ATS2248 · Writing women

Overview

The unit examines women's literature across a range of periods, countries and genres. Issues examined include: the material conditions that have impacted on women as writers and readers; the place of women in the literary canon; currents and tensions in feminist literary criticism and theory; recent debates regarding gender bias in the reception of women's writing; contemporary interventions to decolonise literary history; the impact of changing social norms regarding gender and sexuality. Themes examined include: love, sex, marriage, motherhood, race, class, work, power, suffering, violence, silence, friendship and freedom. Key questions include: Is there a distinctively ‘feminine’ mode of writing? What kinds of freedoms and conditions does a women need in order to write?; and, Whose voices get noticed when writing by women is produced?

Areas of study: Literary studies

Offerings

The Handbook publishes no offerings for this unit.

Assessment

The Handbook does not list a final examination among the assessment items. That is not a guarantee there is none.

Within semester assessment: 100%

Assessment details may change. Please refer to the assessment information in Moodle closer to the start of the teaching period.

Requisites

Learning outcomes

1. assess and interpret the relationship between literary texts and their social, economic and political contexts;
2. discuss key approaches to the study of women's writing;
3. critique the question of gender, literary production and literary value;
4. critically analyse and interpret literary texts.

Workload

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Student experience, not official rules. Nothing here changes what the Handbook says.