Universität Wien
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240129 SE Feminist Literary Theory and Queer Reading (2025S)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 24 - Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung
Moodle

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Details

Sprache: Deutsch

Lehrende

    Termine

    Montag, 13.15-14.45 Uhr / ab 03.03.2025
    SR 2, Institut für Afrikawissenschaften, Hof 5

    Information

    Ziele, Inhalte und Methode der Lehrveranstaltung

    Content (Inhalt):
    The women’s movement has always been crucially concerned with books and literature. Since the late 1960s, feminism has revolutionized literary and cultural studies to the extent that since the 1990s we speak of a “gender turn” in the humanities and social sciences. Feminist literary theory should therefore be seen not only as concerned with literature and confined to the comparative literature classroom, but as a cultural theory with an impact on thinking about sexual difference, gender power and gendered structures in society. By focusing on gender as an analytical category, feminist literary criticism has radically changed thinking about literature and questions such as, What is meaning? What is an author? What is the subject who writes, reads or acts? How does a text change depending on who is reading? How do texts relate to the circumstances in which they are produced?
    This introductory course will give an overview of the history and practice of feminist and queer literary studies, focusing on key canonical texts from the British, American and French tradition. It will introduce feminist literary theory, history and criticism, as well as queer reading and show a variety of approaches as they developed over time. Issues to be discussed include the definitions of feminist and queer reading and writing, representations of women and LGBTQ people in literature, authorship, history and genealogy, the canon, criticism, genres, language, feminist/queer aesthetics, as well as feminism and queer theory in relation to poststructuralism and psychoanalysis.

    Aims (Ziele):
    • identify, analyse and understand the key aspects, contexts and the practice of feminist literary studies and queer theory
    • apply close reading skills and critical thinking to a variety of literary texts
    • reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts
    • discriminate between ideas and justify personal positions
    • produce well-structured, relevant arguments with an appropriate intellectual framework

    Method: lecture, discussion, student presentation, written homework

    Art der Leistungskontrolle und erlaubte Hilfsmittel

    -participation and homework- 5 short response essays on weekly topics, app. 600-1000 words each (20%)
    -participation in class discussion (10%)
    -oral presentation and leading discussion (20%)
    -seminar paper, 3000 words (50%) awarded at least 50 points

    Permitted aids: ANY

    Mindestanforderungen und Beurteilungsmaßstab

    minimum requirements:
    -regular attendance
    -participation in class
    -submitting homework essays on time
    -5 short response essays (20%)
    -participation in class discussion (10%)
    -oral presentation and leading discussion (20%)
    -seminar paper (50%). Topics will be given to choose from.

    Key evaluation criteria of written work:
    1) The soundness and originality of the argument (Is it well argued and convincing? Is it supported with evidence? Is it your own interpretation?)
    2) The ability to read a text closely and interpret both form and content
    3) The ability to apply theoretical notions to texts
    4) Grammar, style and composition (Are there transitions between paragraphs?)
    5) Presentation (choose one referencing style and use it consistently)

    Minimum requirements and assessment criteria for the final essay:

    1) Contents (in particular detection of the central points; clear formulation, structure and organization of the argument, supported with evidence from primary and secondary sources; the ability to read text closely and interpret both form, content and context; the ability to reflect critically on the relations between primary and relevant secondary texts, instead of just citing secondary texts as a source of authority and interpretation; correctness of methodology; originality; creativity 60%

    2) Format (esp. layout, formatting, and citation practice): 20%

    3) Language (particularly scholarly terminology and correct use of technical terms; clear and understandable language; correct spelling, grammar, and sentence composition; style): 20%

    In all three areas at least 50% of the points must be achieved in order to obtain credit. The mark breakdown is as follows:

    (1) 90-100 %
    (2) 80-89 %
    (3) 65-79 %
    (4) 50-64 %
    (5) 49 -0 %

    Prüfungsstoff

    -defining feminist/queer reading and writing
    -the representations of women/queers in literature
    -women/queers and authorship
    -history and genealogy of women’s/queer writing and the canon
    -feminist criticism of male writing
    -feminist criticism of women's writing
    -queer reading
    -genre and feminism
    -feminism/queer theory and language
    -feminism/queer theory and psychoanalysis

    Literatur

    Primary sources:
    Djuna Barnes, The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)
    Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)
    Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892)
    Grimms’ Fairy Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 1812)
    Eliza Haywood, A Wife to Be Lett (1724)
    Christina Rosetti, Goblin Market (1862)
    William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
    William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (1601)
    Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
    Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929) and Mrs Dalloway (1925)

    Secondary sources:
    Peter Barry, Beginning Theory (1995)
    Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (Le Deuxieme Sexe, 1949)
    Joseph Bristow, Introduction, Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Related Writings (1992)
    Andrew Bennett & Nicholas Royle, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory (2009)
    Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination (1979)
    Mary Ellmann, Thinking about Women (1968)
    Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (1985)
    Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Tales of the avunculate: Queer tutelage in The Importance of Being Earnest,” in Tendencies (1993)
    Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (1969)
    Elaine Showalter, “Towards a Feminist Poetics”, in Women Writing and Writing about Women, edited by Mary Jacobus (1979)
    Dale Spender, Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers before Jane Austen (1986)

    Zuordnung im Vorlesungsverzeichnis

    Letzte Änderung: Do 16.01.2025 00:02