English 243-002
Women's Literature: Women in Nature: Mother Earth and Virgin Landscapes?
Instr: Bretl, Beth
Office: CRT 294; 229-5025
e-mail: bretl@uwm.edu
Office Hours: TBA
Course Information: T&R; 4:00-5:15pm; AUP 116
Course Description
In the Western conceptualization of the relationship between nature and culture, women have often been cast as situated within nature and in opposition to culture. Women have had their own ideas about their relationships to nature and have written about that relationship in novels, poems and essays. Drawing on studies in ecology and feminism, ecofeminist scholarship also has taken a closer look at the ways in which women and nature are represented by women in language and literature. The images we find are varied and complex, further complicated by issues of gender, race, and class. This course will examine how some twentieth century women authors in North America have chosen to represent this relationship between women and nature. As we read the assigned novels we will ask ourselves about our own assumptions regarding this relationship and how those assumptions might or might not be limiting the roles we imagine for human and non-human nature.
Required Texts (tentative list):
Margaret Atwood. SURFACING
Leslie Marmon Silko. CEREMONY
Toni Morrison. BELOVED
Terry Tempest Williams. REFUGE: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY OF PLACE
Ana Castillo. SO FAR FROM GOD
Barbara Kingsolver. PRODIGAL SUMMER
Along with the novels, we will read from a course packet that will include a few essays, several poems, and a few ecofeminist articles.
Course Requirements:
Reflector posts-students will be posting to the class reflector before class to facilitate course discussion. Responsibility will be divided equally between two or three assigned groups so students will only be responsible for posting once a week. Students will receive grades for their posts based on the thoughtfulness and thoroughness with which they handle the subject.
