This course engages with a diverse selection of fiction, prose and poetry authored by and/or focussed on women. Through lectures, discussions, activities and readings, we examine critical theories, especially those centered on social inequalities, postcoloniality and hybrid identities. Through the selected literary texts and academic articles, we consider how women writers articulate their experiences of working, advocating, partnering, parenting, grieving and leaving their homelands. We also discuss characteristics of excellent critical and creative writing. ENGL1028 culminates in Harmonies: our own student writers’ mini-festival, with students sharing their creative work (e.g. memoir, poem, drama or short story) focused on women’s stories.
ENGL1028 helps develop students’ skills in the following areas:
- knowledge of critical theory, particularly in gender studies, postcoloniality and social inequality;
- strategies for analysing different genres of literature by and about women;
- perspectives on the social, political and cultural factors in women’s advocacy for equality;
- techniques for composing academic essays and presentations on literature;
- enhancement of creative writing skills in voicing women’s experiences.
The course provides students with a critical theory framework for literary analysis, developed through close readings of both fiction and non-fiction works by and/or about women in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, in addition to a range of academic articles (i.e. secondary sources). ENGL1028 classes are designed to illuminate women’s varied and vibrant life journeys and writings, articulate the complex reasons women still seek equality globally, and encourage students in their own creative expression of women’s experiences.
This course consists of in-person teaching (including lectures, activities, performance viewings and small group discussions) within weekly, three-hour classes in the spring semester. In addition, students engage in short presentations on their academic research and readings of their creative writing. Each student is expected to read all assigned texts, in their entirety, in advance of each week’s class. In addition to the three main assignments (one of which has two components), students are marked on attendance and participation in class.
- Presentation and Notes: 15%
- Short Essay Exam: 40%
- Creative Piece and Critical Reflection: 32.5%
- Participation: 12.5%
Mary Wollestonecraft - A Vindication on the Rights of Women'
Emily Dickinson - 'Because I Could Not Stop for Death' and other poems
F.D. White on feminist issues in Emily Dickinson's poetry
Henrik Ibsen - A Doll's House
Doris Pilkington - Rabbit Proof Fence
Joanne Tompkins on postcolonial issues in Australian drama
Shela Burney on postcolonial theory
Adrienne Rich - 'Diving Into the Wreck' and 'When We Dead Awaken'
Jeanette Riley on gender in Rich's poetry
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 'The Headstrong Historian'
Susan Vanzantan on Adichie writing back to Adeche
Natasha Trethewey - 'A Mediation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast'