Eng. 261 Syllabus continued

 

Course outline

Schedule of Required Readings

 

Note: The syllabus lists Background Readings in case you would like to look at additional advanced readings or use these sources for your papers.  You are not required to read these supplementary readings, but they provide good sources and references for papers.

 

Unit 1: Introduction to Women Writers

 

Aug. 26              Introductions

                          DeShazer: “The Wife’s Lament,” pp. 417-18

                          Alice Dunbar-Nelson, “I Sit and Sew” and “The Proletariat Speaks,” pp. 972-75

                           Cherrie Moraga, “For the Color of My Mother,” 869-70 and “La Guëra” 863-69

                         Sandra Cisneros, “I the Woman” and “Love Poem #1,” 576-78

                         Maya Angelou, “And Still I Rise,” 1223-24

 

                         Supplementary reading:         

                          Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild

                          Woman Archetype (1992).

                         Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own: From Bronte to Lessing (1977), pp. 1-100.

                         Susan Gubar and Sandra Gilbert, Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-                         century. (1979), pp. 3-104

                         Tillie Olsen, Silences (1979)   

                         

Material Constraints of Women Writers

 

Aug. 28             Required Reading:  DeShazer: Prose Essay: Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One’s Own,” 14-43

 

Background reading:

Deborah Tannen, You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

(1990)

Louise DeSalvo, Virginia Woolf and the Impact of Childhood sexual Abuse on her Life and Work (1989)

 

Sept. 2                           Required Reading:

Prose Essays: Virginia Woolf, "A Room. . . ,“ 43-72, and

Alice Walker, "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens," 323-31

 

Backgrounds:

Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl, eds. Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. New Brunswick: Rutgers U P, 1997.

Jean O'Barr and Mary Dwyer, Engaging Feminism: Students Speak Up and Out (Virginia, 1992)

 

Unit 2: Historical Perspectives: 19c. Novels and Women's Lives

 

Sept.   4            Paper 1 Due (Writing SLO 1, 6)                      

Required Reading:       Play: Susan Glaspell, "Trifles," 980-900

Elaine Showalter, Essay: “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness” (1985), 352-74

 

Sept.    9           Required: Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, pp. 112-171, and

                          Charlotte Bronte’s Letter from Robert Southey, 238-39

                          Charlotte Bronte’s reply, 239-40

                         

                          Backgrounds:

  Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory of Women's Development (1982)

 

 

Sept.   11         Required: Required: Jane Austen,: Northanger Abbey, pp. 171-231

 

Backgrounds:

Leslie W. Rabine, "Romance in the Age of Electronics:Harlequin Enterprises," in Robyn Warhol and Diane Herndl, Feminisms, pp. 878-93.   

 

Sept.   16          Required: in DeShazar, short story:

                          Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper,”

                          And Helene Cixous, essay “The Laugh of the Medusa,” 390-405

                         

Sept.   18          Review for Exam and read

  Required: in DeShazar, short story: Hisaye Yamamoto, “Seventeen Syllables,”298-307, and

E-Reserve: essay: Naomi Scheman, “Anger and the Politics of Naming,” in Sally McConnell-Ginet, Ruth Borker, Nelly Furman, eds. Women and Language in Literature and Society, New York: Praeger, 1980, pp. 174-87

 

                           

Sept. 23            Preliminary Exam (Comprehensive) (SLO 2, 3, 4)

            

Unit 3: Women Writing about Body, Sex, and Reproduction

 

Sept. 25            Required in DeShazar: Kate Chopin, The Awakening, 695-755

 

Adrienne Rich, "Temptations of a Motherless Child," in A. Rich, Lies. Secrets. and Silence: Selected Prose. 1966-1978 (1978)

  Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering:  Psychoanalysis and the and the Sociology of Gender (1978)

 

Sept. 30            Required Reading: Chopin, The Awakening, 755-78 and     

                          Judith Wright, poetry: “Stillborn,” “Letter,” 803-06 and          

Susan Suleiman, essay: “Writing and Motherhood,” 620-37

 

Oct. 2                 In class: Video: “Interview: Adrienne Rich and Eavan Boland” and

                          Patricia Hill Collins, essay: “Shifting the Center,” 638-54

            

Oct.  7                Journal check (you must turn in your journal today, including Oct. 7)

                         DeShazer, poetry

Anne Sexton, “The Abortion,” “In Celebration of my Uterus,” “For my Lover Returning to his Wife,” 531-34 

Sylvia Plath, “The Disquieting Muses,” “Medusa,” “Nick and the Candlestick,” “Childless Woman,”

Edge,” 812-18

Sharon Olds, “That Year,” “The Language of the Brag,” “The Girl” and “Sex Without Love,” 558-62

Audre Lorde, poetry, “Love Poem,: “Chain,” and “Restoration” 540-43

Audre Lorde, essay: “Poetry is Not a Luxury.”

 

                          Backgrounds:  

  DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. Writing Beyond the Ending: Narrative Strategies of Twentieth-century

Women Writers (1985).

