WOMEN WRITERS
Fall 2008
ENGL V274:W51/ENGL G274:001

Wednesdays 6:20-9:00 p.m.
Communications 303

Dr. Barbara C. Ewell
Loyola University New Orleans

Revised: 14 August 2008.   This information should be correct, but check for updates.
Note that this course will be videotaped for enrollments in the Distance Learning Program (DLP).





Lady Wisdom instructing her disciples

[Medieval mss.]

We are the custodians of the world's best kept secret:
Merely the private lives of one half of humanity.        
                                ---from "Pro Femina" by Carolyn Kizer

Re-vision--the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction--is for women more than a chapter of cultural history: it is an act of survival.                                      --from "When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Revision" by Adrienne Rich

Literature and language, as we sometimes forget, do teach values, do shape images and perceptions of self, of society, and of how these are related.                                                                                                          ---from Myths of Co-Education by Florence Howe

These quotations help to define the specific goals of this course on writing by women:

  • to read and survey the traditions of literature by women, largely in English and predominantly from Britain and North America;
  • to develop some awareness of the current issues in feminist literary criticism;
  • to understand the ways that women's lives and values are reflected in their writing;
  • to examine some of the diversity in human experiences and how individuals confront differences;
  • to articulate in writing, both formal and informal, an understanding of these issues;
  • to explore the relevance of these writings to our own life and times;
  • to focus on a group of novels set in the Caribbean in order to examine more closely the responses to "otherness" in its various guises.

Course Prerequisites
Prerequisite course required: LITC260 or ENGL-T125 or ENGL-A205 or equivalents.

Requirements (tentative)
--Weekly comments posted on Blackboard.com.
--One formal essay (including preliminary work; 1200-1500 words).
--Group presentation/project on a selected Caribbean novel and culture.
--Final examination.

Required texts:
Note that the new edition of the anthology will be sold at the Loyola Bookstore with a copy of Rhys' novel.
The older (1996) second edition of the anthology may also work for most of the readings, but you should also purchase a copy of Wide Sargasso Sea. Note, too, that you only have to purchase one of the four Caribbean novels listed below.

The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English [Third Edition]. 2 vols. Eds. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. New York: Norton, 2008. ISBN-10: 0393930157    ISBN-13: 978-0393930153
NOTE: When you buy at the Loyola bookstore, this new edition--a two-volume, boxed set--will be "bundled" with a novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, for a single price. If you buy elsewhere, you also need to purchase a copy of Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. [1966; New York: Norton, 1996. ISBN: 0393308804]

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. 1929; New York: Harvest, 1989. ISBN: 0156787334 

Recommended/Optional texts:
Students will be asked to select and purchase only one of the following (or similar) texts for a final presentation; you should wait until class begins to make any purchases.

Cliff, Michelle. Abeng. 1985; New York: Plume, 1995. ISBN: 0452274834     [Jamaica]
Garcia, Cristina.  Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine, 1992. ISBN: 0345381432   [Cuba]
Kincaid, Jamaica. The Autobiography of My Mother. New York: Plume, 1997. ISBN: 0452274664  [Antigua]
Danticat,  Edwidge. Breath, Eyes, Memory. New York: Vintage, 1998. ISBN: 0-375-70504-X  [Haiti]

Instant Access: The Pocket Reference for Writers. Michael L. Keene and Katherine H. Adams. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. ISBN: 0072819928

Many of these books will also be available for purchase at Maple Street Books (support your local bookstores!).  If you're trying to cut costs, some texts are also available secondhand through other commercial booksellers.

Syllabus
Below is a sample of the weekly readings; a full schedule will be posted in late August. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre will be one of our longer texts.

Week 1: Introductions: Defining the issues.
Background reading: Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (NALW), “Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance."  Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich.

Week 2: NALW, Anne Bradstreet; “The Prologue,” “The Author to her Book,” “To My Dear Husband,” “Upon the Burning of Our House." Aphra Behn, Oroonoko.
Background reading: NALW, “Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries."

*Note on Loyola Email and Blackboard:

IF YOU DECIDE TO REGISTER FOR THIS COURSE, BE SURE THAT YOUR  E-MAIL ADDRESS IS ACCURATE IN LORA and on BLACKBOARD; IF IT ISN'T, YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THIS COURSE.