Course Purposes
This course will examine the efforts of women writers to "authorize" themselves in the literary and media marketplaces of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By concentrating on popular genres such as domestic and sensation fiction, the Gothic, mystery, humor, and romance, we will examine ways that women writers and filmmakers have both appropriated and invented popular narrative forms in literature and film to simultaneously reflect and critique the concerns, dilemmas, and aspirations of female readers.

Required Texts
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (Signet)
Louisa May Alcott, Alternative Alcott (Rutgers)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret (Dover)
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (Penguin)
Daphne DuMaurier, Rebecca (Avon)
Rachel Ingalls, Mrs. Caliban (Dell)
Sara Paretsky, Guardian Angel (Dell)
Romance Novel: paperback, any series or sub-genre, your choice (a used bookstore would be a good source)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (Signet)
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club (Ivy)
Alice Walker, The Color Purple (Pocket)
Robyn Warhol and Diane Price Herndl, Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism (Rutgers)
Packet of xeroxed short fiction, available at the A&S copy center
Recommended Texts
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge)
Judith Mayne, The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and Women's Cinema (Indiana)
Janice Radway, Reading the Romance (Chapel Hill)
Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs (Oxford)
Jane Campion, The Piano (Miramax)

Grading Criteria
Two exams which will consist of a take-home essay and in-class questions (25% each of the final grade); one formal essay, 7-10 pages in length for undergraduates and 15-20 pages in length for graduate students (25%); an informal reading journal (25%). Attendance and participation are also considered in determing final grades for the class.

Political Correctness:
You are under NO obligation to agree with the authors or the professor. Rather, your obligation is to demonstrate comprehension and thoughtful consideration. As a class member, I do not always agree with the authors included in the course. I hope that at the end of the course you will be able to articulate and effectively argue for your own position. Although we will not agree about our interpretations of the various materials, we can agree that the only "political correctness" appropriate in this course is the commitment to encounter and engage course readings, course goals, and each other with openness, careful listening, honesty, and mutual respect. Note: Texts marked with an * are in the xeroxed course packet.
 

Reading Schedule
Tuesday 1/23 Introduction to Course: Historical and Cultural Background
Thursday 1/25 Annette Kolodny, "Dancing Through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism" (in Feminisms); Aphra Behn, "The Wandering Beauty"* ( c.1690); Lois Weber, "How Men Propose" (film, 1913)

Tuesday 1/30 Gothic Fiction: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847)
Thursday 2/1 Bronte, Jane Eyre; Elizabeth Rigby, "Review of Jane Eyre"* (1848)

Tuesday 2/6 Bronte, Jane Eyre; Elaine Showalter, "The Female Tradition" (in Feminisms)
Thursday 2/8 Elizabeth Gaskell, "The Old Nurse's Story"* (1852); Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "Luella Miller"* (1902)

Tuesday 2/13 Domestic Fiction: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
Thursday 2/15 Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin; Jane Tompkins, "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History" (in Feminisms)

Tuesday 2/20 Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (part 1, 1868); Judith Lowder Newton, "Power and the Ideology of `Woman's Sphere'" (in Feminisms)
Thursday 2/22 Sensation Fiction: Louisa May Alcott, "Behind a Mask; or, A Woman's Power" (1866); Mary E. Braddon, "Good Lady Ducayne" (1888)

Tuesday 2/27 Mary E. Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret (1862)
Thursday 2/29 Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret

Tuesday 3/5 Satire and Humor: Louisa May Alcott, "Transcendental Wild Oats" (18 73), "How I Went Out to Service" (1874); Marietta Holley, from Samantha Rastles the Woman Question* (1887, 1891, 1904)
Thursday 3/7 Reginia Gagnier, "Between Women: A Cross-Class Analysis of Status and Anarchic Humor" (in Feminisms)

Tuesday 3/12 Midterm Exam
Thursday 3/14 Mystery and Suspense Fiction: Anna Katherine Green, "The Second Bullet"* (1915); Susan Glaspell, "A Jury of Her Peers"* (1917)

Tuesday 3/19 Sue Grafton, "A Poison That Leaves No Trace"* (1990); Sara Paretsky, Guardian Angel (1993)
Thursday 3/21 Paretsky, Guardian Angel
Film Showing: Too Wise Wives

Tuesday 3/26-Thursday 3/28 SPRING BREAK

Tuesday 4/2 Melodrama: Lois Weber, Too Wise Wives (film, 1921)
Thursday 4/4 Daphne DuMaurier, Rebecca (1938)
Film Showing: Craig's Wife

Tuesday 4/9 DuMaurier, Rebecca
Thursday 4/11 Dorothy Arzner, Craig's Wife (film, 1936)
Film Showing: Mi Vida Loca

Tuesday 4/16 Allison Anders, Mi Vida Loca (film, 1993); bell hooks, "Writing Autobiography" (in Feminisms)
Thursday 4/18 Romance: BYO romance novel, any type or sub-genre; Janice Radway, "The Readers and Their Romances" from Reading the Romance (in Feminisms)

Tuesday 4/23 Neo-Domestic Fiction: Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)
Thursday 4/25 Walker, The Color Purple ; Hazel Carby, "It Jus Be's Dat Way Sometime: The Sexual Politics of Women's Blues" (in Feminisms)

 Tuesday 4/30 Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club; "I'm Here: An Asian American Woman's Response" (in Feminisms)
Thursday 5/2 Tan, The Joy Luck Club
Film Showing: The Piano

 Tuesday 5/7 ; Neo-Gothic Fiction: Rachel Ingalls, Mrs. Caliban (1983)
Thursday 5/9 Jane Campion, The Piano (film, 1993); Essays due

 Wednesday 5/15 2:00-3:50: Final Exam; Journals due