Reading Women's Writing
Reading Women's Writing: Living a Feminist Life from Mary Wollstonecraft to Sara Ahmed In this course we will investigate the tradition of women's writing in English from the sixteenth century to the present day, focusing on the complex relationships among writing, sexuality, race, and gender. We will consider the ways in which writers identifying as female respond to--and often subvert--traditional literary themes and conventions, looking critically as we do so at our own interpretive assumptions as readers. An organizing focus of our reading will be the articulation and/or suppression of female anger and other related emotions in a variety of repressive contexts. Though our focus will be primarily on the interpretation of literary works, we will also develop an awareness of relevant debates in feminist theory, from Mary Wollstonecraft’s revolutionary contribution to notions of female education to Sara Ahmed’s concept of the feminist “killjoy.” Other texts may include: Jane Austen, Mansfield Park; Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway; Toni Morrison, Sula; Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions; Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage; Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties; Kristen Roupenian, You Know You Want This, Rebecca Traister, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger.
Reading Women's Writing: Living a Feminist Life from Mary Wollstonecraft to Sara Ahmed In this course we will investigate the tradition of women's writing in English from the sixteenth century to the present day, focusing on the complex relationships among writing, sexuality, race, and gender. We will consider the ways in which writers identifying as female respond to--and often subvert--traditional literary themes and conventions, looking critically as we do so at our own interpretive assumptions as readers. An organizing focus of our reading will be the articulation and/or suppression of fe …Read more
Professor Wells is amazing. She is super passionate about the coursework and super receptive to ideas. The class itself is very reading based, but honestly never super long readings. Two exams that were just based on identifying passages from the reading and two papers. One discussion post a week for the readings and you have three weeks worth of skips. Very chill class and AWESOME professor.
Professor Wells is amazing. She is super passionate about the coursework and super receptive to ideas. The class itself is very reading based, but honestly never super long readings. Two exams that were just based on identifying passages from the reading and two papers. One discussion post a week for the readings and you have three w …Read more
Professor Wells is one of the best teachers I have had at this school! She thoughtful, brilliant, and passionate about the course material. On the first day she made the effort to know everyone's name and continued to foster a open class environment
You really need to do the readings for this class, which amounts to maybe 50 pages of a novel + 1 academic article due per class, sometimes less. If you do this, then the class will be very easy, interesting, and worthwhile
Prof Wells is a great professor. Her lectures were very informative and gave a lot of context to the readings. The homework was mostly just readings and there were only a few very manageable papers throughout the semester. Overall, though there is a lot of reading this was a manageable and informative class.