As the United States commemorates its 250th anniversary, the interdisciplinary field of Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies provides a blueprint to transform knowledge into action and collective courage, says assistant professor Anna Storti.
The Declaration at 250: Feminist Theorist Anna Storti Reflects on Teaching, Learning and Practicing Liberation
We invited Duke University faculty to reflect on the Declaration through the lens of their own discipline. Each contributor responded to a common prompt: “250 years later, how does your field help us understand, advance or challenge the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence?”
By Anna Storti, Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies
The Declaration of Independence may not readily bring to mind issues of gender and sexuality. That founding document — with its ideals of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness — is most often understood as a pronouncement of national sovereignty and freedom rather than a reason to explore the deeply-held assumptions about gender that are central to those very American ideals.
In Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies (GSF), students hone the kinds of analytical skills to decipher how gender and sexuality are in fact crucial touchstones in our collective knowledge about the history of the United States and its imperial expansion.
In the GSF classroom, students learn to read between the lines of such documents as the Declaration of Independence, questioning how rights and freedom are grounded in specific (i.e. normative) enactments of gender, race, sexuality, nationality, ability and more. They might ask: Over the past 250 years, who has had access to these “unalienable Rights”? Who has not? Authored by a group of wealthy white men, what are the lingering effects of the document’s exclusion of women and other marginalized groups? How do its philosophical principles champion a form of national pride that glorifies militarism and masculinity? What histories of violence, such as colonial conquest and slavery, does the document gloss over?
Feminism is broadly understood as the pursuit of gender equality. Feminists, however, do not exist as a monolith. Historically, some feminists, like those at the Seneca Falls Convention, have worked with the Declaration of Independence, mirroring its language to advocate for white and middle-class women’s rights. Others, like transnational feminists, decolonial feminists, and queer and trans theorists, critique American exceptionalism and patriarchal and cisheteronormative frameworks, drawing attention to research topics that are too often examined in isolation from one another.
In the face of a turbulent future and in the midst of an ongoing assault on higher education, it is important to not only reflect on the nation’s vexed past, but to teach, learn and practice liberation. As the United States commemorates this milestone, the interdisciplinary field of GSF provides a blueprint to transform knowledge into action, including a collective courage to defend academic freedom all while centering gender, racial, and economic justice.
About This Series
On July 4, 1776, representatives of thirteen American colonies ratified the Declaration of Independence, announcing both a political separation from Great Britain and a set of aspirations for a new nation. The document was written with two goals: declare independence and justify it. The Declaration begins with a sweeping philosophical statement that has echoed across generations:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Two hundred and fifty years later, those words remain central to American civic life — even as their meaning and possibilities continue to be debated and reinterpreted. The nation’s semiquincentennial offers a moment to think more deeply about the American promise of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ and how those ideals have traveled across time.
These varied perspectives are a reminder that the Declaration is a living document — one that invites us to carry forward the aspirations articulated in 1776. Resonating far beyond the study of early American history, these ideals are reflected in and challenged by a range of disciplines, each offering us complimentary perspectives on how to pursue life, liberty and happiness today and in the 250 years to come.
