SYLLABUS: ENG 4/597 FEMINIST LITERARY THEORIES
CRN 26533, 26534 Rm 195
Contact: Suzanne Clark, 273 PLC Office Mon. 130-200, Wed 130-4
Phone 6-3953 or 541-579-5100, email [email protected]
QUESTIONS:
HOW CAN READING LITERATURE IMPROVE THE ARGUMENTS WE MAKE?
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE TO TAKE A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON READING?
Texts: for weekly assignments and research (See schedule for discussion items).
Historical texts, many in Freedman, Estelle B. The Essential Feminist Reader
o "The Poet as Woman." Ransom (Blackboard)
o "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Freedman)
o Emma Goldman, "The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation" (Freedman)
o Alexandra Kollontai, "The Social Basis of the Woman Question" (Freedman)
o Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique (Freedman)
o Audre Lourde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's
House" (Freedman)
o Moddelmog, Debra. Chapter on "Garden of Eden" in Reading Desire: In
Pursuit of Ernest Hemingway. (Blackboard)
Critical articles and excerpts available on Blackboard, including texts from critical
theory, affect theory and from feminism and rhetoric:
o Donna Haraway, "Modest Witness" (Blackboard)[the agency of science and
reason]
o Clare Hemmings, "Progress" (Blackboard)[telling theoretical stories]
o Julia Kristeva, "Interview" on the question of the stranger (Blackboard)
[what are other subjects]
o Jameson, Frederic, re utopian thought: from Archaeologies of the Future
(Blackboard)[utopia and strangeness]
o Stacy Alaimo, "Transcorporeal Feminisms and the Ethical Space of Nature"
[nature's agency: the body and the other-than-human]
o Judith Butler, "Sexual Politics, Torture, and Secular Time." Frames of War.
(Blackboard) [
Literature: gender dystopias/utopias, and supplementary reading on Blackboard
Edna St. Vincent Millay and the woman writer (Sentimental Modernism) (Week 1)
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar. (Weeks 2-3)
LeGuin, Ursula. The Left Hand of Darkness (weeks 4-5)
Hemingway. The Garden of Eden. And film (weeks 6-7)
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple and film. (weeks 8-9)
Film and Media:
"The Garden of Eden."
"The Color Purple."
Sites Online:
See weekly lists on Blackboard
Social media
Schedule:
Week I: January 9
Introduction: the importance of difference
Woman in the history of rhetoric and discourse: the separation from mastery: a
separation of mind and body, of reason and emotion, or of reason and the imagination, or
of reason and persuasion.
Modern feminism as "progress" narrative (see the essay "Progress" on Blackboard)
Literature and emotion--Julia Kristeva, the symbolic and the semiotic; the element of the
stranger
Modernism and the sentimental: Edna St. Vincent Millay's poems
"The Poet as Woman" John Crowe Ransom
Donna Haraway, Modest Witness, excerpt (Blackboard)
Why is the "modest witness" a genderless perspective? What happens when it is revealed
to be a male viewpoint?
Coming up: The Bell Jar
Week II: January 16 : why does she feel she is caught in a bell jar?
Martin Luther King Jr. Day; classes not in session. Your analysis for this week is due.
Read: Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, excerpt from Sylvia Plath's Journals (Blackboard)
Betty Friedan, "The Feminine Mystique." (Freedman)
Read historical essays:
o Mary Wollstonecraft, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Freedman)
o Emma Goldman, "The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation" (Freedman)
o Alexandra Kollontai, "The Social Basis of the Woman Question" (Freedman)
Class online: locate several online sites that serve, like the magazine, Mademoiselle, to
discipline the female body and define femininity--or the anti-feminine.
The Bell Jar as vacuum: see Blackboard for URL
Week III: January 23
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar. What part of her crisis is personal and psychological? What part
social and historical? What seem to be the limits on her rebellion against expectations? Are
these limits the "bell jar"? Or?
