Women's writing
O M Griffiths
8 points
* 3 hours per week (1-hour lecture, 2 hours tutorial)
*
First semester
* Gippsland/Distance
* Prerequisites: English major
GSC1401 and GSC1402; gender studies and writing major two of GSC1401, GSC1901,
GSC1402
Objectives This subject sets out the social, political and representational issues of the past absence of women's texts in the curriculum and their recuperation through feminist scholarship. The specific objectives of this subject are to enable students to develop a familiarity with the ways women's texts have been received by critical as opposed to popular readerships historically in order to trace connections between feminist thought and the production and reception of women's texts; a considered understanding of relative and underpinning assumptions of two discrete traditions of critical interpretations of equality and difference in contemporary feminist literary theory: Anglo-American empiricism and French cultural theory; and the skill to trace connections between feminist thought and the production and reception of women's texts.
Synopsis The aim of this subject is to study a number of works of imagination and criticism by women writers in the light of recent developments in literary and cultural theory. It begins with a consideration of some of the reasons put forward for placing women's writing in a separate category for study and goes on to cover the following issues: the literary canon; its past exclusions and the implications for women; accounts of difference in Anglo-American and French cultural theory; feminist writing and publishing practices; some examples of reactive techniques such as the subversion of stereotypes, speculative utopian writing, romance re-visioned; and other connections between feminist thought and women's writing. The texts include autobiography, prose fiction, poetry and while there is some emphasis on Australian writers, a range of writing from Britain, Europe and America is represented.
Assessment Minor assignment (2000 words): 30%
* Seminar paper or
creative writing assignment (1500 words): 25%
* Major assignment (2500
words): 45%
Prescribed texts
Subject to availability
Adcock F Twentieth-century women's poetry Faber and Faber, 1987
Bronte C Jane Eyre Penguin, 1966
Carter A (ed.) Wayward girls and wicked women Virago, 1986
Jolley E Miss Peabody's inheritance UQP, 1983
Lessing D The marriages between zones three, four and five Panther, 1985
Morgan S My place Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1987
Rhys J Wide Sargasso Sea Penguin, 1979
Subject reader
Wolf C Cassandra Virago 1984
| Published by Monash University, Clayton, Victoria
3168 Copyright © Monash University 1996 - All Rights Reserved - Caution Authorised by the Academic Registrar December 1996 |