SPRING 2001 GRADUATE SEMINAR
FACULTY:
Assoc. Prof. Ann Forsyth
Department of Urban Planning and Design, Room 325b
Harvard Design School
48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02318-3000
forsyth@gsd.harvard.edu
617-496-4342
Assoc. Prof. Gordana Rabrenovic
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Northeastern University
Holmes Hall
571 Boston, MA 02115
gordanar@neu.edu
617-373-4998
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/projects/cwa/index.html
Bulletin board http://www2.gsd.harvard.edu:9000/~cwa.
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
The course explores the women's community activism. We will start by examining the role of women in urban communities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We will identify forms of gendered collective action in relationship to race, ethnicity, and class issues. Using a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches the course will addresses questions such as: What is a community? How can we define it? What role do social institutions play in community stability? Who has power in a community? Why is there a tension between community development and community organizing? We will also read and discuss community studies on variety of topics and conduct our own community research projects.
Required Texts:
Gordon. Linda. The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Kennedy, E. and M. Davis, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York, Penguin, 1993.
Lorde, Audre. Zami, A New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Press, 1983.
Marshall. Paule. Daughters. Plume, 1992.
These texts are available from the Harvard Bookstore at1256 Massachusetts Avenue (http://www.harvard.com/). They are also on reserve at Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe.
A course packet of readings to be available for purchase and on reserve at Schlesinger in the office of the "reference librarian" (open Monday to Friday 9-5 except for Wednesday when it stays open until 8). The course packet will be produced by Booktech.com who have phone and web orders. Ordering details will be available in January. Two readings with expensive copyright are on reserve only—they are clearly marked.
ASSIGNMENTS:
1. Each week a team of 2 or more students from different disciplines will make a presentation on the readings to the class. This will include (a) a 1-2 page written summary of key issues in both hard and soft copy to be placed on the web site or circulated via email, (b) a 20 minute presentation framing the readings, and (c) additional questions to help guide the class discussion. Questions and the draft summary are due via email to Gordana and Ann 24 hours before class. (30% of grade)
2. A short, 8 to 10 page, paper based on class readings will be due in week 8. This will focus on the relationship of the idea of community to the student's own academic discipline or graduate program emphasis. (20 % of grade) For example, what assumptions does your discipline make about communities? How are the readings and discussions in the class so far, moving you from your discipline to seeing multiple ways of seeing communities and what are they? Has this changed over time? These questions are not meant to limit your papers but give a sense of issues that you may wish to think about.
3. A 15 to 20 page research paper on a topic of the student's choice that engages with the issues of "communities" and "women's activism". Ann and Gordana will give comments on a draft paper if it is handed in before week 9. (50 % of grade)
SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS:
Sibley, David. "Radical Women, Men of Science and Urban Society" in Geographies of Exclusions. Routledge, 1995.
Hayden, Dolores. “Introduction” in The Grand Domestic Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1981.
Spain, Daphne. Preface, Introduction, and Chapter 4: "Voluntary Associations with an Urban Presence" in How Women Saved the City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, Forthcoming.
Gordon, Linda. The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Jacobs, Jane. Chapter 2, "The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety" in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961.
Berman, Marshall. . Section V, part 2, "The 1960s, a Shout in the Street" in All That Is Solid Melts into Air. New York: Penguin, 1982
Young, Iris. Chapter 8, "City Life and Difference" in Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Spain, Daphne. "Gender and Place." Essay prepared for International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2000.
Hayden, Dolores. Chapter 1: "Contested Terrain" and Chapter 2: "Urban Landscape History" (pages 2-43) in The Power of Place. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995. [On reserve only.]
Ritzdorf, Marsha. “Family Values, Municipal Zoning, and African American Family Life” in Urban Planning and the African American Community. June Manning Thomas and Marsha Ritzdorf eds. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 1997.
Week 6. Lesbian, Gay and Queer.
Forsyth, Ann. "NoHo: Upscaling Main Street on the Metropolitan Edge." Urban Geography 18, 7: 622-652. 1997.
Kennedy, E. and M. Davis, “Preface” and “Introduction” in Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York. Penguin, 1993.
Lorde, Audre. Zami, A New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Press, 1983.
Gilkes, Cheryl Townsend. "Building in Many Places: Multiple Commitments and Ideologies in Black Women's Community Work" in Women and the Politics of Empowerment. Edited by Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen. Temple University Press, 1988.
Pardo, Mary. "Creating Community. Mexican American Women in Eastside Los Angeles." in Community Activism and Feminist Politics. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. Routledge, 1998.
Feldman, Roberta and Susan Stall. "The Politics of Space Appropriation: A Case Study of Women's Struggles for Homeplace in Chicago's Public Housing" in Women and the Environment. Edited by I. Altman and A. Churchman. New York: Plenum Press, 1994.
