This is a Pathway Approved Option for the World and Comparative Literature Pathway and one of the Distributional Requirements for the English Pathway for 2012/13. Can also be selected as an option under the remaining Pathways.

In 2012/13 this course will be convened by Dr Rashmi Varma and the syllabus is subject to change.

EN 270: 2011/12

Module Convenor: Dr Sorcha Gunne (s.gunne@warwick.ac.uk)

Office hour: Tuesday, 11am, H540

Seminars: Tuesdays, 16:30 - 18:00 (H522)

'The challenge is to see how differences allow us to explain the connections and border crossings better and more accurately, how specifying difference allows us to theorize universal concerns more fully'

– Chandra Mohanty on the future of feminism

This course builds on Caren Kaplan and Inderpal Grewal’s vision of feminist practice “as a means to focus on gendered forms of cultural hegemony at diverse levels of societies” (Between Woman and Nation, 1999: 358). Its aim is to consider how women writers have confronted issues of cultural hegemony in an ever expanding world. We will look at a range of literary texts written by international women writers, and – putting them in conversation with each other – explore debates and critical theories brought into prominence as a result of contemporary feminism. Our discussions will focus on a range of issues including: race, nation and state, globalization, patriarchy, violence, property and ownership, writing and the body, resistance and recuperation.

The first term will focus on key themes and debates in Transnational Feminism and will consist roughly of an introduction followed by two units: ‘Woman and Nation’, and ‘Migrating Selves’. In the second term the focus will be on ‘The text, the World, the Body. This unit will explore contemporary themes such as motherhood, HIV/AIDS and homelessness from a transnational perspective. Each unit will have key literary texts around which the different theoretical questions will circulate.

Second Assessed Essay Titles 2011-2012

First Assessed Essay Titles 2011-2012

Seminar Schedule

Term 1: Key concepts and debates

1) Introduction (Please collect a short reading from outside H540 before the first seminar)

2) Subalternity and Experience – Mahasweta Devi, ‘Draupadi’ (from Breast Stories, trans. Spivak 1997)

3) Woman and Nation – (extracts from) Kaplan, Caren, Norma Alarcón and Minoo Moallem (eds) (1999) Between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms, Transnational Feminism, and the State (to be distributed in seminar)

4) Woman and Nation – Assia Djebar, Fantasia (1993) SEMINAR TO BE HELD IN THE REHEARSAL ROOM, CAPITAL CENTRE

5) Woman and Nation – Selection of Poetry from Eavan Boland and Seamus Heaney (to be distributed in seminar)

6) Reading week no seminar

7) Migrating Selves – (extracts from) Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands (to be distributed in seminar)

8) Migrating Selves – Toni Morrison, A Mercy (2008)

9) Migrating Selves – Richard Flanagan, The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997)

10) Conclusion

Term 2: The Text, the world, the body

1) Introduction

2) Political Detention – Ruth First, 117 Days (1965)

3) Gendered violence – Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero (1990)

4) Motherhood – Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, MemoryBreath, Eyes, Memory (1994) SEMINAR IN THE TEACHING GRID

 Group1 Group2 Group2b

5) Eating Disorders – Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (1988) SEMINAR IN THE REHEARSAL ROOM, CAPITAL CENTRE

6) Reading Week – no seminar

7) HIV/AIDS – Life, Above All SEMINAR IN THE TEACHING GRID

8) Homelessness – Nami Mun, Miles from Nowhere (2008) SEMINAR IN THE TEACHING GRID

9) New World Order – Monica Ali, Brick Lane (2003) SEMINAR IN THE TEACHING GRID

10) Conclusion: Whose new world order? SEMINAR IN THE REHEARSAL ROOM, CAPITAL CENTRE