Liberation Movements: Decolonization & Global Feminism

This program introduces first year students to liberation movements from the Global South, from anti-colonial struggles for independence to new social movements afoot today. We’ll explore the question, "What does liberation mean in the cultural, historical, political, and economic contexts of Latin America, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent?" as Third World movements attempted to reconceptualize an alternative, anti-imperialist and anti-racist world view. We will look at liberation movements in each of these contexts, their linkages to feminism, as well as the role of U.S. foreign and economic policy in suppressing resistance movements. Through the disciplinary lenses of literature, cultural studies, political economy, feminist and studies, this program will explore how various ideas of liberation have emerged and expanded over time to include possibilities for global justice, healing, and freedom.
First year students will have the opportunity to engage in lectures, films, and some workshops of the ReInterpreting Liberation program, with faculty Alice Nelson and Savvina Chowdhury, to gain an interdisciplinary and global perspective on liberation movements. Students will gain introductory skills in critical reading, expository writing, and cultural and economic analysis, but will also have the option of engaging with more challenging material, as we collectively examine how narratives of liberation are shaped, revised, and reinterpreted. 

We will explore several historical models of liberation and critique dominant representations of Third World nations. We will focus especially on India's path to independence, the Algerian and Cuban revolutions, Egypt/Arab Nationalism, and the Chilean Road to Socialism. In winter, we will move forward chronologically, and our cases will include several of the following: Chile under Pinochet and the rise of neoliberalism, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, opposition to U.S.-led post 9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Arab Spring, Indigenous movements for “land-back” against extractivism, anti-colonial movements among the Black diaspora, feminist and queer resistance to emerging neo-fascist regimes, as well as growing calls for reparations, abolition, and decolonization against centuries of global white supremacy. 

This program is coordinated with Greener Foundations for first-year students. Greener Foundations is Evergreen’s in-person 2-quarter introductory student success course sequence, which provides first-year students with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive at Evergreen. Student joining in winter quarter that are expected to take Greener Foundations will be prompted to register for a 2-credit Greener Foundations course in addition to this 14-credit program during registration. Students that took Greener Foundations in fall quarter will be automatically registered in winter quarter to complete the 4-credits of Greener Foundations.

Fall Anticipated Credit Equivalencies

6 - Decolonial Studies: History, Culture, Political Economy

4 - Gender & Feminist Studies

4 - Expository Writing