Eng 481 - Feminist & Avant-Garde Poetries of the 1970s
Spring 2008 - Prof. Steve Evans

Reading Syllabus • Subject to change; check back frequently • Current week here.
Key: NMM = No More Masks, FLTC = Feminist Literary Theory & Criticism.

week one

M 1-14

Introduction to the class and one another.
Class log.

W 1-16

NMM: handout of apparatus to first edition; to page 25 in "our" edition
FLTC: Woolf, fr. "A Room of One's Own" (129-37)
Class log.

F 1-18

NMM: to 50
FLTC: de Beauvoir, fr. "The Second Sex" (299-323)
Other: Handout (distributed 1-16): Excerpt from The Life of Poetry (1949) and the poetic sequence "Orpheus" (also 1949).
Class log.

week two

M 1-21

Martin Luther King Day - No Class

W 1-23

NMM: to 75
FLTC: Rich, "When We Dead Awaken" (188-200)
Recommended: Fredric Jameson, "Periodizing the 60s" (handout)
Class log.

F 1-25

NMM: to 100
FLTC: Lorde, "Poetry Is Not a Luxury" (223-25); Walker, "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" (212-219)
Class log.

Assignment: Identify and briefly comment upon a theme common to three of the poems found in the first hundred pages of No More Masks. Due as an e-mail to Steve on FC before class.

week three

M 1-28

NMM: to 125
FLTC: Ellmann, "Phallic Criticism" (323-36)
Class log.

W 1-30

NMM: to 150
FLTC: Millet, fr. Sexual Politics (336-50).
Class log.

F 2-01

No class

week four

M 2-04

NMM: to 200 (Randall, Yamada, Cooper, Miller, Kizer, Kumin, Halley, MacDonald, Sexton, Rich)
FLTC: Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture" (350-67)
Rich, Fact of a Doorframe, to 41

Research Assignment: Choose a poet from Section I of No More Masks and spend an hour or two investigating her life and work, summarizing your findings in a brief post to our blog due by midnight on Sunday, 3 February (if you have technical problems with the blog, an e-mail to our FC folder and/or to Steve is also acceptable). The Gale Literary Database will be a valuable resource for this assignment. The MLA International Bibliography is an excellent resource for identifying secondary literature on a given writer or theme. Information found on Wikipedia must be validated by at least one other credible source.

W 2-06

NMM: to 225
FLTC: Chodorow, "Family Structure and Feminine Personality" (368-388)
Rich, Fact of a Doorframe, to 67
Class log

F 2-08

NMM: to 250
FLTC: Rubin, from "The Traffic in Women" (392-414)
Rich, Fact of a Doorframe, to 109
Class log

week five

M 2-11

NMM: to 275
FLTC: Cixous, "The Laugh of the Medusa" (414-30)
Rich, Fact of a Doorframe, to 131
Class log

Reading Note Assignment (given verbally on Friday): Prepare a set of reading notes on one of the following four essays: Millet, Ortner, Chodorow, Rubin. Your first paragraph should provide a brief, impartial overview of the writer's project and major claims. In your second paragraph, you'll shift to a critical evaluation of that project's value and validity. And to wrap up, you'll pose three or four questions for the class to consider as we continue to grapple with the essay you've chosen. Due electronically (as e-mail to Steve or FC conference) or as a post to the blog no later than noon on Feb 13.

W 2-13

NMM: to 300, focus on Jayne Cortez "Rape" (263-64) in comparison to Rich's poem with same title (Fact 105-06)
FLTC: Irigaray, "This Sex Which Is Not One" (437-44)
Rich, Fact of a Doorframe, to 189
Assignment: Last day to submit reading notes (see above).
No class due to snow

F 2-15

NMM: to 325
FLTC: Kristeva, "Women's Time" (460-73)
Rich, Fact of a Doorframe (complete to 189, and catch up)
Class log

week six

M 2-18

NMM: to 350
FLTC: Wittig, "One Is Not Born a Woman" (544-51)
Lorde: to 55
Focus: Rich, "Twenty-One Love Poems" (143-54)
Class log.
Reading Note Assignment: Prepare a second set of reading notes on one of the following four essays: Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva, Wittig.

