ENGL 383: FEMINIST LITERARY THEORY

 

Shawn Maurer

Fall 2003

 

Course Description and Goals:

 

This course explores some of the important currents in feminist literary theory over the past two decades.  In addition to familiarizing you with the specific schools of feminist critical thought, this course also aims to enable you to put those theories into practice, and to assess their importance for contemporary literary study.  Beginning with Virginia Woolf’s influential investigation of the woman writer in A Room of One’s Own, we will go on to examine “Sexual/Textual Politics”—the ways in which women’s writing, and the subject of gender itself, have become the subject of feminist scrutiny.  Using Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, one of the galvanizing texts of feminist literary criticism, as our starting point, we will go on to read a range of critical essays exemplifying the scope and diversity of feminist critical methodologies; we will also examine some of its underlying—and often problematic—assumptions.  The course ends with a section on “Female Embodiment,” in which we address issues of desire, the gaze, and the body in film and fiction. 

 

Required Texts (please buy the editions specified):

 

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (Harcourt)

Robin Warhol and Diane Price Herndl, eds., Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism,

revised edition (Rutgers University Press, 1997)

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Bedford Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism, 1996)

Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body (Vintage, 1992)

Nella Larsen, Collected Fiction of Nella Larsen, ed. Charles Larson (Anchor Books, 1992)

Critical essays available on ERes.

 

Course Requirements:

 

Class participation (15%): This is a discussion-based course, which depends upon a high level of student involvement. Please do not feel that you must understand the materials completely in order to take part in class discussions; on the contrary, these discussions are important precisely because they allow us, as a class, to navigate together the sometimes choppy waters of critical theory.  I do, however, expect that you will come to class having carefully read and thought about each day’s assignment.  Come with your insights, questions, likes and dislikes—all will add to our discussions! Because your participation plays such an important part in this course, more than two unexcused absences will lower your final grade.

 

Oral presentation and write-up (10%):  For this assignment, you may choose to present either one of the general critical essays from the course syllabus (marked with an asterisk) or an essay on Jane Eyre (marked with a bullet point).  The specific requirements for each kind of presentation will be provided on a separate handout, but all should be about 15 minutes long. Your written paper (3-4 pp.) will analyze the essay’s strengths and weaknesses, evaluating its significance either for feminist literary theory or for our reading of Jane Eyre.

 

Papers:

 

  • Film Analysis (15%): For this assignment (5 pp.), you will choose a film that you consider to be feminist, and interpret that film through the lens (pun intended) of feminist critical theory. 

NB: You are not limited to women filmmakers for this assignment. 

 

  • Paper No. 1 (20%): For this paper (5-7 pp.), you will do a critical reading of Winterson’s Written on the Body from the perspective of one or more theoretical positions.

 

  • Paper No. 2 (20%): This analytic essay (5-7 pp.) will explore some aspect of Nella Larsen’s Passing; alternatively, and with prior permission from the instructor, you can write about a work that explores similar intersections of gender, sexuality, and race (such as Danzy Senna’s Caucasia).

 

Response papers and analytic journal (20%): In the belief that writing about texts (whether literary or critical) is one of the best ways to grapple with them, there will be frequent short writing assignments in addition to your longer, more formal papers.  These assignments will be graded on a check, check-plus, or check-minus basis.  Some will be brief (1-2 pp.) response papers, due on the day of discussion.  The rest will take the form of entries in an Analytic Journal (handout to be provided).  For Part II of the course (Sept. 23 through Oct. 25) you will choose one of the essays assigned on each day’s syllabus to analyze closely in your journal. (NB: I will read as many analyses as you wish to write; however, only one is required per class.)  I will collect this journal twice during the semester—on Oct. 7 and Oct. 25.  

 

Late Paper Policy:

 

Unless you have a prior extension from me (please note: extensions, for whatever reason, will not be granted on the day a paper is due) or a dean’s letter, late papers will be accepted at my discretion.  If I accept one, it will be marked down one half-grade for each day they are late (for example, a “B” paper that is two days late will receive a “C+”).