Silver, Chris. "Neighborhood Planning in Historical Perspective." Journal of the American Planning 51, 2: 161-174. 1985.
Rabrenovic, Gordana. "Women and Collective Action in Urban Neighborhoods" in Gender in Urban Research. Edited by Judith A. Garber and Robyne S. Turner. Urban Affairs Annual Review 42. Sage, 1995.
Fanta, Carol Hardy. Chapter 2: “Making Connections,” in Latino Politics, Latina Politics. Temple University Press, 1993. [On reserve only]
hooks, bell Sisterhood: Political Solidarity between Women. In Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonail Perspectives. A. Edited by McClintock, A. Mufti, and E Shohat, . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997..
Haywoode, Terry L. "Working-class Women and Local Politics: Styles of Community Organizing" in Community Politics and Policy. Edited by Nancy Kleniewski and Gordana Rabrenovic. JAI Press, 2000.
Seitz, Virginia Rinaldo. "Class, Gender, and Resistance in the Appalachian Coalfields" in Community Activism and Feminist Politics. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. Routledge, 1998.
Sacks, Karen Brodkin. Chapter 5, "How Women Organized" in Caring by the Hour. University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Young, Alma H. and Kristine B. Miranne. "Women's need for Child Care: The Stumbling Block in the Transition from Welfare to Work" in Gender in Urban Research. Edited by Judith A. Garber and Robyne S. Turner. Urban Affairs Annual Review 42. Sage, 1995.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Nanny Chain. The American Prospect. 11, 4. 2000.
Wendy Luttrell. "Schoolsmart and Motherwise: Working-Class Women's Identity and Schooling or The Edison School Struggle" and "The Reshaping of Working-Class Education and Women's Consciousness" in Women and the Politics of Empowerment. Edited by Ann Bookman and Sandra Morgen. Temple University Press, 1988.
Marshall, Paule. Daughters. Plume, 1992.
Gittell, Marilyn, Isolda Ortega-Bustamante, Tracy Steffy. Women Creating Social Capital and Social Change, A Study of Women-led Community Development Organizations. Howard Samuels State Management and Policy Center, The Graduate School and The University Center of the City University of New York, 1999.
Stephen, Lynn. "The Politics of Urban Survival: The Women's Regional Council of the CONAMUP, Mexico" in Women and Social Movements in Latin America. Texas University Press, 1997.
Lind, Amy. Gender, Development and Urban Social Change: Women's Community Action in Global Cities. World Development 25, 4: 1205-1223. 1997.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND READINGS
(Please Note: These are not on reserve)
Arditti, Rita. 1999. Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza De Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina. University California Press.
Bambara, Toni Cade. 1992. Gorilla, My Love. Vintage Books
Banerjee, Tridib and William Baer. Chapter 4: "Residential Area and Neighborhood: Images and Values" in Beyond the Neighborhood Unit: Residential Environments and Public Policy. New York: Plenum Press, 1984
Castells, Manuel. 1983. The City and the Grassroots. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapter 14: "Cultural Identity, Sexual Liberation and Urban Structure: The Gay Community in San Francisco."
Chamberland, L. 1993. "Remembering Lesbian Bars: Montreal, 1955-1975." Journal of Homosexuality 25.3, 231-269.
Chauncey, George. 1994. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books.
Edin, Kathryn and Laura Lein. 1997. Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Forsyth, Ann. 2001. "Sexuality and Space: Nonconformist Populations and Planning Practice." Journal of Planning Literature 15, 3.
Garber, Judith. 2000. "Not Named or Identified: Politics and the Search for Anonymity in the City." In Kristine Miranne and Alma Young eds. Gendering the City. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield.
Kaplan, Temma. 1996. Crazy for Democracy: Women in Grassroots Movements. Routledge.
Krasniewicz, Louise. 1992. Nuclear Summer: The Clash of Communities at the Seneca Women's Peace Encampment. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Lessing, Doris May. 1995. The Four-gated City. Harper Collins
Marysa Navarro. 1989. The Personal is Political: Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements, ed. Susan Excstein. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Petry, Ann Lane.1946. The Street. Houghton Mifflin Co.
Sarkissian, Wendy. "The Idea of Social Mix in Town Planning: An Historical Review." Urban Studies 13, 231-246. 1976.
Valentine, Gill. 1993. Desperately Seeking Susan: a Geography of Lesbian Friendships. Area 25, 109-116.
Valentine, Gill. 1995. "Out and About: Geographies of Lesbian Landscapes." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 19, 1: 96-111.
Whittier, Nancy. 1995. Feminist Generations: The Persistence of the Radical Women's Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.