26019 - English Women's Literature

Academic Year 2022/2023

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Modern, Post-Colonial and Comparative Literatures (cod. 0981)

Learning outcomes

The student possesses in-depth knowledge of English women's literature. He is able to use practical methodologies for the analysis and the interpretation of the literary text

Course contents

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

LECTURES WILL START THE 20TH OF FEBRUARY (NOT the 13th of February)

Black British Women’s Literature: Redefining Englishness and Blackness

Black Britain is a space of transcultural transformations: its literature and cultural productions are not only concerned with displaying experiences of insertion and adaptation within British society, but also with exploring and expanding the borders of a multi-layered identity that implies, even in its situatedness, transnational and transcultural routes. The course will explore the evolution and the transversality of the category of blackness focusing on the literature of some black British women writers spanning from the second half of the 20th century up to the present. On one side, complicating the use of the lens of “migration” to read this production, the course will deal with the question of being both black in Britain and black and British; on the other side, by taking an intersectional approach, blackness will be analysed not as singular and homogenous, but as crossed by heterogeneous, and at time opposing, movements – and especially in a constant dialogue with a series of other categories such as gender, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, education, equity, oppression and violence (both “external” and “internal”).

The program is in progress. Please do check this webpage for further notice.

Readings/Bibliography

Primary Sources

Andrea Levy, Small Island, 2004.

Buchi Emecheta, Adah's Story, 1983 [collecting her first two novels In the Ditch (1972) and Second Class Citizen (1974)].

Ravinder Randhawa, A Wicked Old Woman, 1987.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth, 2000.

Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other, 2019.

Film

My Beautiful Laundrette, dir. Stephen Frears, screenplay Hanif Kureishi, 1985.

Secondary Sources

Amos, Valerie, and Parmar, Pratibha, “Challenging Imperial Feminism”, Feminist Review, No. 17, 1984, pp. 3-19.

Brah, Avtar, “Diaspora, Border and Transnational Identities”, in Id., Cartographies of Diaspora. Contesting Identity, London and New York, Routledge, 1996, pp. 178-210.

Carby, Hazel, “White Woman Listen! Black Feminism and the Boundaries of Sisterhood”, in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain, London and University of Birmingham, Routledge and Centre Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1994, pp. 212-235.

Cattani, Francesco, “La letteratura black British”, in S. Albertazzi, La letteratura postcoloniale. Dall’impero alla World Literature, Roma, Carocci, pp. 169-175.

Chambers, Eddie, Black Artists in British Art: A History since the 1950s, I. B. Tauris & Company, London and New York, 2014 (extracts).

Hall, Stuart, “Minimal Selves”, in ICA Documents 6. Identity, 1987.

---, “New Ethnicities”, in ICA Documents 7. Black Film/Black Cinema, 1989.

---, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”, in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by J. Rutherford, 1990.

hooks, bell, “Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness”, Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, No. 36 (1989), pp. 15-23.

Mercer, Kobena, “Introduction: Black Britain and the Cultural politics of Diaspora”, Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies, New York and London, Routledge, 1994, pp. 1-31.

--, “Black Hair/Style Politics”, Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies, New York and London, Routledge, 1994, pp. 97-128.

Parmar, Pratibha, “Gender, race and class: Asian women in resistance”, in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain, London and University of Birmingham, Routledge and Centre Contemporary Cultural Studies, 1994, pp. 236-275.

Rushdie, Salman, “Imaginary Homelands”, “The New Empire Within Britain”, in Imaginary Homelands, London, Granta Books, Penguin, 1991.

Tate, Shirley Anne, Black Beauty: Aesthetics, Stylization, Politics, Oxon and New York, 2016 (extracts).

Weekes, Debbie, “Shades of Blackness: Young Black Female Constructions of Beauty”, in Heidi Safia Mirza (ed.), Black British Feminism: A Reader, London and New York, 1997, pp. 113-126.

Bibliography and further information will be provided also during the lessons (and then published in the online reading list and program). Students who cannot attend lessons must contact the lecturer 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.

Teaching methods

Lessons and discussions. Language: English

Assessment methods

Students are requested to analyse 3 novels from the primary sources + the movie and articles/essays/chapters (about 150 pages not from a single volume) from the Reading list of the Secondary sources.

Please do check this web page for further notice and information

Active participation in class discussions: 30%

By participation in class we mean the ability of the student to enter the debates, contributing with questions and/or elaborations of the topics proposed by the lecturer. This participation does not aim at testing students' specific preparation in the field, rather, they want to favor their ability to take part in discussions and their capability to discuss in group.

Final oral exams: 70%

The final oral exam will test the student's critical capability, their knowledge of the methodologies employed, their ability to combine theories with the analyses of the case studies chosen. The close reading of the texts aims at showing the student's critical ability, their knowledge not only of the texts but also of their context of creation together with the cultural politics that inform them. Students are requested to use an appropriate language, to be able to articulate their thought in English (high level) and to have an accurate knowledge of the bibliography chosen for the exam.

Grades:

Excellent: Students' high capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, originality of thought and excellent knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them within a gender perspective, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography chosen, accurate and appropriate language.

Very good level: Students' capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, originality of thought and very good knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them within a gender perspective, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography chosen, and appropriate, accurate language.

Good level: Students' capability to elaborate on the exiting debates on the topics chosen, knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them within a gender perspective, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography chosen, and appropriate language.

Pass: Students' capability to enter the exiting debates on the topics chosen, knowledge of the theories and of the texts chosen for the exam, their ability to read them within a gender perspective, using also the theories employed during the course and showing comprehension of the bibliography chosen, and appropriate language.

Fail: Student's lack of knowledge of the theories employed during the course, incapability to critical reading of the novels, inappropriate and inaccurate language.

Please do check this web page for further notice and information

Teaching tools

slides, videos

Office hours

See the website of Francesco Cattani

SDGs

Quality education Gender equality Reduced inequalities

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.