Bad Behavior: Women Writers and the Making of Literary History

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

If the popular phrase, "well-behaved women seldom make history," holds true, then what forms of "bad behavior" have shaped the cannon of women's literature? How and why did particular women writers gain in acclaim and popularity as others faded from view? In this class, we will explore how the creation and violation of gender expectations has shaped nineteenth-century women's literature, its reception, and its modern reinterpretations. We will examine a wide range of literary figures, real and fictional alike, from pillars of propriety to unabashed rebels, from the nineteenth century and today. Readings will include work by Jane Austen, Anne Lister, Anne Bronte, Michael Field, Mary Seacole, and Virginia Woolf as well as contemporary television (Sally Wainwright's Gentleman Jack), graphic novels (Isabel Greenburg's Glasstown), and film (Park Chan-Wook's The Handmaiden).