Description
[cross-listed with LIT 3702; G/C; Social Practice minor] A multidisciplinary study of the scholarship on women, with an introduction to feminist theory and methodology. As Maxine Hong Kingston explains, a woman warrior must “make (her) mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes.” This course will explore the various paradoxes involved in constructing the concept of woman by looking at historical and contemporary experiences of women in both public and private spheres. The class will study feminist theory by reading the groundbreaking works of women such as Simone DeBeauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous. We will examine representations of female identity in literary works such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. In addition, we will look at imposed standards of beauty (corsets, footbinding) and social codes of conduct that contribute to the formulation of the ideal female image.