back

HIST 330
International Women’s History
(3 hours) T-Th:11:00-12:15
Wyse 319, Spring 2004
Course Website: http://courses.goshen.edu/

Jan Bender Shetler
Office — 311 Wyse, phone 535-7108
Home phone — (not after 9:00 p.m.) 534-5116
email — jans@goshen.edu
Office Hours – By appointment or Tuesday afternoons 1:00-4:00

Course Description
This course will look at history from the perspective of women in Africa, Latin America and Asia.  The theoretical approach of the class, in paying close attention to gender, race, and class, emphasizes that historical experiences have varied with the position and power of the participants.  It will ask how some big issues in world history over the past 200 years such as the accumulation of wealth, slavery, colonialism, resistance, urbanization, agrarian change and nationalism look different through the eyes of women.  We will consider the impact of these large social changes on women’s lives and the ways that women met those challenges.  Gender will be explored as a social construct that varies in place and time.
Since the subject is too broad and deep to cover in one semester we will pick and choose case studies from Africa, Latin America and Asia over the past 300 years. The course will be divided into four sections in roughly chronological order:

• Introduction:  Questioning Assumptions, Shifting Perspectives
• Women in “Traditional” Societies: China
• Women and Religion:  Peru
• Women and Colonial Resistance: West Africa

Course Objectives

• To gain knowledge, various perspectives and insight in respect to women in Africa, Latin America and Asia over the past 200 years. 
• To use case studies in women’s history to explore the following propositions:

1. History looks different through the eyes of women (Gendered Histories).
2. Ethnocentric assumptions about gender distort useful analysis (Ethnocentrism).
3. Women do not constitute a monolithic category (Essentialism).
4. Despite their subordinate status women have actively and creatively shaped their own lives (Agency and Authority).

• To practice the historian's craft — to develop the art of reading critically, evaluating historical sources, articulating ideas in a group setting, and expressing arguments clearly in writing.
• To discover the relevance of women’s history and the historical mode of inquiry to our lives and world today.

Course Policies

• Attendance at all classes is mandatory.  After three unexcused absences your grade will drop one percentage point for each day you are absent.  Please inform me in advance of absences for school functions. 
• You demonstrate respect for the teacher and fellow students by prompt arrival and attentiveness in class.   Plagiarism in written assignments will not be tolerated.
• Extensions on written assignments are granted only in unusual circumstances and at least 3 days in advance of the deadline.  If you are sick or for some medical reason could not complete the assignment let me know as soon as possible.  Any late work, which has not been cleared with me in advance, will be reduced by ten percentage points for each day that it is late.  If you have a scheduled school activity please turn your assignment in ahead of time.
• Reading assignments must be completed before the class for which they are assigned. There will be time in each class session for clarification of readings and discussion.  Lectures will not necessarily cover the readings, for which you will be held responsible on tests.

Course Requirements

• Class and small group discussions will be a crucial part of this course. 

1. Productive discussions are not automatic.  They require a clear sense of purpose, an attitude of respect, and a commitment to the productivity of the whole group on the part of all participants. 
2. Participation grades will be derived from class participation, group discussions and on-line discussions. Discussion groups will be assigned for the semester and discussion leadership will rotate.
3. Your preparation for the class will be evaluated through daily reading questions.  After you read and take notes on the class assignment you will answer questions about the reading.  Send these to me by 9:00 on the day of class, by email.  You will receive credit (3 points) according to your good faith effort, not whether you are right or wrong.  I will base the class discussion on your responses.  Each day you will prepare reading questions based on the following if I do not give you specific questions to answer:
• What is the main point and sub-points of this reading?
• What new information does it give us about the role of women in history?
• What questions would you like to discuss in class?

• The exams will be essay and identification questions written during the class period.  They will cover the readings, student presentations, discussions and lectures.  Quizzes will be simple, short objective questions to make sure that you are reading and retaining. 
• As a semester project groups of four students will make oral presentations on controversial women’s issues throughout the semester.  The topics and times are listed on the schedule.  Please choose your group and topic as soon as possible or I will assign them.  The student group will lead the class discussion on the assigned day, 10-15 minutes for each presenter, 40-60 minutes total.

Four members will be assigned to each group and each student will prepare a different section of the presentation.

1. Historical background
2. Present day context
3. How this practice oppresses women and why it should be abolished.
4. How this practice demonstrates women’s agency within a cultural context.

Each group member turns in his or her presentation notes, outline or paper for an individual grade.  Half of the grade will be a common grade for the whole group.
4. A final paper on the Igbo Women’s war will be explained in class.

Grades will be determined by the following:
Group Presentation (25 group + 25 individual)                            50
Igbo Women’s War paper                                                                    100
Reading Questions and discussion paper (15 x 3 + 5)                  50
Quizzes (4 x 5 points)                                                                             20
Participation (discussion groups, class and on-line participation)   30
Two Exams (75 x 2)                                                                             150
Final Exam                                                                                           100
TOTAL                                                                                                500 points

Required Reading
Susan Mann, Precious Records: Women in China’s Long-Eighteenth Century (Stanford University Press, 1997).
Kathryn Burns.  Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru.  (1999).
Sarah Shaver Hughes and Brady Hughes, Women in World History Vol. 1 and 2, M.E. Sharpe, 1997.
Jean Allman and Victoria Tashjian, “I Will Not Eat Stone”:  A Women’s History of Colonial Asante (Heinemann, 2000)

Other Readings on Library Reserve

• Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (Columbia, 1999 edition), “Women’s History,” and “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” pp. 15-50
• Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society, pp. 1-10.
• Cheryl Johnson-Odim, “Common Themes, Different Contexts: Third World Women and Feminism,” in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, edited by Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, pp. 314-327.
• Barbara Cooper, “Reflections on Slavery, Seclusion, and Female Labour in the Maradi Region of Niger in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of African History 35 (1994): 61-78.
• Janice Boddy, “Womb as Oasis: Symbolic Context of Circumcision in Northern Sudan,” American Ethnologist 9 (1982): 682-698.

Reading for the Final Paper on the Igbo Women’s War

1. Kamene Okonjo, “The Dual-Sex Political System in Operation: Igbo Women and Community Politics in Midwestern Nigeria,” in Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change, edited by Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay (Stanford University Press, 1976), pp. 45-58.
2. Judith Van Allen, “Aba Riots or Igbo Women’s War? Ideology, Stratification, and the Invisibility of Women,” in Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change, edited by Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay (Stanford University Press, 1976), pp. 59-86.
3.  Judith Van Allen, “Sitting on a Man: Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women,” in Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher B. Steiner, Eds. Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History and Representation, (London: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 536-549.
4. Margaret Perham, Native Administration in Nigeria, “The South-east: The Aba Riots.” Pp. 206-220.
5. Susan Martin, Palm Oil and Protest: An Economic History of the Ngwa Region, Southeastern Nigeria, 1800-1900, (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 90-118.
6. Adiele Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria, 1891-1929,  (Longman) “ … fatal remedy” and “The Warrant Chief System anatomised,” pp. 237-295.
7. Primary Source Material on the Igbo Women’s War, some photocopies.
8. Microfilm.  Nigeria. “Commission of Inquiry Appointed to Inquire into the Disturbances in the Calabar and Owerri Provinces. Notes of evidence taken by the Commission of Inquiry Appointed to Inquire into the Disturbances in the Calabar and Owerri Provinces,” December, 1929 [microform]. 1929?]

Schedule