english 180 : women in captivity & exile

Dr. Lori Askeland § Hollenbeck 123 § Off.Hrs: MW 1:45-3; TTh 12-2 + appt § 327-7061 § laskeland@wittenberg.edu

In the 1970s, historian Nancy Cott noted that women in Western society have traditionally been defined, and often have also defined themselves, in terms of their relationships—as mothers, daughters, wives, sisters—rather than focusing on their own accomplishments (or failures) as discrete individuals. Women are all, she argued, held “captive,” in this culture that prizes “independence” above all, by the dependency required by these relationships. Meanwhile in that decade of my own earliest youth, a college-aged daughter of a multimillionaire, Patty Hearst, was kidnapped and held captive for many months by a “terrorist” organization as the nation watched in horror . . . and deep fascination. I wonder today, would the fascination have been the same if Hearst had been a 20-year old male? This course will examine women writers and characters from various racial, ethnic, economic, and social backgrounds, in various genres of literature who experience some form of captivity or exile. Besides examining the experiences of those forced into captivity, we will also look at women who have consciously chosen some sort of self-imposed captivity or exile from “normal” society, their families, etc. Why do some women consciously refuse to remain in connection with those institutions that define them? Do they find “freedom” outside the boundaries of society, or merely new forms of captivity? What is freedom? This course is centered, thus, on this question, among others (some of which I likely have not even considered yet): What happens--in terms of identity, self-esteem, self-awareness, individualization, etc.—when women of wide backgrounds experience some form of captivity or exile from the Anormal@ way of life that the social structure has defined for them?

Andrews, William L. Classic American Autobiographies (includes Rowlandson and Zitkala-Sa) NY: Penguin, 1992. (0451-628527)

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. 1986. New York: Anchor, 1998. (0-385-49081-x)

Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. 1861. New York: Dover Thrift, 2001. ( 0-486-41931-2)

Mairs, Nancy. Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Non-Disabled. Boston: Beacon. 1996. (0-8070-7087-4)

Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. 1929. Boston: Harcourt., 1981. (0-15-678733-4)

Dickinson, Emily. Open Me. Carefully. Eds. E. Hart and M. Smith. Ashfield, MA: Paris P, 1998. (0-9638183-6-8)

reading responses / quizzes / in-class work 10 % (expect a quiz or brief writing over every reading)

*Any absence for ANY reason has the potential to interfere with learning, especially if you fail to Practice Maturity: see attached “Attendance, Pariticpation, Maturity” handout for more information. I reserve the right to fail any student for too many absences—whether excused or unexcused. More than 4 absences=“too many.” FYI: That number—4—includes excuses for university-related events, athletics, music, theatre, etc.

1) All papers are due at the beginning of class on the due date, unless specified otherwise. But it is better to attend class, without a paper, than to skip class to finish a paper. Skipping class to finish a paper is a pet peeve of mine. I may cut you a break if you come to class, on time. I will not cut you a break if you skip class.

2) If you arrive late with the paper, or do not come to class at all on that date, hoping to turn it in after class, the paper is automatically considered one full day late—even if I find it in my mailbox after class. The day ends whenever I happen to leave or cease to check my mailbox for the day. Any excuse must be unforeseeable and fully documentable—including funerals. Illnesses must be very serious indeed to avoid penalty. Colds, for example, are just bad luck; plan ahead. Quizzes and in-class activities that are worth points cannot be made up, regardless of excuse.

3) Papers lose 10% the first day they are late and 5% each day thereafter.* (So, if you show up 20 minutes late for class and turn in a paper that should have received an 88%, it will receive a 78%. If I find it in my mailbox the next day, it can receive no higher than 73%.). * including each weekend date, and, no, you may not hand in papers on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays.

4) Please do not slide papers under my door. They may lie crumpled behind my door for weeks, and will no doubt receive a failing grade.

5) All papers must be written according to MLA style: typed in a normal font (10-12 pt Times New Roman or equivalent), with normal 1” margins on all sides. Your last name and the page number should appear on the top right hand corner of each page.

6) To receive a passing grade, all papers MUST quote from relevant texts, analyze the quotations, and use parenthetical citations and include a complete works cited list. Papers that do not have a works list will fail, even if the only works that are cited are texts from this class.

