First class
- 1. Women in Literature Reading Through The Ages
- 2. What this course is about When I was thinking about designing this course, I realized the importance that literature has on socializing us from childhood onward. I realized that I was introduced concepts of gender identity from the time I was old enough to be read to and to watch movies. The first movie that I remember seeing was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I was fascinated by it, so much so that as an adult, I started taking and then teaching courses in children’s literature and and mythology and folklore.
- 3. That was one of my first experiences with gender cultural norms that I learned from literature. So I thought I’d start with folktales. From there, I went on to thinking about my experiences with reading on my own, through young adult fiction and then later, through literature about women as they go through the cycles of children, young women, women, middle-aged and old women. Men of course are not excluded from this socialization as they react to what they read and see and as they learn about cultural expectations for them. So I decided to continue on with a piece of young adult fiction.
- 4. Then it followed that I would choose pieces about people according to what we read chronologically and how we are represented. So this course is called reading through the ages as that will be exactly what we are doing, reading through the stages of our lives and we examine what we read in the various stages of our lives and what we learn about cultural expectations of people through representations of them in literature.
- 5. Course Readings The stories and essays that are required for this course are found in the course reader. You should bring it to every class as we will be discussing the essays we are reading for criticism as well as the stories on the days they are assigned.
- 6. Young Adult Fiction The young adult novel I chose is Blood Red Road, the first in the Dustland series. Saba lives in Silverlake, a wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms where her family scavenge from landfills left by the long-gone Wrecker civilization. After four cloaked horsemen kidnap her beloved twin brother Lugh, she teams up with daredevil Jack and the Free Hawks, a girl gang of Revolutionaries. Saba learns that she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Saba and her new friends stage a showdown that change the course of her civilization.
- 7. Young and middle-aged women One of the texts that I chose for this section Is The Joy Luck Club Through a series of flashbacks, four young Chinese women born in America and their respective mothers born in feudal China, explore their past. This search will help them understand their difficult mother/daughter relationship. Through this book and several other short stories we will examine the importance of the mother/daughter experience from both perspectives and how that affects them, as well as their relationships with the men in their lives. We will also be reading a number of short stories that reflect women and various cultural norms and how they influence us.
- 8. Old Women One of my favorite writers is Tillie Olsen, and we will be ending with a novella called Tell Me a Riddle. Like many of Olsen's stories, Tell Me a Riddle grapples with a multitude of voices. Although Eva is ostensibly the main character of the narrative, the reader also sympathizes with David, largely because we receive such insight into both of their struggles. Their children are also given voices from the outset - when they hear of the marital troubles their parents are undergoing, almost every single child comments on the behavior, revealing something about their personalities and attitudes. As she often does, Olsen accomplishes this multiplicity not through a traditional use of dialogue, but by frequently shifting the perspective, often without any explicit transition between one character and the next. However, Eva remains thematically central to this idea, particularly because she has spent a lifetime sacrificing her voice and identity in order to be a mother to her seven children
- 9. Exercise: In groups of 4 (or so) Please take notes and learn each other’s names. Discuss what we mean by the concept sisterhood. What immediately comes to mind when you hear the word? What are the definitions of the word for you and what are the characteristics of a sisterhood. Do we create sisterhood or does it already exist? Are all women included in the sisterhood? Should they be? Why or why not? Now discuss what we mean by the concept brotherhood. What immediately comes to mind when you hear the word? What are the definitions of the word for you and what are the characteristics of brotherhood. Do we create brotherhood or does it already exist? Are all men included in the sisterhood? Should they be? Why or why not?
- 10. Homework: Buy books for the class. You may want to start reading Dustlands: Blood Red Road sooner than it is assigned. I will be assigning 100 +pages a week and although it’s a fast read, you might want to get started in advance. Read Lois Tyson’s Feminist Criticism, Take notes as you read about the important points she makes about feminist criticism. We will be using this often in class so make sure you have a copy you can make notes on and highlight.