Spring, 2000	Sandra A. Zagarell
English 355 MW, 12:00-1:15	Rice 126 x8585 [messages: x8570]
King 241	Office hours: M, 1:30-2:30, W: 1:30-2:30 & by appointment
	E-mail: sandra.zagarell@oberlin.edu

AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS, 1820-1930,
AND FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM

The discourses of gender are so much a part of our culture that we often take them for granted as a given---frequently as "natural." But they are actually historically particular. They coalesced in the U.S. beginning in the early nineteenth century, in conjunction with such phenomena as the movement of production outside the home and the identification of the home as a distinct domestic sphere; the emergence of the white, middle class family; the solidifications of ideological distinctions among the races; the spread of literacy; the explosion of print culture and the importance of the written word in the "cultural work" of modeling American life and values. "Gender" and "domesticity," that is, emerged as major explanatory discourses during the nineteenth century. Virtually everything, from people to acts and activities to the "private" and "public' spheres was seen as gendered and accounted for in gendered terms. The written word--and, increasingly over the course of the century, the printed image--played major roles in accomplishing the pervasiveness of these discourses. Far from being seen as givens, however, "gender" and "domesticity" were the focus of a great deal of disagreement and conflict, much as "the family" is today. A good deal of the writing we'll read was engaged in trying to define them, even though from the distance of a century and more this writing may seem simply to be describing things as they are.

This course will zero in on several of the major strains of writing in which nineteenth-century American women writers engaged, including sentimentalism, s/excess, regionalism and activism. (These strains overlap, as we'll see.) We'll try to get a sense of this fiction's appeal to its first readers--the codes of which it made use (e.g. the sentimental keepsake; depictions of family meals), the implications of writers' participation in specific genres (e.g. the female Bildungsroman, or novel of development), the emotions and values to which the fiction played (this includes the vexed issue of sentimentality and its effects), the efforts to which writers went to mobilize their readers to specific ends, such as abhorring slavery (Uncle Tom's Cabin). As we explore the matter of appeal, we'll also consider how twentieth-century feminist critics have assessed this writing--the attitudes and expectations with which they have approached it, their apparent objectives in undertaking their work, the relationships they have posited or implied between this work and questions and issues with which we grapple today. The reading will sometimes be heavy and the fiction may seem remote or old-fashioned, but I suspect that you'll find yourselves getting accustomed to it. It's quite possible that nineteenth-century America will, by the end of the semester, seem at once nearer and more alien than it does at the beginning: it's also possible that your sense of what "literature" is, or has been, gets shaken up somewhat. I hope you'll take your pulse occasionally to get a sense of what your take on these and other questions.

I'm sure you'll formulate other key questions over the course of the semester, and we'll also want to integrate these into the course.

We'll meet MW, with an occasional Friday discussion group.

The semester schedule below uses several abbreviations. Here is the key to them. Unless otherwise indicated, the reading will take the form of the books you purchased for the course.
C = Coursepack. (To be purchased in the English Department office. Please have exact change or write a check: Ms. Elkevizth, the secretary, cannot make change.)
R Reserve; X= Xerox.
More information follows the schedule for the semester. All of the reading listed below is required unless otherwise indicated.

Feb. 7	First Class
Feb. 9	Joanne Dobson, Sandra Zagarell, "'Female' Authorship, 1790-1849."; Cathy Davidson: "No More Separate Spheres"; Hazel Carby, "Woman's Era." All X, R.

The Character, Appeal and Designs of Sentimentality.

Feb. 14	Lydia Sigourney, Lucy Howard's Journal (1858) C
Feb. 16	Ditto, plus Nina Baym, Introduction to Woman's Fiction, 2nd. Ed; Jane Tompkins, Introduction, Sensational Designs Both X, R
Feb. 21	Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
Feb. 23	Ditto
Feb. 28	Ditto, plus: Jane Tompkins, "Sentimental Power";Lauren Berlant, "Poor Eliza." X, R
March 1	Sentimentality yet again: June Howard, "What Is Sentimentality?"; Joanne Dobson, "Reclaiming Sentimental Literature"; Laura Wexler, "Tender Violence." X, R
March 3	We may want to have a discussion section here.
March 6	Harriet E. Wilson, Our Nig
March 8	Ditto, plus P. Gabrielle Foreman, "The Spoken and The Silenced"; Claudia Tate, "Maternal Discourse As Antebellum Social Protest." X, R. Rec: Frances Smith Foster, "Written By Herself." X, R.

