Lithuanian Language
Women's literary tradition
Lithuanian Language, Department of Lithuanian Literature
Žydronė Kolevinskienė
(8 ~ 5) 233 0611, llk@leu.lt
English
Introduction into Literature Studies, the Process of
Lithuanian Literature
Suggested Academic Cycle First, Bachelor
or Year of Studies
1-2
Semester
2
ECTS Credits
2
Contact Hours per Week
Elective
Compulsory/ Elective
Seminar, lecture-discussion
Methods of Teaching
Examination
Form of Assessment
Title of the Study Program
Title of the Module
Faculty, Department
Instructor
Address
Language of Instruction
Required Prerequisites
Course Description
The module deals with the sphere of Western cultural studies which is well known as
feminism or to be precise “women’s studies” or “feminisms”, because these studies are united not
by a single ideology but by a vast range of ideas and theories. In the introductory lecture students
are introduced to theories explaining the process of development of the ideas of “femininity” and
“masculinity” in the society, women’s movements and development of feminist theories. After the
introductory lecture original texts of feminist classical works (they are presented to the students at
the beginning of the study term) are analyzed.
Social factors and women’s creative psychology in the 20th c. “A Room of my Own”
(1927) by Virginia Woolf. The first feminist theory. Philosophical joining of cultural, economical,
and psychological factors. Existential theory of women’s liberation. Simone de Beauvoir “The
Second Sex” (1949). Feminist criticism of literature. Feminist prospects in psychoanalytical theory.
Sex differentiation and deconstruction. The body, creative work and theory. Helene Cixous “The
Laugh of the Medusa” (1975). Julia Kristeva “Stabat Mater” (1976). Feminist prospects in
Lithuanian literary studies. Love, language, identity of a woman. “Women of Concerns, Women’s
Concerns” (,,Rūpesčių moterys, moterų rūpesčiai”) by S. Daugirdaitė (2000) and so on. Analysis of
selected texts. Discussion: Does sex inequality really exist?
Readings
1. J. L. Nicholson. Feminism/Postmodernism. New York and London: Routledge, 1990.
2. E. Showalter. A Literature of Their Own. British women novelists from Bronte to Lesing.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1977.
3. S. Smith. A Poetics of Women's Autobiography. USA: Indiana University Press, 1987.