Pride and/or Prejudice

ENGL 190: Honors Seminar

Pride and/or Prejudice: The Emergence and Suppression of Queer Identities in Literature

Dr. Adrienne L. Eastwood

Office Hours and Location: Faculty Office Building, Room 116

Hours: Tuesdays, 12:30 – 2:30 pm, Wednesdays 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. I am also available by appointment.

Phone #: 924-4509

Web page: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/eastwood/

Course Description: This course will trace the emergence of what we now proudly (post Stonewall) claim as “homosexual” identities as they have appeared in literature from the 16^th century to today. I will present a variety of literary and cultural texts that treat issues of homoeroticism, cross-dressing, sodomy, and female masculinity, including, whenever possible, materials (both secondary criticism and primary sources) related to the social and political reception of such texts. Ideally, this course will enable an examination of the shifting cultural attitudes about same-sex desire in order to more thoroughly ground our contemporary appreciation of queerness in a nuanced understanding of its history. The central discussion will take shape around the consideration of the ways in which literature serves both to express and to suppress homosexual desire.

We will be reading a variety of materials for this course including novels, plays, poetry, diaries, political pamphlets, and critical texts.

Required Texts:

Course Reader. Available from Maple Press, 481 San Carlos Street.

Bechdel, Allison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (2006) ISBN 10 - 0618477942

Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues. Alyson Books. (1993). ISBN 1-555830853-7.

Marlowe, Christopher. Edward II. In the Complete Plays, Penguin Classics. ISBN 10-0140436332

Middleton, Thomas and Dekker, Thomas. The Roaring Girl. Revels Plays Edition. Manchester University Press. ISBN 10-0719016

Puig, Manuel. Kiss of the Spider Woman. (1991) Vintage International. ISBN 0-679-724494

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oxford World’s Classics. ISBN 10-0199535981

Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. Signet Classics, 25^th Edition. ISBN 0451167783.

Wintersen, Jeanette. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. Grove Press, 1997. ISBN 10-0618477942

On Reserve: I will be placing several secondary texts on reserve for your use.

These will include: Jonathan Goldberg, Queering the Renaissance.

Bruce Smith, Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare’s England

Sharon Marcus, Between Women: Friendship, Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1.

Terry Castle, The Apparitional Lesbian.

Course Requirements: This is a seminar, and as such, each of us is responsible for the quality and usefulness of our meetings. I expect that you will find the readings both interesting and valuable, and I encourage you to express and explore your particular interests as we work through the material.

Presentations: Each student will be responsible to produce a presentation for the class on some aspect of queerness and identity gleaned from the readings and discussions. Use this assignment to research something that we touch on in class that peaks your interest. For example, you might choose to look into the Molly houses of the eighteenth century, female husbands, cross-dressing, etc. The duration of your presentation will be determined by the number of students in the class. You should provide a handout for the class, and a separate write-up for me that includes a bibliography.

Internet Posting: I plan on setting up a listsev for this course (qu-eng@lists.sjsu.edu). You will be required to subscribe to this list the first week of class, and beginning with the second week’s readings, you will post a weekly response to this list by no later than midnight on the Sunday before class. You are required to post once per week (for Monday’s seminar), but some of you may wish to engage in a discussion that overflows this parameter. Let me stress here that this is not intended to be an overwhelming burden. Rather, it is meant to provide you with a forum to discuss what you read and get a sense of the interests of the group.

Written Work: You will be asked to write two essays (one at mid-term and one at the end of the semester) for this class, using both primary and secondary texts. These essays will allow you to more thoroughly develop a line of thinking inspired by the reading and discussions. Your success on this paper will be directly proportional to your knowledge and understanding of the texts.

Grading Breakdown:

Contribution and Participation 15%

Presentation 15%

Weekly Postings 15%

Essay 1 (Midterm) 25%

Essay 2 (Final) 30%

Academic Integrity:

Your own commitment to learning, as evidenced by your enrollment at
San Jose State University and the University's Integrity Policy, require you to be
honest in all your academic course work. Faculty members are required to report
all infractions to the Office of Judicial Affairs." The policy on academic
integrity can be found at: http://sa.sjsu.edu/judicial_affairs/index.html

Avoiding Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of somebody else’s words or ideas and is considered an instance of academic dishonesty that instructors must report. Repeated instances of plagiarism will result in a student’s expulsion from the University. You commit plagiarism by

· buying, stealing, or borrowing a paper;

· hiring someone to write a paper;

· building on someone’s ideas without providing a citation;

· or copying from another source or using a source too closely when paraphrasing.

