26044 - Feminist Methodology: Interdisciplinary Methods in Women's Studies - Feminist Methodology: Interdisciplinary Methods in Gender and Women's Studies

Learning outcomes

The student develops a high awareness of the variety of methods practised in the field of gender and women's studies from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Course contents

“Lock up your libraries if you like. There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind." (Virginia Woolf)

From Access to Knowledge to the Production of Knowledge: Women, Science, and Literary Authority.

 

Il corso si concentrerà sui metodi e sulle metodologie critiche femministe, introducendo gli studenti ai dibattiti teorici che hanno contribuito alla formazione della critica letteraria femminista e dei women’s and gender studies. Verranno analizzati alcuni testi e manifesti fondamentali della seconda ondata del femminismo e saranno esplorate le continuità, le trasformazioni e le tensioni tra la seconda e la terza ondata del/dei femminismo(i). Attraverso una prospettiva transdisciplinare e intersezionale, il corso esaminerà il modo in cui gli approcci femministi hanno messo in discussione forme tradizionali di produzione del sapere, interpretazione letteraria e autorità culturale.

Il corso approfondirà alcuni concetti chiave del pensiero femminista, tra cui re-vision, resisting reading, situated knowledge(s) e multipositionality/intersectionality, al fine di analizzare la formazione del canone letterario, le genealogie femministe e i processi di inclusione ed esclusione che hanno condizionato l’accesso delle donne all’educazione, alla conoscenza, alla scrittura e all’autorità intellettuale. Particolare attenzione sarà dedicata al modo in cui il genere si intreccia con razza, classe, sessualità, età e storie coloniali nel determinare le esperienze delle donne e le forme di produzione del sapere.

Il corso esplorerà inoltre la relazione tra genere e genre letterario, analizzando le aspettative culturali relative alle donne come scrittrici, lettrici, personaggi e intellettuali. Saranno esaminate le restrizioni storiche imposte all’autonomia letteraria e artistica delle donne, così come le strategie attraverso cui le scrittrici hanno negoziato e trasformato le strutture dominanti di rappresentazione e autorità.

Attraverso lo studio di testi primari di autrici che si collocano tra il XVII e il XX secolo — tra cui Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Virginia Woolf e Joan Anim-Addo — il corso analizzerà diverse forme di partecipazione delle donne alla letteratura, alla scienza, alla filosofia, alla critica sociale e al pensiero femminista. Particolare attenzione sarà rivolta al rapporto tra produzione del sapere e potere, indagando il modo in cui le scrittrici hanno contestato sistemi di esclusione e creato spazi intellettuali e letterari alternativi.

I testi selezionati saranno analizzati come luoghi di resistenza e di re-vision, mostrando come le scrittrici abbiano messo in discussione strutture canoniche del sapere e della rappresentazione. Attraverso il dialogo tra la scrittura femminile delle origini e le riletture femministe contemporanee, il corso esaminerà i processi attraverso cui le tradizioni letterarie vengono continuamente ricostruite, contestate e ampliate.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary Sources

Margaret Cavendish, The Convent of Pleasure, 1668

Aphra Behn, Oroonoko or the Royal Slave, 1688

Mary Shelley Frankenstein. Or the Modern Prometheus, 1818/1831

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland, 1916

Joan Anim-Addo, Imoinda or She who will lose her name, 2003

Crisafulli, L. M. and Golinelli, G. (eds Women’s Voices and
Genealogies in Literary Studies in English, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, 2019. (Introduction).

Ferguson, Margaret W., “Juggling the categories of race, class, and gender: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko”, pp. 209-224, in Hendricks Margo and Patricia Parker (eds.) Women, Race and Writing in the Early Modern Period, London, New York, Routledge, 1994.

Figlerowicz, Marta , “Frightful Spectacles of a Mangled King”: Aphra Behn's Oroonoko and the Narration Through Theatre”, New Literary History, 2008, vol. 39, pp.321-334.