7) If I have collected and commented on drafts of the paper, keep the draft and turn it in with the final version of the paper.

FINAL ADVICE: In the long run it will be better for you to lose a few points with grace than to bother me with a continuous stream of excuses. If given the choice between accepting the penalty for lateness or absence, even if it strikes you as unfair, or whining for a break or an exception, please choose the former tactic. I bore of guilt trips, and remember them when I’m calculating end-of-term grades. Practice maturity.

tentative* syllabus

*I believe in trying to make each course that I teach, even if I have taught it before, “new” and also responsive to the needs of the particular class of students I’m teaching that term, AND even to events and opportunities that may arise as the semester progresses. Hence, although I have attempted to accurately gauge the time needed for each of the readings we will being doing, some of them I have not taught before, and we may need to spend more or less time on any particular one. Often, I seek student input on how to proceed. Other, unforeseen opportunities and events may also disrupt this schedule. I will generally communicate any changes both in class and via email (and/or posted on the online syllabus). Your attendance is vital to help make decisions about the directions we may choose to go as a class, and to keep track of changes in the syllabus.

week tentative* assignment

1 Jan 13-17 Introduction to the course and each other: “Patty Hearst, Little Red Riding Hood, and Mary Rowlandson”

For Wednesday: Read the syllabus, including link to “Plagiarism: What It Is & How to Recognize & Avoid It” http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html. Come prepared to discuss the issue of academic honesty.

Section I: “Little Red Riding Hood”: The Grimm's is the basic text here http://mld.ursinus.edu/Maerchen/redridinghood.html (Grimm's has, actually, the fairly happy ending most of us remember--good huntsman comes along and cuts LRR out of wolf's stomach, along with her grandmother--and in fact they later cleverly contrive to kill the "bad wolf")

The Perreault text has the "grimmer" ending--it's first on this page: http://www-dept.usm.edu/~engdept/lrrh/inventt.htm.

For Friday: Read Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative (in Andrews), pp. 26-69.

§ Link for Rowlandson by Donna Campbell, professor of American Literature at Gonzaga U: http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl310/rowland.htm

2 Jan 20-24 MLK Day: Race, Rowlandson, and Zitkala-Sa’s “Four Autobiographical Essays” (in Andrews). Luci Tapahonso, “In 1864” and Sherman Alexie “Captivity” (e-res).

§ Link for Zitkala-Sa by Melessa Renee Henderson, from “Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers of Color”: http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/GertrudeSimmonsBonnin.html

Study Questions:

1. List several similarities between Zitkala-Sa’s life experiences and Mary Rowlandson’s captivity. List several differences. In particular, what difference does our knowledge of European-Native American interactions during and in the time since these books were published make to our attitudes towards each woman’s story?

2. (a) What is your knowledge of American life around 1900 in terms of what you have "absorbed" over

the years, or gleaned from other courses, books? (b) What do you suppose were the difficulties of a Native American woman writer in writing for a white audience around 1900?

3. (a) How are literary art, autobiography, and protest merged in Zitkala-Sa's work?

(b) How did Zitkala-Sa pave the way for contemporary American Indian writers like Tapahonso and Alexie?

§ See also, study guide questions over Alexie’s “Captivity”: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/pmafim/alexie.htm

3 Jan 27-31 Continued discussion of Rowlandson, Sa, Tapahonso, Alexie:

For Weds: Read MLA Style Paper.

Critical Thinking--handout referred to in class discussion on Monday.

Peer Workshop over essay 1 (Draft Due): Friday Jan 31

4 Feb 3-7 Essay 1 Due (Friday Feb 7)

Section II: “Beauty and the Beast” http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/beauty.html

Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl:

Two links:

1. Trudy Mercer’s “Harriet Ann Jacobs, Writer and Activist, 1813-1897” http://www.drizzle.com/~tmercer/Jacobs/index.html

2. Norton Anthologies of American and AfricanAmerican Literature / Multi-media Assignment Bank: “Harriet Jacobs and the Sexual Violence of Slavery” http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/naaal/mab/HARRIETJ.htm

5 Feb 10-14 Jacobs, continued, and begin Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

§ Paul Brian, “Study Guide to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986).” http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/science_fiction/handmaid.html

§ Random House (publisher) “Reading Group Companion to The Handmaid’s Tale” http://www.randomhouse.com/resources/bookgroup/handmaidstale_bgc.html#topics

“Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.”—Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, 1997

6 Feb 17-21 Atwood, cont’d.

Optional: Hawthorne, “The Birth-Mark”—online http//www.bioethics.gov/bookshelf/birthmark.html.

