TRENT OSHAWA
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
ENGL3701H
GENDER, SEXUALITY,AND LITERATURE
Winter 2013
Instructor:
Sara Humphreys
Email:
sarahumphreys@trentu.ca
Campus: Oshawa (room 116)
Office Location: 157
Telephone:
905-435-5102 ext.
5027
Office Hours:
Mondays and
Thursdays 2:10pm to
5pm
English Department Contact Information: 705-748-1011 x7733 or english@trentu.ca
Course Description:
Through this course, students will understand that literature is one of the main means
through which we come to define and value gender and sexuality. We will not only explore
the role of gender and sexuality in literature but also in the production of literature. For
example, we will study Sylvia Beach’s vital role in publishing modernist authors, such as
James Joyce. Her autobiography serves as an excellent example of the intersections between
and amongst gender, sexuality, literature, and print culture. We will also engage with issues
of the canon and canonicity, such as in the case of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”
(1862), which has been classified as children’s literature, an erotic fairytale, and as a moral
lesson for fallen women. These disparate classifications were primarily based on Rossetti’s
status as a middle class woman in the Victorian period. The study of the representation of
gender in the poem and the critical reception of the poem illuminates the ways in which
gender and sexuality have influenced the content and the canonization of literature. We will
also explore new directions in the study of sexuality and gender in literary forms through
queer theory and digital studies.
Course Format:
Type
Day
Time
Location
Interactive Lecture
Discussion Groups
Thursdays
Thursdays
2:10 – 3:30
3:45 – 5:00
Rm 116
Rm 116
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the course a successful student will have:
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gained critical and abstract thinking skills
Understand the relationship between gender construction, sexual politics, and literary
narratives
obtained interdisciplinary tools to study sexuality and gender in narrative contexts
used digital media to express complex ideas in a public forum
learned research skills, including the use of digital tools specific to online research
a greater ability to read analytically, think creatively, and express the aforementioned
skills with precision, coherence, and clarity
Course Evaluation:
Normally at least 25% of the grade in a half-year course offered in the regular academic
session must be determined and made available by the deadline, which is , for withdrawal
without academic penalty.
Type of Assignment
Short Essay
Presentation
Oral Proposal
Participation
Final Project
Take Home Exam
Weighting
20%
20%
5%
10%
25%
20%
Due Date
Feb 7
(see sign-up sheet)
Week of Feb 14
Bi-weekly
April 8
April 11
Short Essay (20%)
Students will use investigate and research a topic relevant to the study of gender, sexuality, and
literature.
Presentation (20%)
Students, preferably in groups, will present on a specific topic relevant to the course material.
Oral Proposal (5%)
Students will discuss their preliminary ideas for final projects in one on one meetings with the
instructor.
Participation (10%)
Students will log in to Blackboard and answer a bi-weekly question about the class discussion.
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Final Project (25%)
Students can choose to create a blog or write a traditional academic essay on a topic of their choice
that incorporates several theories covered on the course.
Take Home Exam (20%)
Students will be asked to display their knowledge of the course material through a variety of
questions answered within a specified time limit.
University Policies
Academic Integrity:
Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, is an extremely serious
academic offence and carries penalties varying from a 0 grade on an assignment to
expulsion from the University. Definitions, penalties, and procedures for dealing with
plagiarism and cheating are set out in Trent University’s Academic Integrity Policy. You
have a responsibility to educate yourself – unfamiliarity with the policy is not an excuse.
You are strongly encouraged to visit Trent’s Academic Integrity website to learn more:
www.trentu.ca/academicintegrity.
Access to Instruction:
It is Trent University's intent to create an inclusive learning environment. If a student has a
disability and/or health consideration and feels that he/she may need accommodations to
succeed in this course, the student should contact the Disability Services Office (BH Suite
132, 748 1281disabilityservices@trentu.ca). for Trent University in Oshawa Disability
Services office contact 905-435-5100. Complete text can be found under Access to
Instruction in the Academic Calendar.
