and toiletries in Africa. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Theory or Queer Studies.

Not given in 2008-2009

380. PSYCHOANALYSIS: FREUD.

The work of Sigmund Freud continues to be of signal importance to students of literature, psychology, and feminist social theory. This course is designed to provide students with an in depth knowledge of his work as a model of intellectual courage and as a great and problematic achievement of the human imagination. The course will rely on the work of historian Peter Gay, Freud, a Life for our Time, for a well-contextualized treatment of Sigmund Freud’s life and work. There will be close readings of three of Freud’s seminal works, The Interpretation of Dreams, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, and Beyond the Pleasure Principle. We will also read two case studies central to the emergent feminist critique and re-analysis of Freud’s work: Anna O. and Dora, an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. In addition to critically evaluating his contributions to contemporary thought, this course will employ Freud as a great writer. The assignments will therefore emphasize the recognition and imitation of Freud’s skill as a writer. There will be four writing assignments from the different psychoanalytic genres: case history, dream interpretation, death-wish analysis, and an exercise in psychoanalytic theory. The course will be taught as a seminar with an emphasis on student participation. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Queer Studies. Satisfies experiential learning requirement.

Not given in 2008-2009

386. CRITICAL BLACKNESS.

Critical Race Theorists have begun to describe a “new blackness,” “critical blackness,” “post-blackness,” and “unforgivable blackness.” This emergent scholarship, which describes a feminist New Black Man, also seeks to “queer blackness” and to articulate a black sexual politics that addresses a “new racism.” By calling us to examine the possibility of a black political solidarity that escapes the problems of identity politics, this scholarship provokes We Who Are Dark to imagine more complex and free identities. This course invites all of us to engage this scholarship.

Not given in 2008-2009

387. PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF EVIL.

This course surveys, applies, and evaluates the variety of psychological theories of human evil from Psychoanalysis to the DSM–IV. Also examined are the distinct political and normative implications of psychology’s evolving status as a “moral science.” Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class.

Not given in 2008-2009

395. SPECIAL TOPICS IN CRITICAL THEORY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

An advanced seminar in critical theory and social justice. Prerequisite: a 200-level class in CTSJ or permission of instructor. May be repeated for credit.

Staff

397. INDEPENDENT STUDY.

Prerequisite: permission of instructor.

2 or 4 units
Staff

490. SENIOR SEMINAR IN CRITICAL THEORY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

This course is offered in conjunction with CTSJ majors’ ongoing research for the senior thesis. Seminar meetings will be devoted to discussion and critique of students’ work in progress and to close readings of a select few texts in critical theory and social justice. Prerequisite: senior CTSJ majors only.

Maeda

499. HONORS PROJECT IN CRITICAL THEORY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.

Prerequisite: permission of the department.

Staff