Unit information: Twentieth-Century Women Writers in 2014/15

Unit name	Twentieth-Century Women Writers
Unit code	ENGL30105
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Dr. Jones
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of English
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This course explores the work of a range of female twentieth-century poets, novelists, essayists, theorists and others. Topics may include autobiographical writing, androgyny, sexuality, ‘madness’, motherhood, dystopian and utopian fiction, racial identity, spirituality, food. Literary texts are considered within different social, cultural and historical contexts (for example World War 1) and some theoretical essays are brought into relation with them. Authors may include both the familiar and mainstream (for example Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Elizabeth Bishop), and some less well-known (for example Radclyffe Hall, Stevie Smith, Rebecca West, Elizabeth Jennings). The structure of the unit is broadly chronological, and students will be given the opportunity to make a brief presentation on one of the topics or texts.

The Aims of this course are to enable students:

• to become familiar with a wide range of twentieth-century writing by women

• to explore a range of genres, for example, autobiography, utopian fiction

• to become familiar with critical responses, feminist and other, to such writing

• to think critically about the concept of 'women's writing'

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course students should:

• Be familiar with a wide range of literary texts by women writing in the twentieth century

• Be able to show understanding of a range of critical responses to these texts

• Be able to construct a reasoned argument supported by appropriate use of evidence and analysis.

Teaching Information

1 x 2 hour seminar per week in one teaching block, plus 1-to-1 discussion in Consultation Hours where desired.

Assessment Information

• 1 x 2,000 word summative essay (33.3%)
• 1 x 4,000 word summative essay (66.7%)

Reading and References

Texts studied may include the following:

Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman, The Handmaid’s Tale

Catherine Belsey, The Feminist Reader

Elizabeth Bishop, Complete Poems

Barbara Gelpi (ed), Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose

Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems, The Bell Jar

Deryn Rees-Jones, Modern Women Poets

Stevie Smith, Collected Poems

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, Mrs Dalloway

The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (Third Edition) is useful for reference and for wider reading. It contains some of the texts we study.