                         

Oct. 9                Required Readings in DeShazar:Short Stories: 

                          Margaret Atwood, “Giving Birth,” 826-36

                          Angela Carter, “Wolf Alice,” 1031-1037

                          Dionne Brand, “Madame Alaird’s Breasts,” 572-76

                          Autobiography: Maxine Hong Kingston, “No Name Woman,” 307-16 and

  E-Reserve: Sandra Bartky, “Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”

 

Backgrounds:

Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men. Women and Rape (1975)

Angela Davis, "Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist," in Davis, Women, Race and Class (1983)

Sylvana Tomaselli and Roy Porter, Rape: an Historical and Social Inquiry (1989)

Peggy Reeves Sanday, Gang Rape: Sex. Brotherhood.and

                          Privilege on Campus (1990)

              

Oct. 14              Paper 2 due (writing skills: 2, 4, 5) In class: film: “The Color Purple”

 

Unit 4:  Afro-American Women Writers

 

Oct. 16              Required reading: Poetry in DeShazer

Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Mother,” “A Bronzeville Mother. . . ,“ 806-812

Lucille Clifton, “June 20,”“Daughters,” “Sarah’s Promise,” “Naomi Watches as Ruth Sleeps,” 818-20

Minnie Bruce Pratt, “Poem for my Sons,” 851-53 and 

June Jordan, “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America or Something Like a Sonnet for Phyllis Wheatley,” 1064-73                              

 

                          Backgrounds:

------, "Advancing Luna and Ida B. Wells," in Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983)

Nella Larsen, Passing (1929)

 

Oct. 21               Required Reading in Deshazer:

                          Short story, Jamacia Kincaid, “Xuela,” 1043-58 and

E-Reserve, Essay: Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege and Male Privilege,” Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology. Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins, eds. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001, 95-105.     

 

                          Backgrounds:

Gerda Lerner, Black Women in White America (1972)

Gloria T. Hull, et. al But Some of Us are Brave (1982)

Cherre Morgana, et. al This Bridge Called my Back (1981)

                          Gloria Anzaldua, Making Face. Making Soul (1992) 

 

Oct. 23               Required Reading in DeShazar:

                          Short stories: Toni Morrison, “Recitif,” 1224-37, and

                          Anzia Yezierska, “Soap and Water,” 1192-97

                           

Unit 5: Women's Poetry as Re-Vision

 

Oct. 28               Required Reading: in DeShazar:

Adrienne Rich, Essay: “Notes Toward a Politics of Location,” 1094-1106

and poetry, “Diving into the Wreck,” “Inscriptions,” 1108-1121, 960-62

May Sarton, poetry, “Journey Toward Poetry,” “The Muse as Medusa,” and “Of the Muse,” 295-97 and

Muriel Rukeyser, “Bubble of Air,” “Letter from the Front,” “Kathe Kollwitz,” “Despisals,” 1205-12

                         

Supplementary Reading:

Estella Lauter, Women as Mythmakers: Poetry and Visual Art by

twentieth-century Women (1984)

Jane Roberta Cooper, ed. Reading Adrienne Rich (1983)

 

Unit 6: Gender/Sexuality

 

Oct. 30               Required reading: DeShazar, poetry:

Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Fatal Interview,” 530-31

H.D., “Eurdyce,” “Oread,” “The Walls Do Not Fall,”1197-1205

                          E-Reserve, Marilyn Hacker, sonnets, pp. 2280-87

 

Backgrounds:

Marjorie Garber, Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Erotics of Everyday Life

(1995)

 

Nov. 4                Required Reading: E-Reserve:

                          Short story: Radclyffe Hall, “Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself” and

Essay: Adrienne Rich,”Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience,” Catharine R. Stimpson

and Ethel Spector Person, Women: Sex and Sexuality. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 62-91

            

Backgrounds:

Terry Castle, Apparitional Lesbian:  Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (1993)

Laura Doan, Fashioning Sapphism:  The Origins of a Modern Lesbian Culture (2001)

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

Lillian Faderman, Surpassing the Love of Man (1981)

Henry Ablelove, Michele Anna Barale, David M. Halperin, eds.

                          The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader (1993)

 

Unit 7: Native American Women Writers

 

Nov. 6                Required Reading:      

Poetry in DeShazer: Joy Harjo, “Fire,” “Deer Ghost,” “City of Fire,” “Heartshed,” 568

Paula Gunn Allen, essay, “Who Is Your Mother?” 888-98    

E-Reserve: Linda Hogan, poetry: “Bamboo,” “The Grandmother’s Songs,” “Two” from Hogan, The Book of Medicines

            

Nov. 11                          No classes; university holiday

 

Nov. 13                          Required Reading

                         Linda Hogan, Solar Storms, pp. 1-80

                        

                         Supplementary:

                         Linda Hogan, Book of Medicines (1993)

                         _____,   Dwellings (1995)

                         _____.  Mean Spirit (1990)

 

Nov. 18             Required Reading:

                         Hogan, Solar Storms, pp. 80-312

 

Backgrounds:

Paula Gunn Allen, Studies in American Indian Literature (1983)

 ------. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (1986)

------. The Woman Who Owned the Shadows (1983)

Anne Cameron, Daughters of Copper Woman (1978)

Leslie Silko, Almanac of the Dead (1991)

------. Storyteller (1981)

 

Nov. 20              Required Reading:

                          Hogan, Solar Storms, pp.  312-351

                         

Supplementary Reading:

Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine (1984)

------  The Antelope Wife (1998)

Beth Brant, A Gathering of Spirit: A Collection of Native American Indian Women. (1988)

-----. Mohawk Trail. (1985)

 

Nov. 25              Paper 3 due (Writing skills 1-6)

                          Film Clips: “Whale Rider”

         Required reading: DeShazer, Keri Hulme, short story: “One Whale

         Singing,” 853-60

                         

Nov. 26-30       Thanksgiving Vacation: No Class

 

Unit 8: Women as Playwrights

 

Dec. 2                Required Reading: E-Reserve

                          Play: Caryl Churchill, "Top Girls," Act I, scene i,

                         

Dec. 4                Reading Journals Due (writing skills 1, 6)

“Dinner Party” Review for Final

 

Dec. 9               12:00-2:00 Final Exam (NAU schedule) (SLO 1-8)