 

A Critical Note on Academic Honesty:

 

I expect that any work you submit for this class will be your own and will be prepared specifically for this class.  Whenever you make use of outside sources (including web-sites, articles, books, roommates) for language or ideas, you must acknowledge them in formal citations (that is, footnotes or bibliography). Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism, a serious academic offense that will result in your receiving a failing grade for the assignment and may result in suspension or even expulsion from the college. If you are confused about what needs to be cited and what does not, please see me.

 

 

SCHEDULE OF READINGS & ASSIGNMENTS

(unless otherwise noted, parenthetical page numbers refer to Feminisms)

 

 

Part One:  What Is Feminist Literary Theory?

 

Sept.    4         R         Introduction

 

 9         T          Virgina Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929).

Response Paper due.

 

11         R         Woolf, continued. Margaret Ezell, Ch. 2: “The Myth of Judith Shakespeare” in

 Writing Women’s Literary History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

1993) (handout)

                                    [Jane Eyre, Chapters 1-6]

 

16        T          Elaine Showalter, “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness” in The New Feminist

Criticism, ed. Showalter (NY: Pantheon, 1985), pp. 243-270.  (handout)

Annette Kolodny, “Dancing Through the Minefield: Some Observations on the

Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism” (171-190)

                                    [Jane Eyre, Chapters 7-12]

 

18        R         Patrocinio Schweickart, “Reading Ourselves: Toward a Feminist Theory of Reading

(609-34)

                                    [Jane Eyre, Chapters 13-18]

                       

Part Two:  Sexual/Textual Politics [NB: Analytic Journal Entries due for each class in this section]

 

Institutions, Canons, Exclusions

 

            23        T          James Sosnoski, “A Mindless Man-Driven Theory Machine” (33-50)

*Lillian Robinson, “Treason Our Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon” (115-128)

                                    [Jane Eyre, Chapters 19-24]

 

25        R         Barbara Christian, “The Highs and the Lows of Black Feminist Criticism” (51-56)

*Bonnie Zimmerman, “What Has Never Been: An Overview of Lesbian Feminist Literary Criticism” (76-96)

                                    [Jane Eyre, Chapters 25-30]

 

Reading Jane Eyre: Critical Theories (unless in Feminisms or Bedford, articles

 available over ERes)

 

            30        T          Jane Eyre, Chapters 31-38.

                                    Jane Eyre: Early Feminist Approaches

·         Sandra Gilbert, “Plain Jane’s Progress” (Bedford)

·         Adrienne Rich, “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman” in On Lies, Secrets, & Silence (New York: Norton, 1979): 89-105

 

Oct.     2         R         Jane Eyre: Poststructuralist and Psychoanalytic Approaches

·         Nina Schwartz, “No Place Like Home: The Logic of the Supplement in Jane Eyre” (Bedford)

·         Carolyn Williams, “Closing the Book: The Intertextual End of Jane Eyre” in Victorian Connections, ed. Jerome McGann (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989): 60-85.

·         Margaret Homans, “Dreaming of Children: Literalization in Jane Eyre” in Bearing the Word: Language and Female Experience in 19th-Century Women’s Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986): 84-99.

 

            7          T          Jane Eyre: Marxist/Socialist/Historicist Approaches

·         Susan Fraiman, “Jane Eyre’s Fall from Grace” (Bedford)

·         Mary Poovey, “The Anathemized Race: The Governess and Jane Eyre” in UnevenDevelopments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988): 126-163

·         Cora Kaplan, “Pandora’s Box: Subjectivity, Class, and Sexuality in Socialist Feminist Criticism” (Feminisms, 956-975)

                                    Analytic journal collected

 

            9          R         Jane Eyre:  Cultural Criticism

·         Elsie Michie, “White Chimpanzees and Oriental Despots: Racial Stereotyping and Edward Rochester” (Bedford)

·         Joyce Zonana, “The Sultan and the Slave: Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of Jane  Eyre” in Revising the Word and the World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993): 165-88.

