42723 - English-Speaking Countries Literature E - First Module

Course contents

Sexual/Textual Politics and Re-Writings of the Body in Critical Theories and Literary Texts.  

The course will analyse critical theories and methodologies of gender and postcolonial studies; main issues in Feminist and Queer theories. It will explore the notion of identity/difference, and diversity; gender as a social construction; women's and postcolonial re-visions of the symbolic and social order; the construction of sexual difference, re-writings of the body; re-visions of myth and mythology, politics of location and situated knowledge in a postcolonial perspective. The lectures will engage in the critical debates on the representation and deconstruction of the notion of the body, gender and ‘race'. The analysis of the poems and the short stories chosen will highlight the body/textual body as a palimpsest of individual and collective memories, social constructions, individual story and history, myths and re-vision of them.

 

Readings/Bibliography

Reading List:

Gatti come angeli. L'eros nella poesia femminile di lingua inglese, a cura di Loredana Magazzeni e Andrea Sirotti. MILANO: Medusa. (Selected poems)

Smart, Elizabeth, The Collected Poems , Introduction by David Gascoyne (London: Harper Collins, Paladin Books, 1992, f. p. 1982). (Selected Poems)

De Kok, Ingrid, Selected Poems from Familiar Ground , Transfer, Terrestrial Things, Seasonal Fires: Selected and New Poems

Warner, Marina, Cancellanda, in Raritan, vol. 23, n. 2, fall 2003, pp. 24-42 (short story) Cancellanda, a cura di Marcella Romeo Lovison, postfazione Daniela Corona; Palermo: Quattrosoli, 2004.

Bibliography of the Critical works: (students will be requested to choose texts/essays/articles from the following list. The selection has to be discussed with the lecturer)

Albertazzi, Silvia, Nel bosco degli spiriti. Senso del corpo e fantasmaticità nelle nuove letterature di lingua inglese. Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 1998. (selected chapters).

Baccolini, Raffaella, 2005, Le prospettive di genere. Discipline, soglie e confini. Bologna: BUP (selected chapters)

Braidotti, Rosi “Difference, Diversity, and Nomadic Subjectivity” documento Internet, http://women.ped.kun.nl , 2000.

Butler , Judith, 1993, Bodies that Matter. On the Discoursive Limits of “Sex”. New York and London: Routledge, 1996, Corpi che Contano. I limiti discorsivi del “sesso” Trad. S. Capelli. Milano: Feltrinelli. (selected chapters)

Chialant, Maria Teresa e Eleonora Rao, 2000, Letteratura e femminismi. teorie della critica in area inglese e americana. Napoli: Liguori (selected essays)

Corona, Daniela, 2004, “L'elogio del sale della moglie di Lot. Guerra e memoria in fuga in Cancellanda di Marina Warner”, in V. Fortunati, G. Golinelli, R. Monticelli, a cura, 2004, Studi di genere e memoria culturale. Women and Cultural Memory, Bologna, clueb, pp. 211-30.

Corona, Daniela, 2004, "Critica letteraria femminista" in M. Cometa, a cura di, Dizionario degli studi culturali. Roma: Meltemi, pp. 122-145

Gates, Henry. Louis., ed., 1986, “Race”, Writing, and Difference, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London. (selected essays)

Hirsch, Marianne, Smith, Valerie, a cura, 2002, <<Signs>>, n. 28, 1 (Spec. Issue Gender and Cultural Memory). (selected essays)

Irigaray, Luce, “Donne Divine” in Sessi e Genealogie, 1989. Trad. L. Muraro. Milano: La Tartaruga. Sexeset parentés Paris: Minuit, 1987, "Divine Women", Occasional Paper, Sydney, 1986, trans. S. Muecke.

Lorde, Audre, 1984, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”, in Sister Outsider. Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 53-59. “Usi dell'erotismo: l'erotismo come potere” in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie, pp. 247-254.

Monticelli Rita, 2006, “‘Nei "giardini delle nostre madri': memorie e riscritture del corpo”. Postfazione. In Gatti come angeli. L'eros nella poesia femminile di lingua inglese, a cura di Loredana Magazzeni e Andrea Sirotti. Milano: Medusa, pp. 209 - 232.

Monticelli, Rita, 2003, “Fragile Bodies and Angry Poems: Elizabeth Smart and the Aged Muse” in The Controversial Women's Body. Images and Representations in Literature and Art . A cura di Vita Fortunati. Bologna : Bononia UP, pp. 191-209.

Monticelli, Rita, 1997, sezione "Soggetti corporei", in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie, Bologna: Clueb, pp. 205-255 (selected essays)

Rich, Adrienne, 1979, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-vision” in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence. New York: Norton.

Rich, Adrienne, 1986, “Notes towards a Politics of Location” in Blood, Bread and Poetry. London: Virago

Rivisiting Feminism: Cultural trajectories ed. Kalpana Das and Fréderique Apffel Marglin. iim, InterCulture, Intercultural Institute of Montreal, n. 150. INTERCULTURE. vol. 150. anno 2, n. 6. Edizione italiana della rivista canadese dell'Intercultural Institute of Montreal. (selected essays)

Spivak, Gayatri C., 1985, “Imperialism and Sexual Difference”, in Oxford Literary Review 8, pp. 224-240.

Spivak, Gayatri C., 1981, “French Feminism in an International Frame”, in Yale French Studies, No. 62, Feminist Readings: French Texts/American Contexts.

Spivak, Gayatri C., 1989, “Three Women's Texts and a Critique of Imperialism” in Catherine Belsey e Jane Moore (eds) The Feminist Reader. Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism. London: Macmillan. “Una critica all'imperialismo: tre testi femminili” in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie, pp. 105-133.

Spivak, Gayatri C., 2003, Death of a Discipline, New York: Columbia Up, 2003; Morte di una disciplina, Roma: Meltemi. (selected chapters)

Trinh, Min-Ha T., 1989, “Horizontal Vertigo: The Politics of Identity and Difference” Talk given for the International Conference Teorie del Femminismo Made in USA, Bologna. “Vertigine orizzontale: la political dell'identità e della differenza” in Critiche femministe e teorie letterarie pp. 184-202.

The final syllabus and final reading list of secondary sources will be available at the beginning of the course.

Please do check this web page for further notice and information

Students from Gemma are requested to contact the teacher before the beginning of class for further and specific information about reading lists and requirements

Teaching methods

The teacher will be assisted by Dr. Amanda Nadalini; for Gemma students by Dr. Gilberta Golinelli.

Assessment methods

The requirements for the course include:

Active class participation 25%

(Possible) Leading class discussion 25%

one final oral exam: 50%

Office hours

See the website of Rita Monticelli