The Post Feminist(?) Era:� Issues in Contemporary Women�s Writing

This course uses a Third Wave feminist rhetoric deeply grounded in Second Wave Feminism and Theory.� We read nonfiction, fiction, poetry, memoir/diary/letters and personal interviews.� We will begin with a grounding in traditional women�s theory on gender as �made� not �born�.� Performative acts of �feminine� and �feminism� will include a class blog, as well as individual interviews.
Aims and Objectives

• To provide a forum for the discussion of contemporary feminist literary theories and criticism in relation to individual feminist and woman-centered texts.
• To interrogate the contemporary debates within feminist literary studies, including post-feminism.
• To foster an understanding of the political, historical and cultural contexts from which these texts have emerged.
• To explore questions of style, genre, and voice, and the connections between them.

We will explore contemporary narratives about women�s �work,� including needlecraft and domesticity, women�s �visions� of the future, past, utopia and dystopia, and women�s sexual identities. �This course explores women�s writing around the world from the 1970s to the present. Questions about the feminist appropriation of �genre� fictions will be emphasized. This course will seek to make connections between theory and practice, and will explore feminisms in relation to women�s literature.
On completion of this course, students will be able:

� To analyze and evaluate in an increasingly sophisticated manner a wide range of complex feminist literary texts and critical materials.

� To demonstrate their ability to analyze the meaning and formal qualities of individual texts, their relationship to feminism and post-feminism, and to each other.

� To engage with and interrogate a number of the feminist theoretical models that have been applied to women�s literature, and to reflect on their application.

� To recognize and communicate knowledge of the significance of the particular cultural, political and historical contexts in which texts have been produced.

� To use critically and reflectively an appropriate scholarly discourse in order to convey their ideas in writing and oral communication

� Define �Third Wave� feminism as a continuing response to the �postfeminist� strategy of anti-feminism in contemporary culture

Grades:

1. Assignment 1�a short pr�cis on a piece of feminist criticism/theory, 1000 words (20%)
2. Assignment 2�an essay focusing on one particular text in relation to the main theoretical and generic foci of the course, 1500 words (20%)
3. Assignment 3�a comparative essay, referring to at least two module texts, that will examine aspects of the literary works which might be said to link them, 2000 words (30%)
4. Book Report�a short book report on one novel, read in addition to course readings.� List is restrictive, oral presentation required. (10%)
5. Class Blog�Writing/Reading Journals (10%) Details will follow
6. Attendance/Participation (10%) pretty self-explanatory Miss more than 2 unexcused classes and you should drop.

Note:� It is a requirement for the assessment of this course that students must attempt and pass each project.� Students are reminded that written work should be close-read, as well as carefully proof-read, with close attention to technical accuracy in the use of English. All work, other than in exceptional circumstances, must be word-processed with a Times New Roman, 12 pt font.�
An MLA works cited, and parenthetical citation of sources is required.
Student Obligations and Course Policies: You are responsible to read these policies carefully and understand and observe them: Attendance; Class Participation; Class Decorum; The �Ouch� Rule, Academic Integrity; Collaborative Learning.� These policies are on a supplemental handout/the class website/blog.
Reading Schedule:

Week One: Introductory Feminist Theory

Theory: Virginia Woolf:� �A Room of One�s Own�; LeGuin, Ursula K. �The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.� Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places. New York: Grove Press, 1997. 165-171. ��Joanna Russ Selection from How to Suppress Women�s Writing(1984). Selection from Anne Cranny-Francis, Feminist Fiction (1990).� Selection from �de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Trans. H. M. Parshley. New York: Modern Library, 1968.��

Week Two:   Domesticity

Theory:� Alice Walker �In Search of Our Mother�s Gardens� 516-523; �Brundson, Charlotte. �Feminism, Postfeminism, Martha, Martha, and Nigella. Cinema Journal 44.2 (2005): 110-116. Patterson, Laura. �From Courtship to Kitchen: Radical Domesticity in Twentieth-Century Southern Women�s Fiction.� Women�s Studies 32:8 (2003): 907-936.� Romines, Ann. Introduction to The Home Plot: Women, Writing, and Domestic Ritual. Amherst: U of Mass Press, 1992.

Poetry:� Edna St. Vincent Millay, from �Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree�; �Margaret Walker �Lineage�

Week Three:

Short Prose:� Gauthier, Xavi�re. �Pourquoi Sorci�res?� from New French Feminisms: An Anthology. �1980.

Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic (2003)

Week Four: Visions (dys/utopias, speculative fiction, sci-fi)

Theory� Weigman, Robyn. �Feminism�s Apocalyptic Futures.� New Literary History 31 (2000): 805-25. Wilkerson, Abby. �Ending at the Skin: Sexuality and Race in Feminist Thinking.� Hypatia 12.3 (1997): 164-82.
Fiction: Selections from Women of Wonder Volume I.� and James K. Tiptree, Jr. �The Women Men Don�t See� (1973) Joanna Russ �When it Changed� (1972). ��

Week Five:

Nalo Hopkinson Brown Girl in the Ring (date)

Week Six:� Reading the Confessional:� Memoirs, Letters, Diaries & Poetry

Theory:� Selection from Sidonie Smith, Women, Autobiography, Theory (1998). �Life Studies, or, Speech after Long Silence: Feminist Critics Today� Sandra M. Gilbert College English, Vol. 40, No. 8 (Apr., 1979), pp. 849-863.

Poetry: Selections from Diana DiPrima, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath. Also read: �Women of the Beat Generation: Conversations with Joyce Johnson and Hettie Jones� at:� http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/johnsonjones.htm

Week Seven: Book Length Memoir

Joyce Johnson Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir (1999)

Week Eight: �Class & Memory

Theory: Selections from Dorothy Allison Skin (2005); Intro to Merri Lisa Johnson, Jane Sexes it Up (2002); Julie Bettie �Women without Class: Chicas, Cholas, Trash, and the Presence/Absence of Class Identity.� �Signs, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 1-35

Week Nine:� Novel/Memoir

Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina (1993)

Week Ten: Sexing the Third Wave (The Next Generation of Feminism)

Theory:� Hogeland, Lisa Maria. �Against Generational Thinking, or, Some of the Things that �Third Wave� Feminism Isn�t.� Women�s Studies in Communication 24.1 (2001): 107-21. �Intro from Baumgardner, Jennifer and Amy Richards.� Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2000.

Week Eleven:

Jaqueline Carey:� Kushiel�s Dart (2002)

If schedule permits, we will also watch the following movies as a class:

Tank Girl Directed by Rachel Talalay (1995)Night of the Comet
Female Perversions, Susan Streitfeld, Dir. (1996)
Still Killing Us Softly: Advertising�s Image of Women Margaret Lazarus, Dir. (1987)

You will also choose one of the following novels to write an outside of class book report on.� You will report in class, having a visual aid (handout or Power Point presentation) on your author & novel on dates to be announced.� More details will follow.
Batch 1:� Book Reports: Maya Angelou; I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969); Edwige Danticat Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994); Fae Myenne Ng Bone (1993); Anderson-Dargatz, Gail The Cure for Death by Lightning. (1997); Byatt, A. S Possession: A Romance (1990);
�Batch 2: Book Reports:� Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower (date); Nicola Griffith Slow River (1995); Ursula K. LeGuin Left Hand of Darkness (1969); Marge Piercy Woman on the Edge of Time (1993); Amy Thomson The Color of Distance (1995); Mazza, Cris and Jeffrey DeShell, eds Chick-Lit: PostFeminist Fiction Vol. 1 Normal, IL: FC2 (1995).