WMST 260   Intersectionality in Theory and Practice

Traces an intellectual genealogy of intersectionality’s emergence as one the most significant theories coming out of feminist scholarship. In our present, intersectionality has become axiomatic insofar as multiple discourses both inside and outside of academia demand that all feminism be intersectional. Yet the history of intersectionality’s emergence from black women’s lived experience is often rendered opaque. Intersectionality as a feminist theory is one response to the often-forgotten Sojourner Truth question and demand “Ain’t I a woman?” that causes problems for feminist’s attempts to reconcile questions of difference and exclusion in feminist scholarship and activism. Hence, students will explore the historical conditions that produce intersectionality by interrogating the very question of black women’s relationship to the category of woman. And, more broadly, students will discuss the various ways feminist respond to questions of difference, inclusion, and exclusion in feminist social and political worlds.