Note: the Hawthorne story I’ve linked to is from “The President’s Council on Bioethics”; they discussed it at their January 2002 meeting. Why might President Bush want his advisers on bioethics to read this story?

7 Feb 24-28 Atwood, cont’d: Find articles (online, magazines, newspapers, etc.) on events happening anywhere in the world that seem connected to any of the events that happened in Gilead. Bring to class Friday (21st) and/or Monday (24th) or send to Dr. A via email, anytime.

FOR MONDAY: Bordo, from Unbearable Weight (e-res): Go to http://witt-eres.wittenberg.edu/courseindex.asp, choose "Lori Askeland" then choose the course.

Need some volunteers: Collect and bring to class a few copies of some popular women’s magazines and men’s magazine (Maxim, Esquire, etc.) Bring to class on WEDNESDAY.

For Fri: 2/28 Mairs, selections from Waist-High in the World:

FOR FRIDAY: Begin Section 1: "Home Truths," pp. 3-64 "Plunging in," "Ups and Downs," and "Body in Trouble"

8 March 3-7 Mairs, continued. Midterm exam, with take-home essay: Friday March 7!

FOR MONDAY: Section 1: "Taking Care" (64-84) and from Section 2: "The Wider World": "Opening Doors, Unlocking Hearts" and "Freeing Choices" (87-123)

Wed: Conclude Mairs and Body as Captivity discusion; review for exam, etc.

Fri: exam

9 Mar 17-21 Section III: Women Choosing Captivity & Exile: Woolf, Dickinson, and Lorde

A ROOM was first published in 1929, and has become a classic of women's literature. Like WAIST-HIGH, it is also a series of essays. Chapter 1 takes place, for the most part, in a fictionalized university that Woolf refers to as "Oxbridge" which is a British term for Cambridge and Oxford, England's two top schools, and in a fictionalized woman's college she calls Fernham. It might be helpful to know that at this point in history, women can vote but cannot attend most Universities in Britain (or America, for that matter), although there are a few women's colleges connected with the Universities that they can attend.

Although I'd love to tell you to just "go with Woolf's flow" and let her prose take you like a river current, I know that some of you may get frustrated by that advice and therefore miss her useful and beautiful ideas. So, therefore, you may also find it useful to print out the outline of Woolf's elliptical argument that is available, here:

This outline comes to you courtesy of Rose Norman, et al., “A Room of One’sOwn” / Virginia Woolf Seminar. http://www.uah.edu/woolf/room.html. Norman, an esteemed Woolf scholar and professor at the University of Alabama in

Huntsville, with the help of a student assistant the students in her graduate seminar on Virginia Woolf, has created this excellent webpage which is devoted exclusively to A Room of One’s Own. It includes the chapter-by-chapter outline of the work (mentioned above), and has a FAQ page for Woolf and her composition of the work, selected quotations, study questions, an annotated bibliography created in 1997.

Lavender is an historian, specializing in women’s history, who directs the American Studies program at the City University of New York and also teaches courses in women’s studies. On this page she provides an excellent series of “Questions to Think About” in relation to this text and links to other information for students in her History 182 course: Women’s History and Feminist Theory.

10 Mar 24-28 Dickinson, selected poems and letters (handout), and responses by other poets, at:

11 Mar 31-Apr 4 Dickinson, continued, and Lorde, selections from Sister Outsider (e-res), begin Zami?

13 Apr 14-18 Lorde, Zami, continued and selected poetry, handout.. Essay 2 Due: Workshop (Weds 16)

14 Apr 21-25 Reading, TBA: Individual Conferences, Prepare for Final Project. Drafts of Final Projects Due by Date of Oral Presentations. Essay 2, Final, Due.

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