Writing women
Proposed to be offered next in 1996
P Nestor
12 points * 2 hours per week * First semester * Clayton
The subject provides a general survey of women's literature. Rather than more conventional groupings of genre, period or nationality, it takes as its organising principles the gender of the author. At the same time, however, the subject will question and explore the concept of a distinctively female writing - `the difference of view' - in relation to the texts studied and to selected feminist theory and criticism. The novels listed below will be discussed in class. The editions cited are particularly recommended, but students are free to use any edition available to them.
Assessment
Essay (3500 words): 40% * Two short papers (2500 words): 25% each * Class participation: 10% * Students whose class performance or written work is unsatisfactory may be required to sit an examination
Prescribed texts
Austen J Persuasion OUP
Bronte C Villette Penguin
Dickinson E The final harvest Little and Brown
Eliot G The mill on the Floss OUP
Olsen T Tell me a riddle Penguin
Plath S Ariel Faber
Rich A Dream of a common language Norton
Shelley M Frankenstein OUP
Walker A The color purple Women's Press
Wollstonecraft M Mary and The wrongs of woman OUP
Woolf V A room of one's own Penguin
Woolf V Three guineas Virago
Recommended texts
Abel E Writing and sexual difference Harvester
Gilbert S and S Gubar The madwoman in the attic Yale UP
Jacobus M Women writing and writing about women Croon Helm
Moers E Literary women Doubleday
Rich A On lies, secrets and silences Norton or Virago
Showalter E A literature of their own Virago