Syllabus
Gender Issues in Contemporary literature II This semester’s focus is on literary texts, particularly as they relate to gender issues. There will be three thematic units of study: an historical overview of postwar writing, a focus on radical strategies from the "second wave" and an exploration of diversity. Fortunately we now have a class set of The Norton Anthology of Women Writers, which contains most of the literary texts we will be looking at during the course. All of the texts are short stories, some of them very short, apart from the Toni Morrison, which is longer. You will also be provided with some short very extracts from the secondary texts specified (the extracts are mainly from Modern Feminisms, ed. Maggie Humm) to provide background. Copies of all these secondary texts will be provided for you, mainly in photocopies and occasionally electronically. UNIT ONE Week
1. Sylvia Plath - selected poems Week
2. Katherine Mansfield - The Daughters of the Late Colonel, Kate Chopin - The Story of an Hour Week
3. Tillie Olsen - I Stand Here Ironing, Fay Weldon - Weekend Week
4. Doris Lessing - To Room 19 Secondary texts (short extracts) Gilbert and Gubar - The Madwoman in the AtticTillie Olsen - Silences Betty Friedan -The Feminine Mystique: Chapter 1,"The Problem that Has No Name" UNIT TWO Radical questions and creative responses from the second wave. Week
5. Adrienne Rich - When We Dead Awaken, selected poems Week
6. Doris Lessing - One Off the Short List and Alice Munro - Wild Swans Week
7. Angela Carter - The Company of Wolves Week
8. Margaret Atwood - Rape Fantasies, There Was OnceSecondary texts (extracts) Pat Mainardi - The Politics of Housework, Kate Millett - Sexual Politics, Shulamith Firestone - The Dialectic of Sex, Valerie Solanas - The SCUM Manifesto UNIT THREE Diversity of voice. We shall look at the work of two leading African American authors. Week
9. - Alice Walker - In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens Week
10. Toni Morrison - Sula Week
11. Issues in feminist literary criticism Secondary texts (short extracts)Barbara Smith - Towards a Black Feminist Criticism, Maggie Humm - Feminist CriticismAngela Davis - Women, Race and Class Credit requirements: Full attendance and, as the course is seminar based, full participation (this particularly includes the necessity of reading the texts each week!). You will also have to produce an end of term paper on one of the literary texts discussed.
Annotation
The course aims to encourage students to bring insights from theories on gender to a reading of literary texts; to introduce students to a canon of women's writing and to enable students to apply theoretical perspectives to the interpretation of texts. The course focuses on twentieth century women's writing, particularly as this reflects gender issues.