This course will focus on the cultural construction of gender as it is manifested in various texts and traditions. Topics may include one or more aspects of gendered literary study: writing (male/female authorship), reading, literary form, masculine and feminine subjectivity, representation, or feminist literary and cultural criticism.
Fall 2012: Washburn (11)
Onnade, the Female Hand: Japanese Women authors and the Literary Canon (Identical to as Women's and Gender Studies 49.4)
Japanese literature is unique for the dominant position women writers occupy in its classical canon – a canon interrupted and co-opted by male-dominated cultures from the 13th century until late 19th century, when literary production by women reemerged as a significant modern cultural phenomenon. This course is a survey that draws on contemporary feminist criticism and gender theory to analyze the social, political, and economic forces that have shaped the history of female authorship in Japan. (LIT/NW)
