English 280/Women and Literature
Offered in person in Fall 2022!
This class examines women’s relationship to literature as we engage with the various ways that women writers explore issues of femininity and womanhood in their writing.
Some of the questions we will be asking include:
- What does it mean to be a woman writer?
- Is there a unique women’s tradition in literature? Does a “woman’s literature” exist?
- How have our definitions of womanhood and femininity changed over time?
- What barriers have women historically had to deal with in order to write?
- Do women writers differ from their male counterparts? If so, in what ways?
- Do common issues and concerns unite female authors? If so, what are some of these common concerns?
- What does it mean to call a text a “feminist” work?
- What gender stereotypes exist in literature? How do women writers support, resist, and/or undermine dominant ideas about gender?
In order to answer these questions, we will be reading texts by a diverse set of women writers from various time periods. The class will be organized chronologically so we can attempt to understand the historical shifts and cultural conditions that have defined women’s writing. Since English 280 fulfills Palomar College’s multicultural studies requirement, we will also be exploring issues of ethnicity and gender by reading several texts by women of color.
Some of the texts I usually include on my syllabus for English 280 include conduct manuals from the 18th century, the film Mildred Pierce, Virginia Woolf’s Modernist novel Mrs. Dalloway, the film The Hours, Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel Beloved, Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir/novel The Woman Warrior, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and poetry and short stories by Sandra Cisneros.
For a copy of our course syllabus, please visit our class Canvas site.
Articles about feminism and the pay gap:
- 2017 article from the Huffington Post called “Poll: Few Identify As Feminists, But Most Believe In Equality Of Sexes”
- January 2016 Washington Post article from called “What Americans Think about Feminism Today”
- April 2018 article from Business Insider called “6 Charts Show How Much More Men Make than Women”
- March 2013 article from The New Republic called “Cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier”
- Sample Lit Essay from the MLA website (on Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park)
Resources on Jane Austen:
Resources on Virginia Woolf:
- Video “Modernism and Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway” (5:18 minutes)
- BBC article and link on “The Only Surviving Recording of Virginia Woolf”
- Rebecca Solnit article from 2015 called “The Mother of All Questions” about maternity and Woolf
Resources on Maxine Hong Kingston:
- Slate “The Woman Warrior at 30″magazine article
- R. O. Kwon’s 2019 article in The New York Times called “Stop Calling Asian Women Adorable”
Resources on Sandra Cisneros:
- Interview with Sandra Cisneros from October 8, 1996, done by Dorothy Allison
- Also available here
Resources on Toni Morrison and Beloved:
- Short article where Morrison talks about the genesis of Beloved
- Interview from 1993 with The Paris Review about “The Art of Fiction” — on how and when she writes
- Interview about her novel The Bluest Eye (50 mins)
- Talk from Cornell University about language, evil, and the white gaze (1 h 50m)
Resources on The Handmaid’s Tale:
- Short video from July 2017 where Margaret Atwood explains why she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale (7:41)
- Television Academy Foundation 2017 program “The Handmaid’s Tale: From Script to Screen” (1 hour 12 minutes); Elisabeth Moss is one of the interviewees
- A 2012 article from London’s The Guardian about The Handmaid’s Tale and its impact
- An interview from The Paris Review “The Art of Fiction”
- A November 2018 article by Rebecca Solnit from The Guardian called “How Many Husbands Control the Votes of their Wives? We’ll Never Know.”
- https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-rise-handmaid-habit-visual-icon
- https://www.glamour.com/story/the-handmaids-tale-violence
- https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/20/handmaids-tale-margaret-atwood
Creative Projects from Fall 2022:
Creative Projects from Fall 2018:
Sandra’s digitally-created, Klimt-inspired painting of Selena Joy and Offred from The Handmaid’s Tale:
Joelle’s poetry about womanhood:
Vanessa S.’s origami dragon that was inspired by The Woman Warrior:
Shan’s set of “rules” for men, inspired by the conduct manuals and The Handmaid’s Tale:
Raine’s lithograph of Clarissa and Septimus from Mrs. Dalloway:
Taylor W.’s modern-day conduct manual about how women are expected to act and about victim-shaming:
Harold’s posters and book display about Pearl Buck:
Sarah’s bonnet inspired by The Handmaid’s Tale:
Paula’s Instagram account for the character of Cleofilas in Cisneros’ short story “Woman Hollering Creek”:
Danielle’s character sheets for the She-Werewolf of the Apocalypse game:
Vanessa D.’s diorama of the Commander and Serena’s Victorian house from The Handmaid’s Tale:
Katie’s painting of Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice and a playlist to accompany the novel:
Grace’s original song that was inspired by each text we read this semester:
Caitlin’s playlist and poster inspired by The Woman Warrior:
* each song is an instrumental track so you can listen to it while reading Hong Kingston’s book
Kathleen’s Instagram accounts for six of the characters in Pride and Prejudice:
* you can visit each character’s IG page
Izzy’s book jacket for Sandra Cisneros’ “Black Lace Bra Kind of Woman”:
Brittany’s digitally-created, Disney-themed version of Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice:
Taylor B.’s “Woman Hollering Cake,” inspired by Cisneros’ story:
Eric’s book jackets for Pride and Prejudice, The Woman Warrior, and Woman Hollering Creek:
Ali’s portrait of Sethe from Beloved:
Emily’s sketch/painting of Offred’s two lives from The Handmaid’s Tale:
