English 330 Women in World Literature and Thought                    CRN 25768: Sec. 01

Professor:  Julie Barak                                                                     Phone:  248-1072

e-mail:  [email protected]            Homepage:  http://www.mesastate.edu/~jbarak

Office Hours:  MWF 8:00-10:00, TR 9:30-10:30

 

"A Thinking Woman Sleeps with Monsters"

Adrienne Rich

Course Goals: 

1) Limited exposure to the literature of 19th and 20th Century women writers in English from around the globe.

2) Production of thoughtful writing and discussion about the issues relevant to women writers and feminist theory.

3) Development of critical thinking skills including, but not limited to a) identifying questions problems and arguments, b) evaluating the appropriateness of various methods of reasoning, c) identifying and assessing assumptions, d) critically comparing different points of view, e) formulating questions and problems, f) constructing and developing cogent arguments, g) articulating reasoned judgments, h) discussing alternative points of view, i) defending and/or criticizing a point of view, j) evaluating the quality of evidence and reasoning, and k) drawing appropriate conclusions.

 

 

 

"I am an instrument in the shape of a woman trying to translate pulsations into images     for the relief of the body and the reconstruction of the mind."

                Adrienne Rich

               

Course Methods: 

Because knowledge is created as people work and think together, the most important pedagogical method in the course will be class discussions in large and small groups.  Because the best way to discover what we are learning is through writing out our thoughts to solidify and clarify our observations and conclusions, we'll practice several different kinds of writing.  Because, sometimes, historical, theoretical and biographical information helps us to understand literature, we'll share information in the form of reports or lectures. 

 

 

 

"The creative energy of patriarchy is fast running out; what remains is its self-generating energy for destruction.  As women, we have our work cut out for us"

                        Adrienne Rich

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Course Requirements:

Ø       Weekly journals – 500 words each.  Typed, double-spaced, carefully edited and proofed.  See handout for details. Due every Thursday. (40%)

Ø       Two papers of 3-4 pages each.  Typed, double-spaced, carefully edited and proofed.  Due Oct.11 and Dec. 11. See handout for details.(15% each)

Ø       Midterm and final exam.  (15% each)

 

Required Texts:

Gilbert and Gubar – Norton Anthology of Women’s Literature:  The Tradition in English, Volume 2, 3rd edition.

Donovan – Feminist Theory:  The Intellectual Traditions, 3rd edition.

Chopin – The Awakening.

 

Attendance and Citizenship: 

While showing up is a sign of interest and commitment to the course, active, lively, and productive discussions require vocal participants.  So, show up and speak up. 

 

Every absence after the first two will lower your grade in the following manner:  If your final grade for the course is a B, but you have 3 absences, your final grade will be a B-.  If your final grade for the course is a B, but you have 4 absences, your final grade for the course will be a C+.  If your final grade for the course is a B, but you have 5 absences, your final grade will be a C.  If you have any questions about this attendance policy, please don't hesitate to ask.

 

If you can read and understand this poem

send something back:

 

 a burning strand of hair

 

a still warm, still

liquid drop of blood

 

a shell thickened from being battered year on year

                     

send something back.

 

                Adrienne Rich

Turn work in on time.  I always take late work, but I assess a heavy penalty for delayed submission.  For every day the work is late, the grade drops one full letter grade.  So, if you have an essay due on Monday, but you don't turn it in until Thursday, you won't receive any grade higher than a "D" for that assignment.  Do your work ahead of time.  Print your essay or response out the night BEFORE it's due.  Don't wait until the last minute to dash something off.  Be sure you back up all the work you do on your computer so that you have a copy on your hard drive and a copy on disk.  No kind of excuse -- computer or printer problems, disk problems, lost items, etc. -- will mitigate the penalty for late work.

 

Academic Misconduct: Please read the section on cheating and plagiarism in the student handbook. The consequences for both behaviors are severe and can include failure for the assignment, failure of the course, disciplinary referral to the dean, and expulsion from the college. If you have questions about these violations of academic honesty, please come and see me.

