English 114WR (Judith Hicks, Summer 2008)
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Instructor: Judith Hicks
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E-mail: jhicks@umail.ucsb.edu
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Contents |
Course Description
Esse est percipi. --Berkeley
What is female? Is there a quality or set of qualities that one can affix to an experience called female: to a sensation, perception, affect, memory, history, logic or language? How do artistic and literary productions set measures and boundaries to the acquisition and performance of genders, and inform our relationships? Can writing about, by, or for women alter their material conditions? This course offers a holistic and critical examination of a variety of well-crafted feminist responses in fiction, film, poetry and theory to inherited and novel representations of women abstracted from myth, art, religion, science, language, economics and politics. Our method is inductive and historical; stories and poems by a range of women writers including Sappho, Shelley, Woolf, Mansfield, Dickinson, Moore, Bishop, Larsen, Walker and Rich are paired with extracts from theorists such as Kristeva, Armstrong, Haraway, Morrison and Arendt.
Required Texts
- Heilbrun, Carolyn. Writing a Woman’s Life.
- Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein (1818 version).
- Woolf, Virginia. Orlando.
- Larsen, Nella. Quicksand.
- Course Reader: Grafikarts, Pardall Rd, Isla Vista.
Objectives
I hope the work in this course will extend your comprehension of the positions and representations of women in relation to the literature of the periods surveyed, and will cultivate your dialectical and other scholarly abilities to think, talk, listen and write interpretatively and critically about formal texts, their notional and affective content, and the intellectual, political, and socio-historical milieus that contribute(d) to their production and reception. Therefore the course will offer a mixture of lecture, interrogation, dialogue, and discussion about the assigned readings and whatever historical, theoretical and critical matters may aid our labor. We will also spend some time as needed on the technical and conceptual demands in general of college-level reading and writing.
Requirements and Grading
- 15% participation (but note the attendance requirement below)
- 40% two paragraphs and two short papers (3-5 pp each, which together must total at least 8 pages)
- 15% midterm examination
- 30% final examination
It is necessary at the minimum to keep up with the reading and take a regular part in class discussions via topical and focused contributions, in addition to the other requirements listed on this syllabus. Other exercises may be assigned at class meetings that will contribute to your participation grade. The classroom is a cooperative arena where we help each other do A-level work; such an effort requires zeal, awareness, professional courtesy and mutual respect. Please remember to silence your phones and do not engage in unrelated activities (e.g., text messaging) during class.
You cannot pass the course if you miss more than 200 minutes of class time, or omit a major assignment, or represent the words, productions or ideas of anyone else as your own. If you do not understand any part of any assignment or course document, or the prohibition against plagiarism, ask me for a clarification. It is your responsibility to keep track of any changes announced in class. Please feel welcome to talk to me about any course-related concern.
- Please let me know if you would like assistance in contacting the Disabled Students Program in 1201 SAASB for advising, accommodations or support services. Their records remain confidential.
Writing Rubric
Your writing is expected be an analytical or interpretative treatment of a problem or idea specific to the assigned topic that is clear, logical and grammatically competent. Length, form and research requirements specified in the assignment, if any, must be met to pass. Your writing should contain original insights but nevertheless demonstrate your general grasp of the central issues, historical and cultural milieus, aesthetic and theoretical concerns, principles and/or craft of the text(s) in question, and your fluent comprehension of the theories and concepts considered in the course as a whole. State your main point in a clear and straightforward way. Supporting arguments should be sufficiently elaborated, without bloat. I deem succinctness a virtue in academic writing and will give it grade credit. Count your available pages as a valuable resource to make your voice persuasive to other lively and intelligent thinkers, not as a wasteland to be filled with jetsam. Cite details and quote important phrases from the work(s) assigned that go to support the soundness of your argument, and explain how they do so. Make written acknowledgement of any person who gave you ideas or phrases appearing in your writing.
A: a clear, distinct, stimulating thesis precisely on topic with organized, tightly focused, well-expressed and sufficient supporting arguments. An interesting presentation with no problematic ambiguities or major language errors, and a graceful conclusion.
B: thesis is discernible, relevant and supported by fairly good arguments. Rewriting could possibly raise it to an A essay.
C: thesis is not clear or well-supported, but the germ of an idea exists, hearty attempts are made to support it, and the grammar and syntax are readable, albeit with some major errors or ambiguities.
D or F: almost certainly avoidable. If you are concerned or in doubt, see me several days before your writing is due.
Reading Schedule
- Aug 4: Adrienne Rich, “Diving Into the Wreck.” Screen Babette’s Feast this week (available in Kerr Hall and elsewhere).
- Aug 5: Carolyn Heilbrun, Writing a Woman’s Life, Intro, pp 60-75.
- Aug 6: Alice Walker, “Everyday Use,” “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” Heilbrun, pp 96-131.
- Aug 7: Paragraph 1 due.
Anon., “The Girl and the Sailor.”
Eavan Boland, “The Lost Land.”
Sappho, verse fragments from course reader.
Carol Ann Duffy, “Warming Her Pearls.”
- Aug 11: Frankenstein, pp 1-101.
- Aug 12: Frankenstein, pp 102-156 (end).
- Aug 13: finish Frankenstein discussion, read Kristeva, extract from “Motherhood According to Giovanni Bellini.”
- Aug 14: Paragraph 2 due.
Marianne Moore, selections in course reader.
Elizabeth Bishop, selections in course reader.
Adrienne Rich, extract from “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision.”
- Aug 18: Emily Dickinson, selections from course reader.
Stevie Smith, “Sunt Leones,” “Not Waving but Drowning.”
- Aug 19: Mary Lavin, “Sarah.”
Julia O’Faolain, “First Conjugation.”
Katherine Mansfield, “Bliss.”
- Aug 20: Katherine Mansfield, “The Daughters of the Late Colonel,” “The Garden Party.”
Extract from Donna Haraway, “The Cyborg Manifesto.”
- Aug 21: Midterm Exam
- Aug 25: Orlando, pp 1-49
Extract from Nancy Armstrong, “Some Call It Fiction: On the Politics of Domesticity.”
- Aug 26: Orlando, 49-112.
- Aug 27: Short paper 1 due
Orlando, 113-165.
- Aug 28: Orlando, 166- 193.
- Sep 1: Labor Day, no class
- Sep 2: Orlando, to end.
Toni Morrison, “Black Matters.”
- Sep 3: Nella Larsen, Quicksand, 5-68.
- Sep 4: Final short paper due
Quicksand, 69-98.
- Sep 8: screen “Real Women Have Curves” this week.
Quicksand, to end.
Hannah Arendt, “What is Freedom?”
- Sep 9: finish discussion of Hannah Arendt, “What is Freedom?”
- Sep 10: review and respond.
- Sep 11: Final Exam
