Professor
Claudia Klaver Office:
427 Hall of Languages
Office
phone: x2074 Office
hours: Wednesday 4:30 – 5:30,
e-mail:
ccklaver@syr.edu Thurs. 10:00 – 11: 30 and
by appointment
Gender and
Literary Texts:
Contemporary Texts,
Political Contexts
This course will examine the writings of
contemporary women authors from around the world who have chosen to enter
public discourse through both literary and more political modes of
writing. The goal of the course is to
expose students to the passionate commitments of writers seeking to intervene
in and reshape their worlds through different kinds of textual projects. We will examine how these commitments and
the visions that accompany them are inflected differently in the genres of
fiction, poetry, autobiography, the essay, and political polemic. At the same time, we will also be noting
connections and crossovers between the thematics of the self-consciously
literary and the more overtly political writings of each author. The underlying assumption of the course itself
is that literary visions do not emerge in a vacuum of “culture” and “aesthetics,”
but rather that their authors are often deeply committed to social and
political projects that are inextricable from their literary work.
Readings for the course will
begin with the American feminist literary and political writings of Adrienne
Rich and Audrey Lorde in the 1970s and 1980s.
We will then read Toni Morrison’s Beloved
in conjunction with her black, feminist literary criticism and her academic
interventions into a number of contemporary public events. After this initial
grounding in the political and literary visions of contemporary American women writers,
the course will shift focus to examine writers in a number of other political
and global contexts: Nadine Gordimer’s writing in South Africa, Arundhati Roy’s
writing in India, and Nawal El Saadawi’s writing in Egypt.
The class will be organized around class discussion
and student presentations. As well as
writing frequent short close-reading essays and two 5-6 page papers, students
will be responsible for researching and presenting information on the
historical, political, and biographical contexts of the authors we will be
reading. Students will be asked to post
some of this material on a class webboard for the whole class’s refernce.
Required texts: Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of my Name
Toni
Morrison, Beloved
Nadine
Gordimer, Burger’s Daughter
Nawal
El Saadawi, The Innocence of the Devil
Nawal
El Saadawi, The Nawal El Saadawi Reader
Arundhati
Roy, The God of Small Things
Arundhati
Roy, Power Politics
All books are available at the Syracuse
University Bookstore*
Photocopy
course packet #7404—available at Campus Copies in
Marshall Square—readings from course
packet indicated by “CP”
in the schedule of readings
Schedule of readings:
Aug.
27 Introduction to the course
Terms: “Literature,” “Politics,” and “Gender”
Audre
Lorde, “Power,” handout
Aug.
29 Visions of the role of poetry and fiction in the contemporary political
world:
Audre
Lorde, “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”
Adrienne
Rich, “Blood, Bread, and Poetry: The Location of the Poet”
Nawal
El Saadawi, “Creative Women in Changing Societies”
Sept. 3 Adrienne
Rich, “Planetarium,” “The Burning of Paper Instead of
Children,” “From the Prison
House,” “Diving into the Wreck,”
“Hunger,” in Fact of a Doorframe CP
Rich, “Foreword: On History, Illiteracy, Passivity, Violence, and
Women’s Culture” and “The Antifeminist Woman” in
Lies, Secrets and Silence (essays) CP
Sept.
5 Rich,
“Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” in
Blood, Bread, and Poetry
(essay) CP
Sept. 10 Rich, “For Ethel Rosenberg,” “North
American Time” in The Fact of a
Doorframe CP
Rich, “What Kind of Times
Are These,” “In Those Years,” “Inscriptions,”
in Dark Fields of the Republic CP
Rich,
“North American Tunnel Vision” in Blood,
Bread and Poetry
(essay) CP
Rich, “Notes Toward a
Politics of Location,” “Why I Refused the National
Medal for the Arts,” and “Poetry and the Public Sphere” in Arts of
the Possible (essays) CP
Sept.
12 Audre Lorde, “A Woman
Speaks,” “The Women of Dan Dance with
Swords in their Hands to
Mark the Time When They Were
Warriors,” “Chain,” “A
Litany for Survival,” “A Song for Many
Movements,” “Woman,”
“Bicentennial Poem #21,000,000,”
“Sister Outsider,” “Power”
in The Black Unicorn CP
Lorde, “Party Time,” “Prism,” “Jessehelms,” “Peace
on Earth,” “Starting
All Over Again” in The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance CP
Sept.
17 Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Lorde,
“The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” (essay) CP
Sept.
19 Lorde, Zami, cont.
Lorde, “Scratching the
Surface: Some Notes on the Barriers to Women
and Loving,” “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the
Master’s House,” “Age, Race,
Class and Sex: Women Redefining
Difference” in Sister Outsider (essays) CP
Race, Racism, and the Legacy
of Slavery in the U. S.
Sept.
24 Toni Morrison, Beloved
Sept.
26 Morrison, Beloved, cont.
Oct.
1 Morrison,
“Introduction: Friday on the Potomac” in Race-ing
Justice, En-
gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the
Construction of Social Reality (ed. Toni Morrison) CP
Morrison, “Nobel Lecture,”
December 7, 1993 CP
Oct.
3 Morrison,
“On the Backs of Blacks” in Arguing
Immigration CP
Morrison, “The Official
Story: Dead Man Golfing: Introduction,” in Birth
of a Nation’hood (ed. Toni Morrison and
Claudia Brodsky Lacour)
CP
Oct. 7 First
paper due; Monday 12:00 noon in my mailbox in 401 Hall of
Languages
Oct.
