Office: DMH 109 Office Hours: 1-2 TF, 2-3 W and by appointment
Office Phone: -3014
Required Texts:
1. Nineteenth-Century American Women Poets: An Anthology,
ed. Bennett (Blackwell) (xerox available)
2. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Johnson (Little,
Brown)
3. Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Norton)
4. Fern, Ruth Hall (Penguin)
5. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (Norton)
6. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harvard)
7. Chopin, The Awakening (Norton)
8. Wharton, Gilman, Chopin, and Jewett, Four Stories by American
Women, ed. Wolff (Penguin)
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Course Description and Objectives:
In an era of political and social ferment,
women writers and early feminists in America were politically active and
popular authors. They expressed their points of view about a wide
variety of issues--abolition, Indian activism, women's rights, suffrage,
Western expansionism, temperance, environmentalism, and others. At
the same time, they were beginning to question the definition of womanhood,
both philosophically and politically. These writers, among them Margaret
Fuller, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, and Fanny Fern, wrote
literary works that both challenge and conform to traditional notions of
womanhood, prompting the social historian Mary Kelley to call them "domestic
feminists." This course explores the rise of the feminist movement
in America through the literature by and about women from about 1850-1900.
Requirements:
1. Reading quizzes (20% of grade). Factual,
non-interpretive questions are designed to check whether you are keeping
up with reading. Six quizzes will be given, but only five grades recorded.
I will drop the lowest grade.
2. Two interpretative essays (40%).
Based on an oral report, these papers should discuss one literary work
in light of class discussion or perhaps a critical article. Once
or twice a term, each student will prepare a short (1-2 pp.) essay, to
be distributed and discussed in class. These drafts will, with my
comments and class discussion, provide the basis for the essay (3-5 pp.)
3. A mid-term test (10% ). The tests will
be non-cumulative, essay questions. The essay topics will be drawn
from study questions presented to students for each unit (and from questions
student themselves raise in class).
4. Final examination (30%). The examination
will be a comprehensive test that covers all the material of the course.
Students will be encouraged to make assessments about how they have developed
as readers and about the period and issues raised about a variety of writers
in the course.
SYLLABUS
TF 9:30-10:45
CNS 303
Jan 14 Introduction: What is the Woman Question? Literary Domestics and American Literature
17 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chaps. 1-9 (35-89)
21 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chaps. 10-18 (89-140)
24 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chaps. 19-24 (140-178)
28 Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) (7-65)
31 Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (65-108)
Feb 4 The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (selected poems)
7 The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
11 The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
14 Nineteenth-Century Female Poets: Osgood, Jackson, Alice and Phoebe Cary, Sigourney, and Lazarus
18 Nineteenth-Century Female Poets: Harper, Lazarus, Reese, and Guiney
21 Video - Discussion of suffragists: “Declaration of Sentiments”
25 Fern, Ruth Hall (1855), Chaps. 1-26 (1-60)
28 Mid-term Test
Mar 4 Fern, Ruth Hall, Chaps. 27-49 (61-123)
7 Fern, Ruth Hall, Chaps. 50-70 (124-192)
SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS (Mar 10-14)
18 Fern, Ruth Hall, Chaps. 71-90 (193-272)
21 Davis, Life in the Iron Mills (1861); begin (10-39)
25 Davis, Life in the Iron Mills; finish (40-65)
28 Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Chaps. 1-11 (1-63)
Apr 1 Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Chaps. 12-26 (63-136)
4 Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Chaps. 27-51 (137-201)
8 Chopin, The Awakening, Chaps. 1-17 (3-47)
11 Chopin, The Awakening, Chaps. 17-32 (47-90)
15 Chopin, The Awakening, Chaps. 33-39 (90-109)
EASTER RECESS – NO CLASS (Apr 17-21)
22 Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper" (begin)
25
Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper" (finish); Conclusion