Course title: Anglophone Modernist Women’s Writing
Instructor: Dr.Tihana Klepač
ECTS credits: 6
Language: English
Status: elective
Enrolment requirements: enrolment in 2nd or 4th semester
Course requirements: continuous assessment; regular attendance, work in class, 1 written assignment, mid-term and end-term exam.
Course description: Selected texts exemplify Anglophone literary modernism with stress on its colonial, national and the context of gender. In line with the new modernist studies we shall view modernisms as multiple, and occurring across various temporalities and geographies, whilst responding to the drive in postcolonial studies to reshape modernism with an awareness of the British Empire.
Objectives: The objective of the course is to awaken the students’ awareness to the mechanism which led to the formulation of modernism in different countries of the Anglophone world, and to raise their awareness of the necessity to discuss modernism in colonial, national and the context of gender.
Course requirements: The final grade is based on continuous assessment which includes regular attendance, preparation for and participation in class, writing small assignments, timely submission of the final paper, and obligatory sitting for mid-term and end-term exam. Students must meet all requirements of continuous assessment.
Week by week schedule:
Week 1
Space and topics of modernism – new approach
Douglas Mao and Rebecca L. Walkowitz: “The New Modernist Studies”
Week 2
Social context and development of literary forms in modernism in colonial, national and the context of gender.
Week 3
Modern Indian women’s writing: questioning of formal innovations of modernism and resistance toward Eurocentric modernity
Sarojini Naidu: The Golden Threshold, collection of poetry
Sarojini Naidu: “Nilambuya: The Fantasy of a Poet’s Mood,” “Education of Indian Women,” “Women in National Life,” essays
Week 4 and 5
Modern Canadian women’s writing: awareness of internationalism as a contrast to nationalist and regional characteristics of Canadian art as a main characteristic of Canadian modernism
Sara Jeanette Duncan: Cousin Cinderella
Week 6 and 7
Modern Caribbean women’s writing: writing at the crossroads of different literary forces – those of Caribbean literature, modernism, women’s writing, and postcolonialism
Jean Rhys: Woman in the Dark
Week 8
Mid-term exam + academic writing
Week 9 and 10
Modern South-African women’s writing: politicised modernism aesthetics
Olive Schreiner: From Man to Man
Week 11 and 12
Modern Australian women’s writing: representing colonial national through the criticism of colonial-provincial structures and a detailed recreation of national space
Christina Stead: The Man Who Loved Children
Week 12 and 13
Modern New Zealand women’s writing: questioning the representation of narration through a male viewpoint and in line with patriarchal values
Katherine Mansfield: Urewera Notebook, “How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped,” “The Woman at the Store,” “Je ne parle pas francois”
Week 14
End-term exam