Women Writers in North America, 1830-1930

Catalog description

Not quite a survey, this course investigates several terms that its title might obscure. Drawing on theoretical constructions of gender, genre, race, and history, the course considers the historical conditions for women writers as they produce works under conditions of necessity, pleasure, politics, and polemical insistence. We will read poetry, short stories, letters, and novels. Authors will include Harriet Prescott Spofford, Harriet Wilson, Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Beecher Stowe as well as Emily Dickinson, Alice and Phoebe Cary, Sui Sin Far, Sarah Winnemucca, Maria Ruiz de Burton, Edith Wharton, Nella Larsen, and Zora Neale Hurston.