Department of English

This course surveys women's writings in Great Britian, the United States, Australia, and France from 1800 to the present. We will read the works in groups of two and consider, for example, the significance of the room in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and in Virginia Woolf's essay "A Room of One's Own." What do wisdom and maturity mean to Jane Austin in *Emma* versus Henry Handel Richardson in *The Getting of Wisdom*? What is the fate of the divorce woman as presented by Edith Wharton in *The Age of Innocence* and by Colette in *The Vagabond*? We will look at the history of a family in its community in Emily Bronte's *Wuthering Heights* and Toni Morrison's *Song of Solomon*. And in our "postmodern" world we will explore where non-fiction ends and fiction begins in Marguerite Duras's *The War: A Memoir* and Carol Shields' *The Stone Diaries*? Requirements: class attendance and participation; either a journal or a series of short papers (ca. 3 pages); and by class vote, either a final exam or a final paper.