Friedman, Susan Stanford, “Locational Feminism: Gender, Cultural Geographies, and Geopolitical Literacy”, available at: http://www.women.it/cyberarchive/files/stanford.htm

Gilbert S. and Gubar S., The Madwoman in the Attic. The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1979 (selected chapters).

T. Jankowsky, Pure Resistance: Queer(y)ing Virginity in William Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" and Margaret Cavendish's "The Convent of Pleasure", Shakespeare Studies, Vol. 26, 1998, pp. 218-255.

Haraway, Donna “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Autumn, 1988), pp. 575-599.

Kolodney, A .:

-“Some Notes on Defining a Feminist Literary Criticism”, Critical Inquiry n. 2, 1975, pp. 75-92.

-“Dancing Through the Minefield: Some Observations on the Theory, Practice, and Politics of a Feminist Literary Criticism”, in E. Showalter (ed.), The New Feminist Criticism. Essays on Women, Literature and Theory, Virago, London, 1989.

Rich, A .:

“When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision”, College English, Vol. 34, No. 1, Women, Writing and Teaching, Oct., 1972, pp. 18-30.

-----------“Notes towards a politics of location” (1984), in Blood, Bread and Poetry. Selected prose 1979-1985, London, New York, Norton Company, 1986, pp. 210-231.

 

Showalter, E., A Literature of their own: from Charlotte Bronte to Doris Lessing, Virago, London, 1978. “Introduction”.

"Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness", Critical Inquiry, Vol. 8, No. 2, Writing and Sexual Difference, (Winter, 1981), pp. 179- 205.

 

Smith, Barbara, “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism”, The Radical Teacher, No. 7 (March, 1978), pp. 20-27

 

Walker, Alice “In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: The Creativity of Black Women in the South” (1974).

Woolf, Virginia, A Room of one’s Own, 1929.

NB: Bibliography and other information will be provided during the course (and then published on the online reading list and program). Students are requested to check the online program during the course for further notice and information.

Students are requested to analyse 3 primary texts (to be chosen amongst the 5 texts in the Reading list of the primary sources), articles/essays/chapters from the Reading list of the Secondary sources + A Room of one’s Own, 1929 by V. Woolf.

Teaching methods

The course includes both lessons and seminars with the active participation of the students. Students who cannot attend lessons must contact the lecturer during her office hours, or via e-mail before the end of the course. Students are requested to check the online program also during the course for further notice and information.

Assessment methods

Students are requested to analyse 3 primary texts (to be chosen amongst the 5 texts in the Reading list of the primary sources), articles/essays/chapters from the Reading list of the Secondary sources + A Room of one’s Own, 1929 by V. Woolf.

Active participation + presentation: 40 %.

Final oral exams: 60%

The final oral exam will test the student's knowledge of the methodologies employed and her/his ability to combine theories with the analysis of the primary texts chosen. Students are requested to be able to articulate their thought in English and to have an accurate knowledge of the bibliography chosen for the exam. NB: Students are requested to know the primary texts chosen for the exam in great details.

Those students who are able to demonstrate a wide and systematic understanding of the issues covered during classes, are able to use gender theoretical and methodological tools critically and who master the field-specific language of the discipline will be given a mark of excellence. Those students who demonstrate a mnemonic knowledge of the subject with a more superficial analytical ability and ability to synthesize, a correct command of the language but not always appropriate, will be given a satisfactory mark. A superficial knowledge and understanding of the material, a scarce analytical and expressive ability that is not always appropriate will be rewarded with a ‘pass' mark. Students who demonstrate gaps in their knowledge of the subject matter, inappropriate language use, lack of familiarity with the literature in the program bibliography will not be given a pass mark.

Attendance and class participation will also be assessed as a component of the final overall mark.

 

 

Teaching tools

Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is suggested that they get in touch as soon as possible with the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) and with the lecturer in order to seek together the most effective strategies for following the lessons and/or preparing for the examination.

The Powerpoint files that will be used during the course will be available for students on the Insegnamenti Online website: https://iol.unibo.it/ .

Office hours

See the website of Gilberta Golinelli