Spring 2009

WGS 301 • Reading Women Writers

Course Description

In preparation for the English major, students in this course will develop critical reading and response skills by working with a body of texts that indicates the scope of U.S. women's writing from the 1700s to the present. We will consider how each of these texts shapes the field of womens writing, and we will question the coherence of that field as we describe its complexity. Issues including colonization, social activism, ethnicity, sexuality, and genre will inform our readings and discussions as students learn various approaches to the study and definition of a literary field.

In this course, we will use these texts to think about the complexity of "woman" as an identity as well as the complexity of the field of women's literature. This course will reflects a recognition of the centrality of writings by women of color to the act of reading women writers, and a representation of women of different sexual orientations. As a result, this course prepares students to engage in complex conversations about interlocking concerns of nationality, race, gender, and sexuality. We will consider how these issues inform each text and how women writers in particular depict the nation, culture, identity, and desire.

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