Gender, Sexuality, and Popular Culture (371-0-20)

Topic

Direct Action: Sit-ins, Takeovers, and Occupations

Instructors

Amy Partridge
847.491.5872

Meeting Info

University Hall 118: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

This course focuses on the takeover as a tactic of non-violent direct action as it has been used in the United States from 1968-2011. We approach the takeover as a political form: a collective intervention in which people occupy, seize, reclaim, or transform spaces and institutions to contest existing arrangements of power. We will consider how takeovers interrupt the ordinary operations of institutions and transform the meaning of property and public space while simultaneously creating new forms of assembly, collective decision-making, and mutual aid that attempt to enact new social relations and democratic possibilities. Spanning from 1968 to 2011, the course traces how occupations, sit-ins, building seizures, encampments, and other disruptive actions developed across student movements, Black liberation struggles, feminist and queer organizing, Indigenous movements, anti-globalization activism, and the global wave of protest culminating in Occupy Wall Street in 2011. The course asks not only what takeovers accomplish, but also how they produce political subjects, reorganize everyday life and create new modes of collective world-making. We use historical documents, activist writings, and documentary film to recuperate key historical examples with the goal of developing a critical vocabulary for analyzing direct action as a form of political intervention and as an attempt to reorganize social life.

Case studies include: NU Bursar's Office Takeover (1968); Third World Liberation Front (Student) Strikes (1968-9); McCormick Theological Seminary Takeover by the Young Lords Organization (1969); takeover of the Ladies Home Journal & RAT magazine offices by Women's Liberation Movement members (1970); takeover and occupation of Alcatraz Island by members of the American Indian Movement (1969-71); Direct action tactics of the Gay Liberation Front, ACT UP and Queer Nation (1970s-1990s); feminist speak-outs and sit-ins (1980-1990s); Anti-Globalization Movement (2000s); Occupy Wall Street (2011).

Teaching Method

- lecture/discussion
- case studies
- guest speakers
- in-class workshops/presentations

Evaluation Method

- Attendance
- 2 short papers
- guided research project and presentation
- final paper/project

Class Materials (Required)

All will be provided in Canvas.

Class Attributes

SoC Individual and Social Behavior Distro