English 192-009
Freshmen Seminar: American Women Writers: Paper Tigers or Paper Dolls?
Instr: Petty, Oody
Office: CRT 533; 229-5041
e-mail: oody@uwm.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information: TR; 2:00-3:15pm; CRT 366
Course Description
Many of us have heard of-and perhaps read-the great American writers Irving, Emerson, Whitman, Hawthorn, Melville, and Poe; yet American women writers like Susanna Rowson, Fanny Fern, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps have only recently been given the critical attention that has long been given to their male contemporaries despite (or perhaps because of) these women writers' immense popularity with their readers. What made them so popular? What was their emotional appeal? Twentieth-century critics have equated the popularity and emotionality connected with their writings with ineffectiveness and inferiority, and have excluded many American women writers from the lists of "must-reads" in our high schools and colleges. This literature survey course will read, discuss, and examine some of the cultural work that American women's writing has performed, the controversies surrounding their topics and themes, and the political and social acts of protest embedded in their writing from the late 1700's to the mid-twentieth century.
