Hemangini Gupta

Feminist Foundations
This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. Focusing on the histories of feminism in the U.S., from the nineteenth century to the present, the course reveals the importance of gender and sexuality as analytical categories to understand social reality and to comprehend important areas of culture. Examining gender and sexuality always in conjunction with the categories of race and class, the course foregrounds how inequalities are perpetuated in different fields of human activity and the creative ways in which feminist movements have resisted these processes. 3 hrs. lect.

Globalizing Gender
In this course we will explore gender and the process of gendering as a complex and evolving global phenomenon of the 21st century. The readings will focus on the politics and experience of gender and sexualities in various parts of the world, including India, Pakistan, Muslim minorities in South Asia, and among diasporic communities in Europe and the United States. Through lectures and small group discussions, we will critique and analyze themes including third gender, masculinity, changing practices of marriage, the politics of sexuality, and the impact of the women’s movement, and gay rights movement on existing understanding of gendered traditions. (National/Transnational Feminisms) 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Introduction to Queer Critique
In this course we will examine what is meant by queer critique through exploring the concepts, issues, and debates central to queer theory and activism both in the U.S. and around the world. We will work to understand how queerness overlaps with and is distinct from other articulations of marginalized sexual subjectivity. We will consider how desires, identities, bodies, and experiences are constructed and represented, assessing the ways in which queer theory allows us to examine sexuality and its raced, classed, gendered, geographic, and (dis)abled dimensions. Through engaged projects, we will practice how to translate and produce queer critique. 3 hrs. lect./disc.*This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities.*

Gender, Technology, and the Future
Can technology make the world more just and equitable? Scientific and technological inventions continually surprise us with visions of the future that promise an end to global inequality and injustice: cooking robots, microcredit apps, test–tube babies. We will center these powerful ideas to unpack how they galvanize raced and sexed bodies to articulate the future. Through an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies we will ask how technological imaginations and interventions invent new global futures, examine their impact and implications, and explore the possibilities for new technological horizons.3 hrs. sem. This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities.

Ladies at Work: Global Politics of Care, Kinship, and Affect
Why are some forms of work valued more than others? When did people start believing entrepreneurs and innovators when they say, we should “Do What You Love”? Is work life separate from life at home and with friends? This class will journey across global care chains, drawing on feminist writings and ethnographic texts to examine conditions structuring middle class housework in the U.S., garment manufacturing in Sri Lankan factories, call center work in the Philippines, and elite startup innovations in India. Engaging questions of class, race, gender, and heterosexuality, we will learn about forms of feminized work and consider more just alternatives. 3 hrs. sem.

Collaborative Film-making
This course offers students an opportunity to collaboratively make videos with a group of young women workers in Bangalore, India who were the first in their families to get professional jobs and join the city’s growing startup economy. However, with job cuts, many workers lost their jobs. Others stayed on, knowing their jobs were precarious. How do the workers make meaningful lives amidst this uncertainty? Through a transnational and collaborative project, Middlebury students will connect with workers, read about the ethics and challenges of collaborative research and develop 5-minute films of their lives through videos, photographs, and audio files shared online. No prior experience with filmmaking is required.