Rooms of Their Own: Feminist Thought in Literature (Online) (10 credit points)

Pre-requisites for enrolment

Students will need to be able to confidently use videoconferencing software and be comfortable with using websites.

Special Information

In order to participate in this course, you will need access to a computer with a speaker and an internet connection.

Content of Course

1.  Introduction – A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft.

2. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.

3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

4.  New Woman stories by Olive Schreiner, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain [readings supplied].

5.  The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

6. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

7. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

8. I Love Dick by Chris Kraus.

9. Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters.

Teaching method(s)

This course will be delivered via live online sessions.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course students should be able to:

• Articulate a broad understanding of the history of women’s writing from the 19th century to the present;        

• Construct, present and evaluate arguments coherently;

• Articulate knowledge and understanding of the development of feminist literature and theory, and the changing nature of ideological discourse;

• Identify the social, historical, cultural and political contexts that have shaped women’s writing, and reflect critically on how feminist thought has been expressed through literature;

• Evaluate texts through close reading, identifying literary techniques and devices using recognized terminology.

Sources

Core Readings

Essential:

• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus [2003].
• Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale [1985].
• Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre [1847].
• Kraus, Chris. I Love Dick [2006].
• Torrey Peters. Detransition, Baby [2021].
• Walker, Alice. The Color Purple [1982].
• Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects [1792].
• Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own [1929].

Recommended:

• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. We Should All Be Feminists (London: Fourth Estate, 2014).
• Appignanesi, Lisa, Susie Orbach, and Rachel Holmes. Fifty Shades of Feminism (London: Virago, 2013).
• Bates, Laura. Everyday Sexism (London: Simon & Schuster, 2015).
• de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex (London: Vintage, 1997).
• Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique (London: Penguin, 2010).
• Gay, Roxanne. Bad Feminist (Corsair, 2014).
• Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: the woman writer and the 19th Century Literary Imagination (London: Yale University Press, 2000).
• hooks, bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000).
• Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007).
• Olufemi, Lola. Feminism, Interrupted (London: Pluto Press, 2020).
• Pepe, Victoria, Rachel Holmes, Amy Annette, Alice Stride, and Martha Mosse, eds. I Call Myself A Feminist: The View from Twenty-Five Women Under Thirty (London: Virago, 2015).
• Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea [1966] (London: Penguin, 2000).
• Serano, Julia. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (New York: Seal Press, 2007).
• Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (London: Virago, 2009).

Assessments

10 credit courses have one assessment. Normally, the assessment is a 2000 word essay, worth 100% of the total mark, submitted by week 12. To pass, students must achieve a minimum of 40%. There are a small number of exceptions to this model which are identified in the Studying for Credit Guide.

Studying for Credit

If you choose to study for credit you will need to allocate significant time outwith classes for coursework and assessment preparation. Credit points gained from this course can count towards the Certificate of Higher Education.

Queries

If you have questions regarding the course or enrolment, please contact COL Reception at Paterson's Land by email COL@ed.ac.uk or by phone 0131 650 4400.

Student support

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or health condition which may affect your studies, please let us know by ticking the 'specific support needs' box on your course application form. This will allow us to make appropriate adjustments in advance and in accordance with your rights under the Equality Act 2010. For more information please visit the Student Support section of our website.