W 2-20

NMM: to 375
Lorde: to 98
Focus: French feminism and écriture féminine (FTLC: Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva, and Wittig)
Class log.

F 2-22

NMM: to 400
Lorde: to 157
Focus: Audre Lorde
Class log.

week seven

M 2-25

NMM: to 425
FLTC: Gilbert & Gubar, from "The Madwoman in the Attic" (448-60)
Lorde: to 229
Class log.

W 2-27

NMM: to 450
FLTC: Kolodny, "Dancing Through the Minefield..." (473-92)
Lorde: to 257
Class log.

F 2-29

NMM: to end
FLTC:
Lorde: to 333

—SPRING BREAK—

week eight

M 3-17

Regrouping day: return to "Friends" by Ted Greenwald.
Assigment: Write an adaptation of Greeenwald's poem that captures the "noughties" ('00s) as Greenwald's poem captures the 70s.
Class log.

W 3-19

Howe: "Frame Structures" (3-29)
MLA Bibliography Assignment: Using the MLA bibliography (see today's log), identify ten items (articles, essays, book chapters, dissertations, books) pertaining to the work of Adrienne Rich or Audre Lorde (five) and Susan Howe (five).
Class log.

F 3-21

Howe: "Hinge Picture" (31-56)

weeek nine

M 3-24

Howe: "Chanting at the Crystal Sea" (57-72)
Class log.

W 3-26

Howe: "Cabbage Gardend" (73-86)
Class log.

F 3-28

Howe: "Secret History of the Dividing Line" (87-122)
Class log.

week ten

M 3-31

Howe: Conclusion

W 4-02

Mayer: Midwinter Day, part 1
Class log

F 4-04

Mayer: Midwinter Day, part 1 (cont'd)
Class log

week eleven

M 4-07

Mayer: Midwinter Day, parts 2 & 3
Research Assignment Next Step: Format your ten MLA citations—five on Rich or Lorde, five on Howe—in MLA "Works Cited" Format and submit as attached file (RTF preferred). An on-line primer is available from Purdue University here.
Class log

W 4-09

Mayer: Midwinter Day, parts 4 & 5
Research Assignment Next Step: Write a brief summary of the first of your two articles (or book chapters), on the model of our reading notes earlier in the semester (suggested word count is 500 words). Append a brief narrative about how you acquired the text.

F 4-11

Mayer: Midwinter Day, part 6
Research Assignment Next Step: Write a brief summary of the second of your two articles (or book chapters), on the model of our reading notes earlier in the semester (suggested word count is 500 words). Append a brief narrative about how you acquired the text.

week twelve

M 4-14

Brossard, "A Book" (Blue Book 17-115)
Class log

W 4-16

Brossard, "A Book" (Blue Book 17-115)

F 4-18

No class - catch up day

week thirteen

M 4-21

Brossard, "Turn of a Pang" (The Blue Books 120-225)
Research Assignment Next Step: Select one of the two articles you have already annotated and reduce it to outline form, paying attention not just to the content of the argument, but to the writer's decisions about form (scale, shape, sequence, sectioning).

W 4-23

Brossard, "Turn of a Pang" (The Blue Books 120-225)

F 4-25

Brossard, "French Kiss" (The Blue Books 227-341)

week fourteen

M 4-28

Brossard, "French Kiss" (The Blue Books 227-341)
Assignment due: Abstract and rough outline of final paper. The abstract should present in three hundred words or less the gist of the project; the outline should indicate the basic shape of the paper and should fit on a single side of a standard sheet of paper.

W 4-30

No class - Maine Day

F 5-02

Brossard, "French Kiss" (The Blue Books 227-341)

finals week

W 5-7

Final papers suggested due date. Papers should be 10-12 pages in length, double-spaced with one inch margins and a clean, legible font of 10-12 points.

F 5-9

Final papers - absolute due date (no extensions)