Required Texts
Please note that you are responsible for using the correct editions. The books listed as “ebrary” or “ebooks”
can be found by typing the title of the text from which these essays are drawn into the Bata library catalogue.
Any works listed as “Blackboard” are to be found in the appropriate learning module on Blackboard (aka
learningSystem). This course follows Trent’s official copyright policy, the full text of which can be found here
http://guides.lib.trentu.ca/copyright. You are expected to be logged into the website where the work is located,
and/or print out the work for use in class. Please be sure to bring the appropriate texts to class.
Primary Sources
(be sure to put edition info)
Alison Bechdel Fun Home: A Family Tragi-Comic (Houghton-Mifflin)
___________. Are You My Mother? (Mariner)
Sylvia Beach Shakespeare and Company (Bison)
James Joyce “Penelope” (final chapter of Ulysses) (Blackboard)
Christina Rossetti “Goblin Market” (Blackboard)
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Sojourner Truth “Ain’t I a Woman?” (Blackboard)
William Shakespeare “Twelfth Night” (Blackboard)
Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders (Oxford)
Caryl Churchill Cloud Nine (Random House)
Sarah Zero (digital graphic novel at http://sarahzero.com/sz_intro.html) (On Blackboard)
M. Nourbese Philip “Discourse on the Logic of Language” (on Blackboard)
Lee Maracle selections from First Wives Club Salish Style (on Blackboard)
Secondary Sources
Note; all secondary sources are located on Blackboard in the appropriate unit.
Denise Riley “Does Sex Have a History?” “Bodies, Identities, Feminisms”
Eve Koskofsky Sedgwick “How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay”
Diana Fuss “Reading Like a Feminist”
Judith Halberstam “An Introduction to Female Masculinity”
Helene Cixous “The Laugh of the Medusa”
Michael Foucault History of Sexuality Part 4 Chapter 2 & Part 2 Chapter 2
Judith Butler Chapter 2 from Bodies that Matter “Gender is Burning”
Judy Wajcman “Virtual Gender”
Donna Harraway “The Cyborg Manifesto”
Recommended Texts
The Little, Brown Handbook Ramsey Fowler et al
The Secret to Effective Documentation (Trent University: Academic Skills Centre -http://www.trentu.ca/academicskills/documentation/, 13 July 2011). Note: Citations in this
course must be in the MLA format.
Resources for Essay Writing (Trent University: Academic Skills Centre -http://www.trentu.ca/academicskills/online_arts.php , 13 July 2011).
learningSystem/Blackboard
You must log into Blackboard regularly and check the course site. All assignments are to be
handed in online without exception. This digital classroom should be an excellent resource
for you as we journey through the course.
Week-by-Week Schedule
(subject to change with as much notice as possible)
Note: please pay careful attention to the topics we will cover each week. You are responsible for understanding
the topics and terms we discuss in class and these will appear on the final exam.
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Lecture 1 January 10
Readings: Syllabus; Sojourner Truth “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Topics: Course overview, expectations explained and so forth.
Unit One: Gender and Print Culture
Lecture 2 January 17
Readings: Sylvia Beach Shakespeare and Company; Diana Fuss “Reading Like a Feminist”
Topics: What Sylvia Beach can teach us about print culture and editing practice
Discussion: how does essentialism work in your life “as a woman” or “as a man?”;
explanation of short paper, sign-up sheet for presentations
Lecture 3 January 24
Readings: James Joyce “Penelope”; Sylvia Beach Shakespeare and Company; Helene
Cixous “Laugh of the Medusa”
Topics: Joyce and Beach: critical problems; classic texts and gender trouble
Discussion: l'Écriture feminine and Freudian legacies
Lecture 4 January 31
Readings: Christina Rossetti “Goblin Market”
Topics: Girls, goblins and markets
Discussion: Presentations begin; discussion of final assignment
Unit Two: Bodies, Histories, Performance, and Sexual Identities
Lecture 5 February 7
Readings: William Shakespeare Twelfth Night; Denise Riley “Does Sex Have a History?”
