Beauty, Biopower, and 21st C. Empire

Topics for Today

• Review of Mohanty
• Short presentation on keyword biopower
• Presentation on several important threads throughout this essay
• A writing exercise on beauty as a "technology of the self" under empire

"Under Western Eyes"

• Surveyed feminist scholars
• Particular set of claims regarding subordination and turn into a universal claim across the globe
  • This is achieved by relying on static models of patriarchy + sexuality
• Universalisation of the category of "Woman" is combined with "Third World Difference"
• Universalization of women is made worse
• Third World Women are supposedly awaiting the enlightened interventions of women from the West
• This is a cause of FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP
• Women + Third World Difference = Third World Woman
• Western modes of thinking dominant feminism
• Where does feminist scholarship fits within a system where the West has domination over economic...
• Feminist transnational scholarship tendencies say more about how Western feminist scholars view + represent themselves rather than the truth of women's lives in other counties - Western self representation

• Particular self-representation of the West
• EFFECTS OF WESTERN FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP ON THE THIRD WORLD = homogenizes experiences of both experiences in the West + Outside the West