Reading the Female Bildungsroman

Catalog description

Although as a genre the Bildungsroman has traditionally focused on the intellectual, social, and moral education of a male hero, women have variously employed this genre to tell alternate stories focused upon female intellectual, social, and sexual development. This course provides a critical examination of the American Female Bildungsroman. Students will consider American novels, films and television shows that depict a girl’s emergence into an often hostile national and social order to consider how gender affects selfhood, citizenship, and authorship.