Spring 2006 Courses

English 394: American Women Writers Before 1914 (Shmurak)

M/W/F 10:50-11:50, Old Main 011

This class examines American women’s writing from the late eighteenth century to World War I.  We will consider the diverse literary output by women commenting on the settling of the west, slavery, demographic change, the environment, politics, architecture, and sex, among many other issues.  At the center of our inquiry will be the ways texts by these writers construct gender as it interacts with other critical issues in American culture, particularly race, ethnicity, class, and nationhood.  Authors will include Phyllis Wheatley, Susanna Rowson, Margaret Fuller, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, Fanny Fern, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Wharton, and Willa Cather.  In addition to reading fiction and poetry, at several points in the term we will examine contemporaneous historical documents, painting, and photography.

NOTE: THIS COURSE FULFILLS THE PRE-1900 AMERICAN LITERATURE REQUIREMENT FOR THE ENGLISH MAJOR

Spring 2006 Course Listings