ENGL 7800: The Work of Feminist Critics
Fall 2020

Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing (U. of Texas Press, 2018 edition)

Kate Chopin, The Awakening, ed. Nancy Walker, 2nd edition, Bedford/ St. Martin’s 

Ann Radcliffe, The Italian, Penguin Publishing Group

Elizabeth Bohls, Slavery and the Politics of Place, Cambridge University Press

George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Syllabus:

August

18: Introduction; Discussion of Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing, please read the Prologue and the first 8 chapters (to Chapter 9, “Lack of Models”).

25:  Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing, chapter 9-11 and the three afterpieces; *Anne Finch, “The Critic and the Writer of Fables” from Miscellany Poems (1713) and look carefully at the title page.   Reports: what has changed, what hasn’t (Oral and Written).  Assignment of character or place (expert opinion)

September

1:  +“Anne Milne, “The Place of the Poet in Place,” Anne Finch, “The Spleen.” Assignment of work with a woman.

8:  *Anne Finch, “To Death” and “To the Nightingale” from Miscellany Poems (1713). Kate Chopin, The Awakening - entire book; expert on a character or place reports.  (Oral).

15:  Chopin, The Awakening (continued discussion); +Cheryl Nixon, “Ann Radcliffe’s Commonplace Book,” Margit Strange, “Personal Property: Exchange Value and the Female Self in The Awakening,” from your required textbook for Chopin, The Awakening, and by +Backscheider, “Migraines, Melancholy, and a Poet’s Desire.”  Reports on what they did with the text that used a feminist methodology unfamiliar or less familiar to you. (Oral and written)

22: +Teresa de Lauretis, “The Technology of Gender,” and +Susan Bordo, “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity.”

29:  Biographical sketch and bibliography due.  (Oral and written.)

October

6:  Ann Radcliffe, The Italian, volumes 1 and 2.

13: Finish the Italian; +Linda McDowell, “Introduction” and excerpt from chapter 3 of Gender, Identity and Place.

20: Papers on The Italian. (Written)

27: Elizabeth Bohls, Introduction and Chapter 5, “At home with the `blackies,’” from Slavery and the Politics of Place.

November

3: Bohls, Chapter 6, “A Long Way from Home.”

10: Reception history report and papers due. Summaries and conclusions. (Oral and written)

17: George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer.

24:  Farquhar, Recruiting Officer. Reports on Women who played parts.  (Oral)

December

2, midnight:  Final paper due.

 

 

+ Canvas                               

*  ECCO. The AU database “Eighteenth-Century Collections Online”