Featured Course
GWS 575 - Transnational Feminisms: Perspectives from Latin America
Professor Dr. Elisa Frühauf Garcia
Course Description:
In recent years, Indigenous women from several Latin American countries have gained prominence both within their societies and on the international stage, becoming leading figures in fields such as the arts, politics, and intellectual life. This movement has been accompanied by a renewal of scholarship, prompting scholars to reassess existing knowledge about Indigenous women, who have often been underrepresented or overlooked in historiographical works and feminist analyses.
Against this backdrop, the course will explore how transnational feminisms can be understood from a Latin American perspective, with a particular focus on Indigenous women. It aims to highlight a region that has been underrepresented in feminist studies, while also drawing comparisons with studies from other areas of the Global South. Key themes such as gender, sexuality, reproduction, agency, labor, subalternity, and digital gender gap will be examined across historical periods. The course will navigate scholarship from the colonial period to the present, fostering a deeper understanding of the colonial legacies that continue to shape the lives of Indigenous women in Latin American societies.
Additionally, we will examine why the current Indigenous women's movement places value on access to academic knowledge and how collaborative research between Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars has led to the development of new theoretical and methodological perspectives in the field.
Course Structure:
The course will include lectures, in-class discussions and presentations, guest lectures, a film discussion, a digital humanities workshop (Wikipedia project) and an interview with the Brazilian Indigenous artist and activist Gliceria Tupinambá (subject to her availability).