Race in the Bio-Medical Construction of "Woman" Women Studies 420, Fall 1998 Michelle Murphy, Cornell University (o)255-6177, (h)564-0478 Office: 119 Stimpson Hall COURSE DESCRIPTION What is "race"? How has it been constructed as a scientific object? What work does it do in defining "woman"? Using feminist theory and historical case studies, this course critically explores the cultural work of "race" in scientific constructions of "woman" with a concentration on twentieth century America. Race is deeply inscribed in the ways biomedicine conceives of and deals with women's bodies, both white women and women of color. Rather than asking, "how has race affected women" - a question which leaves race unexamined - we will be turning a critical eye to the very notion of race itself, asking " what kind of a category was and is race?" With this question as our starting point, we will unpack the history of changing claims for a biological underpinning for race and from there go on to untangle the work "race" has done to define difference amongst women. This is a very difficult task, not just because the relationship between race and gender is complex and fraught with tension, but also because the history of "race", framed in this manner, remains largely unwritten. With the help of the readings and class discussion, the goal of this class will be to begin to piece together this yet untold history, and even to develop new questions and methods for doing so. To give our task focus, we will read feminist theory on the relationships between race, gender, and difference against historical case studies, which will include: the early history of gynecology, eugenics, the early twentieth century feminist birth control movement, reproductive politics and African American feminism in 1980s and 1990s, the politics of genetic and cultural arguments for breast cancer , and the politics of AIDS. CLASS ASSIGNMENTS Since the history of "race" as a concept and its convergence with the history of "woman" is yet largely unwritten, this course depends upon many readings that must be critically read against their grain. This course requires students to read CAREFULLY, to take notes on the readings, and to develop their critical skills through group discussions and group presentations. Therefore, class participation, will be valued highly. In addition, each week students will be asked to volunteer to be responsible for a particular reading and to be prepared to help guide the discussion the next week. Students are encouraged to bring refreshments or snacks class participation 15% A set of notes you are particularly proud of 5% 1 group presentation 20% The class will be divided into groups of 3 or 4. Each group will be responsible for one group presentation on an assigned day. Presentations are weighted heavily, and should be treated with the seriousness of a paper. Do not summarize the readings. Groups are encouraged to respond to the issues raised by comparing the readings, to add information to the session from their own research, and to experiment with modes of presentation and narration. Raise and respond to pivotal concepts, or build up to them, or move back and forth between them exposing conceptual patterns and tensions. Try to go farther than the readings, read them against their grain, or articulate things they only point to. 2 short response papers (5 pages) 15% each= 30% No extensions. If your group presentation is on a day in which a paper is due, the paper will be due the following week. Final "found object" research paper (10 pages) 30% Week 1, Sept. 1: INTRODUCTION Lecture: On the Historicity of Race Week 2, Sept. 8: "RACE" AS A SCIENTIFIC OBJECT Gould, Stephen Jay, "American Polygeny and Craniometry before Darwin: Blacks and Indians as Separate, Inferior Species," in Sandra Harding, ed., The Racial Economy of Science (Bloomington: Indiana Press, 1993): 84-115. Nancy Leys Stepan and Sander Gilman, "Appropriating the Idioms of Science: The Rejection of Scientific Racism," in Sandra Harding, ed., The Racial Economy of Science (Bloomington: Indiana Press, 1993): 170-93. Harding, Sandra, " 'Strong Objectivity' and Socially Situated Knowledge,"in Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking From Women's Lives (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991): 138-63. Donna Haraway, "Situated Knowledge: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York, Routledge 1991): 183-201. Week 3, Sept. 15: THE HISTORICITY OF "WOMAN" AND ITS INTERSECTION WITH "RACE" Denise Riley, 'Am I that Name?': Feminism and the Category of "Women" in History, (London: Macmillan Press, 1988): 1-17. Russet, Cynthia. "Up and Down the Phyletic Ladder," in Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989): 49-77. Schiebinger, Londa, "Theories of Gender and Race," in Nature's Body" Gender in the Making of Modern Science. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993):143-183. Fausto-Sterling, Anne, "Gender, Race, and Nation: The Comparative Anatomy of 'Hottentot' women in Europe: 1815-1817," in J. Terry and J. Urla, eds., Deviant Bodies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995):19-48. Optional: Gilman, Sander, "Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature," Critical Inquiry 12 (Autumn 1985): 204-242. Week 4, Sept. 22: RACE AND GYNECOLOGY Sims, J. Marion, The Story of my Life, H. Marion-Sims, ed., (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1894): 222-246. Sims, J. Marion, " Treatment of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula, American Journal of the Medical Sciences (1852): 59-82. Kapsalis, Terri, "Mastering the Female Pelvis: Race and the Tools of Reproduction, " in Public Privates: Performing Gynecology from Both Ends of the Speculum. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997):31-49. Morrison, Toni, "The Site of Memory," in R. Ferguson, et.al., ed., Out There (New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990): 289-305. Smith-Rosenberg, Carroll and Charles Rosenberg, "The Female Animal: Medical and Biological Views of Woman and Her Role in Nineteenth-Century America, " in Judith Walzer Leavitt, ed. Women and Health in America (Madison, Universit yof Wisconsin Press, 1984): 12-27. Roberts, Dorothy, "Reproduction in Bondage," in Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997): 22-55. Week 5, Sept. 29: EUGENICS, MOTHERHOOD, AND FEMINISM *First Short Paper Due* Paul, Diane. Chapters 2, 4, and 6 in Controlling Human Heredity: 1865- the Present (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1995): 22-39, 50-71, 97-114. Hasian, Marouf Arif, Jr., "Race and African American Interpretations of Eugenics," in The Rhetoric of Eugenics in Anglo American Thought. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996): 51-88. Davenport, Charles B. The Trait Book, Bulletin No. 6 ( Cold Spring Harbor: Eugenics Record Office, 1912). Galton, Francis, " The Comparative Worth of Different Races, " in Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences (New York: Horizon Press,1952[1892] ):325-337 and "Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims" in Essays in Eugenics (1909): 35-43. Week 6, Oct. 6: FEMINISM, REPRODUCTION AND RACE I Gordon, Linda. Woman's Body, Woman's Right: Birth Control in America, chapters 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, & 12. (New York: Penguin Books, 1974). Sanger, Margaret, "The Materials of the New Race," in Woman and the New Race. (Fairview Park: Maxwell Reprint Company, 1969 [1920]): 30-46. Sanger, Margaret, " Birth Control and Racial Betterment," The Birth Control Review (Feb. 1919): 11-12. OCTOBER 13th - No classes (Fall Break) Week 7, Oct.20: THE RETREAT OF SCIENTIFIC RACISM Barkan, Elazar, The Retreat of Scientific Racism, last chapter and epilogue. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, "Racial Formation" in Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s, Second Edition. (New York: Peggy Pascoe, " Micegenation Law, Court Cases, and Ideologies of "Race" in Twentieth-Century America," Journal of American History (June 1996): 44-69. One of the following: Benedict, Ruth, Race and Racism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983 [orig. pub. 1942]) Boas, Franz, "New Evidence in Regard to the Instability of Human Types" and "Some Criticisms of Physical Anthropology" in Race, Language, and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940): 77-81, 164-71. DuBois, W.E.B., The Health and Physique of the Negro American (1906) Mead, Margaret, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ethel Tobach, & Robert Light, eds., Science and the Concept of Race (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968). Myrdal, Gunnar, "Chapter 4: Racial Beliefs," "Chapter 5: Race and Ancestry," and "Chapter 6: Race Characteristics," in An American Kilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, vol1 (New York: Harper&"Brothers, 1944): 83-153. UNESCO "Statement on Race" (1950), "Statement on the Nature of Race and Race Differences" (1951), "Proposals on the Biological Aspects of Race" (1964), "Statement on Race and Racial Prejudice," (1967) in Ashley Montagu, ed., Statement on Race (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972). UNESCO, What is Race? (Paris: UNESCO Department of Mass Communication, 1952). UNESCO, The Race Question in Modern Science, (New York, UNESCO, 1956) Week 8, Oct. 27: WHITENESS *Second Response Paper Due* Group Presentation "Introduction: Points of Origin, Points of Departure," in White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993): 1-18. Piper, Adrian, "Passing for White Passing for Black," in Out of Order, Out of Sight (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996):275-307. Elizabeth Hales, "Domestic Reconstruction: White Homes, 'Black Mammies,' and 'New Women'" in Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-194. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998): 85-119 Roediger, David "From the Social Construction of Race to the Abolition of Whiteness," in Racial Classification and History (New York: Garland Publishing, 1997): 345-61. Week 9, Nov. 3: "WOMAN" AND DIFFERENCE, BREAST CANCER PART I Group Presentation Lorde, Audre, The Cancer Journals (Argyle, NY: Spinsters Ink, 1980.) Lorde, Audre, "Age, Race, Class, And Sex: Women Redefining Difference," in Sister Outsider (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1984) Grosz, Elizabeth, "Conclusion: A Note on Essentialism and Difference," in Sneja Gunew, ed., Feminist Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1990):332-44. Trinh Minh Ha, "Difference: 'A Special Third World Women Issue'" in women, Native, Other (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1989): 79-116. Week 10, Nov. 10: FEMINISM, REPRODUCTION AND RACE II Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, "Feminist Encounters: Locating the Politics of Experience" Copyright 1 (1987):30-44.. Collins, Patricia "The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought" in Black Women in America: Social Science Perspectives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990):297-325. Higginbotham, " African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race," (1992) Signs 17 (21): 251-74. One from the following: Davis, Angela, "Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights," Women, Race & Class (New York: Random House, 1981): 202-221. Davis, Angela, "Sick And Tired of Being Sick and Tired: The Politics of Black Women's Health," in Women, Culture, & Politics (New York: Random House, 19 ): 53-65. Ross, Loretta, "African American Women and Abortion," in Ricki Solinger, ed., Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950-2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998):161-207. Avery, Byllye, "A Question of Survival/ A Conspiracy of Silence: Abortion and Black Women's Health," in Marlene Gerber Fried, ed., From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom: Transforming a Movement. (Boston: South End Press, 1990): 75-81. Roberts, Dorothy, "The Dark Side of Birth Contol" in Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997): 56-103. Week 11, Nov.17: RACE, DISEASE, AND GENETICS, BREAST CANCER PART II Group Presentation Wahrman, Miryam, "The Breast Cancer Genes: A Devastating Jewish Legacy," JCN (www.juc.18.com/newstand/warhman/cancer.htm) Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, "Concern Among Jews is Heightened As Scientists Deepen Gene Studies," New York Times, April 22, (1998):A24. Duster, Troy. " "Inherited Genetic Disorder and Inherited Social Orders," and "The Genetic Screening of 'Target' Populations," in Backdoor to Eugenics (New York: Routledge, 1990). Cavallli-Sforza, Luca, Paolo Menozzi, Alberto Piazza, The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) : 1-25. "Declaration of Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere," Cultural Survival Quarterly (Summer 1996): 63. Haraway, Donna, " Race: Universal Donors in a Vampire Culture" in Modest Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse (New York: Routledge, 1997): 213-265. Optional: Joann Gutin, "End of the Rainbow", Discover (Nov. 1994): 71-75. Indigenous Peoples Coalition Against Biopiracy web page. (http://www.niec.net/ipcb) Provine, William, "Genetics and Race," American Zoology 26 (1986): 857-887. Cooper, Richard. "The Biological Concept of Race and Its Application to Public Health and Epidemiology," Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, vol. 11, (Spring 1986): 97-116. Week 12: Nov. 24: NEW RACE IN OLD BODIES - BREAST CANCER PART III Krieger, Nancy and Elizabeth Fee, "Man-Made Medicine and Women's Health: The Biopolitics of Sex/Gender and Race/Ethnicity" in Kary Moss, ed., Man-Made Medicine: Women's Health , Public Policy and Refrom (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996): 15-35. Williams, David, Risa Lavizzo-Mourney, and Rueben Warren, " The Concept of Race and Health Status in America" reprinted in Nathaniel Gates, ed., The Concept of "Race in Natural and Social Science (New York: Garland, 1997):204-19. Krieger, Nancy, "Social Class and Black/White Crossover in the Age-specific Incidence of Breast Cancer, " American Journal of Epidemiology 131 (1990) : 804-14. "Black Women Delay Breast Cancer Treatment", UPI Science News, June 9, 1998. "Research or Racism" Harper's Magazine (Sept. 1997): 18. Week 13, Dec. 1: AIDS AND THE POLITICS OF RACE Hammonds, Evelynn, "Missing Persons: African American Women, AIDS, and the History of Disease, " Radical America 20 (1986):7-23. Farmer, Paul, "AIDS and Racism: Accusation in the Center," and "AIDS and Empire: Accusation in the Periphery," in AIDS and Accusation -- Haiti and the Geography of Blame (Berkeley: California, 1992): 208-43. Simon Watney, "Missionary Positions: AIDS, "Africa," and Race, " in R. Ferguson, et. al., eds., Out There (New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 1990): 89-103.