 

Disabilities: In coordination with Educational Access Services, reasonable accommodations will be provided for qualified students with disabilities.  Please contact EAS at 248-1856, or in person at 1020 Elm Ave., across the street from Monument Hall.  Please meet with the instructor the first week of class to discuss accommodations for this class. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Schedule for ENGL 330 – Fall 2007

Week 1 – Introductions

Aug. 21 --              Lecture, Discussion

                                “Muse as Medusa” – May Sarton, 643

                                “Words” – Sylvia Plath, 1064

                                “Spelling” – Margaret Atwood 1205

                                “To My Last Period” Lucille Clifton, 1122

                                “My Life” – Lyn Hejinian, 1250

Aug. 23 --              Handout – de Beauvoir

                                “A Room of One’s Own” and “Professions for Women”

 -- Virginia Woolf, 237

“In Search of our Mother’s Gardens” – Alice Walker,

                                Handout – Rosalind Delmar

Week 2 – Themes in Women’s Literature

Aug. 28 –               The Awakening – Kate Chopin

Aug 30 --               “Enlightenment Liberal Feminism” – Donovan, 17-45

Week 3 – Themes in Women’s Literature, Women and Art

Sept. 4 --                Labor Day – no class

Sept. 6 --                “Nineteenth-Century Cultural Feminism” – Donovan, 47-78

                                “Coming Aphrodite” – Willa Cather, 93

                                “Seventeen Syllables” – Hisaye Yamamoto – 835

                                “Poetry” – Marianne Moore, 311

                                “Tilli, Tlapalli / The Path of the Red and Black Ink” – Gloria Anzaldua, 1255

                                “When We Dead Awaken:  Writing as Re-Vision” – Adrienne Rich, 982

                                “Skinnydipping with William Wordsworth” – Maxine Kumin, 916

                                “Pro Feminia” – Carolyn Kizer, 907

 

 

Week 4  Patriarchy

Sept 11 --               “Trifles” – Susan Glaspell, 177

                                “The Women Men Don’t See” – James Tiptree Jr., 687

                                “Souvenir de Monsieur Poop” – Stevie Smith, 582

Sept. 13 --              Quicksand – Nella Larsen, 362

Week 5 – Romantic Love

Sept. 18 --              Ballad of the Sad Café – Carson McCullers, 1398

Sept. 20 --              “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” – Katherine Anne Porter, 340

                                “Bloodchild” – Octavia Butler, 1307

“31-Year-Old Lover” and “You Don’t Know What Love Is” –

Kim Addonizio, 1398

Week 6 – Sex and Desire

Sept. 25 --              “The Company of Wolves” – Angela Carter, 1220

                                “Under the House” – Lynn Freed, 1304

                                “Rape Fantasies” – Margaret Atwood, 1210

                                “The Demon Lover” – Elizabeth Bowen, 528

                                “I too beneath your moon, almighty Sex” – Edna St. Vincent Millay, 457

Sept. 27 --              “The Letter,” “Venus Transiens,” “Madonna of the Evening Flowers,” “The Weather-Cock Points South,” “Opal,” “Decade,” “Summer Rain” –

                                Amy Lowell, 129

                                “Two Hanged Women” – Henry Handel Richardson, 87

                                “The Poetics of Sex” – Jeanette Winterson, 1446

Week 7 – Women and Work

Oct. 2 --                  “Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself” – Radclyffe Hall, 188

