This course will introduce students to feminist and lesbian separatisms beginning with their birth in the early history of feminism and their subsequent association with radical feminist theories. Through primary and secondary texts, it will familiarize students with the goals, motivations, and reasonings behind the phenomena as well as their accomplishments, legacies, and current forms. It will pay special attention to the impact of these types of separatisms on publications/writing, music, and in feminist spirituality as well as their legacy of cultural feminism. Finally, the course will examine critiques of the movements as essentialist and trans-exclusionary from various perspectives and authors.
