Course Description: This is a general introduction to the study of women's lives and women's issues. As such, it is organized thematically, and incorporates a variety of materials including fiction, film and theoretical and critical articles. We will examine topics including: women and marriage; race; class; gender; sex and sexuality; sexual abuse, slavery, depression and suicide.
Required
books:
Corregidore,
Gayl Jones (Boston: Beacon Press) 1986
Bastard Out
of Carolina, Dorothy Allison (NY: Plume) 1993
So Long A
Letter, Mariama Ba (NY: Heinemann) 1989
Selected
Poems,
Anne Sexton (NY: Houghton Mifflin)
Sexing the
Cherry, Jeanette Winterson (NY: Vintage) 1991
Beloved, Toni
Morrison (NY: Picador) 1987
Writing on
the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory (Columbia University
Press;
NY)1997
Other
materials
provided by instructor
Required
Home
Viewing
Candyman,
Bernard Rose 1992
Dolores
Claiborne,
Taylor Hackford, 1995
The Piano,
Jane Campion, 1993
Bastard Out
of Carolina, Angelica Huston, 1996
Expectations: I expect that you will attend this class regularly, arrive on time, read all assigned material, participate in class discussions, turn in all assignments when they are due and take all exams on the day that they're scheduled. I also expect that you will choose to decide for yourself if you are willing or able to meet these expectations and withdraw from the course if you aren't.
Requirements:
Two five-page papers and a final examination. All work must be
completed
in order to pass the course.
Final
grade:
each paper: 30%; final exam: 30%; attendance and
participation:
10%.
Week 2:
Sept.
7 No class (Labor day)
Sept. 10
Poetry of
Anne Sexton
Patricia
Williams
"On Being the Object of Property" Viewing: The Piano
Audre Lorde
“The Uses of the Erotic"
Week 3:
Sept.
14
Viewing: The Piano
Diane Hunter
"Hysteria, Psychoanalysis & Feminism; The Case of Anna O"
Sept.
17
Mary Anne
Doane, “Film and the Masquerade”
Week 4:
Sept.
21 No class, Rosh Hashanah
Sept.
23/
Make-up class Wed 9- 11.45am
Mariama Ba,
So Long a Letter
Sept.
24
Mariama Ba,
So Long a Letter
Visitor: Summer Damon Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA)
Week 5:
Sept.
28 & Oct. 1
Gayl Jones,
Corregidore
Theory
Sojourner
Truth "Ain't I a Woman?"
Annette
Kuhn
"The Body and Cinema"
Week 6:
Oct.
5 & 8
Gayl Jones,
Corregidore Viewing Candyman
Tania Modleski
"Cinema and the Dark Continent; Race and Gender in Popular Film"
First Paper
Due
Week 7:
Oct.
12 No class Columbus Day
Oct. 15
Bastard Out
of Carolina
Week 8:
Oct.
19
Bastard Out
of Carolina Viewing Bastard out of Carolina
Catherine
MacKinnon "Rape: On Coercion & Consent"
Linda Williams
"A Provoking Agent; The Pornography and Performance Art of Annie
Sprinkle"
Week 9: Oct.
26
Dorothy
Allison,
Bastard Out of Carolina
Donna
Haraway
“The Persistence of Vision”
Oct. 29 No
class
Week 10: Nov.
2 & 5
Viewing Dolores Claiborne
Rosi Braidotti
“Mothers, Monsters and Machines"
Emily Martin
"Medical Metaphors of Women's Bodies"
Week
11: Nov. 9 & 12
Beloved, Toni
Morrison
Week 12:
Nov.
16
Beloved, Toni
Morrison
Nov. 19
Monique Wittig
"One is Not Born Woman"
Luce Irigaray
"The Sex Which is Not One"
Week 13:
Nov.
23
Week 14: Nov.
30
Sexing the
Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
Gloria
Anzaldua
"La Concienza de la Mestiza"
bell hooks
"Selling Hot Pussy"
Second Paper
Due
Dec. 3:
Sexing the
Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
Judith Butler
"Performative Acts and Gender Constitution"
Week 15:
Dec.
7
Sexing the
Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
Sandra Lee
Bartky, "Foucault, Femininity & the Modernization of Patriarchal
Power"
Susan Bordo
“The Body & the Reproduction of Femininity"
Dec. 10
Moira Gatens
“Corporeal Representation in/and the Body Politic"
Nancy Mairs
“Carnal Acts"
Week 16:
Dec.
14 /last class:
Sandy Stone
"The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttransexual Manifesto"