Women in Literature

I taught this course from a feminist perspective, and students were expected to discuss issues relating to race, class, and sexuality with maturity and with respect for the immense diversity of women's experience. However, no prior knowledge of women's literature or feminist criticism was required.

The course reading list including the following books: Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, Ellen Glasgow's Barren Ground, Anita Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Nella Larsen's Passing and Quicksand. In addition, we read selections by Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, Amy Lowell, Radclyffe Hall, H.D., Djuna Barnes, Gertrude Stein, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Zora Neale Hurston. (See syllabus for specific selections.)

25% essay 1 (draft and revision), 5-7 pages
25% essay 2 (draft and revision), 5-7 pages

Students performed brain-storming exercises before writing their drafts. I read each draft and met with students individually to discuss how to revise.
20% participation (class discussion, leading one class discussion, email every other class)

For email reading responses, I divided the class into two groups which alternated their response due days. Responses were due the day before the class met so that the entire class could read the responses before class discussion. Students could skip a maximum of three email responses without penalty.

Each student led one day of class discussion. Leading responsibilities included reading email responses, posing questions for the class to discuss, calling on people, and making sure the discussion didn't digress.
10% class presentation

Students signed up to do a 10-minute class presentation on a specific reading for a specific day. (I picked the readings they chose from.) The presentations were designed to provide the entire class with a context in which to discuss the literature.
10% 5-page report

The report was a more, formal, focused, and extended version of the presentation.
10% final exam
 

W 9/3

Introduction
 

F 9/5

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Chap. 1 and 2

M 9/8

Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Chap. 3 and 4

W 9/10

Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Chap. 5 and 6

F 9/12

Student presentation: "The Queen's Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women, and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity," Chapter 1 of The Madwoman in the Attic, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Contemporary Feminist Criticism:
"Language Studies: From the Spoken to the Written Word," The Writing or the Sex, Dale Spender
"'Images of Women' Criticism" and "Women Writing and Writing about Women," Sexual/Textual Politics, Toril Moi
 

M 9/15

Student Presentation: "Infection in the Sentence: The Woman Writer and the Anxiety of Authorship," Chapter 2 of The Madwoman in the Attic, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

W 9/17

Student Presentation: "'The Fashionable Diseases': Women's Complaints and Their Treatment in Nineteenth-Century America," by Ann Douglas Wood, in Clio's Consciousness Raised, Ed. Mary S. Hartman and Lois Banner

Student Presentation: "The Lady and her Physician," by Regina Morantz, in Clio's Consciousness Raised, Ed. Mary S. Hartman and Lois Banner

Kate Chopin, The Awakening

F 9/19

Chopin

M 9/22

Chopin

W 9/24

Student Presentation: "Reminiscences" (p. 235-254) and "The Woman's Bible" (p. 277- 286), by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in The Oven Birds, Ed. Gail Parker

Emily Dickinson: 199, 280, 327, 341, 435, 465, 754, 937,

F 9/26

Student Presentation: Introduction (p. xi-xv) and "Mabel Dodge" (p. 383-408), in American Salons: Encounters with European Modernism, by Robert Crunden

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, Book 1

M 9/29

Wharton

W 10/1

Student Presentation: "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (p. 212-227), by Thorstein Veblen, in Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings, Ed. Miriam Schneir

Wharton, The House of Mirth, Book 2, Chap. 1-3 (p. 190-228)

F 10/3

How to write a literary analysis: pick a passage or scene, freewrite, theme, mind map, thesis

MON. AND TUES. (10/6 AND 10/7): BRAINSTORMING CONFERENCES (optional but highly recommended)

M 10/6

Wharton, Book 2, Chap. 4-8 (p. 229-269)

W 10/8

Wharton

F 10/10

NO CLASS

M 10/13

READING HOLIDAY

W 10/15

Student Presentation: "The Traffic in Women" (P. 19-32), by Emma Goldman, and "The Most Dangerous Woman in the World" (p. 5-15), by Alix Kates Shulman, in "The Traffic in Women" and Other Essays on Feminism

