Year: Second
Part of the year: Half Year 2
Module Leader: Cathy Clay
Assessments:
Keywords:
women’s writing; modernism and modernity; feminism; gender & sexuality
Description:
This module explores a broad spectrum of women's writing during two decades of historic changes affecting the lives of British women. For the first time women were granted the vote on the same terms of men, and the opening of professions to women permanently shattered the Victorian ideal of womanhood as the 'Angel in the House'. Drawing on historical and contextual sources, including newspapers, magazines, and women writers' essays and journalism, we will explore the ways in which women writers represented their experiences of modernity in fiction, poetry and prose. The module is organised thematically under the following headings: The Woman Artist; Sex and Sexuality; Gender and Genre; Women and Politics. Within these units we will explore such issues as: education and professions for women; romance, marriage and motherhood; family, the home and domesticity; sexuality, lesbianism and the single woman; unemployment, fascism and war. Throughout we will also explore larger critical debates about canonicity, cultural hierarchy and literary value.
Prerequisites: N/A
Useful Information:
This module contributes to the ‘Gender and Sexuality’ pathway in English.
Set texts:
Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories
1930s Women Poets [to be provided on a handout]
Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes (1926)
Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (1938)
E.M. Delafield, The Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930)
Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night (1935)
Ellen Wilkinson, Clash (1929)
Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938)
Teaching methods/structure:
Interactive lectures; seminars; group research exercises and presentations; independent reading and thinking.
Should you require to look at the full module specification please contact the School Admin Team at AAHSchool.admin@ntu.ac.uk
Contact details for further queries (module leader):
Email: catherine.clay@ntu.ac.uk
Tel: 0115 848 3317
Office Hours in MAE304: https://elh3claycr.youcanbook.me/