·         Bette London, “The Pleasures of Submission: Jane Eyre and the Production of the Text,” ELH 58.1 (Spring 1991): 195-213.

 

14                T          Columbus Day break

 

Oct.     16        R         Jane Eyre:  Postcolonial Criticism

·         Gayatri Spivak, “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism” (Feminisms, 896-912)

·         Susan L. Meyer, “Colonialism and the Figurative Strategy of Jane Eyre,” Victorian Studies 33.2 (1990): 247-268.

·         Laura Donaldson, “The Miranda Complex” in Decolonizing Feminisms: Race, Gender, & Empire-Building (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992): 13-31

 

Critiques and Revisions: Global Feminism

 

23        T          *Biddy Martin and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Feminist Politics: What’s Home

Got To Do With It?” (293-310)

                                    Gloria Anzaldua, “La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness”

(765-775)

 

Gender and Masculinity Studies

 

            25        R         *Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Introduction” and “Gender Asymmetry and Erotic

Triangles” from Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire

(507-531)

                                    *Joseph A. Boone, “Creation by the Father’s Fiat: Paternal Narrative, Sexual

Anxiety, and the Deauthorizing Designs of Absalom, Absalom!” (1068-1086)

                                    Analytic Journal collected

 

Part Three: Female Embodiment

 

The Body, The Gaze, and Feminist Film Theory

 

            28        T          Helene Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa” (347-362)

                                    Luce Irigaray, “This Sex Which Is Not One” (363-369)

                                    Ann Rosalind Jones, “Writing the Body” (370-383)

                                   

Oct.     30        R         *Judith Butler, “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire” from Gender Trouble: Feminism

and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990): 1-34 (ERes)

Teresa de Lauretis, “Upping the Anti [sic] in Feminist Theory” (326-339)

                                   

Nov.      4        T          Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (438-448)

                                    Tania Modleski, “Introduction” from The Women Who Knew Too Much:

Hitchcock and Feminist Theory (London: Methuen, 1988): 1-15 (ERes)

 

Film screening (date and time tba): Hitchcock, “Marnie”

                                               

6          R         Robin Wood, “You Freud, Me Hitchcock: Marnie Revisited” in Hitchcock’s Films

Revisited, Revised Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002): 388-405

(ERes)

                                    In-class discussion: “Marnie”

                                    Response Paper due

 

Film screening (date and time tba): Rebecca Miller, “Personal Velocity”

 

            11         T          E. Ann Kaplan, “Is the Gaze Male?” in Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality

(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983): 309-327  (ERes)

                                    In-class discussion: “Personal Velocity”

                                    Response Paper due

 

            Winterson and Larsen

 

Nov.    13        R         Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body, pp. 9-111

Elizabeth Meese, “When Virginia Looked at Vita” (467-81)

                       

            18        T          Winterson, pp. 115-end

Susan Lanser, “Queering Narratology” in Ambiguous Discourse: Feminist

Narratology and British Women Writers (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1996): 250-61

(ERes)

                                    Film analysis due

 

            20        R         Winterson, continued.

 

            25        T          Nellie McKay, “Reflections on Black Women Writers” (151-163)

                                    Valerie Smith, “Black Feminist Theory and the Representation of the ‘Other’”

(311-325)

                                   

Thanksgiving recess

 

Dec.     2          T          Nella Larsen, Passing.

                                    Paper No. 1 due.

 

            4          R         Passing, continued.                                       

                                    Claudia Tate, “Nella Larsen’s Passing: A Problem of Interpretation,” Black

American Literature Forum 14.4 (Winter 1980): 142-46.                        

 

             9         T          Passing continued.

 

            11         R         Paper No. 2 due (10 a.m. in my office)