ENGL 453: Female Literary Traditions

Instructor: Moira P. Baker

Phone: 831-5352 (O) 731-4104 (H)

Office: 406 Young Hall

Office Hours: T & W : 5:00 – 6:30;

TR: 1:00 – 2:00 and by appointment

Course Description

The purpose of this course is to study the rich heritage shared by writers whose work reflects the diversity and range of British and American women’s literary art. Rather than assume a single homogeneous tradition shared by all women writers, we will be attentive to culturally specific "differences among" women by examining how race, class, region, and sexual orientation powerfully shape writing. We will speak in terms of various "traditions" within an overarching heritage of struggle and triumph that has characterized women's lives and their writing. Contemporary feminist critics have developed an invaluable framework for analyzing women’s literary traditions; in fact, their analyses of the ways in which gender affects the construction of knowledge, the production of texts, and the reception of texts have revolutionized literary studies. Grounding our study in the work of several contemporary feminist theorists and critics, we will trace the development of women's literary traditions in English as women read and responded to each other's work. The course focuses on a number of concerns, including: women's relationship to the dominant literary tradition, representations of female experience in the dominant tradition, the development of an Anglo-American women's tradition, and the diversity of women’s literary traditions shaped by differences of race, class, region or sexual orientation. Emphasizing analytic reading and thoughtful discussion as powerful learning tools, the course relies upon a high degree of student participation in the shaping and direction of thought; it stresses the use of informal writing as a learning tool; it reinforces formal writing skills, encouraging students to realize their potential as effective writers.

Required Texts

Allison, Dorothy. Bastard Out of Carolina. New York: Plume, 1993. (You will have the option of reading this or Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. See syllabus.)

Erdrich, Louise. Tracks. New York: Harper, 1998.

Giardina, Denise. The Unquiet Earth. New York: Fawcett, 1999. (You have the option of reading this novel or Chopin's The Awakening. See syllabus).

Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar, eds. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. 2^nd Ed. New York: Norton, 1996.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.

Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. Jean Yellin. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1990.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Plume, 1999.

Winterson, Jeanette. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. New York: Grove/Atlantic, 1997. (You will have the option of reading this or Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina.)

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. New York: Harcourt, 1991.

-- -. To the Lighthouse. New York: Doubleday, 1999.

Course Policies

Attendance and Participation:

Regular attendance and thoughtful participation in class discussion are essential not only to your individual performance, but also to the success of this course. Our work together relies on collaboration in every phase of the course so that we might form an intellectual community whose insights and power surpass those of any one of us working on our own. We are all subjects who share the responsibilities of teaching and learning in this class. Each of us has a responsibility to the group and to the learning that goes on in class.

Therefore, more than 3 absences will affect the final grade adversely; more than 7 absences will result in automatic failure of the course.

Late Work:

I do not accept late work. If you are absent on a day when work is due, I will accept it on the day you return to class, but no later. You must complete the mid-term and final essays by the due date and you must attend class on the due dates since part of the requirement for each activity is that you present your work orally to the rest of the group.

Academic Honesty:

All faculty are requested to distribute the following statement of the University Honor Code:

By accepting admission to Radford University, each student makes a commitment to understand, support, and abide by the University Honor Code without compromise or exception. Violations of academic integrity will not be tolerated. This class will be conducted in strict observance of the Honor Code. Please refer to your Student Handbook for details.

Plagiarism--including the use of work submitted to another course without the consent of both instructors, the use of work by another person, or the use of someone else's words, ideas, or arrangement of ideas without giving proper reference to the author--is a serious violation of the Honor Code. Please see the section on plagiarism in the Student Handbook. Be especially careful, as you complete your final essay, that you do not use the ideas of other critics without giving them credit even if you do not use direct quotations. You must give credit to another writer when you paraphrase his or her ideas. This applies to sources you find on the Worldwide Web and any electronic sources in the library. All written work, oral reports, web or PowerPoint presentations must abide by the highest standards of academic honesty, must document sources accurately, and must avoid plagiarism at all times. Please be aware that you must NOT use any study guides--such as Cliff Notes, Spark Notes, or any internet sources--to write your focus questions. These must be your own ideas in your own words.

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