In other words, submit only your own work. To learn how to cite sources accurately and forthrightly, consult your handbook.

The instructor reserves the right to revise the requirements and to notify students of such revision in a timely manner, e.g., "subject to change, announced at least one class meeting in advance."

If you have any questions about when or how to document a source, do not hesitate to ask me for clarification. The SJSU library has an on-line tutorial on plagiarism that you can access at http://tutorials.sjlibrary.org/plagiarism/index.htm.

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities: If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, or if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need to make special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible, or see me during office hours. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires that students with disabilities register with the Disability Resource Center to establish a record of their disability (924-6000).

Grading Policy:

In English Department courses, instructors will comment on and grade the quality of student writing as well as the quality of ideas being conveyed. All student writing should be distinguished by correct grammar and punctuation, appropriate diction and syntax, and well-organized paragraphs. Grades issued will represent a full range of student performance and will adhere to the following SJSU academic standards of assessment:

The Department of English reaffirms its commitment to the differential grading scale as defined in the SJSU Catalog (“The Grading System”). Grades issued must represent a full range of student performance: A= excellent; B= above average; C= average; D= below average; F= failure. Courses graded according to the A, B, C, No Credit system shall follow the same pattern, except that NC shall replace D or F. In such cases, NC shall also substitute for W (or withdrawal) because neither grade (NC or W) affects students’ GPA.

Schedule of Readings (Subject to Revision)

Week 1 Theorizing Queerness: Essentialism versus Constructivism

Aug. 24 Introductions – Historical Identities

Aug. 26 Foucault, from The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1 (Reader)

Sedgwick, from The Epistemology of the Closet (Reader)

Castle, Introduction to The Apparitional Lesbian (Reader)

Week 2 Queering the Renaissance

Aug. 31 Marlowe, Edward II (1592)

Bray, “Homosexuality and Male Friendship” (Reader)

Sept. 2 Edward II, The Baines Note (Reader)

Week 3

Sept. 7 Labor Day, Campus Closed

Sept. 9 Edward II. FURLOUGH NO CLASS

Week 4 Roaring Girls

Sept. 14 Middleton and Dekker, The Roaring Girl.

Sept. 16 The Roaring Girl, The Diary of Moll Frith

(Reader or online at http://www.crimeculture.com/earlyunderworlds/Contents/Cutpurse.html )

Hic Mulier and Haec Vir

(Reader or online http://www.english.ucsb.edu/teaching/resources/reading_lists/renaissance/hic_mulier.asp

http://www.english.ucsb.edu/teaching/resources/reading_lists/renaissance/haec_vir.asp )

Week 5 Female Husbands

Sept. 21 Fielding, Henry. The Female Husband (Reader)

Sept. 23 Anonymous. The Surprising Adventures of A Female Husband (Reader)

Terry Castle (Reader) Adrienne Eastwood (Reader)

Week 6 Strolling Players

Sept. 28 The Well-known Troublemaker: A Narrative of the Life of Charlotte Charke

Sept. 30 The Well-known Troublemaker: A Narrative of the Life of Charlotte Charke.

Excerpt from Charke’s novel, The History of Mr. Henry Dumont.

Week 7 Class, Gender, and Sexuality

Oct. 5 Excerpts from the Diaries of Anne Lister (Reader)

Oct 7 Faderman (Reader), Castle, from The Apparitional Lesbian (Reader).

Week 8 A Walk on the Wilde Side: 19^th Century Sexual Identity

Oct. 12 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Edelman (Reader)

Oct. 14 The Wilde Trials

(Web Site: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/wilde/wilde.htm )

Week 9 20^th Century

Oct. 19 Williams, Streetcar FURLOUGH NO CLASS

Minton, “Community Empowerment and the Medicalization of Homosexuality” (Reader)

Oct. 21 Williams, Streetcar (and readings from 10/19)

Week 10 Queerness on Film

Oct. 26 Screen The Celluloid Closet

Oct. 28 Screen The Celluloid Closet

Week 11 More Masculine Women

Nov. 2 Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

Nov. 4 Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

Halberstam, from Female Masculinity (Reader)

Week 12 Gender and Identity

Nov. 9 Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman

Nov. 11 Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman

Week 13

Nov. 16 Presentations

Nov. 18 Presentations

Week 14 Thanksgiving. .

Nov. 23 Wintersen, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

Nov. 25 Wintersen, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

Week 15

Nov. 30 Wintersen, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

Dec. 2 Bechdel, Fun Home

Week 16

Dec. 7 Last day of instruction