With gender inequities and biases pervasive within and across cultures worldwide, and the global pandemics of gender-based violence and structural violence further intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic, how have individuals, groups, communities, and nations globally fought for (and against) gender justice? How have struggles against gender injustice intersected and conflicted with struggles against racial, ethnic, environmental, health, LGBTQIA+ and other forms of injustice?

Gender justice, as is true of justice more broadly, is often discussed in the abstract, or as a matter of law, political history, protest movements, enfranchisement, and similar phenomena. Yet at its core, justice involves individuals and their experiences – both their suffering and their triumphs – experiences most directly accessed through stories. In this seminar we’ll explore a range of stories and different forms of storytelling on gender justice, from novels and films to memoirs/personal histories, histories, and creative nonfiction. Some narratives with which we will engage are Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Ito Shiori’s Black Box: The Memoir that Sparked Japan’s #MeToo Movement, Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, Cho Nam-joo’s Kim Jiyoung, and Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua’s This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Students will be encouraged to write their own stories on gender and justice.