“Bodies, Identities, Feminisms”
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Topics: performing masculinity and femininity; modern and early modern interpretations of
Shakespeare’s “cross-dressing” play
Discussion: presentations – also, sign up to meet with me about your final project.
Assignment Due: Short Essay
Lecture 6 February 14
Readings: Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders
Topics: narrative ventriloquism, politics and motherhood; narrative and gender instability
Assignment Due: Oral proposal – you must have signed up the previous week and see me
during extended office hours during this week
Discussion: presentations
Feb 18 - 21 – Reading Week!
Lecture 7 February 28
Readings: Defoe Moll Flanders; Michael Foucault History of Sexuality Part 4 Chapter 2 &
Part 2 Chapter 2
Topics: commerce, economics, and gender or is Moll Flanders a new type of “conduct
guide” for 18th century women? Sex and sexuality as a discourse
Discussion: Presentations end
Lecture 8 March 7
Readings: Caryl Churchill Cloud Nine; Judith Butler Chapter 2 from Bodies that Matter
“Gender is Burning”
Topics: Literature as means of repression; sexual authenticity and national identity
Assignment Due: short essay
Discussion: Empire, gender, and sex: a twisted relationship
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Unit Three: “We Are All Cross-Dressing”: Making Queer the Norm
Lecture 9 March 14
Readings: Alison Bechdel Fun Home: A Family Tragi-Comic; Bechdel Are You My
Mother?; Eve Koskofsky Sedgwick “How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay”
Topics: The ubiquitous trope of “the family”; heteronormativity; Freudian legacies (e.g.
inversion); graphic autobiography
Discussion: Repression of child sexuality and its representation in Bechdel’s work
Lecture 10 March 21
Readings: Alison Bechdel Fun Home: A Family Tragi-Comic; Bechdel Are You My
Mother?
Topics: Visual rhetoric and the representation of sex and gender; decoding and encoding
gender and sex
Discussions: comparative close reading of scenes from both novels
Lecture March 28
Readings: M. Nourbese Philip “Discourse on the Logic of Language”; Lee Maracle
selections from First Wives Club Salish Style
Topics: The race-writer’s toolbox; using language to reveal historical and gendered realities
of colonization
Workshop: Is English a “tainted tongue” as Nourbese Philip’s suggests?
Lecture 12 April 4
Readings: Sarah Zero (digital graphic novel at http://sarahzero.com/sz_intro.html); Judy
Wajcman “Virtual Gender”; Donna Harraway “The Cyborg Manifesto”
Topics: Technofeminism and digital patriarchies; using digital tech to encode
heteronormativity and gender binaries
Discussion: the case of Anita Sarkeesian (the feminist critic who dared to critique video
games and was cyberbullied and violated); take home exam provided; course review
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IN ORDER TO ALLOW STUDENTS TO INCORPORATE THE FINAL READINGS IN
THEIR PROJECTS; THE FINAL PROJECT IS DUE ON APRIL 8TH
Course Policies:
Late Policy: Extensions are granted on a case-by-case basis, and no extensions will be negotiated after the due
date. Any papers without an approved extension will be penalized 5% per day including weekends. Late
assignments should be sent to sarahumphreys@trentu.ca. After seven days, I will not accept the assignment
without a formal meeting with the student and, if required, an academic advisor and/or counsellor.
Attendance: The course policy regarding attendance is clear and unambiguous: it is your responsibility to show
up for class fully prepared with the course readings.
E-mail: I return email within 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays.
Electronic Devices: I allow and encourage students to take notes using tablets, laptops, and even smartphones;
however, please be advised that during films and slideshows, you will be asked to close your devices out of
respect for your classmates. Abuse of electronic devices is not permitted; for example, if your classmates
complain that you are disturbing them, you will be asked to shut down your device in class. Remember that
people beside you and behind you can see what you are doing, who you are talking to, and what you are
posting.
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