The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the critical theories and contestations that have made feminist theory both a dynamic and a turbulent field of study. Beginning with Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex, this class examines the various interventions that have marked the development of feminist thought from the mid 20th century onward. These include efforts to complicate the category 'woman', to understand gender in its intersections with race and class, to develop queer feminist accounts of sexuality, and to investigate the meaning of 'feminism' as a political project in and of itself.