Reading Women's Writing: Living a Feminist Life from Mary Wollstonecraft to Sara Ahmed

In this course we will investigate the tradition of women's writing in English from the sixteenth century to the present day, focusing on the complex relationships among writing, sexuality, race, and gender. We will consider the ways in which writers identifying as female respond to--and often subvert--traditional literary themes and conventions. An organizing focus of our reading will be the articulation or suppression of female anger and other related emotions in a variety of repressive contexts. Though our focus will be primarily on the interpretation of literary works, we will also develop an awareness of relevant debates in feminist theory, from Mary Wollstonecraft’s revolutionary contribution to notions of female education to Sara Ahmed’s concept of the feminist “killjoy.” Other texts may include: Jane Austen, Mansfield Park; Margaret Cavendish, The Convent of Pleasure; Grace Cho, Tastes Like War; Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage; Harriet Jacobs, The Life of a Slave Girl; Toni Morrison, Sula; Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties; Meredith Talusan, Fairest; and Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, and Mrs Dalloway. 3 hrs. sem. (Formerly ENAM 0114)