Ellen Glasgow, Barren Ground, Part 1

TH 10/16

DRAFT 1 DUE AT 1 PM

F 10/17

Glasgow

M 10/20

NO CLASS: MANDATORY CONFERENCES (DRAFT 1)

W 10/22

Student Presentation: "Marriage and Love" and "Woman Suffrage" (p. 37-63), by Emma Goldman, and "The Most Dangerous Woman in the World" (p. 5-15), by Alix Kates Shulman, in "The Traffic in Women" and Other Essays on Feminism

Glasgow, Barren Ground, Part 2

TH 10/23

REVISION 1 DUE AT 4 PM

F 10/24

Glasgow

M 10/27

Student Presentation: Chapters 7 and 8 (p. 92-117), Marriage as a Trade, by Cicely Hamilton

Glasgow, Barren Ground, Part 3

W 10/29

Glasgow

F 10/31

Dorothy Parker: "Resume," "One Perfect Rose," "News Item," "Song of One of the Girls," "The Custard Heart"

M 11/3

Student Presentation: "The Projection of a New Womanhood: The Movie Moderns in the 1920's," by Mary P. Ryan, Chapter 5 of Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940, Ed. Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen

Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

W 11/5

Loos
 

F 11/7

Sappho: entry from The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage, 1995

Amy Lowell: "The Letter," "Venus Transiens," "The Weather-Cock Points South," "The Sisters"

M 11/10

Student Presentation: "Sexual Inversion in Women" (p. 195-222), Chapter 4 of Sexual Inversion (Vol. 2 of Studies in the Psychology of Sex) by Havelock Ellis

Student Presentation: "Sexual Inversion in Women" (p. 222-263), Chapter 4 of Sexual Inversion (Vol. 2 of Studies in the Psychology of Sex), by Havelock Ellis

Radclyffe Hall, from The Well of Loneliness

W 11/12

Hall

F 11/14

Student Presentation: "The More Profound Nationality of their Lesbianism: Lesbian Society in Paris in the 1920's," by Bertha Harris, in Amazon Expedition

"The Last Breath of Innocence," Surpassing the Love of Men, Lillian Faderman

Renee Vivien: "Chanson," "Modern Naiad," "Someone, I believe, will . . . ," "All around, (the breeze) murmurs . . . ," "The Disdain of Sappho," "Words to a Lover"

M 11/17

H.D.: "Fragment Thirty-six"

Djuna Barnes: "A Night Among the Horses"

W 11/19

Gertrude Stein: "Patriarchal Poetry" (excerpt) and "Lifting Belly" (excerpt)
 

F 11/21

Student Presentation: "Color, Sex, and Poetry in the Harlem Renaissance," Chapter 1 (Introduction) of Color, Sex, and Poetry, by Gloria T. Hull

Alice Dunbar-Nelson: "Natalie"

Zora Neale Hurston: "Sweat"

M 11/24

How to write a literary analysis: topic, question, significance worksheet

Nella Larsen, Passing Part 1 and 2

W 11/26

THANKSGIVING BREAK

F 11/28

THANKSGIVING BREAK

MON. AND TUES. (12/1 AND 12/2): BRAINSTORMING CONFERENCES (optional but highly recommended)

M 12/1

Larsen, Passing Part 3

W 12/3

Student Presentation: "The Higher Education of Women" (p.48-79), in A Voice from the South, by Anna Julia Cooper

Larsen, Quicksand

TH 12/4

DRAFT 2 DUE AT 1 PM

F 12/5

Larsen

M 12/8

NO CLASS: MANDATORY CONFERENCES (DRAFT 2)

W 12/10

Larsen

TH 12/11

REVISION 2 DUE AT 4PM

F 12/12

Blues Women: "I Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl" (Bessie Smith, 1931), "Prove It on Me Blues" (Ma Rainey, 1928), "Jelly Roll Queen" (Susie Edwards, 1927), "No Man's Mama" (Ethel Waters, 1925), "Coffee Grindin' Blues" (Lucille Bogan, 1928)