                                “Sweat” – Zora Neale Hurston, 349

                                Wit – Margaret Edson, 1454

Oct. 4 --                  “Feminism and Marxism” – Donovan, 79-104                

Week 8 – Childbearing/Childrearing

Oct. 9 --  “Birth” – Anais Nin, 588

                                “Annunciation” – Meridel Le Sueur, 534

                                “The Black Madonna” – Muriel Spark, 791

                                “A Temporary Matter” – Jhumpa Lahiri, 1498

                                “For a Five-Year-Old” – Fleur Adcock, 1079

Oct. 11 --                Exam #1 – Book Report #1 Due

Week 9 – Victimization

Oct. 16    --            Fall Break – no class

Oct. 18 –                “The Waltz” – Dorothy Parker, 490

“Bleeding” – May Swenson, 658

                                “Forgiveness” – Rebecca Brown, 1432

“Floating Bridge” – Alice Munro, 1026

                                “Feminism and Freudianism” – Donovan 105-130

Week 10 – Revising Religion, Fairy Tales and Myth

Oct.23 --                 “Annunciation” – Diane Di Prima, 1089

                                “Mrs. Lazarus” – Carol Ann Duffy, 1427

                                “I have been a stranger in a strange land” – Rita Dove, 1391

                                “The Crossed Apple” – Louise Bogan, 507

                                “Eve to her Daughters” – Judith Wright, 726

                                “Let Them Ask Their Husbands” – Dilys Laing, 593

                                “Eve” – Dorothy Livesay, 595

                                “She Unnames Them” – Ursula K. Le Guin, 953

                                “There Was Once” and “The Little Red Hen Tells All” – Margaret Atwood, 1217

                                “Leda and the Swan” – Handout

                                “Leda and the Cowboy” Luci Tapahonso, 1393

                                “Leda” – Lucille Clifton, 1123

Oct. 25 --                Feminism and Existentialism– Donovan, 131-154

 

Week 11 – Some Really Great Poets

Oct. 30 --                Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich

Nov. 01 --               Sylvia Plath, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde

Week 12 -- Body Image

Nov. 06 --               “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” – Zora Neale Hurston, 357

                                “Mannequin” – Jean Rhys, 499

                                “Prayer of an Ovulating Female” – Dilys Laing, 593

                                “Naked Girl and Mirror” – Judith Wright, 728

                                “In Celebration of My Uterus” – Anne Sexton, 924

                                “Poem to my Uterus” and “To My Last Period” – Lucille Clifton, 1122

                                “The One Girl at the Boys’ Party” – Sharon Olds, 1281

                                From “Dedication to Hunger” – Louise Gluck, 1284

                                “In His Own Image” and “Anorexic” – Eavan Boland, 1290

                                “This is a Photograph of Me” – Margaret Atwood, 1204

                                “Hottentot Venus” – Jackie Kay, 1489

                                “What do Women Want?” – Kim Addonizio, 1395

                                “Women Laughing” – U. A. Fanthorpe, 938

Nov. 08 --               Top Girls; Act 1, Caryl Churchill, 1137

                                “Radical Feminism” – Donovan, 155-182

Week 13 – Ethnic Experiences

Nov. 13 --               “The Lost ‘Beautifulness’” – Anzia Yezierska

                                “Who’s Irish” – Gish Jen, 1437

                                Poems by Lorna Goodison, 1321

                                Poems by Julia Alvarez, 1341

Nov. 15 --               “Recitatif” – Toni Morrison, 994

                                Poems by June Jordan, 1093

“The House Slave” – Rita Dove, 1385

Week 14 -- Ethnic Experiences

Nov. 20 --               “Yellow Woman” – Leslie Marmon Silko

“Deer Dancer” – Joy Harjo, 1377

“Woman Hollering Creek” – Sandra Cisneros, 1400

Nov. 22 --               Thanksgiving No class

Week 15 -- Women’s Relationships with Other Women           

Nov. 27 --               “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”

–         Joyce Carol Oates, 1192

“The Moths” – Helena Maria Viramontes, 1414           

Nov. 29 --               “The Moral Vision of Twentieth-Century Cultural Feminism” and “Into the Twenty-First Century” – Donovan, 183-221

Week 16 -- Women’s Relationships with Other Women

Dec. 4 --                 “Tell Me a Riddle” – Tillie Olsen, 660

Dec. 6 --                 “The Message” – Ama Ata Aidoo, 1263

                                “Girl” – Jamaica Kincaid, 1339

                                “No Name Woman” – Maxine Hong Kingston, 1229

                                Zami:  A New Spelling of My Name – Audre Lorde, 1076

Week 17

Dec. 11 --               Final Exam 8:00-9:50 – Book Report #2 Due