S/excess

March 13	Elizabeth Stoddard, The Morgesons
March 15	Ditto, Plus Susan K. Harris, "Projecting the I/conoclast: First-Person Narrator in The Morgesons", and (rec.) Sandra Zagarell, Legacy Profile: Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard" X, R

The Look, Feel and Appeal of Antebellum Newspapers and Magazines

March 20	Ronald Zboray, "Antebellum Reading"; Patricia Okker, "Women Periodical Editors." X, R Meet in Special Collections to explore such antebellum favorites as Godey's Lady's Book, Sartains Union Magazine, and Harper's
March 22	We'll have to decide whether to meet in special collections again, or to continue discussing magazines in our regular classroom.
March 24	First Paper Due

Regions and Regionalism

April 3	Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "A New England Nun","The Amethyst Comb" C
April 5	Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
April 10	Continue discussion of CPF in light of the debates about Regionalism. Read Richard Brodhead, "Sarah Orne Jewett and Writing as Women's Work"; Judith Fetterley, "Not in the Least American"; Fetterley and Marjorie Pryse, "Introduction"; Elizabeth Ammons, "Material Culture and Empire"; June Howard, "Sarah Orne Jewett and the Traffic in Words" X, R
April 12	Ditto
April 17	Alice Dunbar-Nelson, from The Goodness of St. Rocque C
April 19	Ditto
April 24	Sui Sin Far/Edith Eaton, from Mrs. Spring Fragrance C
April 26	Ditto

Activism

May 1	Frances E. W. Harper, Iola Leroy. P. Gabrielle Foreman, "'Reading Aright': White Slavery, Black Referents, and the Strategy of Histotextuality in Iola Leroy"; John Ernest, "From Mysteries to Histories; Cultural Pedagogy in . . . Iola Leroy." X, R.
May 3	Ditto.
May 8	Agnes Smedley, Daughter of Earth
May 10	Ditto. Wrap-up.
May 13	Noon: Final Papers Due.

Some particulars:

Attendance is mandatory. As a rule, I'll take attendance; more than 3 unexcused absences will affect your course grade--negatively. Please note that attendance means full participation in class: being up-to-date on the reading, bringing the texts to be discussed to class,* being actively present, which is to say engaged in class and participating (thoughtfully) in discussion.

You'll be doing several kinds of writing for this course.

1] You'll be keeping reading journals. For the critical and theoretical material, this will involve identifying

1] the premise or point around which the essay is shaped;

2] the basic argument;

3] the implications of the argument. If you also want to say something about your responses, please do, but only after you've written a precis of the essay. For the "primary material" (i.e., the fiction), this will involve identifying what you see as key points of interest in the work--what it seems to be taking up, how it seems to make its appeal(s), or something that strikes you as interesting and significant.

2] You'll also be writing two 8-10 page papers, one due before Spring Break, the other at the end of Reading Period. The first paper may be on anything we read through The Morgesons and the magazines, and may address questions of a work's contemporaneous appeal, including matters concerning the context of its original publication, matters engaged by the commentary, or something else of interest and importance to you. The second paper may be on anything we read during the second half of the semester.

We'll cover specific guidelines for the papers before they're due. A general rule of thumb for English papers is that they be focused on a subject they can discuss thoroughly within the assigned page-length and that they develop your own insights about the work or works discussed. This translates as: depth and originality. You may use secondary sources, and you may well want to address the critical/theoretical material, but you should not be writing a research paper.

Each of you also present at least one of the readings to the class, working in groups of two. For the secondary material, this will involve identifying the main argument and the implications and framing class discussion. For the fiction, it will involve xeroxing in one or more important aspects of the work.

Your grade for the course will be based on all aspects of the work required for the course. Written work--journals, and papers--will count for approximately 70% of your grade; class participation and leading a discussion about 30%. You must complete all written work, do a presentation, and take part in class discussion to pass the course. LATE WORK WILL BE PENALIZED. NO WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED AFTER THE END OF READING PERIOD UNLESS YOU HAVE ARRANGED FOR AN INCOMPLETE THROUGH THE OFFICE OF ACADEMIC AFFAIRS.

Do come to see me if you have any questions or if you want to talk about the course. Don't let a question develop into a problem! My office hours are listed at the top of the syllabus. I'll be happy to set up an appointment at another time if you cannot make my scheduled office hours.