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Title
LL307
June 2007 s
Code
Level
Credit Rating
Pre-requisites
Type of Module
Aims
Learning Outcomes
Module Description
Women’s Writing and Feminist Theory
LL307
3
20
None
Taught
The aims for this module are set into the context of the QAA
National Qualifications Framework and they relate to the SEEC descriptors for level 3 study. These are:
 to enable students to debate and analyse the intersection between politics and writing, in a specific subject area;
 to engage critically with literary texts which explicitly address and debate questions of gender and women’s writing;
 to debate and analyse critically the relationships between gender and sexuality within fictional representations;
 to consider the dialogic relationship between theoretical and creative texts;
 to gain familiarity with debates both within literary feminist theory and wider feminist theory;
 to enable students to apply theory to the analysis of a wide range of literary texts.
In relation to the National Qualifications Framework and the SEEC descriptors for level 3 study, by the end of the module students should be able to:
1. demonstrate their critical understanding of and familiarity with theoretical debates within feminism and feminist literary theory;
2. apply a theoretical understanding of gender and sexuality to an analysis of literary texts;
3. debate the varying appropriateness of feminist literary (and other) theories to a range of literary texts;
4. articulate, both orally and in writing, lucid arguments relating to questions of women’s writing and literature;
5. undertake independent research and to apply knowledge and approaches gained on the module to a chosen topic or author.

LL307
June 2007
Content
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Learning and Teaching
Strategies
Learning Support
This module will study a range of texts written in English in the twentieth century which respond to, participate in or challenge dominant ideologies of gender and sexual identities. It will focus predominantly, but not exclusively, on writing by women. Through close textual reading of both theoretical and literary texts, students will actively engage with questions such as the relationship between political movements and textuality; the construction and performance of gender; feminine and feminist epistemologies; feminine/feminist literary forms; woman as
“other”; race and gender; sexualities and textualities; genre and gender; and technology. Study will include authors such as
Woolf, Radclyffe Hall, Lessing, Mamet, Atwood, Carter, Piercy,
Winterson, Rich, Roberts, Smith.
To include:

Reading books and short essays from theory readers to develop knowledge and critical understanding of key texts and debates

Researching topics of particular interest for final assignment

Tutor-led discussions on readings on feminist theory

Seminar discussions on specific literary and theoretical texts

Tutorials
Books:
Callahan, A. (2001) Writing the Voice of Pleasure:
Heterosexuality without Women Basingstoke: Palgrave
Duncker, P. (1992) Sisters and Strangers: An Introduction to
Contemporary Feminist Fiction Oxford: Blackwell
Eagleton, M. (ed) (1996) Feminist Literary Theory (2 nd ed)
Oxford: Blackwell
Gilbert, S. and Gubar, S. (1988-1990)
No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century New Haven,
CT and London: Yale University Press
Humm, M. (1994) A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Feminist
Literary Criticism Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf
Kemp, J. and Squires, S. (1997) Feminisms Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Pykett, L. (1995) Engendering Fictions: The English Novel in the
Twentieth Century London and New York: Edward Arnold
Reames, K. L. (2007) Women and Race in Contemporary
American Writing Basingstoke: Palgrave
Vickery, A. (2000) Leaving Lines of Gender: A Feminist
Genealogy of Language Writing Hanover and London:
Wesleyan University Press
Watkins, S. (2001) Twentieth-Century Women Novelists:
Feminist Theory into Practice Basingstoke: Palgrave
Zilborg, C. (2004) Women’s Writing: Past and Present
Cambridge: CUP
Electronic sources:
Cambridge University: Orlando Available from: www.cambridge.org/orlandoonline (Accessed May 2007)

LL307
June 2007
Assessment Task
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Assessment criteria
Brief description of module content and/or aims for publicity
Area examination board to which module relates
Assessment will be in the context of the University of Brighton
Assessment Policy and the Faculty Code of Practice in
Assessment, and students will be required to complete the following tasks:
Task 1 ( Weighting 30%)
Students will deliver a short seminar paper on a topic or text studied on the module (accompanying notes, maximum 1000 words) [LO2, LO4]
Task 2 (Weighting 70%)
The final assessment will be a long essay, negotiated with their tutor, on a subject of the student’s choice relating to the aims and content of the module. Students will be encouraged to undertake and pursue research in areas neglected by the module, for example gender in earlier centuries, other authors, popular genres. (3000 words) [LO1, LO3, LO5]
Each task will be percentage graded.
Referral Tasks :
Task 1: Seminar presentation will be replaced by a short essay;
Task 2: Re-working of original task.
General criteria for assessment are framed by the SEEC descriptors for level 3. Against specific criteria, credit will be awarded for:

ability to demonstrate their critical understanding of and familiarity with theoretical debates within feminism and feminist literary theory (LO1);

ability to apply a theoretical understanding of gender and sexuality to an analysis of literary texts (LO2);

ability to debate the varying appropriateness of feminist literary (and other) theories to a range of literary texts (LO3);

ability to articulate, both orally and in writing, lucid arguments relating to questions of women’s writing and literature (LO4);

undertaking independent research and applying knowledge and approaches gained on the module to a chosen topic or author (LO5).
All learning outcomes must be achieved in order to pass the module at the threshold level.
This module explores and discusses the ways in which literary texts engage with dominant ideas about gender, and the extent to which feminist ideas have transformed form, content and the political purpose of literary writing. It draws on feminist literary and sociological theories to debate cultural forms in varying contexts.
BALAST Media and English AEB

LL307
June 2007
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Module team/authors/ co-ordinator
Semester offered
Kate Aughterson
Site where delivered
Date of first approval
Date of last revision
1 and 2
Falmer, UCH
February 2004
N/A (module code amended from KE307 in August 2008)
June 2007 Date of approval of final version
Version number
Replacement for previous module
Route for which module is acceptable and status in that route
2
N/A
Course(s) which module is acceptable and status in course
Departmental home
External examiner(s)
BA (Hons) English Literature and Sociology – compulsory
BA (Hons) Education and English Literature – compulsory
BA (Hons) English Literature and Media Studies –compulsory
BA (Hons) English Language and English Literature - optional
BA (Hons) English Literature and Sociology – compulsory
BA (Hons) Education and English Literature – compulsory
BA (Hons) English Literature and Media Studies -compulsory
School of Language, Literature and Communication
Dr Andrew Maunder