Read:
An Interview with Sylvia Plath (Blackboard)
Critics on "Daddy" (Blackboard)
Sylvia Plath reads "Daddy" (Blackboard url of
"Daddy," the text of the poem
Judith Butler, "Sexual Politics, Torture, and Secular Time." Frames of War.
Week IV: January 30
Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Feminism, Utopian thought, and modernist estrangement
Frederic Jameson, excerpt from Archaeologies of the Future (Blackboard)
Week V: February 6
Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Week VI: February 13
Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden
Debra Moddelmog, Reading Desire: In Pursuit of Ernest Hemingway.
(chapter on Blackboard)
Week VII: February 20
Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden
Screen "The Garden of Eden," comparison of novel and film
Week VIII: February 27
Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Audre Lourde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" (p. 331 in
Freedman)
"A Statement on Genital Mutilation," Association of African Women for Research and
Development, Freedman, p. 351.
Week IX: March 5
Alice Walker, The Color Purple
Screen "The Color Purple," comparison of novel and film
Week X:
March 12 Class presentations--maintain an evaluation log to turn in.
March 19 Final Exam 10:15 Monday, March 19: Continue presentations, turn in final project.
Your evaluations of presentations will be submitted at the close of the final exam class.
Assignments: ENG 497
1. Each week post a critical analysis of an assigned text, its supplements, and its
criticism on Blackboard. One page. You may use the critical essays available on
Blackboard or research another--in any event, give the title of the text and the
criticism at the top of your analysis. (20 pts. P/NP)
2. Midterm over readings, week six--Feb. 13. (30 pts.)
3. Group presentations: Week ten. Critical utopia for feminism and gender. (20 pts.)
4. Final paper. Analysis/comparison of two contrasting critical approaches to a single
assigned text or author. 5-7 pages. Due March 19 (30 pts.)
Assignments: ENG 597
1. Graduate students will be responsible for leading discussions on specific readings. Sign
up for a date and prepare a 5 minute introductory statement (two pages) together with
questions. (20 pts.)
2. Graduate students: each week post and annotate several (2-5) online sources of interest.
(10 pts.)
3. Prepare a 10-entry annotated bibliography on a topic that you mean to develop into your
paper. Please post this bibliography online to the Blackboard site. Turn in a hard copy to
me. Due Week Six (20 pts.)
4. Research paper. ( May be a tightly argued, well-written 10-11 page conference
presentation, with bibliography. Or may be a baggy, suggestive, 20-25 page paper that
might be revised for publication or for dissertation chapter in another term's work. With
bibliography. Present the paper in summary on the final day of class. (50 pts.)
Course Policies: Above all, please notify me right away of any special circumstances that affect
your participation in class and of accommodations that need to be made.
1. Attendance/absences: attendance is required; missed classes unless excused will result in
a lower grade (.25 per class).
2. Missing assignments: Grades for discussion questions and reports will be reduced by
10% for each missing post. Make-ups are without penalty if you have a reasonable
excuse. Forgetting is only reasonable once.
3. Midterm: you may take a make-up if you have a reasonable excuse.
4. Late assignments:
a. Your group presentation cannot, of course, be late: if you cannot be there, it will
count as a missed assignment. Whether or not you get any credit for it depends
upon your turning in a written report of your work with signed verification from
other members of your group.
b. It is extremely important that you notify me of any need to postpone turning in
your final paper. We will need to work out how to make that up.
5. Acceptable classroom behavior:
a. your attentiveness is required at all times, whether for lectures, screenings, or
(most important) your fellow students' remarks. This means no texting, emailing,
or other distracting activities. You make take class notes on computers during
lectures, but not during discussions, screenings, or presentations.
b. I expect you to disagree with me and with each other. And the art of respectful
disagreement does not imply that you cannot feel passionate about your opinion-it just requires that you also passionately value and respect the solidarity of our
mutual purpose, no matter how different we are.
6. Expectations for group work: be sure to divide up the work fairly and evenly, and to
organize your communications and meetings so that everyone knows at all times what the
group has planned and what part they must play.