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WGS.517

American Authors: American Women Authors

Undergraduate · Historical course

Spring 2003

This subject, cross-listed in Literature and Women's Studies, examines a range of American women authors from the seventeenth century to the present. It aims to introduce a number of literary genres and styles- the captivity narrative, slave novel, sensational, sentimental, realistic, and postmodern fiction- and also to address significant historical events in American women's history: Puritanism, the American Revolution, industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century, the Harlem Renaissance, World War II, the 60s civil rights movements. A primary focus will be themes studied and understood through the lens of gender: war, violence, and sexual exploitation (Keller, Rowlandson, Rowson); the relationship between women and religion (Rowlandson, Rowson, Stowe); labor, poverty, and working conditions for women (Fern, Davis, Wharton); captivity and slavery (Rowlandson, Jacobs); class struggle (Fern, Davis, Wharton, Larsen); race and identity (Keller, Jacobs, Larsen, Morrison); feminist revisions of history (Stowe, Morrison, Keller); and the myth of the fallen woman (take your pick). Essays and in-class reports will focus more particularly on specific writers and themes and will stress the skills of close reading, annotation, research, and uses of multimedia where appropriate.

Readings

  • Davis, Rebecca Harding. Life in the Iron Mills. Bedford Cultural Edition. Ed, Cecelia Tichi. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998.
    Required
  • Fern, Fanny. Ruth Hall and Other Writings. Ed. Joyce W. Warren. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986.
    Required
  • Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Edited with Introduction by Jean F. Yellin, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987.
    Required
  • Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle, ed. Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives. New York: Penguin, 1998.
    Required
  • Keller, Nora Okja. Comfort Woman. New York: Penguin, 1998.
    Required
  • Larsen, Nella. Passing. New York : Modern Library, 2000.
    Required
  • Morrison, Toni. Paradise. New York : Plume Putnam Inc., 1999.
    Required
  • Rowson, Susanna. Charlotte Temple. Ed. Cathy N. Davidson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986
    Required
  • Stowe, Harriet Beecher. The Minister’s Wooing. New York: Penguin, 1999.
    Required
  • Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. 1905. Ed. Shari Benstock. Boston. Bedford / St. Martin,1994.
    Required
  • Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation (Toshiyuki Tanaka); call number- D810.C698.T36 2002 (Humanities library)
    Listed reading
  • Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II ; call number- D810.C698.L44 2001 (Humanities library)
    Listed reading
  • Comfort Women Speak: testimony by sex slaves of the Japanese Military ; call number- D810.C698.C66 2000 (Humanities library)
    Listed reading
  • Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II ; D810.C698.Y6713 2000 (Humanities library)
    Listed reading
  • The Comfort Women: Japan’s brutal regime of enforced prostitution in the Second World War (George L. Hicks); D810.C698.H53 1995 (Humanities library, women’s studies reading room)
    Listed reading
  • True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women ; D810.C698.T78 1995 (Humanities library, women’s studies reading room)
    Listed reading
Sources