PROVISIONAL SYLLABUS—Subject to change UWS Gender Debate in Pamphlets and Periodicals Monday/Thursday 1:00-1:50 pm Spring 2014 Instructor: Emily Fine Email: efine@brandeis.edu In Joseph Swetnam’s hotly contested seventeenth-century pamphlet about women, he declares that “Women are all necessary evils.” His pamphlet sparked a flurry of polemical debates about the nature and role of women in society, issues which continue to be debated in news media today. This course will examine short writings ranging from the early modern pamphlets to periodicals to current print media that engage in public debates over issues of gender. Pamphlets and periodicals have held an important role in shaping public opinion and often provide a forum for debating contested issues, giving them a unique position in the long-running gender controversy. We will examine the ways in which women’s role in society has been debated, and whether or not the terms of that debate have changed as we move from early modern to contemporary material. Most importantly, in this course students will be introduced to the art of the college essay. A range of writing activities will teach students to read critically, craft complex arguments, evaluate and engage with scholarly sources, and articulate their ideas in graceful prose. We will engage in a series of targeted writing exercises, workshops, and conferences, and produce three major essays over the course of the semester in order to explore the themes, rhetoric, and issues involved the pamphlets and periodicals we will read. Syllabus subject to change upon notice. Required Texts: Folder to keep all drafts and exercises Half Humankind. Write Now Writing in Response, Matthew Parfitt. (ISBN: 9781457634369) Texts available on LATTE Many of the texts we’ll read this semester will be available on LATTE. You will find them under “Course Texts” on the course page. Please note: Many course materials will be available only electronically. Please feel free to print these out for yourself if you wish; in fact, I encourage you to do so. If you do not wish to print out copies of the assigned readings, however, I do expect you to bring something to class that will help you participate in discussion. So, if you do not bring a copy of each reading to class the day it is scheduled, you must bring detailed notes. I expect you to participate in a detailed discussion about the class material each meeting, and you simply cannot do this consistently with some record of your reading experience. You can access public printers on the main floor of Goldfarb. I strongly recommend purchasing a binder in which to keep your LATTE materials. COURSE STRUCTURE AND ASSIGNMENTS Over the course of the semester you will write three formal essays. There will be at least two required drafts of each essay, turned in with a cover letter. We spend 3-5 weeks on each unit: the first half of each unit is dedicated to reading and discussing new material; the second half of each unit will be focused on writing. Revision is an essential component of our class. Between the first and final draft you need to reshape, extend, complicate or substantially clarify your ideas, not just do surface editing. Writing exercises, workshops and conferences will help you with the composing and revising process. Essay 1: Close Reading In the first unit, we will be looking at a pamphlet debate that occurred beginning with Joseph Swetnam’s Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Forward, and Inconstant Women in 1615 and continued with three responses written by women in 1617 (Rachel Speght’s A Mouzell for Melastomus, Ester Sowernam’s Ester Hath Hanged Haman, and Constantia Munda’s The Worming of a Mad Dog). We will focus in particular on their argumentative strategies and how the pamphlet was used to debate a topic in a public setting. Essay: For this assignment, you will perform a close reading of one of the pamphlets involved in the Swetnam debate, informed by your own careful analysis of the text. In this unit we will focus on analyzing evidence and developing arguments. First draft due: Monday, February 3 Final draft due: Monday, February 10 Essay 2: Lens In this unit, we will examine periodicals and newspapers over a range of historical time periods to explore how they describe gendered behavior for men and women. We will look at the eighteenth-century periodical Mr. Spectator as well as newspaper articles from the Boston Globe in the twentieth century to explore how they address issues of fashion or acceptable social behavior for both men and women. Essay: A 7-8 page essay about one of the newspaper or periodical stories that we read in this unit, using one of our critical sources as a lens for analyzing and understanding the newspaper or periodical article. In this unit, we will focus on using sources and structuring arguments. First draft due: Thursday, March 6 Final draft due: Thursday, March 13 Essay 3: Research In this unit, we will examine various political debates relating to gender issues, including excerpts from the Revolution Pamphlet Debate, especially Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) as well as pamphlets and publications from suffragettes and anti-suffrage groups fighting for or against women’s right to vote in the early twentieth-century Britain and United States. Essay: A 10-12 page essay about gender debates in print media informed by your own critical research. You will be able to choose from a range of essay topics relating to the readings we’ve done over the course of the semester. In this unit, we will be focusing on conducting scholarly research in addition to refining the techniques introduced throughout the semester. First draft due: Wednesday, April 7 Final draft due: Wednesday, April 28 Final Portfolio: You will also turn in a portfolio containing all of your work from the semester along with a 3-page cover letter that reflects on your progress and evolution as a writer. Please save all your writing throughout the semester including pre-drafts, drafts, and cover letters for inclusion in your final portfolio. Portfolio with Cover Letter due: Thursday, April 28 GRADES Attendance, Conferences, Participation 10% Peer Reviews, Workshops, Exercises 10% Essays 75% Close reading: 20% Lens: 25% Research: 30% Final Portfolio 5%