Abstract
Because women’s studies radically challenges social hierarchies and lacks a unified identity and canon of thought, it often negotiates a precarious position within the modern corporatized university. At the same time, women’s studies offers—by virtue of its interdisciplinary, critical, and “infectious” structure—cutting-edge perspectives and goals that set it apart from more traditional fields. This paper theorizes that one future pedagogical priority of women’s studies is to train students not only to master a body of knowledge but also to serve as symbolic “viruses” that infect, unsettle, and disrupt traditional and entrenched fields. In this essay, we first posit how the metaphor of the virus in part exemplifies an ideal feminist pedagogy, and we then investigate how both women’s studies and the spread of actual viruses (e.g., Ebola, HIV) produce similar kinds of emotional responses in others. By looking at triviality, mockery, panic, and anger that women’s studies as a field elicits, we conclude by outlining the stakes of framing women’s studies as an infectious, insurrectional, and potentially dangerous, field of study. In doing so, we frame two new priorities for women’s studies—training male students as viruses and embracing “negative” stereotypes of feminist professors—as important future directions for the potentially liberatory aspects of the field.
Highlights
Because women’s studies radically challenges social hierarchies and lacks a unified identity and canon of thought, it often negotiates a precarious position within the modern corporatized university
We first posit how the metaphor of the virus in part exemplifies an ideal feminist pedagogy, and we investigate how both women’s studies and the spread of actual viruses (e.g., Ebola, HIV) produce similar kinds of emotional responses in others
Women’s studies offers—by virtue of its interdisciplinary, critical, and “infectious” structure—cutting-edge perspectives and goals that differentiate itself from more traditional academic fields
Summary
Feminist pedagogies have as their primary goal the teaching of feminist thought and the establishment of its clear relevance to student lives. (We were recently asked to comment on a trend of women in Phoenix embracing a “retro housewife lifestyle” where they submit to their husbands and remain at home out of duty.) The notion of women’s studies as dangerous and infectious implies, much like the metaphor of the virus, that it has permanently altered its host’s DNA and has radically upset its environment This process reveals the danger of dismantling the status quo by introducing feminist pedagogies into the corporate university. After all, transform through destruction, and through imagining and redirecting toward something new (Leonardo, 2004)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call