Women's Voices

Catalog description

We will investigate the relation between the emergence of a self-professed woman novelist and the changing ideologies concerning the moral and intellectual nature of women and their role in society. We will not only study the way prominent women intellectuals helped shape the debate on women's condition and on women's writing, but also their original contribution to the interpretation of twentieth century history (e.g. Fascism, the Resistance, the Second World War and the Holocaust). Among the literary theoretical issues we will encounter: the relationship of genre to gender, of gender to writing, and the role of gender values in historiographical representation. We shall read autobiographical and historical novels, as well as essays and non-fictional prose. The course will be complemented by a film and a lecture series. Conducted in Italian.