8 Nadine
Gordimer, Burger’s Daughter
Oct.
10 Gordimer, Burger’s
Daughter, cont.
Gordimer,
“Speak Out: The Necessity for Protest” in The
Essential
Gesture CP
Oct.
15 Gordimer, Burger’s
Daughter, cont.
Gordimer,
“The Essential Gesture” in The Essential
Gesture CP
Oct.
17 Gordimer, Burger’s
Daughter, concl.
Oct.
22 Gordimer, “Three in a Bed: Fiction, Morals, and
Politics,” “How Shall
We Look at Each Other Then,”
“Act Two: One Year Later,”
“Writing and Being” in Living in Hope and History: Notes from
Our Century CP
Oct.
24 Reading day: no class
Oct.
29 Nawal El Saadawi, Innocence
of the Devil
El
Saadawi, Ch. 8, “Women and Islam” in The
Nawal El Saadawi Reader
(pp. 73-92)
Oct.
31 El Saadawi, Innocence,
cont.
El
Saadawi, Ch. 9, “Islamic Women and Fundamentalism” and Ch. 10,
“The Impact of Fanatic Religious Thought: A story of a young
Egyptian Muslim Woman” in NESR (pp. 100-107)
Nov.
5 El
Saadawi, Ch. 1, “Women and the Poor: The Challenge of Global
Justice” (pp. 11-20), Ch. 3,
“Women’s Voice in the North-South
Dialogue” (pp. 27-33), Ch.
5, “Cairo ’94 and the Dignity of
Feeding Oneself” (pp. 45-49), Ch. 13 “Women, Religion and
Literature: Bridging the
Cultural Gap” (pp. 134-142) in NESR
Nov.
7 El
Saadawi, Ch. 15, “Dissidence and Creativity” (pp. 157-175), Ch. 17,
“Democracy, Creativity and African Literature (pp.
188-208),
Ch. 21, “Arab Women and Politics” (pp. 235-254), esp. pp.
235-
241 in NESR
Nov. 12 Roy,
The God of Small Things
Nov.
14 Roy, The God of Small Things, concl.
Nov.
19 Roy, “Power Politics: The
Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin,” in Power
Nov.
21 Roy, “The Ladies Have
Feelings, So …Shall We Leave It to the Experts?”
and “On Citizens Rights to Express Dissent” in Power Politics,
pp. 1-33, 87-103
Nov.
26 Thanksgiving break
Nov.
28 Thanksgiving break
Dec.
3 Roy,
“The Algebra of Infinite Justice” and “’Brutality Smeared in Peanut
Butter’” in Power Politics, 2nd edition
only, pp. 105-145 AND CP
Dec.
5 Class
review and evaluation: How have our
terms changed? How has
our vision changed? How has our world changed?
Course requirements:
1.
Regular (and respectful)
class attendance and participation. This class
will be conducted as a seminar, depending largely on student contributions to
class discussion. Because of this,
regular attendance and respectful attention are the only ways to successfully
participate in and complete this course.
All students will be allowed one unpenalized absence. After this absence, all other absences must
be excused with a note from a doctor or a dean, or through prior arrangement
with me. Extra work may be required to
compensate for such unavoidable excused absences. Every two unexcused absences will lower your final course grade
by at least one third of a letter
grade. Frequent tardiness will
contribute toward the total of unexcused absences. I also will provide opportunities for and encourage you to learn
one another’s names, since each of you as students, as well as me as your
professor, will be responsible for much of the teaching and learning that
happens in this course.
2.
Six 1 ½ - 2 page close readings. In these textual analyses, you will select, type out, and
annotate a passage from day’s assigned reading. Drawing upon the details that
you have noted in your annotation of the passage and your sense of the text of the
whole, develop a 1- 1 ½ page analysis of the work that this passage is doing.
Rather than simply noting a series of interesting features of the
passage, focus on the role it plays in the development of one theme, aspect, or
tension in the text. Conclude your
analysis with two or three “troubling questions” about the passage that have
grown out of your analysis or, alternatively, that remain for you even after
your analysis. At one or two points in the
semester, you will be asked to share your close-reading with the class by
posting it on the webboard prior to the assigned class meeting and orally walking us through your analysis
in the first few minutes of the class.
Close readings are due on the day of the relevant reading. Late close readings will not be accepted.
3.
Three historical footnotes. In each of these footnotes, you will choose a
historical topic relevant to the literary text or essays we are reading, do
some independent research on that topic, and write a 1-2 page “footnote” that
focuses the information you have discovered in order to explain how it sheds
light upon or opens up some aspect of the class reading. You are then responsible for introducing
this information into class discussion at some moment of your choosing during
the class meeting. In other words, you
will spontaneously (and orally) present what you have formally prepared in
order to contribute to the entire class’s understanding of the reading. After you have presented your footnote, I
will ask you to post it on the webboard for the other students’ reference.
4.
Two 5-6 page papers. These papers will focus on the literature and essays we are
reading for the course, but students are also encouraged to develop and support
their arguments with references to materials presented in class (in the form of
historical footnotes). Late papers will
not be accepted unless there is an emergency and you have made prior arrangements with me. The first of these two papers may be
re-written; re-writes are due no later than two weeks after I have returned the
graded papers to you. Re-write grades
will be averaged with your original grade.
Grading policy: Attendance and
participation—10%
Close readings—25%
Historical footnotes—15%
Papers—50%