20th Century Women Writers and Artists

Catalog description

Women writers and artists in the twentieth-century Americas invite both a chronological and a thematic focus. Often visual culture shows food and water as elements of ingestion and forced incorporation. In literature, many narrators emphasize scenes of eating and refusing to eat. And both literature and art produced during the 20th century emphasize the relation of blood to concepts of race and nation. In addition to looking at food and sexuality in visual representations of and by women, we will read critical selections on the topic. The class will include visits to the Johnson Museum. Texts will feature Edwidge Danticat, Oonya Kempadoo, Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, Toni Morrison. Artists include Renee Cox, Shirin Neshat, Cindy Sherman, and Kara Walker.